The Best Way to Grow On Instagram in 2023 with Jenna Warriner

NOTE: This episode of Talk Copy to Me was transcribed by an AI tool. Please forgive any typos or errors. SPEAKERS Jenna Warriner, Erin Ollila Erin Ollila 00:04 Hey friends, welcome to the Talk Copy to Me podcast. Here we empower small business owners to step into the spotlight with their marketing and messaging. I’m your host, Erin Ollila. Let’s get started and talk coffee. Hey friends and welcome to this episode of the talk copy to me podcast today I am here with Jenna Warner. And while you may know her as the badass of social media, everything, what you may not know about her is that she is actually a two time Bronze Medal Award winner for kayaking. But she does have a little side note for us here. It’s she’s also failed to kayaking courses. So Jenna, let us start here, let’s push to Instagram to the side tell me everything about failing out of your kayaking courses and the fact that you’re a bronze medal winner in kayaking. Jenna Warriner 00:57 Thank you, I love that this is where we’re kicking it off from. So I’m like ferociously independent and I always have been. So when I first someone like told me that I couldn’t go paddling with them because I probably couldn’t do it, which was enough for me to get so invested in at becoming the most freaking excellent kayaker that I could. So I started like taking courses and just bombing them. But I kept at it. And it’s my like big time hobby. And here in Winnipeg, Canada, there’s this big race that happens every year. Well, it’s technically a challenge. They don’t want you to believe it’s a race, but there is a podium at the end. And twice I have completed 44 kilometers, which I think is like 27 miles long along. Erin Ollila 01:44 I mean, I would never be able to tell you that answer. May I’m just gonna go with you and say yes, you’re right. That’s how long it is. Well, we’ll fact check this and add it to the show notes. Jenna Warriner 01:54 Will overdub it. Yeah. I’ve completed that in like just under six hours and won the bronze medal. Erin Ollila 02:02 Yeah, that is incredible. Super cool. I love these like fun facts, because it’s like, you know, we all kind of get to know the people we see online in the personal brand. Like, you know, back in the day, when everyone first started talking about personal branding there was like, Well, how do I show up like, what’s part of my brand. And I think it’s just so naturally evolved that like, we categorize the people that we see on social media, we categorize the people who landed in our email inbox. But then you find out something really interesting about them, right, like you like, I would have never been able to do this first of all. Second of all, like, what a cool thing it is to share. Like you’re coming on a podcast, you’re here to be our Instagram Expert. But you’re also pretty cool when it comes to the kayak. Like I love this. Totally like added to you, Jenna Warriner 02:49 where any little teeny tiny piece of information about yourself in your content in your content will be 100 times more successful. Like that’s what I’m always telling people like if you have a show that you’re part of the fandom for, like you love Seinfeld, we worked for a bookkeeper once who loves Seinfeld, so we would make bookkeeping jokes that were like Seinfeld memes, and people just eat it up. And you mentioned one thing, like put a Canadian flag and I have a Canadian flag in my bio. And people are always like, no, Canada. Erin Ollila 03:17 Canada is right above me in the United States Wow. Jenna Warriner 03:23 You can share about yourself will make your content better. Erin Ollila 03:25 Yeah, it’s so interesting to like it, especially when we come to copy our content. Everyone knows that like storytelling is kind of what drives the copy and content. But then no one knows how to accomplish that. And that is definitely one of the pet peeves I’ve had with the marketing world is like I come from an MFA in creative writing and creative nonfiction. So storytelling is my jam. And then I came into the world of marketing. And the advice is like, Oh, you must tell stories in your social, you must tell stories in your email. But then no one or not many people actually kind of explain how to do that. Then you have these wild stories that do not belong anywhere within like the business that they’re running. But it’s if you look at what you just said, It is so simple to take these little things about ourselves and insert them into our brand into our business. I love shits Creek, like, you know, if you’re going to ask me like what kind of like me, are you going to throw into your email today? And it’s probably going to be issues critique me, Jenna Warriner 04:22 right? Canadian? It is. Yeah. Erin Ollila 04:26 And those are the cool tiny little things that won’t necessarily repel people. And if those little facets do repel people, you know you’re doing the right thing. Because if someone is going to be insulted by your Seinfeld, or your shits Creek meme, like they are not your person. Bring those little things up like that people want to see you as an individual and see you like as a human and not just this like service provider that’s performative to them on social media. So let’s jump into the Instagram specific stuff today. Why do you think like small business owners specifically solopreneurs freelancers should use Instagram as like a marketing facet for their business. Jenna Warriner 05:06 Okay, so this is coming from someone, me who does really well on Tik Tok, and I got 10s of 1000s of followers on Tiktok. And I get a ton of clients from there and I still say Instagram is the way to go. Because in order to have that growth on tick tock, I needed to make three videos a day, Monday to Friday for like six months. And I was able to do that because I have like, I grew up on stage, I went to school for theater, I’m I’m not shy in front of a camera. And I’m also not precious about my content, because I’ve made literally 1000s of pieces of content for my clients over the years, like so. So I had everything that I needed to have to do that. But most small business owners, dear listener, like you are so busy, so we don’t have time, it’s been two hours making three videos a day. And on Instagram, you don’t need to so they already said that coming up in this year, they’re going to deprioritize video a little bit, go back to graphics, you can batch create graphics of months worth of graphics. In an hour, you can batch create your photos and a brand photoshoot and then caption them. So you can you can go so much faster. And the messaging is so superior to any other platform. And connecting to people in the direct messages is just such a valuable way to nurture someone and making conversion happen right there inside the app. Erin Ollila 06:32 Now let’s hear a little bit about your own personal story. And when do you remember why you joined Instagram? Or maybe why Instagram is kind of been so important for your own individual business. Jenna Warriner 06:41 Yeah, I was the last person you know to join. Erin Ollila 06:45 Oh my gosh, it’s so funny. When I Jenna Warriner 06:47 wasn’t and I didn’t care. And I was like all I’m funny. So I’ll be on Twitter instead. And I didn’t actually start using it for business for myself until like two years ago. But I obviously have been running social media accounts for businesses way before that, but I just didn’t really use mine for business. So what happened was, I was an actor and a bartender, and I was volunteering at a yoga studio. And the the owner knows nothing about social media. And he’d asked me questions, and I would answer them just because I had like a knack for it. And I was dabbling in like PR and I grew up in entertainment. So I already had, like a bunch of the things that you need to be a content creator and to like, understand marketing. I just hadn’t like pursued it yet. So he kept asking me questions about it. And then he kept asking me to run the accounts for the yoga studio. And I was like, No, I’m not that I’m a bartender. I don’t do that. And then eventually, one day, he was like, Jenna, why don’t you come in this week, and we’ll discuss your rates. So oh Erin Ollila 07:50 my gosh, so it was forced on you social media was forced on you Jenna Warriner 07:54 100% It was, Oh, my God, I said, Fine. I charged him 300 bucks a month to do all of his content, all of this photography, and to platforms, all the messaging, all of it. And I start I started having the time in my life. So I would like found all these influencers in Toronto, I was in Toronto at the time, like Yogi’s, and I’d be like, hey, come, I’ll do a photo shoot for you in our studio, then you can use the posts, and we’ll use the post. And all you need to do is tag us. And then it was like meeting all these Yogi’s, like borrowing lighting equipment from friends and dragging it across the city. And I just started having that time in my life. And then I asked my bar that I worked out if I could run theirs for another $300 a month. If you’re keeping track, that’s $600 a month now, you Erin Ollila 08:37 are going to be rich with all this work that you’re doing here. Jenna Warriner 08:41 And so then I blew up their social media and I started having the time in my life. And yeah, it cascaded from there. And then I actually got some education and marketing and digital marketing and started soaking up everything that I could everywhere. And then I mean, much happened between then and now. But that was the catalyst for the whole thing. Erin Ollila 09:00 Yeah, that’s so interesting. And I think there’s something really important that you kind of pointed out there that we didn’t, I didn’t plan on talking about at least in the other episodes that we did on Instagram, we really kind of kept the focus on the individual service provider and what they post right. But I think there is just such a lost opportunity for bringing other people into your Instagram, right? So you mentioned like you connected with all these Yogi’s and you like you kind of like made a deal with them in a sense that like you benefited, they benefited. But it was building like that community and way back in the day when my last traditional job as a managing editor. One of the things that we had was a blog for our office dog kind of like a proof of concept that like we were cool. We did great SEO we could do great blogging for your company. And after we wrote a ton of content on dogs we we started that office dog campaign and this is back in like I don’t know if it’s 2013 or 14 but like Office dogs weren’t like as normal of a thing. They were kind of just stepping on the scene. In the office dog scene, so like I remember like reaching out to like Wistia, like all of these cool companies that we wouldn’t have necessarily done business with. But we featured their office dog as like an interview, like from our office dog interviewed their office dog. And it was just fun. And everyone loved it. Even if they didn’t like they weren’t coming to us, they didn’t have a dog in their office, they didn’t want our dogs to connect. They just liked the idea that like it was a fun thing. So I would say like, if you’re listening to all of these interviews that we’re doing on any social media platform, obviously, we’re here today to talk about Instagram, think about how you can one challenge your own ideas of what you should be doing on that platform to bring other people in, right, like borrow their audience, you know, if they can borrow your audience try like a different way that you can share content, that’s not your normal, because I think you might really be able to see one, you’ll have fun with it. Until you might be able to see like a different shift in like what your analytics are telling you, Jenna Warriner 10:59 dude, I have so many friends I met on the internet as a service provider and an entrepreneur, it’s the best. I’m in a small town right now. And there’s not a lot of women owned businesses. And I meet friends on the internet I meet and then we share audiences and lift each other up and you learn faster. It’s amazing. And we all challenge each other. Erin Ollila 11:17 Like we all have different skills, we all have different like things that we can bring to our audiences. So just kind of like inviting someone new in adds like an element of like, you know, difference, right? Like of like growing and kind of just getting like a better, more well rounded audience that like you know, knows that you’re going to try something new for them. Jenna Warriner 11:33 I know you wanted to talk about what doesn’t work. And that’s kind of a good segue to like, what doesn’t work is when you first tell someone who doesn’t know anything about content creation, or is trying for the first time, like, what they’re going to post, they start coming up with ads often, like sketches, and TV commercials and ads and think of what would be a good ad like, that’s good. That’s a good ad that is a good Superbowl commercial. But it’s not the strongest choice for your Instagram or your Facebook or your Tik Tok. Right. So putting your viewer first What did they want to see, I think one of the biggest mistakes is honestly trying to sell too soon, like your job on these platforms isn’t to come right out and sell. It’s to create this community, give them stuff they want to look at, have some fun with it, meet some friends, grow your network, and then we can talk about the sales stuff. Second, Erin Ollila 12:27 if you don’t mind staying here for a second, I think this is really important. You know, remember, I mentioned before, in the marketing world, we kind of preach about storytelling, but no one really explains well, how to do it. I feel like when it comes to social media, people are like, oh, you know, like, be yourself sell some stuff. But like, Do you have any advice on if we’re saying sell later and build connections on how people can naturally build in that sales conversation into how they show up on Instagram? Jenna Warriner 12:54 Yeah, for sure. I mean, it’s a hard thing to speak to and just giving you like a 92nd strategy. But inside my program, what we do is we start with identifying your ideal client. And then I’d have them build a content strategy. That’s just their growth and nurture posts, not their sales posts. Because before your sales content stands a chance of converting somebody, you need to get eyeballs. So think about growth, think about the content you can make that’s going to attract new people to you, then the content you can make that’s gonna make those people fall in love with you the nurture content, and then sell. So the way that the sales weaves into the earlier stuff is by knowing who your ideal person is, and what they’re interested in and listening to them. And having DM conversations where you hear them out, you understand their struggles, and how you can help before you start trying to, you know, get them to buy something. And then as your content develops, you can be doing all three things simultaneously all the time. Erin Ollila 13:51 I mean, you did a great job on those little 92nd clip of how to sell like you really covered a lot, you know, and I think if like, if you want to think of like, well, if someone’s listening, they’re like, but I have a sales launch coming up, and I don’t know what to do, like, how do I do it? Maybe it’s the idea of thinking about making sure you’re doing great pre launch content, you know, because the pre launch contents really just a hint, like something’s coming, you’re not really doing any selling, you’re not really talking even unnecessarily about the need of the exact thing that you’re offering. But you’re just hinting at, like the desire, you’re hinting at the pain points if there are pain points, right? So taking it back to what you said about knowing about your ideal client, if you know that whatever it is you’re selling to them is like going to be something that helps them save time. Maybe it’s like you you do your own conversations about like where you’ve struggled with time management, you know, like what you wish you could have if you’re working on improving your time management or maybe it’s like what you’ve learned about time management. Then later on you can do the selling for whatever at time thing is that you’re offering but it’s like still keeping it that nurture phase with a hint emblem maybe to come. Jenna Warriner 14:55 That’s so funny. I just posted a video with a template in it. Sometimes I post videos where I’m like, I know that kind of creation is hard here, just do this, because I think sometimes people just need to rip the band aid off, right? So the script was, This is so insane. I can’t believe more people don’t know about this. I’m like, just open with that point blank. And then Hi, I’m introduce yourself, you know, so Hi, I’m John. I’m a social media manager. And then I just remembered how when I learned X, I, and then whatever happened, save so much time in my daily life got so much healthier, had so much more fun, whatever like the result is, and then I said, tell a story about how that discovery improved your life, which is kind of like exactly what you just said, in the framework of that story. I can’t believe more people don’t know about, or I just remembered how much better my life got when I learned how to schedule my social media content. Listen, I was sitting in bed, and I had to get content up for a client and it needs to go up that day. So I needed to write it and get it up. And I thought, God, there’s got to be a better way. And then I realized that if I batch my content in advance, I could live my life again, you know what, I get to sit down and hustle and do it all in four hours, and then not open my phone again, for the next six days, like, whatever it is for you for your business, and the result that you give your people? Erin Ollila 16:14 Yeah, and I think when you when you take like a scripted kind of template like that, you kind of create it, you know what you’re going to say? You You can look at something like that and say, Okay, well, here’s a couple of stories that actually do come off of it. It’s not just that one story at the end, right? That’s all additional content, right? You don’t have to, you don’t have to say it all in one real, you don’t have to say it all, in one post. Save the stories, like especially if it’s something you’re going to like, topically like because there is a launch or something, save those stories, like make them into different post and you know, it’s going to just kind of build on that connection, I think, Jenna Warriner 16:46 Oh, I couldn’t agree more. And like you’re talking about pre launch content, like giving someone a I mean, the language that I would use would be a mindset shift. But we don’t need to use that language. Making someone have a realization, or a piece of content that makes your ideal client realize that maybe they could possibly work with you is enough of a piece of content, you can’t feed them the entire A through Z to do list and how to list because they’re not ready for it until they have that initial shift. So your pre launch content can just be like, Did you know there’s a better way? Have you ever considered there might be a different way to do the thing that you’re doing that you hate? Erin Ollila 17:27 So let me ask a question. Since we’re kind of talking about like content creation? Do you do anything like strategically when it comes to repurposing the content you create on Instagram? Or are you like maybe repurposing other content to use it on Instagram? Jenna Warriner 17:42 I get asked this question a lot. And I don’t have a good answer. Because it depends. Erin Ollila 17:47 Yeah, that’s okay. It’s my favorite phrase, say it as much as you like Jenna Warriner 17:51 for my clients, we focus on Instagram strategy, and then whatever we can repurpose from there elsewhere we do so whatever, we can repurpose over to Facebook over to tick tock over to LinkedIn over to your email marketing. That’s what we do. But I think that we should always focus our energy on one platform and doing a bang and good job at it before we start adding additional platforms. So if there is a spoken reel we do then great, let’s download it, let’s pop it up on tick tock, if we create a post that has a long form caption, okay, great, maybe that caption can now become an email, but we focus on the one thing and then split it up and put it elsewhere if it works, Erin Ollila 18:32 so slightly shifting from content but close enough to it. I really love to hear how Instagram has kind of committed to like D prioritizing hashtags and increasing the priority of SEO on the platform. Obviously, being an SEO I understand this is going to be a longer rollout than I think even Instagram might think it might be. But I do think we have to all think about SEO at least on how we’re speaking like and it will help even I think on content ideation. But do you put any any of your eggs into the SEO basket let’s say at this point, when you’re creating content, you know, we Jenna Warriner 19:08 don’t actually know what is going to get our content prioritized in Instagram all we know is what they tell us and it’s it’s like a drop in the bucket of what goes into the algorithms. But when you’re repurposing a tic tock onto a real always write the text again in Instagram with their On screen text instead of relying on the TIC tock stuff that seems to make like a kind of a big difference in our experience and I think it’s for exactly what you said it’s because of the SEO and because the app can then read the words that you’re putting and the line where it says your name so there’s the line where does your handle then the line where you says it says your name is very up to SEO optimize is one of the first places on Instagram that search started tracking in regards to like your bio or your captions or anything. So I would say always on that line have the thing people Google when what they want is you and at the same time, I think we need to remember rubber that like a lot of the people who are referring people to us, like your friends and your family and your second cousin, don’t know your business name. Yeah, not so much SEO. But in terms of search, I say always have Aaron there. Because my mom, I bet you does not know the name of my business. Erin Ollila 20:17 I don’t know if you want me to be honest, I don’t know the name of your business. Jenna Warriner 20:20 And it’s on wall behind me. I’m kidding. It’s not. Erin Ollila 20:23 But but you know, we’ll give we’ll give me a tiny bit of credit here. It’s literally Jenna. And I just got to know each other recently. But part of it is like when we were introduced, it was by like a Pete, like a colleague of both of ours, so that it was a personal connection right away. I was just like, Okay, I’m going to talk with Jenna. I’m gonna talk with John on Friday. So that’s how people are categorizing you in their brain, right? Like, I have a copywriter friend who I literally every time I started for her, I’m like, where did she go, she didn’t go anywhere. It’s just that her business name is out there. And I can never find her because I don’t think of her as her business name were people that Jenna Warriner 20:55 spell their names funny, like I have a friend whose name is Erin actually, but she wrote her handle as E E r i n. And I always tried to send her opportunities and could never find her. And I’m like, and then I’d see her page and I know she has Instagram but anyway, it’s so silly, but people are could be trying to send you stuff right now they could be trying to send you even just a meme they think is funny or a client is gonna pay you $100,000 And they can’t find you. Erin Ollila 21:23 If you do have a business and make sure it’s there. If you are the face of your business, make sure your name is there. And then try to get some type of like a quote unquote job description like thing industry like thing to kind of describe who you are and let’s leave it at that just so you can provide the best content and don’t worry about the whole SEO aspect just make sure that you’re kind of staying on the umbrella of content that is expected of you and Jenna Warriner 21:48 to hop back to your like not talking about like don’t talk about suddenly fixing motors or whatever. I use dog trainer as an example all the time in my videos on Tiktok because we like say you’re a dog trainer and you debt the debt and when I tell you so many dog trainers started following me and so I think that it was because the algorithm was showing me to them because I was talking about dog trainer so maybe there’s an opportunity there down the road when we start to understand this SEO better to use examples in your stories of your potential ideal customers or to play with it into like an industry you want to break into a little bit just to see if your face can then pop up in front of those people. Erin Ollila 22:27 Yeah and that’s absolutely the case like if we’re looking at the search feature of Instagram it is so algorithm based like it’s so based on like what you’re looking at and what you’re actually searching for. So to flip it if you’re a business owner and you want to use Instagram for your business and we’re not talking about content creation here we’re just talking more about like learning about your leads trying to find like new people to follow that could potentially be either networking partners or actual clients for you use the search feature to kind of teach Instagram on like the community is you want to be part of the people you want to see I love that I love those eyes you just gave me I was like oh that’s like a pat on the back. Thank you. Jenna Warriner 23:07 That’s awesome. Yeah, that’s cool because I do teach my my program members to have a 15 minute a day dealing engagement strategy where they’re going out and looking for people and I never even thought about how just by doing that and typing those keywords into search and those locations and all of that and those hashtags is probably helping them in other ways as well. Yes, Erin Ollila 23:28 thank you I have for sure I try I you know I like to let it sneak out a little every once in a while I’m not to be known as too much of a geek but I you know just as a very easy to understand example I remember I don’t know if it’s kind of when the search feature like how it’s changed and shifted now launched but I just remember my last baby like holding her while she nap I would be on Instagram already looking and I might just kind of like check something quick that was like baby related maybe it was like three month whatever right or breastfeeding question and for ever All I saw was babies like in that like you know like finding new accounts and all that like it was way too long to like way past her baby age. Then I started looking at like how to treat my wavy slash curly hair now all I see is like hair related things in my feed. So I think it’s I mean we you don’t have to like it you there’s many ways to be strategic like if your strategy is going to be the content you create great but if you want to take like that backward approach to it and like use the search feature to train the algorithm on what to show you it being your ideal clients I mean that’s that’s an opportunity for you. Jenna Warriner 24:35 Another thing is in hashtags people will often put when they are like hashtag copywriter and the yes to a point because if people are looking for a copywriter you want them to find you but you also don’t want your post just showing up in front of other copywriters, so using the past days to identify who you want the algorithm to show this stuff to and again, we can’t be certain that that works. We’re guessing and we’re you know Looking at the data and seeing, seeing what happens, but something to keep in mind. Erin Ollila 25:04 Yeah. And that’s important how you just kind of ended that, right? Because like all of this, and not just Instagram, all of these social media platforms that I’ve been talking about on the show, things change, right? So that’s kind of why it testing is always kind of important to do and not being so like, strict with how you approach things, because we can’t make decisions that influence how Instagram is going to run its business that influence like, I mean, look at Twitter, right? Like, if you listen to like our whole Twitter episodes, which has come before this, you’ll know like the conversations I had with the guest experts were kinda like what in the Holy mackerel is going to happen to Twitter, like, we didn’t even know if the episodes would be like, worth sharing once 2023 hit because I had recorded them and 2020 do because we’re like, well, Twitter exist, I don’t know. But the point is, like, things change, right? So we have to kind of be willing to jump in and adjust with the changes and kind of just take it from there and learn about how we can use it in our business. Jenna Warriner 26:00 And that’s another reason to choose Instagram is because it is not going anywhere, it will change it will evolve. But as you know, sometimes I get down this arm of videos where people are like, Instagram is dead. And I’m like, it’s not. It’s got ya millions of monthly active users. And on top of that billions of dollars, and anything that Rich is immortal and cannot die. Erin Ollila 26:21 Yeah. And the beauty of Instagram is it’s for the most part, it’s always been kind of self contained of what it is forever. It was a picture platform forever. And then yes, it went from picture to like audience to video as well. Right. So it has evolved, but it is still kind of stayed that same cylinder of like what it is to expect from it and a social media network. So that goes to show the longevity opportunity is like it’s telling you this is what it wants is telling you this is how to use the platform. And that hasn’t changed. It hasn’t tried to be something drastically different throughout the years that it’s kind of been in existence. Yeah, true. Jenna Warriner 26:58 It just rips off every other app that’s doing well. And then, you know, Snapchat became stories. And now we love stories? Erin Ollila 27:06 If right? So if you if we were talking to my audience right now, and you had people who liked Instagram, they really truly did. They weren’t necessarily seeing the traction they wanted, not bad, just more stagnant accounts like what would your advice for them be to kind of like kickstart that and freshen up their social media content, or maybe find a new way to speak to their audience? Jenna Warriner 27:26 Firstly, don’t stress about selling, think about growing and throwing a cool party creating an atmosphere, that is where people want to come and hang out. At in a lot of cases, if someone’s gone, stagnant, like ask yourself if maybe there was something there was some other voice in your head that has gotten you confused, right? Did you have a shift? Did you get a negative comment? Did you stress about enough if you were making enough money in your business? And all of that might have reflected in the content and and might have got you to like lose course did you were you nervous to go on camera. So you fought back against it, whatever it was move, try and identify that thing, and then go back to just creating stuff people want to look at and they want to touch, don’t try and think of ads, don’t even try to sell, like grow, grow, grow, grow, grow. Because the posts that do convert often have the lowest engagement. That’s that, like, if you have if you typically put out a post and you get 100 likes on it, and then you put out a sales post, you might only get 10 likes, but two people click the link in your bio and you make money off of it. But that sales stuff isn’t the stuff that’s going to make you grow and get in front of a new audience. And we need that growth in order to have consistent sales. So focus on making reels focus on making educational carousels focus on reversing common myths about your industry, like share the love and don’t stress that you’re going to give too much away. Because anybody you want to work with knows that they’re not going to get the same results from like binging your content as they would actually hiring you. Okay, so just Share, share, share, give, give give do that for like three months because after three months, you start to see the results like the fruits of your labor in life and an Instagram. So I always say like when you start a new strategy, like stick to it for a while let it work, let it get easy before you change things. So if someone’s feeling really stuck right now like their engagements in the gutter and they’re just not growing, I focus on growth and focus on giving Erin Ollila 29:29 and I will echo that 100% Because I think everyone’s so nervous to like oh, I can’t say that. I want to give it all away. You’re not You’re not You’re not these platforms move so quick content moves so quick. No one will even know what you said next week. I’m there on the toilet. Yeah, exactly. And what’s really on the toilet? Yes, literally people are just sitting on the toilet and consuming your feed. They are like waking up in the morning half asleep and in their bed. They are going to sleep at night after having an argument with a spouse or feeling frustration about like their kids school are, you know, missing their friends that they haven’t seen, like people are bringing their own selves into things. So give, give, give. And I think if anything like you’re mentioning, they know they’re going to get a better result if they work with you. But I think it’s also building the trust, right? Like that’s convincing them to work with you if you are going to be so generous with what you can offer them. They’re like, Oh, cool. Jen is really giving like, oh my god, what would it be like to work with her? If this is what it’s like, just to kind of like follow her on social? Jenna Warriner 30:29 Yeah. And I don’t want to confuse the message here. But between you and I think that I often say is people don’t realize just by showing up, you’re selling. And then we can get more strategic about the sales post in the sales copy and reversing objections and all that. I mean, I love that stuff. I’m obsessed with that stuff. But it’s not where we start Erin Ollila 30:48 now. And I think he I think what you said before is really like I put a little star in my like, show notes, notes that I’m taking is like, what your whole point in this conversation has kind of been is like focus on the growth because the sales will come. But you can’t make sales if you’re not grown. Like if you’re not growing, you haven’t like built right? So if you literally look at the content creation aspect of this, of just building and growing, like the sales, like you said, right now human is a secret, everyone like we know, we’re just kind of absorbing a little bit of what you just said, but the sales are there like you are selling by showing up. But if we just take that pressure off ourselves and think well, how can I give? How can I share something I’ve learned? How can I do that nurturing part of this, then that’s the key. Jenna Warriner 31:34 Yes, you need three types of content to grow on social media, you need growth, nurture, and sales. If you don’t have growth, you can nurture the heck out of people, make them fall in love with you, you might make some sales, but the sales will dry up. If you only nurture, then you don’t typically make as many sales because you have to tell people what you want them to do. You have to tell them to click the link in your bio and book that discovery call or whatever it is, you have to do those sales things. And if you don’t have any growth, you’re not getting in front of new people to have them go through the rest of that funnel. Whichever one I forgot. I think I skipped one. That’s okay. Okay, gotcha, gotcha. three phases are equally as important. Erin Ollila 32:18 So question for you. Before we end the episode, I like to kind of always ask a few same questions of my guests, because I’m a troublemaker. Question number one, based on this entire conversation we’ve had, if you could give like a teeny tiny homework exercise to our listeners, what would you give them? It’s kind Jenna Warriner 32:35 of sounded like I was gonna give them a reward for doing that. Erin Ollila 32:39 I think you can. But no, we’re just like, we’re being the meanie teachers. Like we’re like saying, Okay, you listened. We gave you this advice. We’re being generous now do the work. Jenna Warriner 32:49 Yeah. So I’m gonna say this one thing. If people haven’t done this yet, then there’s probably an underlying reason. And I want to just kibosh it, and it’ll go on camera and make a 32nd reel where you’re talking. And a lot of people are scared of that. And I want you to have a nice little hook a nice tasty hook at the beginning here a look, I’ll even give you one. Actually, let’s use the one that I use before. Yeah, Erin Ollila 33:15 I was I was just gonna be like, I like You’re like you’re creating this. And I was like, I think you already gave us a pretty good one. Jenna Warriner 33:20 And then just teach us something, give us something we need to know, one way that you can track it is like, is there something that you say to new clients that makes them go? Oh, my gosh, I never thought of it that way. Or what? Really, it’s that easy. I can do that. Or what a good idea. Like, there’s probably some go to nuggets you give to people in your like first few calls, that for interactions with them that they have that reaction to so give us that thing. Face to camera. Try and keep it under like 35 seconds and post it. Erin Ollila 33:48 Alright, that’s doable. I mean, literally, you could just pick up your phone after listening to this podcast episode and just do that. And just I think sometimes when we’re nervous to do things, especially if this is a mindset issue, or like an anxiety issue, sometimes just doing the thing is like a recognition. Yeah. Oh, that’s not too bad. Like, oh, this is this isn’t what I built it up to be in my brain. Yeah. And because Jenna made you do it. You have right use, right? We have to blame it on Jenna. No. This is Jenna Warriner 34:13 why I say like, there’s all sorts of underlying reasons why people don’t do it like, Well, my business isn’t big enough yet to like, talk about something with such authority. Yes, it is. Oh, well, also a lot of family and friends follow me and I don’t want to annoy them by talking about work. Who cares? They want you to succeed and those are going to be your biggest referral sources. So do it anyway. Erin Ollila 34:32 Find nicer family and friends, man, geez. gonna dump them and start over if they’re going to be annoyed with you just trying to literally like grow your business grow your life, Jenna Warriner 34:42 or I prefer to show up when I have like my hair and makeup and outfit and everything. Okay, I won’t force you to do it without makeup on. But sometimes you’re more relatable if you just show up as you are. Erin Ollila 34:53 Yeah, totally agreed. I love that. All right. If you could meet anyone at all in the world right now, who would it be? and why? Jenna Warriner 35:01 I mean, I’m absolutely obsessed with Kashia. And did you 35:05 podcast I didn’t know. Okay. It’s called Pasha Jenna Warriner 35:09 and the creepies. And like she interviews, she started it during the pandemic. And she interviews just random people like it could be like Ozzy Osbourne daughter was on or like, it could be a musician, or could just be like someone she knows. And ask them like, Do you believe in ghosts? Have you ever seen an alien? Like, what do you think happens when you die? stuff? Like, Erin Ollila 35:31 oh, no, I love that. And I think honestly, especially for the podcast listeners out there, right? Like, we listen to the same shows. And I think sometimes, you know, as business owners, we might get put in a lot of this like, business, business business, podcast stuff, and you just need something fun to just have in your ears on kind of like, just jump into Jenna Warriner 35:49 air. And I’m telling you, that’s why I listened to it. Like literally, all my books are business books, all the podcasts, I listened to our business and marketing and like money, mindset, all of them. And then sometimes I go, Jenna, it’s time to pretend to be to be Friday. Yeah, to 36:06 be a normal person. Yeah. Erin Ollila 36:10 All right. So absolute final question. I’ve kept you here for too far too long. Even though it’s been such a fun conversation. What are your predictions for Instagram in 2023? Jenna Warriner 36:20 I think they’re actually listening to us. I think people caused enough of a stink when it tried to be Tik Tok. And in its defense, it made a career of copying other platforms, right? So why wouldn’t that like it should have worked for all intents and purposes, and it didn’t, and everyone got mad. And everyone if you’re not familiar with the drama that I’m talking about, because you were busy living your life, instead of following it, everyone was like, Give us back chronological, which they did. And give us back like photos and carousels and letting those perform. And a lot of people were like, don’t make me go on camera. And that when it’s graphics, and when it’s photos, Instagram becomes more accessible for more people to create content, so don’t get me wrong. I believe any person listening can excel on Tik Tok and can put their face on camera and do it you totally can’t. Right. It’s not as scary as it seems. But it’s also way easier to make a graphic in Canva in 12 seconds and post it or it’s way easier for your grandma to like post the shitty phone photos that she took at your kid’s birthday party up like anyone can do it, which means that it’s going to like pop off again. And it’s going to become it’s going to become even bigger. All right, Erin Ollila 37:25 Jenna, you have been wonderful. Thank you so much for your time here today. Everyone. If you love Jenna as much as I do, like I said, all of her info is in the show notes in the description and there is no excuse while you’re not going over to be social with Jenna after you’ve listened to this podcast. So go meet her. Go say hi. And again. Thank you so much, Jenna, for being on the show today. You Erin. Alright, have a great day everyone. And we’ll see you again next week. 37:54 Thank you so much Erin Ollila 37:55 for listening to this episode of Top copy to me. If you enjoyed spending your time with me today. I would be so honored if you could subscribe to the show and leave a review. Want to continue the conversation. Head on over to Instagram and follow me at Erin Ollila. Until next time friends