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Episode 253 - How to Sell on Instagram
342 Plays11 days ago
Instagram is more than just pretty pictures—it's a powerful sales tool when used with intention. In this episode of the Brands that Book Show, Krista sits down with Abigail Peugh, a digital product expert and Instagram strategist, to talk about how she’s leveraged the platform not only to grow her business, but to create real revenue and community.
Abigail opens up about the deeply personal journey that led her into entrepreneurship, including a family health crisis that pushed her to go all-in on her own business. She began her journey on TikTok, built a wildly successful account, and transitioned to Instagram after her account was deleted. Today, she helps thousands of creatives grow and sell through her online community and weekly resources.
As always, links and resources can be found in the show notes. Check 'em out over at https://daveyandkrista.com/sell-on-instagram-btb-253/. And if you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review over at Apple Podcasts.
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Transcript
Prioritizing Audience Needs
00:00:00
Speaker
I feel like when you're just posting for the algorithm, it's not going to end well. Like, obviously, yes, you have to keep in mind what is the algorithm pushing right now, but always follow what your audience wants over the algorithm. And I think that's what I've done.
00:00:14
Speaker
And have my views taken a hit? Like, absolutely. Everybody's has. But my sales haven't because I built a business that is much more dependent on my people rather than the algorithm.
Introduction to Hosts and Podcast
00:00:27
Speaker
You're listening to The Brands of Book Show, a podcast for creative entrepreneurs who want practical tips and strategies to build engaging brands and craft high converting websites. We're your hosts, Davey and Krista, co-founders of a brand and website design agency specializing in visual brand design and show it websites.
00:00:46
Speaker
You're listening to The Brands of Book Show. of In today's episode, I'm chatting with Abigail about all things selling on Instagram. We're covering everything from posting frequency to analytics to how to figure out what to actually create and then sell to your audience.
00:01:02
Speaker
Abigail has built a seriously impressive business in a relatively short amount of time, and she's been able to use Instagram to create recurring revenue as well as build an impressive list.
Abigail's Journey and Instagram Success
00:01:11
Speaker
She is a wealth of knowledge, and I really enjoy this conversation, and I have a feeling that you will too.
00:01:17
Speaker
And now on to the episode. Today's episode is sponsored by Badao, formerly Sumo, the very best intelligent form and pop-up tool for your website.
00:01:28
Speaker
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00:01:44
Speaker
One of my personal favorite features is the show a tab function. Basically how this works is when visitors close the pop-up, it minimizes to the bottom of the page so that visitors can open it back up if they'd like, but it also remains out of their way while they browse.
00:01:59
Speaker
You can check out how that feature works over at the Davy and Krista website. Also use the code Davy and Krista to save 20% on your subscription. c Create an experience on your website using Badao.
00:02:13
Speaker
Abigail, welcome to the podcast. I am so excited to have you here today. We are going to talk all things Instagram selling, which I think is a new topic for us on this podcast. And I think that you do this so effectively. And so I'm excited to selfishly gain all of the wisdom that you have for my own business.
00:02:30
Speaker
And I think it's going to help so many other people too. Oh my gosh, I'm so excited to be here. Selling on Instagram is one of my favorite things ever. So I am an open book and I love to share it all. Right. So can you just give us like a quick intro, like who you are, what you do, and maybe like what was your journey to get to that point?
00:02:48
Speaker
I'm going to be honest, quick is not my expertise with this type of thing. but But my name is Abigail. I help people with Instagram growth and selling their digital products. So Instagram growth specific to selling a digital product. I feel like I niched down kind of within two things because I saw a lot of people...
00:03:07
Speaker
doing one or the other, like teaching people how to grow or teaching them how to sell digital products. And I was like, well, you kind of like, there's a huge overlap there. And so that's my expertise and my specialty. It still feels weird calling yourself an expert.
00:03:21
Speaker
It's what I love to do and what I help over almost 14,000 students now. I haven't checked in a while, but I know it's over 13,000 students, which is wild. But I got my start with this business in 2022 when my husband very unexpectedly had two strokes. It was very out of the blue.
00:03:40
Speaker
We still don't really have answers, but he's doing so much better now. I always, my mom's always like you have to tell people he's doing better now, but he had two strokes and it kind of just sent us into this whole new life path. We ended up moving to a different state to be near family.
00:03:55
Speaker
And it kind of was the push I needed to finally like go out on my own. i have been an entrepreneur, but a freelancer for many years. And I always ended up in these positions where I was like the right hand woman to someone.
00:04:09
Speaker
And I worked for like some amazing people. And I loved it. But I kind of always talked myself down like there's no way you could run the show. No, no, no. And then when this happened, I kind of just had this, forget what I thought before, I'm just gonna go for it.
00:04:23
Speaker
And I started posting on TikTok. And it kind of just like spiraled from there. And now Here we are today. i am no longer like super active on TikTok. It's where I got my start.
00:04:35
Speaker
But about six months after i kind of went over to Instagram, just found it a little bit more sustainable and fell in love with the platform. And here
Transition from TikTok to Instagram
00:04:44
Speaker
we are today. i am still teaching people. My husband is now home full time with my daughter and he's doing wonderful. And yeah, here we are.
00:04:54
Speaker
What a difficult thing to go through. But then what an amazing gift that it propelled you to step forward and really take leadership and that you've been able to have 14,000, 13,000 people. That's amazing. That's like mind blowing.
00:05:08
Speaker
Yeah, it's pretty wild. And don't love that. That's my origin story. Right. Like it was definitely a bummer of a time. i feel like I just like froze up and was like, well, I don't know how to fix this. So I have to fix something. And Something's got to change financially because we also were just like, we had tons of medical things and like there was errors where like we had to like pay for things that we weren't supposed to have to pay for. It it was just like a hot mess.
00:05:31
Speaker
So in my head, I was like, well, this is a crappy situation. i have no control over this. And I do have control over how much money I make and like what I can do for a family and growing a business and helping other people. So it was a moment of, i don't know, I just kind of switched. Something just switched in my brain. I remember just being like, well, what's the worst that can happen?
00:05:50
Speaker
Like the business could not take off. Okay. What's the big deal? I'm just, I'm just going to go for it So which came first? Did you have a digital product that you had created and then you took to social media because you knew that you needed to get the word out about it?
00:06:04
Speaker
Or did you start growing this platform first and then create the products? So I created the platform first and I started posting and I really used those early days to see what people needed and wanted and to kind of do market research.
00:06:20
Speaker
And I feel like it's a huge reason that my first product did so well is because I kind of listened to what everybody wanted. i think I was posting for, I want to say ah month, just over a month and a half maybe.
00:06:33
Speaker
Which is not And then i launched the product. No, but it was like three videos a day on TikTok. like tick ah different culture than instagram when it comes to growth. I feel like if you're really committed to the platform and you just like go all in, the growth can happen much quicker there.
00:06:48
Speaker
but yeah, I was posting like three times a day when my daughter was napping, I was posting like I was so determined to make it work. And every video I got better. And I really just listened. And at the time I was teaching on UGC, which if you don't know why UGC is, is user generated content.
00:07:04
Speaker
It's something that I've been doing since 2017. But we didn't call ourselves UGC creators. It's funny. it kind of like blew up on TikTok that year. And it was basically you create content for brands, but you're not an influencer, right? Like you create videos for them, but then they just take your video and run ads to it. It's not necessarily like connected to your platform.
00:07:22
Speaker
And I'd been doing that with photos and videos for a while. And I remember meeting with a business coach. She had like a free meeting and she was like, Oh, why are you not teaching that on tech talk? And I was like, nobody wants to know about you. Do you see like, what are you about?
00:07:35
Speaker
Like, No. And then I went on and I was like, oh, everybody wants to know how to be a UGC creator. And so I just kind of started posting about it and like asking what people wanted and very quickly realized that at the time, again, UGC had not blown up yet. Now there's like hundreds of courses on it, hundreds of people teaching on it, probably even in the thousands, to be honest. But At the time, there was really only like one or two courses out there on it. And they were like $500 courses. And again, no shame or hate to those courses at all. Like 500 bucks, I'm sure it
Content Strategy and Marketing Techniques
00:08:06
Speaker
was worth it. There was a lot involved. But I was very quickly realizing that a lot of people didn't have that to spend.
00:08:12
Speaker
And so i was like, okay, how can I create a more affordable resource? Not a course. So I did a PDF and it was low ticket. I think it was $35 when I first launched it. And I feel like really knowing the market and realizing like there was no lower ticket thing at the time. And so I kind of got the first one out there, but I never would have known that had I not listened for that month and a half where I was just posting about the concept. I knew I wanted to create a digital product, but I really listened to my audience about what they wanted.
00:08:41
Speaker
Right. Okay. And so were all of your videos at that point about UGC or had you just been like testing other options? And also how did you come up with enough like content to make three videos a day? That feels overwhelming.
00:08:54
Speaker
When you're like really in the platform, you can see that there's certain topics that are trending or people say one thing and you're like, no, like I have a rebuttal. Like TikTok is so different than Instagram. It's much more conversational. So a lot of those videos, I try to do like one trend and two talking head videos a day.
00:09:09
Speaker
And I would just kind of listen to what people wanted. And like I said, TikTok is so different. Like it's very much, you can just like pick up the camera and start recording something really quick and post that and it's fine.
00:09:20
Speaker
And it takes off. Content really was just like listening to what people wanted. We're like talking about the subject, the questions that they were having, how to get started, what I did, day in the life of like what I did as a UGCA creator.
00:09:32
Speaker
But no, I didn't really test other things. I knew at that time, like, okay, UGCA is what I'm going to go all in on with TikTok. I feel like you can grow much quicker if you're like very specific. Right?
00:09:43
Speaker
with who you are helping and what you are talking about. And I've always been more creative. That's like my side of the brain for sure. And so it was just really fun and like exhilarating for me. My daughter was just barely two yet. Like she turned two that summer.
00:09:57
Speaker
And so I feel like I was like craving a creative thing as a mom where you're like, my brain needs to do two things. Like I love being a mom. It's like the best thing that's ever happened to me, but I also love being creative. And so there was like my outlet. It was like, okay, she's taking a nap. I'm going to record a video really quick. Or Okay, she found some dirt outside in the corner. like She's playing. I'm going to go record a video really quick. So it didn't really feel hard to come up with topics for me. Again, a lot of it was like responding to what people were asking or saying in the community that I disagreed with.
00:10:27
Speaker
So it was a lot of fun. TikTok was going so well and there's so much growth potential. What made you shift over to primarily focus on Instagram? About five months in, there was someone, I still don't know who was, a troll, someone, I don't know, she didn't like me.
00:10:42
Speaker
She went in and reported every single one of my TikTok videos and got my account, which had grown to like, think 94,000 at the time, got the whole thing taken down. It was awful. There was a week in, i can't remember which month it was.
00:10:57
Speaker
and think it was November. There was like a week in November where I was like, okay, I'm done. Like I tried, I gave it five months. It went great. I made good money, but I'm done. But of course i didn't give up. I waited a week. i kind of wallowed.
00:11:08
Speaker
And then after that, I said, okay, I'm just, I'm not going to wait on this one coming back. And I started a new one and I grew it even faster 94,000 followers. That's the one I have on TikTok now. It's my second account. The first one, eventually one of my friends at Stan's store now, they helped me get it back, but it was like a dead account by the time it got back up. And so I'd already grown the other one too.
00:11:29
Speaker
was
The Power of Email Marketing
00:11:30
Speaker
like, whatever. Leave that one behind. But I definitely felt burned. I felt like, okay, this is a very unstable platform. Like it takes one person reporting your videos to get your whole account taken down.
00:11:42
Speaker
And it ended up that like they came back and they're like, oh, it was an error. Nothing's wrong. I'm like, yeah, I know. And so it just like the unstableness of the platform to be my only platform felt too much.
00:11:54
Speaker
Like I just was like, okay, I need to figure something else out. So I did what I do, which is like dive headfirst into something else. And my brain like can't figure out two things at a time, like big things like that. So I kind of was just like, okay, bye TikTok. I'll see you later.
00:12:09
Speaker
and went to Instagram and I've basically been on Instagram since. so Okay. And do you feel like Instagram has been more effective for sales than TikTok was? i feel like the nature of the platform is pretty different.
00:12:22
Speaker
I will say Instagram is more so stable and consistent. Whereas TikTok, truly, you can have a video take off and like have an insane sales day if it's the right type of video. And like that can still happen on Instagram, but I feel like it happens a little bit more so on TikTok. But again, like there's no consistency with that on TikTok. And I feel like there's more haters on TikTok. Like people feel like they can say whatever they want on TikTok. Whereas I know I've built a culture of amazing people on Instagram. So that's also why I don't get a ton of mean comments.
00:12:56
Speaker
But I also just feel like it's a different world. And so I don't know, i think both are amazing. i do think TikTok is incredible. Like it is an awesome platform, but I wouldn't have it be your only platform. I think it works better for like visibility where you're like getting your name out there.
00:13:14
Speaker
i don't use it as much anymore either because like what I teach is Instagram. And so when you're on another platform teaching about a different platform, essentially i have to first convince people to come to the platform before I can sell to them almost. So I don't know. It's not my favorite for my business, but there's tons of people that I'm just like still get on TikTok. Like the visibility is still unmatched in my opinion, but I like the stability of Instagram a little bit more.
00:13:41
Speaker
And so like when all of this is happening, were you also building a mailing list and do you rely on email too? Okay. You're nodding yes. Yes. Yes, I was. TikTok built my email list to probably 40,000. It's at like 51,000 now.
00:13:57
Speaker
I had a few videos like take off on TikTok before I had a product that grew my email list like very quickly and then consistently using TikTok to promote my freebies And I do feel like TikTok is another great place to like grow an email list.
00:14:12
Speaker
But yeah, I do have an email list. Thank goodness. I don't utilize it as much as I should. I'm a social media girly. So sometimes I just get in my own head about email, but I do have it. And I'm so grateful because that was genuinely the only way I could contact people when my account got taken down. And I was able to say, Hey, my TikTok's gone. Here's my new account.
00:14:31
Speaker
And I did like a sale that week on email so that I could keep some sales coming in. Basically, my business wouldn't have been able to like keep going if I hadn't had the email list. So that's crazy. Very important.
00:14:43
Speaker
Okay. So how did you get people off of TikTok and over to your email address? Because there aren't links in TikTok, are there? Yep. Oh, there are? Yep, yep. I am not a big TikToker. I hardly ever log in.
00:14:54
Speaker
i feel like I go in, I'm like, this is not for me. It's too much. It's definitely its own world. Like, it's a very different world than Instagram. And like I said, you really have to like...
00:15:05
Speaker
throw yourself into it to use the platform how it was intended to use like it's definitely more i don't want to say a cult it's not a cult but it's like very like when you're in the know you're in the know and when you're not you're very much so not whereas Instagram I feel like you don't have to be as much in the know and you can like show up and market and go in your stories and talk to your people but then you can leave yeah And it's okay. Whereas TikTok feels like you kind of have to be really involved if you want the culture and the community building there.
00:15:36
Speaker
That's so interesting. Okay. So since you switched over to Instagram, since you've kind of like shifted your business strategy since those early days, are you still posting that much on Instagram?
00:15:47
Speaker
And then how do you balance your content? Is it all selling or is it like serving plus selling? Tell me what this looks like now. Yes. Okay. So I'm not posting on Instagram three times a day. I definitely think that quantity leads to quality. So if you're new and you're like trying to figure out what your style is, I would say post a little bit more and see like what you're good at, what your audience likes.
00:16:09
Speaker
But kind of once you know, i don't feel like you have to. It's just not really sustainable in my opinion. I always recommend like... Do what you can that is sustainable. And then like add one more, push yourself a little bit.
00:16:20
Speaker
So if you say, okay, I can post four times a week. Okay. Try post five, push yourself a little bit. But for me, it's definitely a good mix of selling and serving and connecting. I feel like connection content and like the content where people see it and they immediately go, oh my gosh, yes, that's me is something that I focus on a lot.
00:16:40
Speaker
And lately I've been doing more connection content on my feed and selling more so in my stories because my main offer now is a community. So it's a reoccurring payment.
00:16:51
Speaker
And so it it takes a little bit, in my opinion, it takes a little bit more nurturing because they are agreeing to like monthly payments of something. So I find that for my account now, it converts better when I do more connection content my feed, educational, but I do educational content very different than most people. It's mainly like storytelling that I'm turning into an educating moment.
00:17:12
Speaker
Like you will probably never see me being like three tips to X, Y, Z. It would be like three things I did at the beginning of the business that I would never recommend you do, right? So I'm like teaching through a story and then selling more in my actual Instagram stories because that's where your writer dies or hanging out.
00:17:28
Speaker
And it's
Teaching Instagram Selling
00:17:29
Speaker
actually where i enjoy selling the most right now. Yeah. So I don't know, like I lean into what I enjoy too, because if you don't like you have to have discipline in your business. Yes.
00:17:40
Speaker
But also you need to enjoy what you're doing. if you're gonna do this for five years, like don't want to be miserable. So right now I'm really enjoying selling in my stories. And so I'm going with it. Yeah. That's really exciting to hear.
00:17:51
Speaker
Are any of those products that you first made, i feel like, are you still selling them or have you mostly shifted towards teaching other people how to sell an Instagram? Yeah. So the first products that I first made my UGC ones, I no longer sell them. Yeah.
00:18:04
Speaker
At the beginning of 2023, when I made the switch to Instagram, I did like a big UGC bootcamp and it was amazing. And then I did a digital product bootcamp right after it was like a group program live.
00:18:18
Speaker
And I thought I was going to go back and forth because the concepts, they very much so have an overlap for the audience, right? Like people wanting to make money with their content, either with a digital product or creating content for brands.
00:18:29
Speaker
And so in my head, I was like, cool, I'll just kind of like go back and forth between the two, like focus half the year on one, half the year and the other. And then when I got into the digital product bootcamp and like teaching people how to sell and grow, i fell in love. Like I loved it so much more than the UGC. And so much of what I learned in the UGC world has overlapped into what I teach, but I don't know, I just loved it so much. So I stopped...
00:18:54
Speaker
I feel like it was like six months after I finally made the decision. My husband's like, you need to decide because you haven't talked about UGC. I'm like, I know, I think it's a sign. Like, I don't want to teach about it anymore, I don't think. So it was really hard to let go of. I actually still have one UGC client.
00:19:10
Speaker
They were my first one in 2017 and I still have them, but i know I don't take on new ones and I don't teach it anymore. But I feel like you have to go with what you're most passionate about. And I was really afraid to pivot.
00:19:23
Speaker
But when I did, everything just felt so much better. don't know. It's like what I was meant to do. And it beats all the boxes for me, right? Like I get to teach people how to create content and I love that, but I also get to teach them how to like create a digital product. And so just like different parts of my brain kind of being challenged with that. So I don't teach that anymore. And it was a very hard decision, but I think I made the right one.
00:19:45
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, you've if you've taught so many people at these days about selling on Instagram, That's just impressive. And that's amazing too, that you were able to make that shift. Yeah.
00:19:56
Speaker
People come to me a lot asking like, I want to pivot. I want to pivot. I'm like, if you are like dead inside about the old thing, let it go. Like it's not worth trying to keep pushing through. And I feel like people sometimes like spend years deciding if they want to pivot. And I'm like, I could have told you two years ago that this is not okay for you. Like, I'm not saying pivot every two months and change your mind all the time, but like there's a time and a place for everything. And even if it's scary, it's okay to pivot and do something that you love, like I truly believe as business owners, especially if you lean towards being creative, which I do, you have to love what you are doing. And no, you're not going to love every single day. There's going to be hard days, but like inherently you have to be passionate and love what you are doing. Otherwise you will just become a drone and a robot and just feel like, uh, what am I doing with my life? And as an entrepreneur, like, I don't think you can do that.
00:20:47
Speaker
You have to love and have the passion behind what you do. Yeah. Otherwise it just feels painful. And then you might as well just have like a different job or do doing something else. Exactly. Go back to a nine to five, which there's nothing wrong with a nine to five. Like you will never see me creating content, like leave your nine to five, do this instead. Like, I don't think everyone is meant to be an entrepreneur.
00:21:04
Speaker
i think a lot of people who aren't entrepreneurs would love it if they gave it a try, but like, i will never convince anyone like leave your nine to five. Was it the best thing that happened to me? Absolutely. But like my journey isn't going to be everyone else's journey, but truly like you have to love what you do. And I have friends that have a nine to five and they love it.
00:21:22
Speaker
And like, you will never see me being like, quit your nine to five. Let's make a digital product. No, like if they come to me and they ask, of course I would share everything I know, but like, you just have to find what makes you happy and do that.
00:21:33
Speaker
Yeah. That is such a great point. I have a question about analytics and figuring out what is working. Do you just use the built-in tools in Instagram to track like Can you track this post spread in this many sales for this product all through Instagram? Tell me more about that.
00:21:49
Speaker
So if you're going to track sales through something, you would need to have special links that they're making a sale from in order to know. So depending on where you sell your digital product, you would just have to kind of know the analytics on that thing. So you can't just use Instagram for that product. which is kind of a bummer. But like I said, depending on like where you sell, you should be able to see you could like create different links. Like maybe this is the only link that is going on this reel.
00:22:16
Speaker
I'm using many chat call to action for it. And then they get that link. I know that those conversions came from that. But again, it'll be so different based on where you are selling your digital product and kind of the tracking that that platform has.
00:22:29
Speaker
It's so hard to figure out exactly where everything is coming from. But it's cool that you know that so many of our sales are coming from Instagram. Like that's just impressive. Yeah. Well, I think I know even more so because that's the main place that I market and we're working on having, so have a podcast too. So now we're working on trying to have like special links for the podcast.
Influencer Marketing and Community Building
00:22:50
Speaker
So I'm knowing like what's converting from a podcast, what's converting from Instagram and just kind of like knowing, cause it is like, you do need to be able to track and figure it out, but it's kind of complicated.
00:23:02
Speaker
Okay. Shifting questions a little bit. Do you think it's worth it for small businesses to work with influencers? I know that that had a huge rise several years ago. Have you tried that? you think that's effective? i feel like that kind of piggybacks off of maybe the UGC a little bit because sometimes like those companies are going to an influencer, right?
00:23:19
Speaker
To create those posts. Yeah. So are you talking like physical product companies or digital? Which type of Yeah, either one. thing So if you have a physical product, I think it's like a totally different ballgame. I do think working with affiliates and influencers, I do think like affiliates that get something from sharing it, but it's more organically shared. Like I feel like that's what I buy through more so than like an advertisement than someone is selling.
00:23:46
Speaker
And then when it comes to digital products, 100% use affiliates. Like Have an affiliate program if you can so that people who naturally love your product are going to talk about it. They get a little kickback.
00:23:58
Speaker
You get some because I do feel like influencer marketing, don't get me wrong. It's not dead. 100% not dead. But I do think that people are starting to be like, oh, wait, what?
00:24:08
Speaker
it doesn't feel as sincere anymore. because I do feel like influencer marketing has taken a turn where it is just like, it just doesn't feel as organic. And I think a lot of that is the brands. I will see some briefs from brands where they're like, show the product in the first three seconds and say XYZ. And I'm like, of course, it's going to perform bad for this big influencer because it's not authentic to how she would naturally show up. So if you're a physical product brand,
00:24:34
Speaker
and you want the most like bang for your buck, my opinion would be to do affiliate marketing, have an affiliate program so that every day normal people are able to share about your product in an authentic way. right And then I think with influencer marketing, I do think ongoing things work better than just like randomly plucking people and be like, talk about our product once and pay all this money.
00:24:57
Speaker
i would rather see it, you know, on someone that consistently talks about a product has actually used it, enjoys it, things like that. And then as far as digital products, again, having an affiliate program where yeah the people who have actually purchased your product and can talk about it in a way that they've actually used it and enjoy it.
00:25:16
Speaker
I think that goes so much farther than influencer marketing. Yeah. I think that when you see an influencer and they're on this like fancy vacation and it's like, this was clearly sponsored and clearly paid for.
00:25:27
Speaker
It doesn't feel quite as authentic as if they had just gone there themselves and shared about how much they loved this trip. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Can you talk a little bit about Instagram algorithm changes? do you feel like those have impacted you at all?
00:25:42
Speaker
Or do you like in creating a strong community, you can kind of just not worry about those as much? I have a hard time with this question because, yes, I know that there are like changes to what Instagram is like pushing and what they're doing with the algorithm.
00:25:56
Speaker
But in the end, I feel like when you're just posting for the algorithm, it's not it's not going to end well. Like, obviously, yes, you have to keep in mind, like, what is the algorithm pushing right now? And I'm actually interviewing Brock Johnson on my podcast.
00:26:11
Speaker
I think it's coming out next week on the algorithm and just kind of like talking about that. But my thing is always follow what your audience wants. over the algorithm. And I think that's what I've done.
00:26:22
Speaker
And have my views taken a hit? Like, absolutely. Everybody's has, but my sales haven't because I built a business that is much more dependent on my people rather than the algorithm.
00:26:34
Speaker
And that's the first thing you need to do is make sure that you're not just following the algorithm. But I have seen like a huge shift in how the content is like where it's getting pushed when you post it And I don't have like my final analysis on it yet because I do feel like there's still they're still changing things. But I will say it's starting to feel like they are trying to have more of a TikTok algorithm.
00:26:58
Speaker
than Instagram algorithm, which is more based on like what the users want.
Adapting to Algorithm Changes
00:27:03
Speaker
And so again, like leaning into what your audience likes and just not putting as much weight on like likes and comments and views and things like that, because your views don't pay the bills.
00:27:15
Speaker
and right And I know it's so easy to kind of like get ah discouraged when you don't get the normal amount of views. But to me, it's just data. Anytime I have a post that doesn't do as well as I thought it would, I'm like, okay, cool. like Maybe I just need to word it differently, whatever. like i'll I'll try again next time. So I'm still, again, trying to figure out kind of where they're shifting things in the algorithm. And it is it is it is different. like It's not the same.
00:27:41
Speaker
And I feel like they're trying to even the playing field with like smaller creators and larger creators and pushing things out in a way that's more like the content is good, so we'll push it out as opposed to, oh, you have a huge audience, let's push that out. So I think it's a good thing what they're trying to do, but I know that like it's scary when there's an unknown.
00:28:00
Speaker
It's scary to have your views plummet. and You're like, Oh my God, everybody hates me. No, they don't hate you. yeah It's going to be okay. And it's taken me a few years to really like feel comfortable when things shift and pivot.
00:28:13
Speaker
And anytime this happens, I just take it as an opportunity to try new things. Try something new. See if something else works. I've been posting on threads a lot more. I'm working on like an Instagram series. I haven't started it yet, but a new series. like Just try something different when this happens. And The other thing I will say is having reoccurring revenue in your business.
00:28:33
Speaker
Moments like this make it so important to where your business, like if things shift, it's not going to tank your entire business that month. So thinking of ways that how can you have some sort of reoccurring thing in your business, whether that be like a software that you're an affiliate for that you get commissions every month Or whether it be you have a community or a subscription or a membership, anything where you're able to have that like reoccurring that when the algorithm does kind of go up and down, because it's always going to be like this, like they're always going to be changing. They're always going to be updating it.
00:29:04
Speaker
And having reoccurring revenue in your business really helps you kind of take a breather when this happens. I think that makes such a big difference. And i think that's what allows people to stick it out and last years in their business and have the success versus the people who are just like a flash in the pan maybe like sell a lot of something one day and then they're just gonna go
Tips for Selling on Instagram
00:29:23
Speaker
on.
00:29:23
Speaker
Absolutely, there's so much momentum for the people that just keep going even during the slower times. It will show who kept going and who decided, no, I'm just gonna give up on Instagram.
00:29:35
Speaker
It will show. Yeah. Okay, last question. If somebody is interested in just getting started with selling on Instagram, can you share like two or three tips for them?
00:29:45
Speaker
Absolutely. So one thing I always say is that you have to remember that when it comes to sales, connection happens first and the sale happens second. And I think sometimes we try to skip the first part where we're like, no, no, no, I just want to sell like my offer so good.
00:29:59
Speaker
And it's like, well, why is somebody buying from you? And so especially if you're trying to build a personal brand, this is something that I kind of in the beginning didn't know I was doing it It's just my personality to share like the personal stuff too. But now I understand like I understand why I have such a tight knit community.
00:30:15
Speaker
it's because I shared connection content. I shared hard things. I shared the good and I shared the bad. like It wasn't like I just showed up and like, oh, I did X, Y, Z. Oh, I did this. No, like I shared everything.
00:30:28
Speaker
And when I say everything, I'm not saying like I shared everything in my personal life. I'm saying like I shared everything from my journey. So it is a longer runway when you're selling, like doing the connection first.
00:30:38
Speaker
But in the long run, you will create these like ride or die customers that keep coming back for more when you have the connection happening first. Number two is that when you're selling, it's totally normal for content or stories or things to not do as well when you're selling, right? Like sometimes reel that you're selling in won't perform as well. And I don't care. Like I'm fine with that because I know my intention was not to go viral for that or not even viral. Like going viral is never my intention, but my intention was to like hit the people that I know need this And if it doesn't go to thousands of other people, that's fine with me. But something I find that works really well, especially for Instagram stories, is when you're going to sell, kind of starting your story with something personal that you either like need their opinion on, or maybe it's like,
00:31:24
Speaker
a hot take. And when I say hot take, I don't mean it needs to be like something dramatic, but maybe just like sharing something that's personal, either in your business or in your life, and you're asking them for feedback, right? So you're making that connection. And then in the next slide, you're selling something that you can somehow connect to that first story.
00:31:42
Speaker
It doesn't have to be a huge connection. Like one of my friends will talk like she has two little boys and she will talk about like how... One of them like played with their poop and it was on the wall or something is like really gross, like a little boy thing to do.
00:31:54
Speaker
And then her next story is for the laundry detergent she uses that she's an affiliate for and how she got the stain out with that product. You know what i mean? Like it makes sense, but she made the connection first.
00:32:06
Speaker
and then went into the sale. And I think that is missed a lot of the time. People go directly into the sale, but there's no runway. There's no storytelling. So anytime you can tell a story first and make that connection and then sell, you will have much better results.
00:32:22
Speaker
Again, it will make your runway for the sale a little bit longer, but but it will create those ride or die buyers that will keep coming back for more. And that's what you want a business. Your goal should never to be to sell one thing to one person once.
00:32:36
Speaker
That's going to be a really hard business, especially if you're promoting on social media. There's so many ups and downs on social media. So My goal has always been to create those ride or die customers that I keep creating new things for them or not even new things. I create offers that continue to serve them so that I am not just focusing on getting a ton of new customers. I am focusing also on serving the ones that have been here since the beginning.
00:32:58
Speaker
Yeah, that's great. If somebody's interested in learning from you about how to saw an Instagram, where can they find you? I'm on Instagram, Abigail Pugh, just my name. And then if you're, if you have a digital product already, or you're in the process of creating one, I have a community called Rich Girl Community.
00:33:17
Speaker
And it's such a great place to be. I love it. Yeah. But basically, there's trainings in there already. But then you get weekly prompts from me that basically tell you what to post to sell and to connect.
00:33:29
Speaker
And then it has story prompts, it has one email prompt. So basically, the beginning week, you can take like, two to three hours, create your content, create your email, get your stories ready for the week, and then just have those ready to post for the week.
00:33:42
Speaker
because I feel like people get so caught up in what to post, what do I sell? How do I go on my email list with Instagram? How do I sell on Instagram? How do I connect? And that's like what my brain was born to do. I love it. So inside the community, you get those prompts every single week.
00:33:58
Speaker
We also have weekly calls together. And maybe by the time this airs, my bot will be ready. I have a rich girl bot coming and she will be in inside. Yes, she's a sheep. She will be inside for my community only where it's going to help you insert all your information into all the templates to make it go even faster. So I'm very, very, very excited about that. Basically, my goal is to make creating content on Instagram and selling and connecting in your email list so easy because I'm the expert at that so that you don't have to be. Yeah.
00:34:33
Speaker
And I love it. it's It's like my favorite thing to do. So rich girl community. i love it. Favorite place to be. And then I have a few other resources. Like if you haven't launched a digital product and you want to launch it, I have something called rich girl launch.
00:34:45
Speaker
Rich girl is kind of like my slogan for my products. I did a rich girl reels first and fell in love with like the naming of it. So that's where kind of like the rich girl naming comes from.
00:34:56
Speaker
But yeah, a few other, I have a rich girl stories, few other things. That's awesome. And we'll include links to all of those too. So I want to try your bot. That sounds amazing. And I'm so impressed that you built a bot.
00:35:08
Speaker
Oh, I didn't build it. I hired somebody else to help me. but You had the idea for it and you probably had to give them a lot of
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:35:14
Speaker
details. No? Yeah. Yeah. We have our day to build it. So she has like all my like my information and then like we have a day where we build it together and basically we're giving it my framework's so much information on like what I teach and how I teach it so that they can essentially go in, train it on their information and then use my prompts every week to say, hey, help me come up with something for this prompt. Like if they can't think of it, because the prompts are you do have to insert your information ah into them, obviously, but they just make it so much faster. So I'm hoping with the bot that it just makes things so easy for people because that's my goal.
00:35:54
Speaker
Yeah. And I'm cutting back on the overwhelm. That sounds perfect. I think it's going to be so popular. So that's so cool that you have like had that idea and that you're putting that together for people. Yeah. Very excited.
00:36:05
Speaker
Yeah. Well, thank you for being here. You had so many like helpful tips. I feel like I learned a lot and I'm excited for people if you are new to them to go check you out on Instagram and check out all these resources that you've shared. So thank you.
00:36:17
Speaker
Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. Thanks for tuning in to the Branson Book Show. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing, leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, and sharing this episode with others.
00:36:29
Speaker
For show notes and other resources, head on over to DavianKrista.com.