[Transcript starts at 1:07]
Hello. Hello, my podcast people. And thank you for joining me for yet another episode of my. Podcast. Today we were talking about SEO or social media. What should you be using? If you're listening or watching on the day that this drops, it is Monday, August 26th, the month has, another month has gone by. Hope you've been enjoying and making the most of every single day.
So I'm looking at myself in the camera here. I'm dark, dark. Why? Cause summer is summering and I'm looking tan. I'm not mad about it. Trying to get to not get so bad of a. Sunglasses tan, but it is what it is. I've been really enjoying summer and just a slower August Y'all know I plan out my months and I plan out my whole entire year and summer I try to just do not much of much of anything besides enjoy summer and play volleyball and the like Um, so i've been doing that and using time to create the reels that you folks are loving.
Thank you for the love I enjoy making them And it's like extra good because you also seem to enjoy watching them. So Thank you. Uh, like I said, I've been playing a lot of volleyball, which is why I get that like raccoon eyes. Um, and, uh, the time is definitely changing. Like I can tell, we can tell, like I wake up early and it's darker, it's a little colder, it's getting darker earlier at night, sad times.
So make the most of what you got. I know some people's kids have already started school, so hopefully you're still getting in the last little bits of summer. Um, spent last weekend or this past weekend at the Manhattan beach open. And it's just so cool to live here. And, like, this is one of the biggest events in the United States as it relates to beach volleyball.
And it happens, like, in my own backyard. Olympians are there, just the best players in the country are there, and it's amazing. We had Kim staying with us last week. She's a professional volleyball player. They actually came in seventh, um, which is a big deal. Um, and it was great. We actually watched the finals on the beach because despite the fact that it is a professional sport, it is not run so well and they were streaming on YouTube, but then they stopped and it's like really hard to watch.
So Lex and I were doing our Sunday walk on the beach and as we were walking back, it was about the same time that the finals were going to start. It's just really difficult to get into the stadium to watch the finals, but they have a big massive screen outside of it And so we decided to watch and then I got 1 million Sun But it was really cool to just it's just really cool to be to have that as our Sunday.
So Yeah, I spoke with us last week and then the earthquake hit but it's really cool to have a space as well Like, you know, we live here. We just hit ducks. I just hit one year of living in this place And it's really cool to have a space that we can offer to people. My brother will be coming next week.
When this episode drops, I think he will already be here. Maybe, I don't know. Um, but either way, it's really cool to have a space and I'm really grateful to have a space that we can offer. Um, so yeah, it's also awesome to have something like Instagram because that's how I met Kim. People were like, how did you even meet her?
Instagram, actually. Uh, through Instagram and then through Allison. Allison Evans and the Fringe connection and Kim getting sponsored by Fringe and just like that was the connection. And now Kim, now, you know, I can say that I am friends with a professional beach volleyball player and that is amazing. I started playing in 2020 and four years later, four and a half years later, it's really been like four and a half years later, I have a pro player staying at the house.
It's pretty fucking cool. So yeah, speaking of Instagram, that was my life. That was my life updates. We got one business update and then we'll hop into the episode because I'm excited about this one. Uh, the, the business update is it is Instagram intensive season. This means that I get to do all the fun things that lead up to the actual running of what will be round 16 of the Instagram intensive.
For those who don't know, the Instagram intensive is my six week online group coaching program that teaches health and fitness pros exactly what to do. How to use Instagram for online business. Round 16 will start September 24th. Uh, the wait list, however, is open now and they will get priority and early, uh, registration two weeks before that.
The link for all that, for the information page and for the wait list is in the show notes. Thank you. Courtney. Uh, like I said, the waitlist gets early enrollment. They also get a hundred dollars off. And this is like something that I think is pretty cool. I do weekly tips for them. Every Monday I send out at 4 PM PST.
Um, I send out a tip about how to use Instagram. So even if people decide they don't want to join the intensive, I'm still like, yo, learn some shit and go use Instagram in a better way. All right. So, um, we can kind of just like zoom out for a second and make this whole thing meta. My whole shtick with the Instagram intensive is that it is not.
It's not just Instagram coaching, it is business coaching for Instagram. And so even if you just sit and watch how I'm, what I'm doing right now and saying that it is Instagram intensive season and that I'm promoting this and getting the people on the wait list, that is how you sell something online.
It's called launching. All right. So at the time that I'm recording this episode, we are five weeks out from the start date and we're already talking about this thing, right? Launch is very strategic. There is, it's very intentional. It's. It's very planned out. It's not just a Hail Mary. And this is one of the things that we do talk about in the intensive.
It's not just, Oh, go post this thing and hope you go viral because that is a terrible business strategy. All right. So if you are looking to have an online business, if you're looking to launch an online offer, this is the approach I suggest you take. If you don't want formal learning around it, cool, and just listen on the edges and watch what I'm doing and take notes and then go do it, you know, on your own, that that's totally fine.
But if you do want some guidance, if you do want some help. If you actually want to learn how to make money and use Instagram to help your online business, The Intensive is what you're looking for. So, the link for the show, for the link for the show notes. That's not right. The link for the Waitlist will be in the show notes.
Thank you, Courtney. Okay. So this is a good segue into today's topic, right? This idea of using Instagram for business and to actually make money. Um, today's topic SEO versus social media. For those of you that don't know, SEO stands for search engine optimization. Translation. It is getting found on the internet.
AKA if you. Go and use whatever search engine that you want and you put in your, your query, you put in your, your, your question and things pop up that search and whatever pops up the way that the reason that pops up, the reason that those things pop up, the reason that those things show on the, um, what is the word I'm looking for?
The reason on the results pages is because of search engine optimization, right? My number one resource for this is always going to be my girl Lex. Anything you need SEO related, check her out. If your web, if you're, if you're WordPress, wow, give me a second. If your website is on WordPress, which mine is, um, I don't do anything with, with, um, SEO.
Full disclosure, but if your website is a WordPress website, Lex will likely pass you on to my other girl, but in a different way, my girl, my friend, uh, Laura Jawad, so we will link that, all that information in the show notes. Um, but SEO obviously is not my forte by any means, right? Those who love it is not my thing.
So this is actually something that I've been thinking about this concept SEO versus social media. Something I think about for a bit and wanting to create some content around it, but I was like, how do I. And I was like, you know what? I don't, I'm going to lean into it in the podcast because I have more real estate and I can have some more nuance and kind of express or rather explain things and, and kind of work through my thoughts with this.
So a little bit of a free business content creation, business lesson, content creation tip there is if you're looking to puzzle some stuff out and figure some stuff out and, you know, You need more nuance. You need more real estate to explain yourself. Do it via podcast. Do it via, you know, emails. It's like that where you just have more space, right?
So a lot of the thoughts that I have around this have been heavily influenced by working so closely with Lex, especially in our joint coaching program, The Lecturer Mind. Again, her expertise, her zone of genius, is amazing. Uh, is SEO and mine is social media, namely Instagram, uh, and you know, what consumer behavior looks like on each.
And, you know, we're working very closely with people that are leaning into both of these strategies. And I'm, you know, I'm always watching things, looking for patterns and, and such, and it's a very different how you use both of them. And again, like I said, in the little intro, if you listened, um, if you watching on YouTube, there was no intro, but if you're listening to the podcast, you heard the intro, I'm not here to promote one versus the other.
I really just want to use this episode to outline how they're used and the fact that they are, in my opinion, are two different avatars that we're looking at with this and, you know, put that information out there and then you can go and decide what makes the most sense for you, right? So the cliff notes for this episode, the TLDR, the abstract for this episode, both SEO and social media can absolutely be beneficial for your business, but at some point, at some point, but I think that it does make sense to start off.
leaning into one, right? So at some point it may make sense to lean into both, but I do think that it makes sense to start off with just one. If you have a brick and mortar business, I 100 percent believe that you should be focusing all your efforts on SEO, right? That again, that is Lex's specialty, brick and mortar businesses, and that within the healthcare, health fitness space, if I had a brick and mortar business, I honestly wouldn't put hardly any effort into social media.
Um, and I have a whole episode about that. We'll link that in the show notes, but we're also going to make that Thursday's episode. So if you don't want to go to the show notes for that, fine, it'll be coming on the Thursday, uh, throwback episode. But, um, if you offer, so that's the first thing, right? If you have a brick and mortar business.
Focus on SEO. If you offer a service and you hate social media, right? You hate the idea of creating content for social media or flip side, you really like the idea of blogging and writing, then focus on SEO. If you provide an online service, you're a personal brand, you enjoy creating content and you enjoy the relating side, the building trust side of business.
You enjoy sharing yourself. I believe that in that case, social media is the easiest first step play for you. So why is this the case? Why have I kind of delineated, delineated it like this? Well, I think that when it comes to potential customers, or we can call them humans who you might want to do business with, right, whatever language you want to use around this, I think we can put them into two groups, right?
Searchers and scrollers, as always, there's overlap. I don't want to put anyone in a box specifically, but I do think that we can kind of zoom out and look at things from these two lenses here. So. Within this, I encourage you to think about your own behavior, right? Your own behavior when you need a problem solved.
Would you buy something from someone who you found via an internet search? If so, I would put you in the searcher category, right? Two groups of people here, searchers and scrollers. If you would buy something, you'd go online, you'd search for something, and then you would buy something from someone, you're more of a searcher.
If you generally prefer to really get a feel for that person, right? You want to get to know them, trust them, see what they're about. And you like to do that via social media, then you're probably in that scroller category. I am 100 percent in that scroller category and this is something that I didn't learn until after the fact.
Right? This is why I'm so drawn to social media. This is why I'm so drawn to Instagram. This is why I teach this. This is why I market this way and this is my zone of genius because it's what I do personally. Searchers, in my opinion, as for always this whole podcast is my opinion, searchers are people who are looking for a specific solution, right?
They go to the internet, they go to Google or whatever their preferred search engine is. And. They look for an answer. They may also use something like Reddit. I definitely use Reddit and definitely use YouTube, right? I'm not, I'm not buying anything from those people. Right. Which is why I put that kind of caveat in when I was creating the definitions there, a little side tangent side note here, right?
I'll use something like Reddit. I'll use something like YouTube. YouTube can be a very good play as it relates to being a business owner. If you like creating video content and you want to get paid, right? Because the platform will pay you. People don't have to buy a thing from you. They just watch your video and you get it.
All the enough views and you're monetized and you can make money that way. So if you like providing solutions and you like doing it in video format, YouTube may be a very good play for you. And in that case, of course, check out my guy, Doc Joe. Oh, he is the YouTube guy. We will link him in the show notes.
Thank you, Courtney. Thank you, Joe. Joe will link himself in the YouTube notes. Okay. But searchers, they go to the page. They want a specific answer. They're typically done, right? If the solution that they're looking for is a service, right, then they're likely going to go to the interwebs. We all do this, right?
Unless they're Gen Z. I think Gen Z is probably going to TikTok, but they're broke, so we're not looking for them as clients. Anyway, not looking for them as customers, right? But they're going to the, to the internet and they're looking for specificity, right? I believe the first thing that this person is looking for is specificity.
And I think about, think about your own habits, right? If you need a healthcare provider, you need, the other day, before the earthquake hit, I was looking for a lymphatic. Massage therapist. And I was just like, this is the fucking worst. I don't want to go on Instagram. I'm excuse me on, you know, Google and find someone I don't trust it.
I just, I didn't like that process. And then I was like, Oh wait, my girl, Anna, who I already know who I met through Instagram, she offers this service. Right. And if I, if she didn't offer that, I would probably go to my girl Karen and be like, Hey, do you have a recommendation? I met Karen largely through Instagram as well.
I see her in person. Right. So if you were looking for something, you know, some sort of service. I think that as a searcher, people are looking for specificity. That's what they care about. All right. So they're like, I go to the website. Does this thing solve my problem? Can this person solve my problem? Can they provide the service that I need?
The exact service that I need. And then they're like, Hey, do I like this person? How the general vibes feel? Do I like how this place feels? As a service provider, if you have a brick and mortar facility, this is why you want your facility to come up, right? This is how you're going to make money. People are going to look for the service.
They're going to put that question in as relates to that geographical location and say, you know, Lymphatic massage, Redondo Beach. This is why you lean into the principles of SEO so that you can rank and actually be found. This is how you're going to, this is how you're going to get people through your door, right?
Yes, we know word of mouth is phenomenal, but if we're looking for additional traffic, it's going to be. via SEO. All right. From here, having other content, pieces of content on your website, um, the general layout of your website, having your voice in the website, having your fucking prices on the website, things like that, that'll contribute to the vibe and whether or not people like you.
But the first and most important thing is can they solve my problem? So again, as it relates to all of this and the SEO side of it and the website layout side of this, check out Lex, we'll link her website and everything. You can go to her for that. That's not my zone of genius, right? But in the meantime, think about what you would want on a website and what would make, you know, one, does this specifically and quickly, succinctly solve the problem, state that it can solve the problem, and then what are the vibes from there?
Real talk, again, I am not this person. I am not a searcher, so I can't speak to them, uh, you know, as consumers of online products, but I'm thinking about it in terms of in person and brick and mortar. I can more so speak to that. I kind of understand that, but as it relates to, I wouldn't just go and search for someone and then buy their online product.
I wouldn't do it. But I can theorize that this person, this searcher, would be the same type of person, irrespective of whether they're looking for an in person service or an online one. service, right, an in person solution or an online solution. To that end, that person wants to know, can you solve my problem, right?
I'm thinking, of course, just like what I'm familiar with, which would be online business consumer, right? An online business consumer buying an online business course, right? They're going to go and search and be like, can this thing solve my problem? Is it listed on my pain points? Is it going to solve my, is it going to give me the outcome that I believe that I want, right?
That I think that I want. That in mind, if that person buys that course, if that's you and you're buying that course, understand that what that course will likely teach you is going to be SEO principles, right? Because how they reach you is what they'll teach you. So if you found that online business course via SEO and you bought it, that is likely what they're going to teach you how to do, and it's likely their specialty.
So, like I said earlier, in terms of like what to focus on, where to start. If you are not a social media person, you don't like social media, you like to write stuff, go ahead and focus on SEO as a top of funnel strategy, right? Because it can absolutely work. Those people are out there. I'm not that person.
That is not my zone of genius, but that's not to say that it doesn't. All right. Okay. The next type of person would be the scrollers. I am a scroller. I believe that scrollers aren't necessarily looking for a solution or specific solution. I think more than that, they prefer to get information and solutions and and services from people who.
They trust who they know, like, and trust and, we'll, we'll use the no part, we'll put no in quotations 'cause it's. You know, via social media. So I, I believe that I know you, but it can be very one, you know, unidirectional with that. We, of course, this, this person as a scroller, they like referrals, right?
They're heading to social media, perhaps, and this is, we'll see the crossover here. They're gonna go to social media to kind of get more information about the person. So maybe they did do a search initially, but But then they're like, let me go to social media and check this person out, see if I can get more.
Let me go see if they pass the vibe check. All right. So this is absolutely, we can see the crossover, you know, where the, between the search, the internet search and then the, the scroller, but for the most part, I do think that these are kind of separate people, okay. I do believe that scrollers are looking for vibes first.
Do I like this person? Clearly this leads to longer sales cycles because building trust takes time. But I also think the flip side is it leads to lifelong customers. Not that searchers are not long, lifelong customers, but to me, it really feels like people that are searchers, they're like, I'll buy that solution.
Versus people that are scrollers, they become that person that's like, I will buy anything that that person creates. A little bit of a difference there. I also think that, and I'm thinking about this in terms of my own habits, that scrollers are the type of people who, you know, they're scrolling for content, and I'm just looking for content that I like, and maybe, you know, it gets shared to my friends stories, and I look at that.
Then I'll follow that person, and then maybe one day I'll buy from that person. I'm thinking today, I follow this mixologist guy, and I'm just like, I, I'm not buying anything from right now, but if I ever need something that relates to the mixology or anything bartending wise, I'm going to him, right? So we see it's a long sales cycle, but there's a lot of trust that's being built.
So I think that as we continue in your business or as, as we continue, as you continue in your business, as we continue in our businesses, right? I think there's definitely a possibility that you go from SEO to social media or from social media. To SEO, right? I think that it's probably more likely that people go from social media as focusing on that into focusing on SEO.
This is if they don't have a brick and mortar, right? It's for online business. Um, and it's typically when you've exhausted your organic reach because Instagram, we know it's very slow play, slow burn as is SEO, right? But I think it makes sense as an online business to go from, uh, your organic social media into SEO because social media is a great way to learn your niche, learn your niche, and then you can use that Information to lean into SEO and be like, I'm very strategic and very specific with, with what I'm looking to rank for.
And then you can actually succeed as a, you know, within SEO or within, yeah, we'll just say that within SEO, using SEO. My guess is that honestly, both parties, whether they're starting in SEO, starting with social media, I think that for most people, honestly, they'll probably their next step is probably to go to paid ads as opposed to crossing over into the other, um, just cause it's like, you get familiar with this thing.
You're like, yeah, this works. And until you keep doing that until it doesn't work. Uh, and then I think that what people do is just, they drop money into it. Um, so, you know, if, if SEO wasn't working, I don't say if it wasn't working, if, but if it's like, this is slow, I think the The next step that people would do would be run ads.
Same, same for social media. You start, you hit your organic cap and then you, you start running ads. Um, but I, my whole thing here is that when you're first starting out, I think it's really would behoove you or really behoove you to pick one. Again, going back to that list that I presented earlier, folks that I believe should start focusing, uh, on SEO is if you have a brick and mortar business.
Like what are you doing on social media? You can't geo target on social media unless you're using ads. So let's lean into SEO. Again, that is Lex's specialty. Um, if you have a, a, a WordPress website, she'll probably push you over to our girl Laura Jawad. Um, but if you had a brick and mortar facility, lean into SEO, right?
If you offer an online service, but you hate social media, you hate the idea of creating content, uh, you know, video content, Lean into SEO. You will still have to create content, but in this case it'll be written and it demands less of you. It's not about sharing that personal side of you, which brings us to the flip side of it, who should be leaning or who do I think, you know, it would, their best bet as a start would be social media.
It's that person who does like sharing about themselves, themselves. It's that person that has an online service. It is that person that is a personal brand. It's that person that enjoys creating content, right? And they enjoy the relating side of. If that's you, then start with social media, right? All this to say that there are different types of people in the world.
And as per always, niching down is going to be extremely helpful when it comes to the business side of things. If we group folks into those who want a specific solution and those who want a solution from someone who they know like and trust, AKA searchers versus scrollers respectively, then we can think about who we want to serve and how we want to show up and we can direct our marketing efforts.
accordingly. All right, that is all for today. I'm really glad that I got that out of my head because it's been just like bopping around, bouncing around in there for quite some time. All of the resources will be in the show notes. Don't forget, join the waitlist for round 16 of the Instagram intensive if you're a scroller and you're looking to attract and work with other scrollers.
All right, officially wrapping it up. As always, endlessly, endlessly, endlessly appreciative for every single one. Until next time, friend. Bye, Shro.
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