#EP321 REELs (and Tik Tok) for Beginners with Shelby Clements

10:44AM Oct 13, 2021

Speakers:

Tracy Matthews

Shelby Clements

Keywords:

reels

instagram

people

tik tok

super

business

hashtags

transitions

shelby

strategy

post

jewelry makers

followers

clients

watermark

tips

excited

1000s

short

thrive

It's okay to just gain followers within the same sense if you don't have a lot of followers, that doesn't mean that you aren't successful. I would love a lot of followers. I mean, right now I'm sitting very shy of 800 followers, but that doesn't mean that I'm not successful. I mean, I have two employees, I match my corporate job. So like, it's just so crazy though. The exposure you get from reels, it's insane.

Welcome to Thrive by Design, the podcast for ambitious independent jewelry brands, looking to profit from their products, get ready to make more and sell more doing what you love, without spending every single waking minute doing it. Hey, and if you're a creative fashion or product based business, I want to welcome you to the show. I'll be dropping big tips on launching, growing and scaling your business. So you can spend more of your precious time using your creativity to make money. You ready? All right, let's do this.

Welcome to the Thrive by Design podcast, Episode 321. Hey, there I am Tracy Matthews, Chief Visionary Officer of Flourish and Thrive Academy and the host of the thrive by design podcast. And now I can say, a published author, my book is coming out November 9, and I'm so excited, we are actually starting a pre sale right now on the desire brand effect book. And that's going to be starting really soon, around November 1. So we'd love to have you as part of that. So if you're not on the waitlist yet, here's your official invite, because the book is so good. And I got so excited because I sent it out to a couple of people to read it. And I was nervous, and they're people I trusted, and they're like, Tracy, this book's really good. So you're in for a treat. If you want to read it, we have the paperback and the Kindle versions coming out on November 9, and pre orders are starting really soon. And I would love to invite you to support this launch and buy the book in this pre order period, because when you do it actually helps us with getting on the bestsellers list for Amazon.

And I'd really, really appreciate it because I worked my ass off for two years getting this thing together for all y'all. And as I mentioned before, people are telling me it's really good, so I have to trust their opinion. Anyway, if you want to learn more about that head on over to the desiredbrandeffect.com. Anyway, today we're talking once again about reels and social media and TikTok and all the things. And I have Shelby Clements on the show today. And she's going to be talking about some simple strategies for reels and TikTok for beginners, and this is super fun, you're gonna love Shelby's energy, she is amazing. She's been coaching in our momentum program for a couple of months now. And I brought her on because I was introduced to her by Anna Maria Andricain one of our coaches, and she's like, you're gonna love Shelby, she's got great energy. And I think she's gonna really help your students. And our designers are like loving her so much for so many reasons. And it's just an amazing addition to the program.

So we're gonna dive into that episode really soon. And I can't believe that the year is completely winding down and out right now. So I know that you are busy right now. And you're probably listening to this while you're making inventory at the bench and trying to fulfill all your orders and get ready for your black friday event and promotion and your cyber weekend. All the things right. And that's exactly why, you know, I know that as the years rounding down, you might want to take a deep breath, and a deep exhale and start the you're fresh with some support for your business. Because I know that when you're in the middle of the holiday season, you put a lot of things on the back burner. And you kind of you're not focused on like actually the things that really matter at this time, which are, you know, strengthening the foundation of your business, building the systems that are going to help you scale and grow, optimizing your system so that you're actually more profitable and able to hire people and support in your business.

And so I'd love to invite you to apply for a free strategy audit. On this strategy audit, we're going to take a look at your business what's going on. Now we're going to take a look at your goals for next year and three years beyond that, so that we can kind of dial in what's happening now to help you reach them a lot faster. So if you're interested in learning more about how we can support you and help you grow your business, we're starting a new cohort in January for our momentum program and it's filling up pretty quickly. So I'd like to get you an invite to just come chat with us a little bit more about how we can support you in your goals and there's many many ways so head on over to flourishthriveacademy.com/strategy and fill out your strategy audit application right there and let's see if it's a good fit. Especially if you're trying to scale your sales to multiple six figures or even seven figures next year, let's chat because there's a lot of things that need to change probably based on what you're doing now to reach those bigger goals.

All right, so shall we, you're going to be loving Shelby's energy. She is amazing. She is the wife and Mama of two boys and entrepreneur, and she lives in the small town at Thibodaux, Louisiana. Family is everything to her. She graduated from LSU in 2013, with a bachelor's degree in marketing, and from LSUS in 2017. With an MBA, she's 30 years old and ready to make her dreams becoming a reality which is awesome. So she just started SCM, which is Shelby Clermont Marketing. She was in the oil and gas industry for eight years as the Director of Marketing, she's been growing up around business, and that which taught her the value of hard work and what it takes to be successful. She said thank you to my hard working parents for that. And she says it really does not come easy, but it is worth every single minute. So let's dive in to this episode with Shelby.

I have my friend Shelby Clements on the show today she's going to be talking about one of her favorite social media platforms hack something like that. Anyway, I'm super excited to have Shelby here and I'm gonna give a little background in a second but Shelby Welcome.

Hi, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited.

So I recently met Shelby she came to speak at our momentum event at the end of August and She's so cool. And she showed up even after like experiencing living through a hurricane and with no electricity or power and stuff she still came which means she solid number one.

It was rough

It was rough, number two she is friends with Anna Maria Andrecain, one of our momentum coaches and we've been looking for the right social media coach and our momentum program because we had one person leave and stuff like that, for some family reasons, and Shelby could not fit in better. So I'm excited to have her for a lot of reasons on the show. Plus, she's super brilliant, and gave me some really great, just like basic simple tips that I could use to improve my Instagram profile. So I'm excited to have you here.

I'm super pumped. Thank you so much for having me.

Yay! So let's back up like you started marketing company recently, right?

Yes, in May.

And also a little bit about your journey like What brought you here.

So, for the past eight years, I will look back a little bit I went to LSU got an undergrad in marketing and then went and got my MBA from LSUS. I've grown up in business forever so I've always had like the itch to start my own business but I jumped right into the oil and gas industry as a marketing director for one of the oil and gas companies here in Thibodaux Louisiana so that's kind of what got me here. And then I kind of just found this journey after a few years last year right before COVID hit actually I went to social media marketing worlds in California and I was like holy crap there's a market for social media and everything I've been preaching for I don't know however long was accurate I was like yes, so I knew I wanted to start a business but I had just, well COVID and then I just found out I was pregnant so I was like I can't throw a business in this so I just stayed with my corporate job and everything and then got my first client in February of this year.

Uhm, and then kind of did that on the side as well as my corporate job and we are a family that kind of depends on both financials in the household so my husband is more on the safe side so he's like unless you can match your you know salary with your corporate job you're not leaving so I was like dang it. So, I was like challenge accepted and soin May while forming LLC obviously in February just because I was like excited for the path that we were going on and then in May I was walked in with my Excel document and I'm not good at Excel but my Excel document and I was like look Baby, I can make a joke. So I was really excited to find that there is a market here for social media managers and everything and social media is so great for businesses so that's kind of how I ended up where I'm at now

Which is so great and Shelby super fun you're gonna love her energy as we talk through some of my questions today so I'm excited so let's let's just dive right in what's your favorite social media platform right now and why?

Uhm, obviously it's Instagram because reels but I do love me some LinkedIn as well because I do have clients that are in the oil and gas industry. I just have to shift my strategy just a little bit because they don't want to watch reels but um, I would say probably number one would be Instagram.

Yeah. So how would the oil and gas industry even use Instagram?

So there's some clients that are on it, but I wouldn't say it would almost be more like improve employee morale and like just kind of engaged with their employees but Their platform is LinkedIn all the way. I would not recommend any other one. I mean, some of them are on Facebook too. But like, know your target audience is for sure on LinkedIn.

So do you um, this so that's for oil and gas, but obviously this is a creative space. We're here talking to jewelry designers and people selling products. So, um, what are some of the other platforms you recommend for those people that that you see still working?

TikTok.

Yep.

TikTok. If you have more information, YouTube, but like video is key right now. Like, I cannot stress it enough. And if you follow me on Instagram, I talk about it literally all the time. But video is like huge. Yep. So I would say TikTok or YouTube.

Okay, so we've been hearing now for a while that you need to make more reels, and you're a huge fan of reels, you already led to it. Tell us why you think reels are so important. In fact, I just did a couple of podcasts about real. So I just want to hear it from you. And what you think,

I think reels are like this amazing opportunity for businesses. And I think that a lot of people think of it as people dance around being goofy and silly. But there's so many ways that you can utilize it. And then if you actually look at Instagram, you have your grid, which is your, your profile page, you have IGTV, which can reach more people if you use proper hashtags. And then you also have your stories where it kind of gives them behind the scenes, but reels has its own section. And when you publish your reel, it goes out to everyone, it doesn't just go out to your followers will obviously Yes, they're going to see that but you have the opportunity to get in front of so many more people to show your brand and show what makes you different from everyone else in the jewelry industry, or any actual industry that you're in.

And so basically it's just going to increase increase your visibility and brand awareness and let them get to know you as a human being. And there's a lot of people I know we have like a questions on this but or we might get into it later on. I might be jumping the gun, but there's so many people that are so shy and timid with it. When reality you don't necessarily have to use reels to show your face or for to utilize your voice and people to hear you. Yes, I would recommend it. But you can use it by just placing pictures of your products or showing your product or do a video of your behind the scenes of what you do all day. Like there's just so many things that can help increase your visibility from just your followers that Instagram is giving to all of us for free. So I think it's like crazy if people don't use it.

Well, it's so interesting to me, because, you know, obviously, like I, I've been on the social media apps way more than I usually am for a couple of reasons. I was telling you before this because we're going to be hiring you eventually to help us with some strategy. And, but we're just like, we don't have the bandwidth right now because I'm literally running social media. And it's because we're short staffed right now. And I'm in the process of hiring a manager on our team because we like to do it in house so that they can help with like, focus on our overall marketing.

Yeah,

And but I'm doing that and so then I'm having to learn I'm having to learn reels and like what to do and see what works and it's fun to kind of play around and explore and I'm like, this one's so good. And then it doesn't do anything and then I'm like, Oh, this one's pretty like simple basic and then it's like oh 500 likes or whatever, and all comments

Yes It's so weird!

Yeah, yeah, it's been fun to play around and the one thing that I find really fascinating about it is as I'm like scrolling through the real thing because I'm always looking for the trending sounds or whatever are the things you're supposed to do which we'll get into in a minute and some of the product artists that are coming in my page like I'm literally like I never knew I love macro may so much like how am I not buying this macro may artists work like it's so crazy or like this one girl Her name is escaping me now but I talked about her on that other podcast that I did about reels, she makes clay earrings and she's like shows the process of making the claim earrings and it's like so cool. I'm not gonna buy clearance because it's not my style and I also only wear like fine jewelry but at the same time it's so cool to watch the process and she shares her journey of like how her profile exploded by using reels in like three months she grew by 15,000 new followers. So there's a lot that you can do and I feel like the opportunity especially for product based businesses, I know that our growth is probably going to be a little bit smaller with rails because it's a very niche thing that we do but everyone buys jewelry so if you think like if where you could get in front of people or everyone buy a lot of people buy handmade products too so go back to the macro may thing like this one girl's macro may mini macro may it comes up in my feed like every day and I'm like oh my gosh, her stuff so cool. Like I got a commissioner for a piece I'm like where am I gonna put it?

Yes, and you said exactly that though. Like you followed or was fascinated by a jewelry maker or someone making clay earrings. You're never gonna buy it but you're fascinated by what she's doing. So guess what? I don't know if you follow her but you follow her or you are fascinated She does even though you don't buy her products. So one, it's okay to just gain followers. But in the same sense, if you don't have a lot of followers, that doesn't mean that you aren't successful. So like, I would love a lot of followers. I mean I right now I'm sitting very shy of 800 followers, but that doesn't mean that I'm not successful. I mean, I have two employees, I match my corporate job. So like, it's just so crazy though. The exposure you get from rails, it's insane. It's insane.

Yeah. It's like they say, you know, it's like quality or we say, all of us, it's the quality of the people following you not necessarily the quantity but the quantity can also help. Yes, from a fascination perspective, if you can hit that critical mass. So,

That's right.

Yeah, let's talk a little bit about that. So what are some of the the most important things people need to think about when they're creating reels? Like, where do people actually start?

So where do you start is one Instagram and then you know, some people though, okay, I have coached a lot of people that don't even know like, where to legit start, so I'm okay with bringing it way back,

Let's bring it way back might as well.

So when you go to your profile, there's a little plus button at the top, and you can hit it and then you add like, it'll ask you, if you want to do a post a story, or real or alive, or an IGTV, I'm pretty sure but you hit the real, you pick your music, your trending music. And then you can either a, use something that you already have in your phone, so like a video that you might have, or a photo that you might have already or you can like, prop your phone up and just start dancing. Either way, it's so fun. It's the only way you're gonna get really good at reels or better when I'm saying I'm not that good. But if you go watch my first reel, my words are cut off, like everything's all over the place. And like, holy crap, I can't really post that. But now it's like second nature. And it's just so fun. Like, if anything, it showcases your personality.

So like what you said is you're so like, targeted down or specific of a audience that you're trying to target. And you have to the way that you're going to set yourself apart as jewelry makers, in Flourish and Thrive and Thrive by Design. There's so many of you. So the only way that you're really going to get in and get to that target audience is they can see your personality, and they can see your story and they can see the process behind what got you to that point. And that's gonna set you aside because people aren't buying it for the product. They're buying it for the person behind the product.

Yeah,

Reels can showcase that by showing your video or just doing a simple voiceover or showing a picture of you and your dog and saying, you know, he helps me make jewelry. I don't know something fun, like, show your personality. Have fun.

The lip synching kills me, because I've tried it a million times. I'm always like,off

Like a half second off.

Yeah,

But I've been watching your reels lately. They're actually on point. I'm very proud of you. I'm very proud. And I will say I so my husband was here actually earlier, the one real I had just posted. Not about you, but the one before it or what, like when I'm talking to my clients, and I'm like, What does she even saying? Um, he watched me do it. And he was like, holy crap, you're recording it again. I'm like, yeah, John, it takes a couple takes to get your lips on, like you got to be on point. So in order for like, going back to your question of like, what you need to really think about is, you need to make sure it's entertaining. So transitions are super fun. Um, but you can also stand in front of the camera and just talk kind of like what we're doing and make that a real so it can be 15 seconds to 60 seconds. And as long as it provides value. I've had clients that literally have 40 followers, and he's an AC guy uses example, all the time, stood in front of the camera, he's like, I don't even know what to do. Shelby was like, just do it for me. And he got over like, 5000 views from just telling three tips on why you shouldn't have shrubs around your AC unit, or how to maintenance it or like it was like some random like, but valuable tips,

Actually, like super helpful.

Yes,

On a home, right? Because you might like burn your house down or something.

Yes, exactly. So all these things that you just don't know, all these platforms can help you, you know, learn it and like I tell like small businesses that aren't super online so like the AC guy, be like very valuable in your industry. They don't necessarily have to be from here to use you but they can learn from you and go back to their local people and be like, Well, you know, this comes from my three tips and like, Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you that. So like there's just really cool tips on how you can do reels.

Okay, so you go to the plus button, you pick a reel, you pick the time you don't even necessarily have to pick the time you want you could start with the 60 seconds first and then and then then what's the next step pick the song if you're going to do a song or the sound?

Do the sound and then record So figure out like what you're doing there so like if you're actually video in or if you're using like a free you mean a premade video or picture and then once you press next you just add the text so like for jewelry. For example, you You could do like I'm launching a new collection and you could either like show a video of you talking about your new collection and then boom it switches straight to photos of your new collection and then you can just add words it says says new collection collection dropping in the beginning of November like Stay tuned for more updates or like something cool so you just add the tags there's a way to time it and appear and disappear and then you just post it or you draft that but I will say this make sure you save your reel every time you make one by that little arrow that has like the stick with arrow it saves without the sound but in case you know Instagram glitches or shuts down like it did Monday was that Tuesday I don't remember what day.

Whatever day it shut down.

You're gonna lose all of it so make sure that you save it even if you drafted it make sure you save it because if something happens with a glitch all that's gonna go away and you're gonna have to return.

Okay, so let's so we talked about sounds we talked about editing like what are some of the port important tips like is it important to make sure that like whatever you're transitioning or the things that you're doing like move on the music? Or like how what do you think?

I would say so definitely there's so much more competition out for reels that people are watching very closely but that shouldn't intimidate you at all. So like if you're going to try a transition try to be as close to the beat mark or whatever in your mind that you think the transition could be very smooth. And I'll tip to also I like to tell people that want to try transitions I say video the whole thing through so like if you go to the one I just made about like coming on this podcast I videoed me in that first outfit all the way through like the whole transition then video this outfit the whole transition and then I edited and pieces together just so you're not messing up with the alignment of everything you can just easily piece it together and there's no misstep or whatever and that I'm sorry go back to your question I think our rambled question Do you remember

The sounds transitioning the sounds.

okay, so um.Other than that, I think that's like it's it's super easy to just make a really good real I would say shorter the better less words on your screen make sure you're not cut off so like when you're doing your text and you go to move it around Instagram makes this really cool thing where it has like little dotted lines that show you where your name is going to be and where the caption is going to be like when your reel shows up. Then it's also going to have dotted lines so like if you push it too far over it's going to get cut off when the reel actually uploads or if it's too high so I would say the shorter the reel the more entertaining the reel and the less words the real so that's kind of what's really going with reels right now but like you said in the beginning like it's very much trial and error because I can video a reel and I'm like holy crap this is so funny. I did so good in the transitions and then I posted and it's like poop and I'm like what happened like what I thought I was gonna like be famous tomorrow but that's not the case.

But it's a lot of trial and error and I've seen so many clients grow so freakin much by reels like I haven't like a law firm that I I do work for and you would have never thought they would do like the fun reels but they've let Lucia their personality and y'all they're following as like I mean, it's grown slowly but surely from just reels not just your boring like we can offer this you know, showing their personalities was key. So for your target audience and people listening on here, just remember showcase your personality, even if it's not by your face. So figure out, be creative on how else you can show your personality. So I had a call with one of your members, she makes children's clothes. So I was like, Okay, we'll talk about your story be more interactive on your stories. And then reels like just do some transitions where you pop them in and out like the clothes in and out or you put them on like a little kid or like do something fun and kind of maybe do a voiceover where they know how you started why you started you're different because you make all your clothing so like that's gonna stand out too. So you just have to figure out what's gonna resonate with your audience and then just go with it.

I love that. So what's the importance of like actually editing inside the app and using some of the tools inside the app Do you think that that actually helps push out the reels or like helps Instagram like want to push your reels out?

I don't think so. I don't think no matter what you use, I use real app editing for myself and a few clients because it's easier but then we have one client we have a live painter that we do but we also use a lot of slice for her which is the same thing as in shot splice. They're pretty much the exact same thing where you can speed up certain things like you can import everything and then like a section of it like you can actually make it like super fast. If you have like a regular video you can make it like a hyperlapse video like make it quicker and then like in sections where it transitions cooler but like for people that are just starting with reels I would I try to edit them in reels and it's super easy to do it that way versus trying to do it in splice or in shot.

Yeah, so splice and inshot are two other video editing apps that a lot of people recommend I've been using in shot for years and the app to edit on your phone.

Yeah,

Like I edit like our video ads I added a lot of things on I mean, I try not to edit anything I don't have to but like right now I've been doing a lot so like if I need to just like pop in and get something made real quick. They can be easy, easy tools if like if you needed other video editing, but you can also edit your reels inside there. Yep, even we've been trying to use like at least the text inside of reels does it add something that is native to Instagram, even if we edit the video somewhere else?

Yes, I would say that too, because a lot of people are also carrying over from tik tok and there they are erasing that watermark from tik tok. But you can tell the font that you can Instagrams not stupid they can tell the font to so their competitors, they're going to always go against each other. So people that actually upload a TikTok with a watermark, it's gonna hurt you. There is our chances obviously that you're going to get like a jillion views or whatever. But check your engagement like it's just not going to get pushed, because that's not what they want. If anything, erase your watermark and then just do the text in the real.

So how do you raise the watermark?

There's an app that you can use, I'd have to look at them just to make sure but I do the reversal because I feel like it's just so much easier to record Instagram reels in save it and then go find the audio on tik tok. Because you can save it without the watermark like TikTok is legit. Their marketing is on point because you cannot save any talk at all without their watermark. So the people that came up with the app that raises their watermark, it's pretty genius.

Yeah.I didn't couldn't even figure out how to save a TikTok when I was on TikTok a while back

ok, you can just save to your phone and just saves to your phone when you post it.

Oh, so you have to change the setting. Make sure that you save it.

Yep.

That's good to know. Huh?

Yeah.

Ok. So I want to hear Okay, so let's talk about length. You briefly mentioned it before, but I think this is really important to say, because I was making these really long reels. And I was like, why are they not getting more traction, and then I made a super short one, it was like 10 seconds. And it was it's our most viewed light commented on reel of all time.

That's amazing. So, what they're saying right now, and like, it is really honestly Tracy, it's so much trial and error. It's so unreal, but they're what they're saying is the shorter the better. Because if you think about it, a human beings attention span is very short. So like, if you're not catching them, in the first few seconds and giving them what they need one they're gonna move on. And then two, it's just going to be a flop, but like, definitely, I would say, you're more towards the shorter ones, if you're doing something that is trendy or whatever. But if you're coming one, like, for example, the AC guy, or I did one last week, maybe I just spoke to the camera. And that's okay, if that's 50 seconds, as long as I'm giving you valuable information. So I came on and I talked about how many other ways you can do rails without doing like the dancing and the lipsync better than no. So like, if you're giving information on that sense, I think it's okay. And those seem to do a little bit better for me anyway, um, but then the dancing ones. I mean, that's just my personality. Like, I like to have fun. So I do that, but I would say keep it on the shorter side.

Yeah. Seems like there's a lot of people telling people how to make reels on Instagram. It's so meta.

There's so many social media gurus talking about everything. I'm just like, Oh my gosh, oh.

It doesn't really matter. Because you have like a full book. So you're booked out? Yeah. Awesome.

Yeah. So this is the difference, though, because I did speak to one the other day, and she has like thousands and thousands of followers. But she's like, how do you have so many clients? Like, what do you do? I was like, Well, my heart like, I'm not just showing you this, like I'm showing you a strategy on Instagram on LinkedIn of how to grow your following and how to turn those followers in to actually customers versus selling your course or whatever. Yes, that's my long term goal is to have a course maybe or, you know, do other things that I can offer to you. But like my goal is to coach and to build strategy and to do social media management, like we do full on social media management for a lot of clients. Like they don't touch it. We send them content, we send them strategy, we send them copy to approve, and then we handle the rest. So it's just a little bit different.

So how do you use reels like since we're kind of primarily focused on Instagram right now in Instagram strategy, like how many times do you post a week and then what are some of the other things that you can do? To increase engagement and stories to increase engagement on feed posts, and I GTV because I am asking this, maybe this is like kind of selfish question. But also I feel like you're going to add some value because you just share, like a few tips with me about our stories that I felt like I was doing wrong. And now we're getting more people are seeing more of the stories. So and also our igtv, we used to get like 1000s of views, and now we're not getting as many views. So I'm curious, in your opinion, like, how do you use them all together for more strategic?

So you have so going back to your I'm going to try to answer all these things. But like going back to the record, so Instagram in general, like you want to keep everybody engaged and think about the human being, in general, like you're busy human, I'm a busy human, like everybody's busy. So if you're giving them something that's easy, clickable, and they're watching it, and if you're giving them like an easy poll to yes or no, boom, they're gonna do it, if you put the question box, less likely to do it. So if you provide information, with something as easy as a call to action, that's super easy. So if you show home stories, and you're just like, how crazy am I? or How excited are you for this launch?

Yeah.

And you just need to slide your engagement is going to go up, they're going to wait, then as the more they engage in your Instagram, the more they're going to see your content, the more they see your content, the more they're going to engage with your content. So the answer to your question in the very beginning is consistency, you have to figure out so what I like to tell people because they like to ask me, well, how much do I have to show up on social media? And I'm like, well that I can't answer that. If you want to really grow, then you need to be there multiple times a day, every single day, I get that that's a lot. And it's very overwhelming to a lot of people. But these platforms have billions of human beings on them. So you're competing with a lot of people to get attention, and you need to show up consistently. So what I like to tell them, if you can show up faithfully for three days a week for 30 days, let's try it.

And then in 30 days, if you're like oh shall we that's too much, we're gonna back down to two, or we're gonna go up to four, then I'm gonna say, let's incorporate everything. So we need to include every single thing that Instagrams pushing. So that's video huge. So maybe that's one reel a week than one IGTV or live a week, then that's one like, carousel a week. And so then you need to those three days that you show up, I want you to show home stories, those three days, and if that's five stories a day, so that's just like Tracy comes on. It's like, okay, y'all, I'm starting my day. I have to have my coffee first, I get like five minutes to myself before I start my hectic day. Are you poll question? Are you a coffee drinker? Or do you have it black? Or do you use cream? Or do you roll out of bed and go straight to work, like there's so many things that you can just make them engaged with and they see you're showing up, and that consistency is key.

But if you want like legit growth, where like you follow like Brock Johnson Chalene Johnson, Jasmine Star, like any of these people, they're going to tell you consistency is key. And if you want growth, you have to put out the content, they're going to tell you it used to be quality over quantity, but now it's pushing quantity over quality, but in a sense of it still needs to be valuable. So they're not telling you to take away from your quality. They're telling you to provide value but don't get hung up on the perfection of it so the settings of instead aesthetically pleasing grid that everybody used to want and have and all this stuff like you don't need it. You don't need that at all.

Yeah,

You just need to push out content now if you do want it cool easy make a cover photo. So for like reels if you're like doing this crazy reel and you don't have a picture in there that you like you like make get on canvas super quick make a cover photo Easy peasy and you can keep everything kind of the same

Do cover photos affect the reach of the reel? Do you think? so I've heard mixed things about that.

I've heard mixed things too and I really can't give you an answer I can just give you my opinion I just don't know if it matters as much I think it's the content that matters the most like every time I make a actual cover photo I try to kind of imply what's in my reel and like leave it as a catchy so like did you know or the one today is like can you relate but I used to not give a crap about cover photos and I felt like my nails done a lot better so...

Yeah

Back and forth.

Okay that's interesting because I put one on to this like amazing podcast just because the video quality wasn't like super great for my Isha who's one of our coaches. And I'm like again like I posted it twice like a different version of it twice and like I feel like with the cover didn't go out as much.

And then also to a tip is film your reels. Always even if you're using a pre made video, try to do it vertical versus horizontal, like try to use the whole screen. That's just a tip for everyone. If anyone listens to this one For that one person, thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so what's the what's the deal with hashtags? Tell us,

Oh, girl, this is like, every day is different. So like this come launch tomorrow. And it could be changed. But so we went from 30 hashtags for like, max and all. And use a variety now creator account, which is Instagram just came out and said use 35.

Oh hat's it.

Yeah. 35 hashtags, boom, done. And I was like, What the heck is that? I was like, if it applies to your industry, I'm cool with it now, do you really need to use 30? No, but if it works for you, it's a lot of trial and error. If it works for you, then keep doing it. You know what I mean, don't like dramatic. That's just my opinion. I know, a lot of people may probably disagree with everything I'm saying right now. But also at the same time to have your small account, stop trying to use the hashtags that have a million uses, or a billion that like be behind it, or in behind it, or, like go, so my account is a smaller account. So I use a lot of 1000s of like hashtags out of use. So basically, what that means is, if you're like, hashtag Social Media Manager, it's gonna either say, like, 5M. So that's it's been used 5 million times, which means I'm competing with a whole big pond of people that are social media managers. So I have to scale down to something that makes sense for my account. So I'm a measly, 800 followers. So I need to scale that down a little bit. So I'm going to do in the 1000s. And that could be a couple 100 1000s. But stay in the 1000s. Don't go into the millions. But there's some times that you can use things too, but I would say definitely be specific to the content that you're pushing out at that moment. Don't try to use like, when people were trying to use 30 hashtags. They were just like, supporting women business all this like entrepreneur, like all these broad topics, instead of like focusing on like social media coach that helps or something like super narrow, narrow.

Yeah. Okay, so as we kind of wrap this episode up, I want to ask you to share that case study that you shared at our event with the wedding painter that you talked about earlier.

Oh, Yeah yeah yeah. So I was approached by a wedding planner, y'all she is freakin phenomenal. She's like one and everywhere. Now she's done a celebrity wedding. I can't take credit for that, because she's got legit talent. She reached out to me probably about a month after I had launched my business. Somebody put us in touch with each other. She just was so busy. She needed somebody just to make her real. So we did a six week trial. In the beginning. She was like, I only want to do reels and I was like, Okay, well, have you thought about TikTok, and she was like, I don't want you to talk. Obviously, for reasons everybody probably knows. It's just TikTok. There has bad things about it. But anyway, we did this six week trial. We did our review. She signs again, I'm like, Can we please do TikTok? Y'all overnight, blew the heck up on Instagram. She was sitting at 7000 followers for a few years. We started building consistency for a six week period. Then we introduced her to tik tok.

And she I personally with my own eyes, I've never seen it. It was a very proud moment. The strategic we put in it, the consistency that we put in in everything on all every party that was involved, made this amazing. She went from 7000 followers, and every single week I think she has like 44,000. Now I don't know if that's tik tok or Instagram but they're very close together is between 37 and 40. And it was just so fun because every time we refresh the number just kept going up. So it was like really cool, but she listened and we put together really cool things and we super like niche down and like TikTok, we only do live painting. We only talk about her live paintings. And we only showcase her live paintings. We don't do like commission work portraits, none of that. We literally just talked about live paintings and then Instagram. We just do the whole nine she's got her humor on there. She does everything but she let go of like what was holding her back andTikTok, blew her off, like social media has the power to really rock your world, but you have to put in the work and you have to be consistent and you have to show up if you want growth.

Okay, awesome. So it did TikTok helped her blog or Instagram or they just work together? Okay, and why is that?

TikTok helped her. She filtered everything fromTikTok to Instagram so she didn't become a business account on tik tok. She can't she was just like a personal account. And then she just linked her Instagram in her bio. So which made them like where it could go to her website and then Instagram because you could tap the shop there. It's just like more Instagrams, just her jam. So that's what she wanted. So the strategy was to take, go to tik tok and filter back through to Instagram and just build on Instagram. More because just so many people cater more to Instagram. I don't I would have to ask her legit reason for that. But that is how we grew her is we got her on tik tok. Another platform that she was hesitant f4

Interesting All right, TikTok for the win

TikTok for the win I will say this her target audience is on TikTok though so you have to really think about like where your target audience is before you approach what you actually could I don't know if you actually have one but like I feel like flourish and thrive could do really well on TikTok

I started one last year during the pandemic and I posted three videos and then stopped so we're going to refresh the accounts like we have a strategy about we're going to like give up the name and then by get it up again like right on the same second just with a different email address and phone number.

Yeah.

And then we're going to then we're going to start posting like we already have the content bashed, we're just waiting to have the times where we can align as a team to do it. That's I still you know, it's still okay one more question. This is so out of water because I want to talk about captions.

Go ahead, let's go.

For TikTok and I always do like TikTok captions are super short, super short

Super short to the point so when I was on TikTok I literally just had hashtags

Oh really? No caption at all.

Well my stuff I just put like I just me personally there's a million social media managers on tik tok so like in order for me to actually thrive on tik tok are going to post like, I'm not even kidding 20 times a day for even to be seen. So I was just like, I don't have time for that. I can learn it for my clients. I have a girl in house that does and she focuses on TikTok for me, so I don't have to look at it. Um, she kind of helps me keep up with the trends and everything and like I know how to use it I just don't mess with it. Um, so Instagram lets you do a hell of a lot more so that's the only thing but TiktOK you can record a video up to three minutes now. Oh, wow. Okay, so it's almost like a igtv version but like a real TikTok version so you still can see like a lot of people so Yeah, awesome.

And then the captions on reels what what links should we keep them?

So it's mixed feelings too but I like to talk so mine are a little bit lengthy even though sometimes I'm like, Why do you keep writing so much but a lot of people do say the shorter the better but I really don't think that there as long as you are it always goes back to this as long as you are actually not rambling and providing good content for the consumer and they're going to want to keep reading it doesn't matter. Okay, but now if it gets like super lengthy then I would direct them to maybe like log or like Tell him to email you or like something. So I would definitely keep it shorter the better but don't you don't be afraid to like elaborate on whatever you're trying to say.

Okay, coz I see a lot I mean, we do this too. It's like read the caption for more or whatever.

Yep. So if you're on a reel, or now if you're doing a carousel which is like the multiple photos people are talking about, I'm putting more information in that so don't make it as graphic you maybe make it like verbiage like do a picture and then do a lot of information and then in the caption you're just like coal thanks for watching or looking but then in reels you want to keep it short because they're you don't want them to read the whole time but you want them to keep looping to actually read and watch what so it's not gonna be super long but doesn't need be super short. So then you'll say see caption for more because there's just got to be so much more that you want to say or you want to explain what you're actually doing in the reel.Exactly that.

Okay, cool. Awesome. All right, Shelby, any any final tips before we go?

No, I'm just so excited and if you have any questions obviously just reach out to me I'm like super nice and I love to talk about it because I could sit here and talk all night, but we're wrapping it up so alright, shall we working everyone find you? I'm on Instagram and LinkedIn and Facebook. I have TikTok. But that's its Chelby Clement Marketing and Clement is C L E M E N T. I'm so excited though. Thank you all so much for having me.

Thanks for being here, Shelby.

Alright, we'll chat soon.

Thank you so much for listening to the show today. Make sure that you go find Shelby give her some love. And she's amazing. We are loving her so much. And she's helped us over at flourish and thrive a lot with our strategy as well. If you would like to learn more about the desired brand effect, the book is awesome head on over to desiredbrandeffect.com and there are details there about how you can preorder the book and how you can support us in this launch and do so much more. So we really want to get the word out to as many jewelry makers and product makers as possible. Because we are all about giving you a very low cost way to support you in your business. I mean, how much is the book right the Kindle version signed 99 and the paperback is 1999 it is a steal. So once again desire brand effect calm. Let's do this. Ciao for now. Thanks so much for listening today. Take care. Until next time.

Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. It's my mission to help 1000s of creative businesses inside and outside the jewelry space. use their creativity to make money. Make sure that you're subscribed to thrive by design on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and wherever podcasts are played. And we'd love to hear what you think. Please rate and review the show and if you're inspired, please share this with your friends. Cheers to seeing you flourish and thrive.