Crush Your Social

Hey there, welcome back. If you're a coach, consultant, or service provider who sells what you know, your content is one way people figure out whether or not they can trust you. In other words, if your social media posts don't reflect the value of what you do and why you're trustworthy, you're leaving money on the table. And today we're going to talk about why that might be and how to fix it. I'll walk you through what actually makes a social media post effective for a service provider. Not viral and not trendy content, but effective for your business. We'll cover the difference between influencer content and thought leader content, the four main formats, carousels, infographics, single photos and reels. And then I'll show you how I use each one of those to share value, build trust, and get more of the right people into my world with a simple acronym ACT, A-C-T.

So what's the difference between influencer content and thought leadership content? If you're a service based provider, you're going to want thought leadership content. Why would that be? Because thought leadership content positions you as an expert who's different from everybody else who does what you do, whereas influencer content really is sharing your life. The reason I think this is important is because when I was a teacher, I had an influencer come in and speak to my marketing class. And he told my students to just be themselves on social media and they'll get results. And I started thinking about that. And I realized that I was doing some of that already and it wasn't working at all. So I decided to figure out if I'm a service based business, how can I create content that will draw in the people that I might want to sell to and the people that I might want to partner with? And so I started thinking about the four kinds of content and how they can be used. So let's talk about what they are. Carousels. These are amazing if you want to explain something clearly. Think methods, processes, breaking down concepts people usually misunderstand. What's a carousel post? A carousel post is a group of posts, several slides, up to 20 slides on Instagram that you post one idea or one thought on each slide. Some people will use them for pictures. They'll take 12 pictures, they'll put each picture on a slide and then you put them together and you load them up and you can swipe through and see all the pictures. Here's how I use them. I use them to share resources. I did a series once on six books that I read about podcasting and I shared on each slide a book with the author and then the takeaway from the book. So I was able to share resources with my audience that were helpful and not necessarily about what I do. Another way to use carousels is to talk about reasons why or why not to do something. Six reasons you should buy my product. Six reasons you should hire me. Six reasons you shouldn't hire me and you can go into them clearly. What if you have a method that's different than anybody else's? I have a method called the crush method and I can break it down in a carousel. Each letter would get a carousel slide. But my favorite way to use a carousel post as a service provider is the start here post. If you go to my page, crush your social on Instagram. At the very top, you'll see a post that says start here with an arrow.

And what that post has as you swipe through, it talks about my mission. Why am I here? Why do I do what I do? What does my page hope to help you with? What will you find here? What topics will I be talking about? Who am I? What's my background? What are my qualifications?

And then what are ways we can work together? Each of those items are on their own slide in a carousel. A couple of things you want to think about when you're making a carousel is that the very first cover page, actually the first two to three cover pages, you're going to want to have a strong hook. Not a clickbait hook, but you're going to want a strong hook that talks about what's in it for them. And then reword it slightly on slide two or ask a question around it. So it's still a hook, but it's not exactly the same.

How I do this is I'll say, "48 reasons AI alone won't help you build a brand online."

It's big font in my brand font, in my brand colors. And there's a cute little icon of a bot, a little robot on the slide. So it's big and bold and it grabs attention. Slide two has just words. And it says, "Do you think AI is the answer to all your marketing problems?" So what happens with carousel posts is that your Instagram feed, your homepage where you get your content, Instagram will show you posts one by one and you can swipe down. And if you swipe through and don't click on a post that's a carousel post, Instagram will re-show it to you on page two. And I've heard sometimes even page three. So at least the first two pages, you want to have a really good hook. And then you want to give the value that you're talking about and try to keep only one thought on each slide so that you don't overwhelm people. I like to use a little subhead that talks about like 0.1 and then I'll talk about the point. And the next slide will be 0.2 or number it letters some way so that they know kind of what the order of your post is. And of course, at the very end, you're going to want to have a CTA. What's a CTA? A call to action. You're going to want to tell them what to do. That's really important because people don't know what to do. And if you don't tell them, they won't do anything. Okay, so that wraps up carousels. Let's talk about infographics. Those are my very favorite kinds of content to post because it's really fun to make a picture out of numbers, letters, data, or whatever. I like to take complicated terms and put them into an infographic so that it's kind of easy to look at. It's scannable with a powerful headline. So you can share quick tips. You can share statistics sometimes. I'll just put a statistic out, which doesn't really qualify as an infographic, but it's information that's database. So it kind of does. My very first infographic was a list I created and it was 66 ways to talk about one topic. And I had curated that for my own content when I was talking about engagement. And I had talked about Instagram engagement 66 different ways, and I thought that would be interesting. And that was my very first attempt at an infographic and it was kind of accidental and it went viral. And that was back in 2021 when infographics weren't a thing, but I've always loved them. So now I've just, I use them all the time and they're not getting much reach now. So if you want to get reach, you're going to use carousels and you're going to use reels, which we'll get into. Infographics are great and they're important and they're a good part of the mix, but they're not getting the kind of reach that the other kinds of content are right now on spring 2025.

So you can use them as lists like 40 reasons for or against something. You can put your processes on an infographic. You can use a timeline of what it's like to work with you. This part takes this amount of time. That part takes another amount of time in three months. This is what you're going to have. And this is the process we're going to go through. Testimonials is kind of an infographic, especially if you can get the picture of the person. One of my favorites is the iceberg infographic. It's kind of like what you think something is. And then on the bottom is what really goes into it. Like for me, what people think social media is, which is like pretty pictures, viral content, stuff like that. And what really goes into it, the strategy, the planning, the research, the positioning, all the things that go into really valuable content that does well. So those are infographics. And here's the tip. I will use infographics as the second to the last slide of my carousel to wrap up something I'm talking about. So if I've talked about 10 reasons to do something or 10 ways to do something, I'll go through the slides with each reason on each slide of the carousel post. But second to the last slide is an infographic of all 10 steps. The good news about that is it goes into the carousel, it wraps it up nicely, it gives people a reason to save it. And then you can repurpose that infographic later by itself. And you can use the information in the carousel as your caption. So infographics are awesome. I think everybody should use them if they have a service-based business.

Here's another kind of post, another format. It's called photos with captions. It's just a photo of you. And this is kind of where you tell stories. You put a photo of you and you talk about what the photo means. I'm kind of guilty of not using that kind of content because it doesn't stop the scroll. People don't, like they're not going to look at my face and that's going to stop them and want to tap on my post. I'm a big believer in giving value to my audience. And so I want to make it not about me. So I'm not going to post a picture of me. The only time you'll usually see a picture of me is you'll see a picture of me on the front of the carousel slide pointing at like the topic. And it's cut out of me. I've removed the background and I'm pointing and I've made those poses specifically for my carousels. But research shows that posts or content with a face on it does better than no face. So that's how I put my face, my picture on my content. I don't just post a picture of me like out in the world. I have never done that. I will probably never do that. But I have no problem with posing, pointing towards some words and then cutting the background out and using it to attract more people because I'll see my face.

So if you want to post photos, try to add a headline or a hook of some type under or above your head or something. So give somebody context as to why they should tap on it. So I'm not opposed to it. I just don't think they do really well for service providers. They're nice if you want to build connection. But I build connection in my stories so I don't feel a need to build connection in my post content because my post content, the goal of it is to reach new people who need what I have to offer.

So okay, let's talk about the last format.

Reels. Reels are videos in 2025 spring can be up to three minutes long, but I keep them short. They're great for visibility. Instagram loves them and they will push them out all the time. But the problem with reels is that if they don't have value, it doesn't really add to your business. People won't tap on them. So if you're going to create a reel, you want to make sure that you have a couple of things going on. First, frame yourself if you're the talking head. Frame yourself close to the camera so that you only have about an inch above your head or two inches maybe in the frame. Make sure that you have a hook, maybe a cover page. I usually always put a cover page on my reels.

Toni
If I already have a hook that's in the reel, then not necessarily. But if I don't, then I will make a cover page with a hook that will grab attention so that if they're on my page and they're kind of binging my content, they'll know what it's about and they'll tap on it. But as they come through the reels feed, you won't see a cover page. So make sure you have a hook. And a hook is the thing that tells people what the reel is about, what's in it for them. I always try to keep that in mind with every single piece of content. What's in it for them? If I don't have something useful or inspiring or helpful, then I don't put the post out. So I need to be able to talk about those clearly. So I usually use a headline generator or an analyzer to help me make sure I have a hook that will grab the attention of the right people.

When you create your reel and you're speaking, you'll want to have captions added. And that's different than the caption below your post. The caption is the writing below your post.

Captioning is writing on your post. So as you speak, your words are displayed on the screen. So it's for people that are watching on mute or if someone's hard of hearing. I watch a lot of reels on mute, so I think they're really important. And I'll even leave comments. "Hey, I wish you could have had some captioning because I couldn't like hear. I had to watch it on mute. I couldn't hear what you were saying. And so now I missed your message and I'm really sorry about that." And so it lets people know that captioning is really important. So make sure you add captioning and you can add it lots of fun ways. There's several apps out there. Make sure you have a call to action at the end of your reel as well. And if you're doing a talking head, then say it. Say, "Hey, follow me. Comment such and such and I'll send you my free guide." The other kind of reel I wanted to mention really quickly is the BTS, the behind the scenes reel. Behind the scenes are videos of you doing your work or going about your day or whatever it is. And there's music playing usually. And oftentimes they'll either be just a hook or there'll be a message written on the screen over the video. And then you can talk more about it, what it means, or elaborate into the caption section of your post. So those are the four kinds of formats that you can use for posting. Here's a quick comparison. Using carousels to teach something. Use infographics to share something quick or like the 40 ways to do something. You can also use them to give people a lot of information in one fell swoop that they'll want to save because they can't absorb it all. So it's just a lot of information on one page in a graphic format that they want to save. And then use photos to connect through story. And then use reels to reach more people, to connect with them, sometimes to teach them, and to build that brand recognition and credibility.

So now let's give you three tips you can do today to crush your content. And I have an acronym. It's called ACT. A-C-T. So whether it's a photo or a reel or a carousel or whatever it is, a good post does three things. A, attention. It grabs attention. The first slide, the first sentence, the hook. It has to be something that will stop people from scrolling if they're the right people.

Now C, clarity. It teaches or shows one clear, useful, or inspiring idea. So one post, one thought, be clear.

T, tell them what to do. It gives direction. Comment, save, share, DM me. People are busy. Make it easy for them to know what to do. Whether that's saving the post, leaving a comment, or grabbing a freebie, if you tell them what to do, they'll do it. So if you're selling your knowledge, your content isn't just content. It's proof.

Every post should help people to get to know you, to trust you, and understand how you can help them. So here's your challenge. Go look at your last three posts. Did they grab attention? Did they offer something useful? Did they include a clear next step?

If not, try using the ACT formulas this week and send me a message and let me know how it worked for you. And if you want help figuring out which kind of content works for your business and you're tired of trying to do it for yourself, send me a DM or leave a message and let's chat about that. I'll see you next time. Now get out there and crush it.