244 - Back on Instagram after 3 years: Month 1 recap + Month 2 plan

[00:00:00] Caroline: Welcome to Growing Steady, the show where we help online creators like you build a calm business, one that's predictable, profitable, and peaceful. We're your hosts, Jason and Caroline Zook, and we run Wandering Aimfully, an unboring business coaching program, and Teachery, an online course platform for designers. Join us each week as we help you reach your business goals without sacrificing your well being in the process. Slow and steady is the way we do things around here, baby.

[00:00:29] Jason: All right, cinnamon rollers, that's you. Let's get into the show. Welcome back to the podcast. There we go. Got it. Did an intro. Now we can move into the actual talking things. Two prambles.

[00:00:45] Caroline: Two prambles.

[00:00:47] Jason: Number one, you have a power pramble.

[00:00:50] Caroline: A power, oh.

[00:00:51] Jason: I have a coffee pramble.

[00:00:52] Caroline: Okay.

[00:00:53] Jason: Where would you like to start?

[00:00:54] Caroline: Coffee pramble.

[00:00:54] Jason: Coffee pramble. Okay. So my mom and her husband just visited us for 10 days.

[00:01:00] Caroline: Yes.

[00:01:00] Jason: And in preparation for that, I, as the house barista, had to be ready to make more than what my little V60 pour over situation makes every morning.

[00:01:11] Caroline: Which is two cups.

[00:01:12] Jason: It's, it's a carafe that only holds about 600 mils, if we're being precise. It's 562 milliliters of water.

[00:01:19] Caroline: And we are.

[00:01:19] Jason: And we are. And, and making a second carafe of V60 is hard. They also get up at a different time than us. So you could see where this is going. Like, as the house barista, I had to come up with a solution that would be ready for everybody.

[00:01:30] Caroline: Really stressful.

[00:01:31] Jason: Now you might be thinking, well, Jason, you could, you know, have like, a bigger thing. Like a Chemex could be a thing. But again, they're going to get up earlier than we are clanking around. And they actually do make pour over pretty often. So, like, they could have done that. But I was like, you know what? I just think, like, a regular drip coffee brewer is the solution. And we already had one at our house. As you may know from listening to this podcast episode, our house came furnished and one of the many... The kitchen had, like, some appliances. It didn't...

[00:02:00] Caroline: One of which was a drip coffee maker.

[00:02:01] Jason: Didn't have a Ninja CREAMi, but that's okay. And so I pulled it out four days in advance, and I started using it every morning for our coffee. And I came to a conclusion.

[00:02:11] Caroline: Go on, tell us. You should have led with like a little cliffhanger, like...

[00:02:16] Jason: No, I don't have to do a hook. This isn't a YouTube video or an Instagram reel. It's a podcast. People are here for the long distance running. 

[00:02:22] Caroline: And we love you for it. Thank you so much for listening.

[00:02:24] Jason: Here is the realization.

[00:02:25] Caroline: Yes.

[00:02:26] Jason: 97% of people that use home automatic drip coffee brewers, they're just not measuring their coffee and their water. So this is why their coffee turns out crappy.

[00:02:37] Caroline: Interesting.

[00:02:38] Jason: This is why we...

[00:02:39] Caroline: You think it's the measuring?

[00:02:39] Jason: Absolutely. 100%. Because how good is pour over coffee?

[00:02:43] Caroline: Delicious.

[00:02:44] Jason: Best coffee you've ever had in your entire life?

[00:02:45] Caroline: And you think it's because it's the measuring?

[00:02:47] Jason: I don't think. I know it's because. Because coffee is just a science. It's like there's a certain extraction point that the bean can handle with water and heat. And when you overdo it or when you underdo it, which is what happens in a brewer when you're just throwing tablespoons of grounds. And also grounds that have been sitting in a, in a bag or a canister for weeks, those are stale, so they lose all of the flavor of coffee. So this is my big takeaway and my pramble here that I am here to share with everybody. If you are a person who, like, I can't fuss with pour over coffee. And maybe you use, actually more appropriate, if you use an automatic dripper at home right now.

[00:03:23] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:03:23] Jason: My challenge to you, I would love to challenge you to do this is just start with one thing. First thing, get a little scale, a little kitchen scale. You might already have one. And just measure out the amount of grounds that you put in your filter, your little filter area, your little cup thing, and then do times 16 of that to the water that you pour into the...

[00:03:43] Caroline: So your ratio should be 1 parts coffee to 16 parts water?

[00:03:47] Jason: Yes. This is like the golden ratio.

[00:03:49] Caroline: That's the golden ratio.

[00:03:49] Jason: It's actually 15.6, but 16 is fine. We can just do 16. Just try that for a week just with how you do it now. 

[00:03:57] Caroline: And see if it improves your coffee experience.

[00:03:58] Jason: The second thing to do...

[00:03:59] Caroline: Okay, that we're layering.

[00:04:00] Jason: Would be to grind your beans the morning of. Now, that's gonna require having a grind grinder. So that's. I understand a lot of people don't do that, but I'm just here to tell you, as a house barista, someone who has been making pour over coffee for how long now?

[00:04:13] Caroline: Ask yourself.

[00:04:14] Jason: Fifteen years. Like our entire relationship, essentially. Maybe not 15.

[00:04:17] Caroline: It's not 15.

[00:04:18] Jason: Sean Ely introduced us to pour over coffee. We were Starbucks boys for a couple years. 10 plus years, I've been making pour over coffee every day. That is 3,600 plus cups of coffee. I care about this. You can get a great cup through an automatic dripper. You just need to measure correctly.

[00:04:36] Caroline: Thank you so much for this public service announcement.

[00:04:39] Jason: I think there are going to be a couple people who listen to this that use automatic drippers and they're going to go, fine, I will try this. I'll get a really simple scale or whatever. You can get a scale from a grocery store. You can order it on Amazon.

[00:04:48] Caroline: You should turn this tip into an Instagram reel. It would do.

[00:04:51] Jason: And just 16 to 1 on your ground coffee to water ratio. And I know a lot of people already have like their watercraft filled up in the back of the thing and it just like uses a certain amount of cups. I don't think that actually works well because it's not measuring it perfectly. So, like I would pour in the exact amount of water, it would use all of it and the coffee came out just as good as my pour over coffee does every morning. All right, that's my public service announcement and my preamble top. I'm sorry if it felt like a TEDx talk, but I was here for it. Also, do you notice I said TEDx, not TED. Certainly wasn't a TED talk.

[00:05:20] Caroline: No, a TEDx talk. Thank you for sharing so much. My preamble top is. I just thought maybe a few people listening would have seen the news about the big blackout, the power outage that we had.

[00:05:33] Jason: Would they though?

[00:05:34] Caroline: I know.

[00:05:35] Jason: This is something we learned.

[00:05:36] Caroline: Across Portugal and Spain, but very funny enough, it was a really big deal here. And like my family back in the States, like, clearly the... It only hit like, European news. I mean, it, like, I know it hit US News, but not very hard.

[00:05:50] Jason: Yeah. I mean, my mom didn't text me, I think for like three or four hours left after the power went. And I don't fault her for it because how would she know?

[00:05:56] Caroline: Of course. But yeah, same with my family. Like, it was like two days and they were like, oh, like, did, did the power go out? And it's just really funny now living in Europe and realizing, like, how European news just like, does not permeate the bubble of American news. It's very fascinating to witness because it was a very big deal here.

[00:06:14] Jason: Yeah. I was also going to say the funniest part to me. We were talking to our Portuguese teacher about this earlier today was not only did people not know, but then they were like, did it affect you too? And we're like... 

[00:06:24] Caroline: Right? They were like...

[00:06:25] Jason: Just so everyone's aware. It was every household in Portugal.

[00:06:29] Caroline: It was...

[00:06:29] Jason: Every household in Spain.

[00:06:31] Caroline: Country of Portugal.

[00:06:32] Jason: Like, there's no one was safe. It's just the entire. I mean, unless you're, like, off grid or you have, like...

[00:06:36] Caroline: It was.

[00:06:37] Jason: That...

[00:06:37] Caroline: We don't have to go through all of it. I will say... 

[00:06:40] Jason: Go. Just take them through the disaster movie moment of it all, because that was.

[00:06:44] Caroline: We didn't panic when the power went out, but there was one moment that definitely felt like a disaster movie. And Jason and I watch a lot of disaster movies, so maybe that has something to do with it. But, you know, we started our day like any other. We're, like, doing our work and whatever. And then the power goes out. And the power.

[00:06:59] Jason: It's like 11:30.

[00:06:59] Caroline: It's probably 11:30 in the morning, and the power has gone out, you know, a few times when it gets really windy or whatever. It's just sort of like the infrastructure, but, like, then it'll turn back on in a few minutes. And so we didn't think anything of it. But then we were in between tasks and... Oh, no, we were waiting for a call, is what we were about to get ready for a call.

[00:07:17] Jason: Yeah. It had been, like, 20 minutes, I think, because we were. We had like, the power went out.

[00:07:22] Caroline: Sure, sure, sure.

[00:07:22] Jason: And we're like, yeah, it'll come back on.

[00:07:23] Caroline: And so then. And so it had been off for a while. So then Jason goes on his phone because we still had service at that moment. Didn't have Internet. The Internet obviously went out. So you're on your phone, you're on cell service, and you see a news article that's like, no, no, no. It was the group chat. Yeah. So you got some pings from our neighborhood WhatsApp group.

[00:07:45] Jason: Yeah.

[00:07:46] Caroline: And people were like, you go ahead.

[00:07:49] Jason: Yeah. It was like, guys, powers out in your part of the neighborhood, too? Like, yeah. And then person who lives here but was in Lisbon for the day was like, it's also out here in Lisbon. And then a person who lives here but was in Madrid was like, it's also out in Madrid.

[00:08:00] Caroline: Okay. So that.

[00:08:01] Jason: That's when I went to the news article. 

[00:08:03] Caroline: And that's when you went to the news article. But the. That felt like the most.

[00:08:06] Jason: That was like.

[00:08:06] Caroline: That was the disaster movie moment.

[00:08:08] Jason: Of disaster movies.

[00:08:09] Caroline: Where you go, suddenly, this is not just like a local, like, anomaly. When you start hearing an entire country has lost power. You go. Your brain sort of goes to like.

[00:08:18] Jason: You're like, what's happening?

[00:08:20] Caroline: I don't like that.

[00:08:20] Jason: Of course. You know, then there's like, all of this spiral of, like, cyber attack and blah blah, whatever. And, like, you know. 

[00:08:26] Caroline: You and I did not speculate whatsoever. We were just like.

[00:08:28] Jason: Like, let's just let the chips fall where they may and, like, see what this is actually, like, what's going on here. Because also, Spain and Portugal are weird countries to, like, attack. Like, there's not a lot of advantage to these two countries. Like, I'm not going to get into geopolitical things, but I'm just saying, like, it'd be. It'd be a weird country to attack. We're just quiet and over in this little peninsula. 

[00:08:45] Caroline: Weird. Weird stuff's happening these days. So I get it. But, yeah, we are not jumped to conclusioners whatsoever. So anyway, it was an interesting day, to say the least. We definitely had a little bit. It was stressful at the beginning because we did have a couple of calls planned, and, like, I couldn't get in touch with the people, but once you know it's across the entire country, you go, yeah, if I. If we can't get in touch, they'll know it's because the power's out. 

[00:09:07] Jason: Yeah.

[00:09:07] Caroline: That was a little stressful. And then. And then there was this, like, second layer where then the cells. The cell service stopped working.

[00:09:15] Jason: Yeah. Because everyone was just like.

[00:09:17] Caroline: That was like a second wave of feeling kind of eerie because then you really are in the dark in terms of information. And so what did we do? We said, let's get outside and just walk around and see what other people are doing. We were kind of doing the mental math of, like, mentally, we were preparing for a week. We said, okay. 

[00:09:32] Jason: How long will all our cheese last is what we were thinking.

[00:09:35] Caroline: We were like, what if it's off for a week? We had also seen a few early reports that it could take up to a week. And. And like I said, things just don't get done quickly here in Portugal. And so I was like, I need to mentally brace for, for a week of no power. What's that look like? And Jason and I were both, like. We both, like, refused to brainstorm, like, what we were going to do for food. We were like, let's handle it tomorrow. So we just were handling it, like, one meal at a time. But all of our cooking equipment is electric.

[00:10:03] Jason: Yeah.

[00:10:03] Caroline: So we. And obviously, the fridge runs out, so we were going to run out of, like, the perishable stuff pretty quickly. But we went for a walk in our neighborhood. We talked to neighbors. 

[00:10:12] Jason: Also, yeah. I mean, we, we had plenty of cans of chickpeas, a bunch of ramen.

[00:10:16] Caroline: We were going to be fine.

[00:10:17] Jason: We're going to have some cold ramen. But, yeah, what I was going to point out as well, it was actually kind of fun to see. Now that we lived here for, like, two and a half years, we got messages from multiple people who were like, hey, if you need anything, my neighbor has a gas stove. Like, you can just drive... 

[00:10:30] Caroline: While the cell tower was still working. But, yeah, we had several of our Portuguese friends who were like, yeah, we've got gas over here. Like, come cook your food. Or, hey, are you guys okay? Or people in the neighborhood. We met our neighbors across the street that we've been meaning to meet for, like, two months since they moved in, and that seemed like a good time to them. And they're this lovely Irish couple. And I went on a walk with them, and that was really fun. A sunset walk. It was beautiful.

[00:10:52] Jason: I helped a neighbor whose friend flew into Lisbon that morning, and when all the flights got grounded because the power went out, he was stuck at the Lisbon airport because he had arrived, thankfully, but couldn't get out. Like, there were. It was just so much traffic. All the lights were down. Like, couldn't get an Uber. He literally walked, like, a mile and a half from the airport, got in a taxi, got the guy to drive him here, and then showed up on our street. And he was like, do you know who yenta is? And we're like, yeah, yeah, I can take. You know. So I, like, hopped in the car to, like, take a moment. 

[00:11:15] Caroline: When we went on our walk, I loved seeing all the. There's, like, this group of just, like, young people in our community. They're, like, early 20s, and they were all, like, sitting by their pool with, like, bucket hats and wine and just having a great time. And I was like, good for you guys. Like, I just. It is. It sounds so cliche. And obviously, we're speaking from a place of like, nothing catastrophic happened, you know, there. The power lights were out in Lisbon, so it's like, it's not. It's not safe. Like, it was chaotic, and...

[00:11:41] Jason: I mean. Thankfully, we weren't in that elevator that we went in with my mom and her husband to go to lunch in Lisbon. We could have been stuck there.

[00:11:47] Caroline: Oh, God, you're right. That big elevator. Yeah.

[00:11:49] Jason: Yeah.

[00:11:49] Caroline: We kept going. Like...

[00:11:51] Jason: I unlocked a couple new fears for you while all this...

[00:11:52] Caroline: You really did. You were like, think about if you were in a lift right now. And I was like, Jason. You're like, think about if you're giving birth right now. I was like, Jason.

[00:11:58] Jason: Hospitals have generators, though, so I feel like that would be okay and maybe.

[00:12:01] Caroline: I know you...

[00:12:02] Jason: Maybe the stress would help the baby come out. You know? 

[00:12:04] Caroline: That's not how that works.

[00:12:05] Jason: Oh, okay. 

[00:12:06] Caroline: But I know it would be fine. Like, I. But, like, certainly it's a stressful experience. You don't want the power going out.

[00:12:14] Jason: True.

[00:12:15] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:12:15] Jason: Yeah.

[00:12:15] Caroline: So a couple new fears unlocked on that front. But I will say, you know, it sounds cliche, but when things like that happen, these curveballs, these kind of, like, disaster moments or whatever, you do really, it does highlight the power of community.

[00:12:31] Jason: Yeah.

[00:12:31] Caroline: The beauty of helpful neighbors. 

[00:12:33] Jason: The lack of some type of, like, power system in our house to be able to make coffee in the morning because that was all I was thinking about was, like, the next morning, I was like, oh, we're just gonna not have coffee in the morning. Like, we don't have any way to grind the beans.

[00:12:44] Caroline: But it was nice. We. I. If you recall, it was on Monday. Like, I was pretty stressed in the morning, and I had this, like, forced day off where we sat by the pool, we played Scrabble, we played cards, we talked to neighbors, and it definitely changed my mood. So, again, very cliche. But the lack of technology turned out to be great.

[00:13:02] Jason: Yeah. All right. Those are our pramble tops. And now I'm going to let Carol take the wheel because this is going to be mostly her episode.

[00:13:09] Caroline: I'm excited for this one just because. Listen, those of you who've been listening for a long time will remember when we did our content bonanza and we had these, like, big plans to start making social content for Teachery and WAIM, and it just all crumbled before our eyes. It fell apart.

[00:13:24] Jason: Yeah.

[00:13:24] Caroline: And I remember during that time saying, none of this effort is going to be wasted. Like, you know, I. Learning some of the software and figuring out what works and whatever. And it's very funny to now pick up, like, a year later and see that effort pay off, because I'm back on social, and now I'm just very happy to be able to follow through on an experiment and report back to everyone.

[00:13:45] Jason: Yeah.

[00:13:46] Caroline: Because we can. We completed our experiment, so in case you're just catching up, we. After three years of being off Instagram, we decided a month ago to go back on Instagram and start creating content again. And, yeah, we just became very clear that we needed to go where people's attention was and do external marketing again. And so this episode is going to be a lot about just recapping how the month went, how it felt to be creating content, hopefully to inspire you. If you have been wanting to create more social content, but it just feels overwhelming or it feels noisy or you're in a complicated place with your relationship with social media, I hope it can give you some ideas.

[00:14:23] Jason: Yeah, one of the things I want to, like, I don't know, just kind of point out from, like, I'm coming from the sidelines of this. And so I, I just, I find it. And you could probably hear this in the episode that we did a couple months ago about, like, you know, are we going to come back to social media if we were going to, you know, do it? Like, you would pick Instagram, I would pick YouTube and, like, just kind of like talking through that. And I still don't know where I fall on the usefulness of Instagram in, like, today's day and age for business. Like, and not to just to gain vanity metrics of things. But I also. We haven't given the time to, like, fully test out a bunch of things. But I'm just, I'm. What I'm trying to, I guess, share is that I want to be the voice when we do these updates of the person who is still skeptical until proven otherwise. And I don't say that as like a. I don't want to do like an I told you so or anything like that. I just want to share from, like, I know we have a lot of listeners who are like, I don't want to be posting on Instagram. And I'm with you all, but I'm also thinking in 2025 and coming to the realization of, like, but where else are you going to go to have people find you? Because this is where everyone's spending all their time.

[00:15:27] Caroline: Well, I think that begs the point that there's sort of two separate things that you're saying there, which is two separate points. One is what you said about I still am skeptical about the impact that let's call it Instagram can have on, like, your actual business goals and let's just call it sales. The impact that Instagram can have on sales, of making money. Right. That's like one thing that you're introducing, but then a separate thing you're introducing is someone who is just like, I don't know if I want to be on these platforms. To me, those are two different thoughts. Because you can believe that Instagram has an impact on sales and has a positive impact on your business results and still decide it's not worth it, because I don't like being there. You could, you could be in both camps. You could say I don't like being there and I don't think it has an impact. I just fundamentally disagree with you in the, in the sense that there are people who are having significant impact, financial impact on their businesses by being on these platforms because they've cracked the code. That doesn't mean that every person is going to be able to crack the code. 

[00:16:32] Jason: Yeah.

[00:16:33] Caroline: That doesn't mean that every person is going to be willing to play the algorithm games that you have to play in order to crack the code. But my point is, just because we haven't cracked the code yet does not mean. And just because that means that there's not a financial impact on our business yet doesn't mean that as a platform it doesn't have the potential to do that. But you have to be on these platforms long enough to experiment to find a strategy that works for you in order to see the business results. 

[00:16:58] Jason: That I 100% believe. And I'm also like, I think the second month of experimentation that we're about to go into will really prove that point or disprove that point. Like, will we see.

[00:17:08] Caroline: Yeah, and I disagree. Like, I think that, I think.

[00:17:11] Jason: But you disagree with what?

[00:17:13] Caroline: I disagree with the idea that you can prove or disprove the point in two months.

[00:17:20] Jason: Oh, well, why, why do you disagree with that? Because I think, like, you can do a post purchase survey on a product and if something is selling and people say they're coming from Instagram, that proves that it was worth it. Like, that's proof of it to me to be able to quantify it.

[00:17:36] Caroline: I see. So what you're saying is because our month two strategy revolves around this launch that we're about to do, there's going to be a very direct tie to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So I'll take that point for sure. I thought you were saying, like, oh, we tried a strategy for one month, we're going to try a different strategy for month two, which we'll tell you about in this episode, because it's juicy. And so what I was gleaning from what you were communicating was like, and by the end of that, we'll have tried two different strategies and we'll know whether Instagram is useful for business. And it's like, I don't think that's how it works. I really think you have to buy in with like the notion that I believe people's attention is here, therefore.

[00:18:13] Jason: Yeah, that's. And that's the point. I was saying that, like, I'm coming around to, in the like 2025 of it all is like, this is where everyone's attention is. Everyone is in their phone, in these apps all day long. And so then to fight against that, because we've, we've been on the side of fighting against that for three years, essentially of like, there's another way. You can do it calm, you can do it. So. And yes, you can. But I just. What I'm, I guess, as the skeptic kind of coming around to is like, are you making it harder on yourself to not be where people are? And like, trying to do all these other things where, like, you're not kind of setting yourself up for success? Because that's not where people's attention is. It's the thing I go back to all the time of like, you know, we have Internet websites, but, like, people still want to spend money on billboards and like, yellow pages. And it's like, you got.

[00:18:58] Caroline: My question to you is just to be clear about where you stand, because I think these are two separate, slightly similar, but nuanced takes. Is your skepticism that Instagram can positively impact your bottom line as a business? That's what you're skeptical about, or are you skeptical, do you believe that it can, but you're skeptical about if it's worth it in order to, like, take the time to figure that out?

[00:19:24] Jason: Yeah, both.

[00:19:26] Caroline: Okay.

[00:19:26] Jason: Yeah.

[00:19:26] Caroline: How can it be both? Those are two contradictory things. Either do you believe that Instagram.

[00:19:32] Jason: I feel like I'm on trial. Go ahead.

[00:19:33] Caroline: Well, you should feel that way because you're not saying something clear. Do you believe that Instagram, like, being strategic, having a presence on Instagram has the power to affect your bottom line as a business, your sales, to positively impact your business results or not?

[00:19:51] Jason: Yeah, I believe that it does for sure. But what I'm really curious about... 

[00:19:55] Caroline: What part are you skeptical about?

[00:19:58] Jason: I'm skeptical at this point if there is any room left in the attention span of Instagram and what people are willing to spend money and attention on and what the algorithm pushes that's not just how to grow Instagram content. Like, and I do know that there are plenty of people who obviously run businesses that aren't just how to grow on Instagram, that make money on Instagram, but it's all I ever see. That's like, seems like anybody's ever succeeding with content wise.

[00:20:25] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:20:26] Jason: And whenever you hear podcasts, it's like, like, I listened to a podcast recently from Jake Glass on Creative Science and like, a guy who has an Instagram community, like, of course it's going to do well on Instagram because it's...

[00:20:35] Caroline: Because it's on Instagram.

[00:20:36] Jason: But like, I haven't actually heard of many other people in other podcasts who have said, like, oh, I have this business where I sell X, Y and Z and like it's working really well for me to promote Instagram. And again, I'm not saying that it doesn't work. I'm just saying I'm, I'm skeptical because I've been skeptical for years. And so that's kind of the like approach I'm bringing to the podcast for the listener who I think is also skeptical to kind of like, okay, I can see how like Jason's changing his mind because we have data to support that is actually doing something that shows that it's there.

[00:21:07] Caroline: Yeah, no, that does help clarify for me because I think, yeah, it is what you're saying is like, you know the potential is there. You're skeptical about the cost benefit analysis of like, if you're anyone other than somebody selling how to grow on Instagram, is it actually worth it? 

[00:21:21] Jason: 100%. 

[00:21:22] Caroline: Like by all means, if you want to create a course on how to grow on Instagram and then grow on Instagram and sell that there, we know that works. We see plenty of people doing that. You're more wondering like, is it possible for other people? So yeah.

[00:21:33] Jason: Which, which I think like, you know, and again, just to go back a couple of years, like we were on Instagram for years, we were creating content. We had a post purchase survey and 10% of our audience said they found us through Instagram. So that was data saying that people found us. I'm just wondering in 2025, three years later if, if it has become so saturated with offers and things and consumers are just so much savvier now and like.

[00:21:59] Caroline: Well, that is true.

[00:22:00] Jason: Yeah. And you know what, what they. And also the explosion of digital products through the COVID era is like people are just way less interested in buying things around business coaching digital products like that. That's just again, I'm not saying they are. They aren't. I just want to see how this next experiment goes. So again, just bringing my side of it to this. Anyway, that's even a lot more to the intro than I think anybody wanted. But I thought it was... 

[00:22:26] Caroline: Certainly more than I wanted that.

[00:22:28] Jason: I know, but I don't care that you didn't want it because I think the listener will find it interesting that we have like kind of interesting opposing.

[00:22:34] Caroline: You're basically, you're getting to be a fly on the wall of the conversations that we have in our business all the time, where I think sometimes we do come on this podcast and it, like, appears that we have, like... I mean, maybe people are laughing because maybe it doesn't. But, you know, we don't always agree. Like, we don't always have the same perspective on what is valuable in business or what tactics we want to use or what's a good use of our time. And so it's like what you just heard is what we're doing a lot of the time. We're going on walks, we're chatting over lunch. We're sort of, like, debating these ideas of, like, hey, I think this is a way forward. And here's why I vote for that path. And, no, here's why I vote for this other path. And so it's just, like, it's fun. We. That's the part that keeps it interesting for us as business partners is seeing it from either trailer's perspective and going like, well, none of us really knows. So let's just, like, experiment and try. 

[00:23:25] Jason: For sure. Do you want to talk about the recap of the first month of content on Instagram?

[00:23:30] Caroline: Let's get to the actual episode, not whatever that was. So let's talk about part one. Part one is just going to be recapping you on kind of what our strategy was, and I use the term strategy very loosely for month one. The only goal for the first month, for four weeks was just to get back in the habit of posting daily content. And I say daily. It was Monday through Friday. We were keeping it kind of low. And my goal again, like Jason said, I was really the person creating the content and kind of, like, leading the charge here. But I didn't want any real metrics on trying to have, like, a super fleshed out strategy because it was already so built up in my head. I just wanted to get comfortable, like, pressing post again and getting back into, like, getting back on the horse. Because, like, Instagram is a different place than it was three, four years ago. And so I just wanted to get back in the ecosystem. I wanted to not dread opening the app, which is kind of like where I was for the past three years. I wanted to feel comfortable being on there and seeing what was going on and not feeling overwhelmed. So I really took the pressure off. And my biggest goal was to experiment with different formats. I didn't want to have, like, a super clear strategy because I wanted to know, like, we basically varied it up of, like, do I like recording little talking head reels. Do I like doing this? This, this very, what I call low lift reel strategy, which is just B roll looping. You've seen this a lot probably on like business Instagram. It's just, it's a B roll clip, but it's like basically what a caption used to be, but it's on the text on the screen and... 

[00:25:00] Jason: Picture someone like sitting at their desk typing. And then the text on screen is.

[00:25:05] Caroline: What the word is, the message of the. Right, right. And so, you know, I have seen that working for people. And so I was like, well, hey, if this is going to get views...

[00:25:13] Jason: Pretty easy to do.

[00:25:14] Caroline: Pretty easy to do, like, great. So I wanted to experiment with that. I still wanted to pepper in some carousels in there because, you know, at the end of the day we are a teaching content. So I want to see how that did. And, and I just wanted real data from our audience to be able to pull from. So not just that, I also wanted to vary up some of our topics. So we had topics that were kind of, I mean, all of it was under this umbrella of AI because that is where we want to shift going next year of like this idea of human led AI and using AI as a tool to have a, you know, more spacious business. So a lot of it did tie into that, but it was like, okay, some content was AI prompt focused, some content was launch focused. Because again, if we were going to sell Calm Launch Formula on the back end of this Instagram audience, you want to attract people who are interested in launching. So it was that. It was a little bit of like just calm business lifestyle stuff. So that's topics, varied formats, varied topics. And then I wanted to try ManyChat, which you've seen, and just see what is the kind of engagement rate. 

[00:26:18] Jason: For people who don't know in case they haven't seen it.

[00:26:20] Caroline: In case you haven't seen, whenever you see on a post that says like, comment the word study and get my freebie or sign up for my newsletter or whatever, ManyChat is just this automation tool that allows people to comment keywords and it sends them DM automations, much like an email automation tool, but it's using DMs. And I just didn't know how any of that worked before and so I wanted to test it out. So what did we do? So as far as the process goes, I didn't try to batch a bunch of content. I just was going one week at a time. So I kind of had my little schedule. I was like, okay, I'm gonna do this type of reel on this day and this type of reel on a Friday.

[00:27:01] Jason: And how are you coming up with the content ideas?

[00:27:04] Caroline: I was in... Well, I was managing everything in Notion, but basically I was working with ChatGPT with like a little beginning of the week prompt that I had that was like, hey, so  ChatGPT started to know what my content schedule was like. I want to post like a 60 second talking head reel on Mondays about pivoting or whatever it is. And so at the top of the week when I would brainstorm ideas, I'd work with ChatGPT to come up with it. I also throughout the week would have these little sticky notes of like, oh, that's a good idea.

[00:27:30] Jason: That's something you see pop up.

[00:27:31] Caroline: Right. So I would integrate that in there and then together I would sort of pick out the ideas that I really wanted to do. And then I was creating them, you know, in, in not like in a super streamlined batching, like I sit down for three hours and I knock all them out. I was just sort of doing them in these like little spurts. Again, not trying to over systematize the process, which is I think what I learned from the content extra bonanza or whatever. 

[00:27:56] Jason: Yeah.

[00:27:57] Caroline: I was just really kind of like... Extravaganza. 

[00:27:59] Jason: Extravaganza.

[00:27:59] Caroline: Are you sure? Are you sure it wasn't a bonanza?

[00:28:02] Jason: No, not sure. Now that you say that. It's an extravaganza bonanza.

[00:28:06] Caroline: An extravaganza bonanza. So yeah, it was kind of a messy process, but it was feeling really good to just go with the flow and not try to overly batch things. And then I think the biggest test of the process was the fact that your family came to visit. And it's not like I had that week like fully planned out and it felt not intrusive whatsoever. Like I felt easy to keep up with my content schedule because of how many ideas I had backlogged. And of course ideas beget more ideas. So like once I got going, and this is what I want to share with anyone who wants to get back on Instagram, if you feel stuck on what to talk about, the second you get back on Instagram, you're going to have more such.

[00:28:44] Jason: Of course. 

[00:28:45] Caroline: And so that felt really good to feel like I could keep up. It was, it was a very like low lift process to keep up with. And yeah, I got more comfortable with the tools. So I started using, I was just using Instagram's native editing tools, which have gotten much better, which again, you don't know these things until you get back into the game. Learned a few things about, like, scheduled content. So I was using. I wasn't using Later or a scheduler or anything, because Instagram has native scheduling now. And very important tip. If you schedule a reel, you can no longer, like, edit the reel. You can only edit the caption. So I learned that the hard way. Had to keep things as drafts. And then I was like, really, once I was, like, really, really ready to schedule it, I would schedule it. 

[00:29:26] Jason: Yeah.

[00:29:26] Caroline: Just some inside baseball there, Jason.

[00:29:27] Jason: Oh, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

[00:29:29] Caroline: So the results, what happened? Yeah, no follower growth whatsoever. In fact, I think we lost three followers.

[00:29:37] Jason: So we did gain followers. We just also lost.

[00:29:39] Caroline: Yes, we did gain followers, which is going to happen. Like, if you go dormant for three years and then you start popping up again, people are gonna be like, I'm not interested anymore. So that was. That was always gonna happen. And again, we talked about, I think in an episode at the end of last year or beginning of the top of this year, we talked about trends. And one of them is just, I think followers are going away. And it was more kind of about reach. So we were getting on, like, on average, we get about a thousand views per reel.

[00:30:05] Jason: And do you know what the most viewed reel was?

[00:30:09] Caroline: Did you look it up?

[00:30:10] Jason: Yeah, you can.

[00:30:11] Caroline: Well, I know what the most.

[00:30:12] Jason: Skip the viral one.

[00:30:13] Caroline: Skip the viral one?

[00:30:13] Jason: Yeah, the viral one is the one that we post. You posted on your personal account. And then we reposted on the business account.

[00:30:18] Caroline: Yeah. Which, by the way, the one in our personal account had 5 million views. 

[00:30:22] Jason: Yeah.

[00:30:23] Caroline: We posted on our business account and it got 7,000 views.

[00:30:25] Jason: Yeah, exactly.

[00:30:26] Caroline: So that's just funny. That just tells you, like, so much of this is just out of your hands.

[00:30:29] Jason: Yeah. So there are three in contention for the top. Do you know which one it is?

[00:30:34] Caroline: Is it the myth one?

[00:30:35] Jason: It is...

[00:30:36] Caroline: Like, stop, stop. 

[00:30:38] Jason: It's close. It's actually the first one that you posted.

[00:30:42] Caroline: Oh, just the, like, we're back one.

[00:30:43] Jason: Yeah.

[00:30:43] Caroline: Well, that one's an anomaly because I think people are just excited that we were back.

[00:30:46] Jason: Yeah. But it is funny. Like, that one and the myth one is like. I mean, it's like, you know, 40 views difference. So 3,700 views for those two. And then you had one more that I thought was a fun idea, which is the one of me climbing the hill and you're, you know, behind me.

[00:30:59] Caroline: That was kind of like a silly...

[00:31:00] Jason: Was kind of close to that.

[00:31:02] Caroline: So we did 20 total reels and four carousels. And you asked on here in the notes, you said, did I have a favorite piece of content from the month? My favorite piece of content is actually the piece of content that got the most ManyChat opt ins.

[00:31:18] Jason: Okay, which one was that?

[00:31:19] Caroline: And this was the carousel. That was. I did a carousel. This was completely off the cuff. This wasn't even on my content schedule. But I had this morning where I was really overwhelmed and I was feeling stressed out and I went to ChatGPT and I wrote a prompt to help me work through my overwhelm and kind of like help me prioritize what was on my plate. And I always, I'm doing this all the time. I'm using ChatGPT for all kinds of things. But I realized, oh, someone might find this valuable, just this prompt. And it's, and it's an unconventional way to use ChatGPT because you always see people who are like, brainstorming with it and doing different things. But people do forget, like, you can use it as like a mindset tool and like to help you get through roadblocks. Not as a therapist, but just as like a friend who's like, hey, have you thought about approaching this from a new angle? And so I just did this like, very simple storytelling carousel of like telling people I was overwhelmed and then sharing the prompt, et cetera.

[00:32:17] Jason: Also, I think you did six or seven carousels. I kind of draw.

[00:32:21] Caroline: Oh, okay.

[00:32:21] Jason: I want to give you credit.

[00:32:22] Caroline: Thank you. 

[00:32:23] Jason: Yeah.

[00:32:23] Caroline: And that ended up being the. And then I created like a little one pager freebie where you could get the prompt. And I set up a ManyChat automation, and that was the ManyChat automation that got the most opt ins, which I thought was so interesting. And I think probably the most saves.

[00:32:40] Jason: Yeah.

[00:32:40] Caroline: Of any of our.

[00:32:41] Jason: Yeah. Which is just so interesting because, you know, you kind of hear this all the time, but it's hard to like, kind of plan for it, which is to create content that feels the most relatable.

[00:32:52] Caroline: Right.

[00:32:52] Jason: And, and it's, it's, it's a difficult, like, like lightning in a bottle to me. Like, it's hard to catch.

[00:32:58] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:32:58] Jason: And I think that sometimes the, the only way that that actually happens is just by you have a plan for your content and you, you want it to be relatable and like, that's the goal. But it doesn't happen until you have like a moment that's like, oh, this is like really relatable.

[00:33:12] Caroline: And by the way, the viral reel of the desk thing on mine that was a lightning in a bottle moment where I just after lunch was like, this is hysterical. Both of or no, you were.

[00:33:22] Jason: No, I. I sat down. Yeah, I sat down. I was like, you know what got it for me was your iPad turned around the wrong way. And I was like, I am recording this. Also your remote on a napkin. Like there just were so many things.

[00:33:31] Caroline: Anyway, I think that is a good bit, a huge lesson. Have a content calendar but go off script like do. And this is why I don't think the approach of batching a month at a time is ever going to get you the super relatable content because it's just, it's not in the moment. So.

[00:33:46] Jason: But if you're, if you have figured out the type of content for the type of person for your specific topic that works and you can batch it, then by all means batch.

[00:33:56] Caroline: But I think, yeah, I think it's both.

[00:33:58] Jason: But I think a great point here is as a skeptic is that when you're in the beginning and the like the get going experimentation part of this is you can't just batch a whole bunch of things and just like think you figured it out. You have to be open to the curiosity of what shows up and what works well.

[00:34:16] Caroline: Totally like stay open. And that parlays into this which is I still think like, yes, reels are being prioritized in the algorithm as across all things because short form video. But I still think having a strategy that incorporates video and carousels is important because as we see carousels get so much less views but they get more like engagement and saves and opt ins. So I just think like it's a good, good to have a mix, I think.

[00:34:43] Jason: Yeah.

[00:34:45] Caroline: And if we weren't doing reels every single day this month, that's a preview of our strategy, then I would do carousels and I've even thought about like peppering in some carousels that are kind of like the behind the scenes of like making the reels. But I think that's advanced stuff for later on. 

[00:35:00] Jason: Okay. 

[00:35:01] Caroline: So basically, yeah, our, our strategy with month one was just to like get momentum and get started, like not be stuck anymore. If you're curious about the ManyChat of it all, we had 68 opt ins and that just means like people who opted in to get the freebies.

[00:35:19] Jason: Yeah. So just because like I feel like an idiot in this stuff. So I like to share it from my perspective just so everyone else can relate. When we say we're using ManyChat, what you're setting up is an automation in the Instagram DM that is not necessarily subscribing someone to a list. It is saying a word that then sends them a link to a thing like a Notion page in our example and hoping that they do something with that thing. What it's not doing is every time someone comments, automatically signing them up to an email list. 

[00:35:47] Caroline: No. And you can.

[00:35:49] Jason: Yes. I just wanted to be clear about when we say opt ins here.

[00:35:52] Caroline: Exactly. And you can. And so like that would be a tweak that I would try in the future was like, okay, let now let's do a month where you only have people get the freebie if they...

[00:36:04] Jason: Enter their email. 

[00:36:05] Caroline: Enter their email. What I was doing was more of like a slippery funnel approach where people are on Instagram, they want to stay on Instagram. I wanted it to be like a mobile first experience where they didn't have to like send me their email, get it in their inbox, you know what I'm saying?

[00:36:19] Jason: Yeah.

[00:36:20] Caroline: Especially because we were testing out basically soft selling in the freebies. So we were having call outs to a special discount code for some of our low price products in, in those freebies. And I just wanted to know would anyone take advantage of those offers? Right. And the answer is we didn't have enough volume to really test that theory.

[00:36:40] Jason: So 68 total opt ins is what you said. But not a single direct sale...

[00:36:45] Caroline: From this off sell. Yes. And not that I, if, if it was, it was like one, it was like very low. The, the sales that we did get kind of offhandedly were from when I set all this up. I changed our newsletter call out to our two products to be more direct and we did get, we do get sales every Monday when we send out the newsletter.

[00:37:05] Jason: Yeah.

[00:37:05] Caroline: So power of newsletter still there.

[00:37:07] Jason: Yep.

[00:37:07] Caroline: But maybe that is further proof that you just. We need a strategy where it's like we're pushing Instagram to newsletter. Exactly. So but yeah, so I basically set up, let's see, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 automations which was easy once I did one or two because I could just duplicate them in ManyChat. And I had 1, 2, 3, 4 like mini guides that were just like think Google Docs. But they were just notion one pagers that were public pages that people would get the link to when they opted in. Now something interesting is like you have to consider how many posts I actually included the call out to. Because when you think about it like you know, a post a day for four weeks, that's 20 posts. I mean we posted more than that. But like that's not a ton of opportunities to really get eyeballs on it. So for example, some of these I only included in one post.

[00:38:00] Jason: Yeah.

[00:38:01] Caroline: So it's like you really miss the mark to see if that can drum up. But I do think it's interesting like.

[00:38:05] Jason: Yeah, you don't know how effective the specific opt in thing is when you only have one post about it.

[00:38:12] Caroline: Exactly.

[00:38:12] Jason: So it's like if we made five posts about like...

[00:38:15] Caroline: Could have been a dud.

[00:38:15] Jason: Exactly. About like gaining momentum and there were five different ways to kind of like share that you, you could find one that worked really well. So yeah, I think if anything, like, you know, this is an interesting example that also just shows you that specific piece of data which is like, don't give up when you post one thing and then like you only get a few opt ins, it's like... 

[00:38:33] Caroline: You really need volume. And I think this is actually why people are saying like post more than once a day. I think because what they're really saying is like, like it's all an experiment and you want to give yourself more reps to like test these things out.

[00:38:46] Jason: Yeah. And I also think that the past five years have changed the consumption habits on social media.

[00:38:52] Caroline: 100%.

[00:38:52] Jason: So we went from like, you know, someone posts one thing a day on Instagram and it's enough to satiate us and we're like, oh, that's a cool thing that I saw. But now it's like you need a hundred things just to like feel like you got any. 

[00:39:03] Caroline: Feel alive.

[00:39:04] Jason: Good dopamine.

[00:39:05] Caroline: Which by the way, we're not saying that's a good thing.

[00:39:07] Jason: No, exactly. It's just, it's, it's just what's changed.

[00:39:09] Caroline: Here we are.

[00:39:10] Jason: Okay, so that was the first month. That was a good experiment. Before we...

[00:39:16] Caroline: Oh, I did. I don't know if you care about the numbers. We didn't say anything. But that, that overwhelm guide which was the, the carousel post of when I was overwhelmed and I'd shared the AI prompt, that freebie got 22 opt ins.

[00:39:27] Jason: 22 opt ins.

[00:39:28] Caroline: And we're only talking like probably under a thousand like views reached. So like that was pretty good.

[00:39:32] Jason: Yeah. So yeah, 68 total opt ins. Overwhelmed, 22 was the highest. And then a couple more were near it and then a couple were just smaller. I was going to end this as wrapping up part one before we get into part two. What are we doing next is how did you feel about the first month?

[00:39:50] Caroline: Surprisingly good. Didn't feel stressed out. Didn't feel like I was on a hamster wheel. Really loved the creativity of it. Like, I just felt like I was back in the game and I was having fun experimenting. I was having fun trying different things. I love learning new tools. I was having fun, like, learning the ins and outs of the Instagram editor again. And, yeah, I. I felt surprisingly good about it, and it kind of ignited a part of my creativity that hasn't been there in a while.

[00:40:19] Jason: Yeah.

[00:40:20] Caroline: So I really enjoyed that.

[00:40:21] Jason: You're ready to ignite. So would you call yourself a content creator?

[00:40:25] Caroline: No.

[00:40:25] Jason: Okay. All right, well, let's get into part two, because this is the fun stuff of what we're doing next, which is, I think, very interesting because it's the type of content I love. So I'm excited for it.

[00:40:35] Caroline: Yes. So setting the scene. I am in my little reflect and project mode, where I'm looking back at all the data from the past month and nothing, really...

[00:40:45] Jason: Because, again, the expectations were not for something to go viral, for whatever. It was just like, get in the saddle of creation, like, get comfortable.

[00:40:52] Caroline: But what became hard was you look at the data and it's like, nothing really spiked. Nothing was a real anomaly. Right. It was like. Maybe the closest thing I can say is, like, that. That storytelling carousel post that I told you, where I was like, oh, this is much more than a carousel normally gets. So that was like, a thing. But none of our different B roll strategies really had results that were so outside of the norm that I could be like, that's the format that's really going to work for us. So I'm looking at that and I'm going, okay, am I just going to do another month of the same? What do I want to do? At first, I told you, I was like, okay, I'm going to focus on two things. I'm going to go down to just the carousel, the storytelling carousels, and the reels. And I'm going to try to even hone my messaging more around AI and try to just like. Because that was another thing that I gleaned is like, peo-, I know the followers are dead, but, like, people are going... New people are seeing our stuff, but they're not following. So they're getting to our profile and they're sort of being like, yeah, this doesn't interest me. And I think that is part of what happens is when you're in the beginning and you're being so varied in your content and you're trying all these types of different things, people don't know what to expect with their follow. So they just go, I'm not going to follow you. Like they like, and this is how I think social media has changed is like...

[00:42:06] Jason: It's even my own behavior. I know that like when I'm on a show.

[00:42:08] Caroline: Because you're like, something about the predictability of like, okay, if I follow this person, I'm going to get these food videos or whatever. And it's a really weird mental shift for someone who like loves variability and loves novelty is you have to remember that someone wants predictability in who they're going to follow. So I thought to myself, okay, I'll go down to just the two different types of content formats and I will focus more on like making our bio clear that it's like human led AI to make your business calmer. Right. And then I have this meeting with Jason and I'm like, here's what I'm thinking. And then he's like, has an aha moment where he's like, okay, as much as we care about long term audience growth, which we do, and setting us up for next year and the things we want to be talking about in this new era, he's like, like, we're doing the last launch of WAIM Unlimited, like 40 days, 42 days from now, like, shouldn't we be using...?

[00:42:58] Jason: All hands on deck.

[00:42:59] Caroline: All hands on deck to just like get that message out there? And I was like, it's a really good point. It's a really good point. And so, yeah, he was right. And it, and it hurts because I love long term building and I love knowing what my big vision is that I'm building towards. But if we're being honest, you know, the WAIM Unlimited launch is the short term vision to get us to the long term vision.

[00:43:23] Jason: Yeah. And it's the last, it's the last time we're ever going to launch WAIM Unlimited. So it's like, well, we kind of need to point everything we possibly can.

[00:43:30] Caroline: And what a ways to go spend three years off Instagram, go back on Instagram for the two months leading up to the last launch ever and like not really talk about it.

[00:43:38] Jason: Exactly. Yeah.

[00:43:39] Caroline: So that seems silly. So Jason was like, you were already going to cut down your like format types. What if you just focus on doing like a diary behind the scenes type of reel every day for, you know, the 40 days leading up to launch. And then this very much coincided with what I was feeling on my own, which was I was starting to feel like from my first, like, I really went with this like low effort strategy the first month. Right. Like, because I've seen it work for people. It's like these, these B roll reels and whatever. It was starting to feel quite empty for me. It felt like I was just like crossing my fingers and there wasn't a lot of skill in trying to put some of those types of reel.

[00:44:17] Jason: And not a lot of creativity either.

[00:44:18] Caroline: That's what I mean. It was like I was just like, oh, well, the creativity is in like maybe how I frame this, how I write a good hook or whatever, how I pair the audio.

[00:44:27] Jason: But that's not the part of the creativity that like...

[00:44:29] Caroline: I like. Exactly. And so I was seeing some of the reels that were getting shared around are just a little bit higher quality. Like there's a little bit more effort put into like a few angles storytelling. And so I was like, okay, maybe let's go in a totally different direction. Let me just try storytelling content for the next month. And this coincided with your insight about doing the behind the scenes. So I said, okay, great. So for month two, this is all going to be. We're doing a 40 day daily reel series leading up to the final WAIM Unlimited launch. That's what we've decided to do.

[00:45:01] Jason: Yeah.

[00:45:02] Caroline: And at the very least, I mean, this ticks two boxes. Number one, it scratches my creative itch to learn more about putting together like slightly more... 

[00:45:12] Jason: Creative.

[00:45:13] Caroline: Cinematic is the wrong word. They're not cinematic whatsoever, but like a little bit more creative reels, some editing, some. Some angles, some whatever. And then two, it does the promotional. It takes the promotional box of like the main message being, hey, you know, your attention is very fragmented right now. But it's important that you know that this is the last time we're going to offer WAIM Unlimited.

[00:45:33] Jason: And through a way that's like our favorite type of marketing content, which is watch us build.

[00:45:38] Caroline: Watch us build.

[00:45:39] Jason: So it's kind of like, hey, we're gonna kind of take you behind the scenes. And like, some days you'll, you know, be hearing about the specific to dos that we're doing. And some days you'll be seeing us actually like build the things that we're building to kind of like finish out this last launch. And you know, what we're gonna have is kind of like little carrots to get people excited about it. But yeah, I just, I know for me, like, I just get excited when I can see someone's trying to accomplish a goal in a set amount of time. And I get to watch behind the scenes. And, like, I personally even wouldn't care about all 40 days worth of content, but I'm going to pop back in to be like, okay, you got through the, like, kind of boring part of, like, 30 through 15. Now I'm excited. Like, what do these next couple days look like? Like, what are you guys doing? What's getting ready? Like, what, you know, what are. What are all those things? And I just think, like, I hope other people feel the same way because they tend to when we do share this stuff, and it's what I like. So.

[00:46:26] Caroline: Yeah, totally. And so, yeah, we're excited about that. I think, like I said, it scratches that itch of just, like, wanting to put a little bit more creative effort. The problem is that the trade off is it takes more time.

[00:46:39] Jason: Yeah.

[00:46:40] Caroline: And. But I can already tell you that I find myself looking forward to working on it more than I did just the kind of going through the motions of like, trying to create this little content factory for myself.

[00:46:53] Jason: Right. Okay.

[00:46:54] Caroline: Okay. 

[00:46:54] Jason: So.

[00:46:55] Caroline: So that's the idea for month two, if you want to follow along, definitely @wanderingaimfully on Instagram. I already just posted the first one yesterday, so. Because that was, like, day 40. Today's like, day 30. T minus 39 days until launch. Now for the reality check. So I just told you that, like, these reels take more time. The reality is that we are behind. Like, I would have loved if we had come up with this idea a month ago, and I could have gotten my ducks in a row so that I was not creating day of. 

[00:47:23] Jason: But maybe it's gonna feel even more real, you know?

[00:47:27] Caroline: Great. Lightning in a bottle, baby. Lightning in a bottle.

[00:47:29] Jason: Every day. You're like, listen, I. We did not have time to set all this up ahead of time. I'm going. You're going real time with us.

[00:47:36] Caroline: What's even funnier is that Jason and I had this big meeting on Monday morning, and then the power went out.

[00:47:42] Jason: Yes.

[00:47:43] Caroline: So, like, I couldn't even get started. And then we had coaching on Wednesday, so I had to finish the coaching session on Tuesday. So literally, I had to make the first one, and I was like, I have got. It really was going to hurt my heart if. If it was going to be 39 days till our last.

[00:47:56] Jason: It had to start with 40.

[00:47:57] Caroline: It had to start with 40.

[00:47:57] Jason: Yeah.

[00:47:58] Caroline: So that's just. Just. It's just. It had to.

[00:48:00] Jason: Yeah.

[00:48:01] Caroline: And so I. But it was this great creative constraint to be like, listen, you got to write your little script.

[00:48:06] Jason: Yeah.

[00:48:07] Caroline: You gotta film your little clips in whatever you version you can get done before, you know, you hit your, your bed, your pillow tonight is what you can get done.

[00:48:16] Jason: And I think that's also... 

[00:48:17] Caroline: Not to mention, we accidentally had a two hour dinner which was just...

[00:48:20] Jason: Well, we live in Europe, we should have known. I also think it's a really good example of like, it just would have been so easy yesterday to go, ah, it's fine, like, let's just, we'll just skip it. And like, maybe we just started 30 or whatever. Like, you know, whatever that would be. And I think the, the really important note there is for yourself to go, don't give up. Like, just do the best thing you can do today to like, stick to your plan. It's an all an arbitrary plan anyway. And like, if it was like a health circumstance, obviously we wouldn't have pushed through. But I just think that, like, we see this so often in our community of people who like, they set an intention and then life hits them in the face because it happens to all of us at some point and then they just completely give up.

[00:48:58] Caroline: Well, that's the hardest part is that sometimes you have to be compassionate with yourself and go, yeah, I set this intention. But now the circumstances are different and you need to give yourself grace. Sometimes that's the right answer.

[00:49:09] Jason: Yes.

[00:49:09] Caroline: Other times the right answer is you set this intention, push harder, you can do it. And it's like every person knows the right answer for themselves.

[00:49:19] Jason: And the specific circumstance. 

[00:49:20] Caroline: And the specific circumstance. Whether you know you have more in the tank and you can push or whether you need to pull back and be, be gracious with yourself. Like, we can't tell you what the right answer is, but I do think every person knows in their gut I'm being too hard on myself. I need to give myself a break. Or I always give myself a break. I need to push through a little bit harder.

[00:49:39] Jason: Yeah. Just so everybody knows, Caroline is basically taking the lead if it's not clear on creating all these reels every single day and the ideas behind them. I'm here to support in any way possible. Set up the camera, you know, offer any kind of like thoughts or, or be a prop for any of the videos, if that's possible. But it is mostly you leading the charge on this. And if I can help, obviously I will. But this is kind of like your thing that I'm just like letting you cook. So.

[00:50:06] Caroline: Thank you for that.

[00:50:06] Jason: Just letting you go. Cool. All right.

[00:50:10] Caroline: Yeah, we're just figuring out we're in the messy middle. Who knows what this, this little series will glean.

[00:50:15] Jason: Yeah. You know, I think it's probably worth saying, like, do we have any goals?

[00:50:19] Caroline: Okay. My goal is to just follow through on the experiment.

[00:50:22] Jason: Okay.

[00:50:22] Caroline: And to do the reels. My goal is that I think. I think we had talked about. So we are planning to do a wait list.

[00:50:31] Jason: Yes.

[00:50:32] Caroline: For people who are really excited and want some, some exclusive content leading up to the final launch. And I think we had talked about, like, a really good goal. And this isn't just for Instagram, but this is, like, across our audience would be a hundred people on that waitlist.

[00:50:45] Jason: Yeah.

[00:50:46] Caroline: So that's a goal.

[00:50:47] Jason: Yeah. Yeah, I think. I mean, I think if we get a hundred people from Instagram to that wait list, that would be a win. And then I think if we could get 10 people to buy, that would be taking us back to the numbers that we had before of, like 10%, you know, of that list converted to buying. So, yeah, I think that that sounds like a very fair goal. I don't know how our audience feels about that, but...

[00:51:09] Caroline: I'm also trying to be realistic, which is that, like, we're coming up with this idea after one month of being back on a platform that is basically brand new to us. Do you know what I mean?

[00:51:18] Jason: Yeah. And I do think that, like, you do need to invest time for people to get used to you showing up in their feed more and all that. But I also do think 30 days is enough that, like, you can start to actually, like, I need to see some results from this. You're not going to give up just because it's like one month and one weekend. But. But I do think, like, you want to start to see some sort of traction, whatever that is.

[00:51:38] Caroline: So I guess why I let myself off the hook a little bit on results is because I have a very sober view of how much of it is in the hands of the algorithm.

[00:51:48] Jason: Yeah, for sure.

[00:51:49] Caroline: And, like, a hundred percent you can learn how to write scripts. Great. A hundred percent you can learn a little bit about great hooks. And, like, that's. That's going to help the algorithm. 100%, you can learn about how to, like, make your quality of your videos look good. But so much of it is out of your hands. So much of it is like.

[00:52:06] Jason: Yeah, it's just. You just don't know.

[00:52:08] Caroline: Exactly. And so even people who are selling these, like, blueprints and these, like, certainties about. It's just that they have found one of the 1,000 paths that has worked. But I don't think that every... I think every path is unique. I think every account is unique. I think what works for every account is unique. Yes. There are some general, like, principles, like I said, hooks, great sound, great quality, all these things. And you can control that. So great. We're gonna pour some, some time and effort into that. But so much of it, I think, is just experimenting for your audience and not giving up and putting in the time until you hit the thing that works. That's what we did with WAIM, and I think that's what. That's what it would take to make Instagram really work for us. So that's why I kind of hedge my bets and I'm always like, yeah, my goal is to just show, keep showing up until we find the thing that works. Like, that's the goal.

[00:53:01] Jason: Yeah. Cool. All right. Want to wrap things up there? You have some reflection. Reflection and takeaways here?

[00:53:08] Caroline: Well, this is just for, you know, I know this is a lot of sharing our journey with you, but if you are someone who is listening to this, I would just ask yourself, what kind of content would you actually enjoy making right now? So do your own little audit of, like, if you have been posting, ask yourself, what have I been posting? How did it feel? Does it feel like I'm just going through the motions? What's my creative itch telling me? Or what has worked that I can maybe, like, double down on and try more? What is going to make you have fun creating content and wanting to show up so that you don't just feel like you're, like, shouting into the void? Now, that being said, if you're in a place right now where you do not have the time or effort or desire to make highly creative content, and you're fine with just, like, posting what you're posting and it doesn't get a ton of engagement, but you know, you're showing up for your customers and you know that you're building your little micro community, let that be okay, too, I guess. Just my reflection, questions are really about checking in with, like, where you're at with your content strategy. And then the other part of that I'll say is if you're someone listening to this and you are thinking of going back to Instagram because you've been off of it like we were, don't overthink it. Like, just do what we did and give yourself one month to just like, get your feet wet again.

[00:54:19] Jason: Yeah, Yeah. I think the most important thing in any type of... of experiment like this is you need the muscle of creation and you need the muscle of consistency more than you need the muscle of results or optimization. And what's the Ali Abdaal...? I always forget it.

[00:54:35] Caroline: Get going and then get good and then get smart.

[00:54:38] Jason: Exactly. And I just think that, like, that's such great advice in any of these things and I think it's great for us to even come back to. And also, you know, this is even going to be different for us because it's like the first 30 days were around, you know, a goal of just getting going. The second 30 days are kind of getting going, but in a different direction, towards a different going.

[00:54:55] Caroline: Good.

[00:54:56] Jason: Yeah. And then I think after that it's going to be trying to figure out like, okay, keep going. And do we think Instagram is valid for the amount of time that's spent to glean some type of result from it? And we'll keep you posted on that because I think this is for the first time in a long time we've actually stuck to creating content consistently and can report back on what type of, you know, return both just in how we feel about how it's going, but also like, is it helping the business as well to be useful for the amount of effort we put in? So, yeah, I think that the skeptic in me will continue to be skeptical.

[00:55:32] Caroline: I can't believe you're still skeptical. What else do you want to be doing?

[00:55:36] Jason: Oh man, that opens up a lot of questions.

[00:55:38] Caroline: The fact that you're literally like, I don't know, we'll see if, if it's going to be continued. I mean, I hear what you're saying, obviously, and it's valid, which is always check in on like the tactics that you're doing and whether you should continue doing them. But I'm sitting here like literally just like tilting my head sideways at you because I think it's so hysterical that you're like, well, we'll see if we just like. And I'm like, well, this is the man who like four months ago was like, we got to do external marketing. And I'm like, where do you want to be if not where people are? I don't understand.

[00:56:04] Jason: I haven't really thought about it that much. YouTube, I guess. Yeah. Just like I would be, I would be recording like longer form video things, doing something else, talking about topics and trends would be like, where I would be focusing the time.

[00:56:16] Caroline: But this is what I think is so funny. Why not you do that and I do Instagram?

[00:56:20] Jason: I have plenty of other things to do. Thanks so much. I just. And I...

[00:56:23] Caroline: So you want me to do YouTube?

[00:56:24] Jason: You're the prettier face, so you get the views. I'm just here to answer the emails, my guy. We'll figure it out.

[00:56:33] Caroline: Well, we'll definitely figure it out.

[00:56:33] Jason: If you want to follow along, @wanderingaimfully on Instagram. Most of you who listen to this podcast, you probably already follow us, and most of you listening to this podcast already turned off this episode. So we're at the end here. We'll wrap it up there and we'll keep you posted on how these things go with more episodes in the future.

[00:56:48] Caroline: Thanks for listening.

[00:56:49] Jason: Bye.