231. How to smash your socials
How lucky are we?
To live in a time where we have social media to get our message out to those who need it most - largely for free!
But posting and crossing your fingers is not the best strategy.
In this episode, Social Media Marketing and Messaging Strategist, Monique Forcella, shares so much incredible practical advice about how to smash your socials, including -
🤳 How to choose your golden egg social platform.
🤳 The 3 techniques that helped grow a social audience of almost 100k on Instagram.
🤳 The 3 different types of content you need to be posting on your page - and the frequency might surprise you.
🤳 The key lesson from the US TikTok ban. How to ban-proof your business.
🤳 Why getting hung up on follower numbers is an ego problem.
🤳 Why using your voice is essential for credibility and community.
🤳 How to overcome the fear of showing your face and voice online.
🤳 Why sharing the hard times works.
🤳 Why you haven't missed the bandwagon and the algorithm isn't against you.
Transcript
Oh my goodness. Do I have an episode for you today? I am chatting to an absolute legend in the social media coaching space, Monique Forcella, or better known as The Socialista. Get your pen and paper out because the practical value in this episode will blow you away and you will leave feeling inspired and equipped to smash your socials, especially if you're a business owner. Mon covers so much, including get Ready for It, how to Choose Your Golden Egg Social Platform. The three techniques that helped her grow an audience of almost a hundred thousand on Instagram. The three types of content you need to be posting on your page and the frequency might surprise you. The key lesson from the US TikTok ban and how you can ban proof your business. Why getting hung up on follower numbers is a waste! By sharing the hard times works, even though it's challenging. How to overcome a fear of showing up online and why using your voice is essential to build credibility and community. You have not missed the bandwagon for socials and the algorithm isn't against you. So stop the scroll and settle in.
Sally:
Monique Forcella, it is such a joy to have you on that voice podcast. Welcome.
Monique:
Thank you for having me.
Sally:
I've been following you online, long-time fan, and we had the pleasure of meeting in person in Brisbane at an event last year, and you just, such a joy. You're exactly the same in person as you are online, and that's what we aim for, isn't it, when we create content. So to start off with, let us know what are your main social channels and how did you come to be such a superstar? I think it's 97,000 on Instagram.
Monique:
Yeah. Yeah. So you can find me on Instagram @thesocialista_ with an underscore at the end. And my main social media channel is mainly Instagram. That is my bread and butter. It is my, my life. So when it comes to content, that is where I mainly am, obviously over on email and website and bits and pieces, but Instagram is like the go-to social media platform for me and for a lot of my clients and for a lot of people as well.
Sally:
Do you use other channels? Are you on LinkedIn and TikTok?
Monique:
Look, when it comes to creating more content for different platforms, you can definitely repurpose stuff to, like from Instagram, to LinkedIn, from Instagram to TikTok, things like that. But for me, Instagram is such a well-oiled machine that when I turn my focus off Instagram and start to spread myself out a bit thinner across all the platforms, it doesn't always work in my favor. And so what I suggest to a lot of my clients, because I I work with business owners who are coaches and service-based businesses who want to grow and elevate their business using marketing, I tell them to put content out onto all of the platforms and see where you are getting the most traction because not all audiences are the same. And not all audiences connect and convert the same on different platforms. And so you may find that LinkedIn is your golden ticket, so you're going to put more emphasis and more focus on LinkedIn than you are on TikTok or Facebook or Instagram, whatever that might look like. For me, Instagram was that golden nugget over every other platform and every other place. That's not to say that you shouldn't be on all of them, but if you are stuck on time, you are feeling like, Oh, I'm really overwhelmed right now. Focus on your Golden egg platform and then repurpose onto the others.
Sally:
Yeah, and it's like if you're posting to everywhere, you're posting to nowhere. I know when I went viral on TikTok in 2020, 2021, it was like TikTok was my life. It was like everything was made for TikTok. And now my TikTok has slowed down quite a lot. And I believe that's because I'm using it to repurpose a lot of things that I'm posting primarily on Instagram, rather than posting organically to TikTok.
Monique:
Because they're different, right? And me being class A perfectionist is sometimes a bit hard because it's like, okay, cool, I wanna create a piece of content for Instagram and I have no time to recreate something for TikTok. And the content is very different. So TikTok content you'll find is a bit more behind the scenes, it's a bit more raw, it's similar somewhat to Instagram stories as opposed to the feed, whereas Instagram is a lot more polished, curated, focusing more on the messaging and being direct. So the platforms are different. And so you need to tailor your content to two different sort of audiences and two different sort of needs and wants. But like I said, if you are stuck on time and you do wanna have that omnipresence, definitely repurpose. But if you're someone who is like, cool, I know my audience is on Instagram and I know my audience is also on TikTok, I'm going to dedicate time to specifically create content for each of them. You may have the same idea, but the execution is slightly different.
Sally:
So with your Instagram success, I know there's always so many different variables that lead to growing an audience on Instagram. If you had to choose, let's say like three key techniques or things that you've done to allow you to grow, what would you say they were?
Monique:
I would say the first thing here is to really understand how you differ from other people in the industry. It's no word of a lie that now is harder than ever to really cut through on social media with millions of accounts online, with lots of people who are just like you. How do you stand out?
Speaker 3:
How? How? Tell us how!
Monique:
You the answer is you. And it's, it's very much around the idea of what makes you unique, what makes your story unique, what makes your methodology unique, what is your unique perspective? And so for me, for example, you have people on social media talking about, you know, post three times a week three times a day if you want to get seen. Whereas I come from a very different approach. So my methodology is posting three to four times a week. I am the marketing and messaging coach for small businesses who don't wanna be a slave to social media. Whereas other people online who are Instagram gurus say post three, four times a day, which is so unrealistic for business owners, especially if they have young families.
Sally:
Yeah, that's why your approach is so refreshing. When you first said three to four times a week, I was like, Wow, that's so different to what we are told.
Monique:
Yeah. And so it's about finding that gap in the market of what you believe in versus what other people believe in, because you are going to attract more like-minded people like you or who want your methodology versus just following the pack. So that's the first thing, really identify what is that secret source? What is that thing that's going to separate you from everyone else? And then capitalize on that. The second thing I would say when it comes to really building an audience is if you want to attract an audience, attracting an audience also comes with low hanging fruit. So there's three, three different types of content that you could be posting on your page. The first type of content here is your attraction content. The second is your nurture, and the third is your convert. And think about it as a funnel. The top of the funnel, it's wide, it's broad, it's a big net, but as you narrow, narrow, narrow down, it gets smaller.
Monique:
And so if you're wanting to attract more people to grow your page, you want to have high-level content that attracts and is a bit broader. So content around this place is like, Here are 15 content ideas that you need to be posting right now. It's highly saveable, highly shareable, anything that is really quick and easy, quick wins, quick tips along those lines. Not like, Here are three tips to speaking better. It's boring. It's not like that. It's stop saying this when you are speaking and say this instead. That's the sort of low-hanging fruit, the quick wins that someone can say, oh, light bulb moment, I've been doing this wrong the whole time. That creates authority for your brand and allows you to really show up as that go-to leader, build trust, build credibility to then build them into your audience. So that would be the second one there.
Monique:
And the third one would be to share your story. Like I said before, you are your greatest asset. So if you are creating content, talking about your journey, talking about what makes you different, share your why in business, this automatically separates you from the rest because people connect with people not nameless, faceless brands. So when you talk about why you started your business, what is your driving force? When you talk about how different events in your life have impacted the way that you've gone or your trajectory, people also resonate with the fact that, Oh, I had a very similar experience, or I love how she handled that situation. They then connect with you as the person and want to follow you because at the end of the day, there are so many people sharing the same tips, the same tricks. They do a very similar service to you, but they're never going to be you. And so capitalize on your personal story and share that through your content.
Sally:
Yeah, absolutely. We speak a lot about that on this podcast. The importance of sharing your story and the you content. There's no competition when it's your story because nobody else can have it.
Monique:
Yeah. And that's why influencing and being an influencer has become so big. They're not actually selling anything. They're not actually teaching anything. They're just sharing their life. They're being authentic. And people love that. There's a term called voyeurism, and your audience loves to be that fly on the wall where they are sort of just sitting on the outside of your window. They're, they've got their binoculars, they're looking into your life. And it's, it's also why reality TV shows like The Bachelor and Love Island and all those sort of things, they do so well, which is why your content needs to somewhat be a reflection of the things that are actually happening in your life. You don't need to share everything you're doing. You don't need to share what you're eating for dinner. You don't need to share, you know, what shoes you just bought from the shops, but it's more so about being more authentic and sharing your story and even being vulnerable with your audience. So powerful.
Sally:
Yeah. absolutely. The the highest engagement I have ever got on a story in history was when we tragically had a death in the family at the end of last year. And I, you know, really wanted to share about that because I'm so much online, I'm all about authenticity. And there was courses going on and I just spoke honestly about it. And I got like 2000 views on the story, which is a lot for me, Mon right? Like it was the most I'd ever, ever had. So I think it is important to share what's going on, but also you don't have to share everything that's going on. So I often share content when I'm on holidays, for example, and people would be like, oh my gosh, you shared everything on your holiday. I'm like, No, no, no. I didn't share everything on the holiday. I just gave a couple of highlights each day. But as you say, with voyeurism, it makes people feel like they're-
Monique:
They're a part of it. And those moments where things are a bit difficult and vulnerable, like sharing the story about someone passing I remember very specifically, and people still tell, tell me this story to this day. It was the start of 2021 or maybe the start of 2022. And I was so burnt out working to the bone. And I remember waking up one day and it was like the end of January or the start of February, waking up one day about to do a full day of coaching and then head on a plane the next day to go speak in an event in Queensland. And I woke up and my neck had just given way. I just woke up, stood up out of bed and fell and collapsed the ground. My, I couldn't move. I felt paralyzed, had to go see doctors and cancel my day.
Monique:
And I, that was the first day I ever took a "sick day" where I laid in bed, had all my blinds down, was not feeling good at all. And so I, I've never done this before, but I had just took a photo of like, my, my bedroom. It was pitch black and my bedroom just had my dresser and my, my window. And I wrote this big thing on my Instagram story saying, today's the day I never thought would happen. And just got really vulnerable with my audience saying that like, you know, what's happened? And I felt so terrible to cancel my coaching calls for that day, but I physically could not sit up. And so many people messaging me, so many people sharing their stories, they feel connected with you. And to this day, people send me messages or tell me stories like, Oh yeah, I remember that time where you collapsed and you couldn't feel your neck. This is a memorable, this is a memorable content. And so don't be afraid to share the hard times along with the good times.
Sally:
Yeah, absolutely. And if we had to add a fourth one to that list, would you say it's using your voice? Like, do you think it's possible to grow to that level without ever doing the camera speaking voice content?
Monique:
It depends. If you ask someone who wants to build a brand that also is credible, you can build a business you can build a following online, never showing your face if the messaging is on point, you are never going to build a loyal community though. So there's a difference. So you can build followers and anyone can get followers from anywhere and do whatever they need to do. But followers don't equal sales and followers don't build your business. Community does. And so if your goal is to build a community, if your goal is to grow your business and scale, then you want to be using your voice. You want to be showing your face, you want to be sharing your journey.
Sally:
Yes. Absolutely. And that's what we're all about. Simone. We spoke about a little bit about TikTok, a little bit about Instagram. Are you ever afraid that what just happened to TikTok could happen to Instagram and like all of a sudden the business could be gone overnight? Like, what's your take on this whole thing? The ban, the not ban. They were gone for 12 hours. It was like they weren't even gone long enough to mourn them.
Monique:
It happened to me! It happened to me, is all I can say this time last year, I'll never forget it. The 8th of January, 2024 was the day my Instagram page went down. It got deleted. I got an email, I was on a team meeting and I got an email from Instagram saying, Hi, your Instagram page has now been permanently deleted. Permanently deleted. I was like, what? And this was the first day back in the office for the year. So I jumped on my Instagram and lo and behold it was gone. No one could see it. I couldn't search it, I couldn't get onto it. Gone, all my followers, all my content gone. No, no. You know, TikTok, they give you some notice. You know, we're gonna be banning TikTok in a few days. It was straight wake up one day my Instagram was gone.
Monique:
That was a day that I was like, What am I gonna do with my life now? Do I start from scratch? I had two feelings. One, I was really excited to start from scratch 'cause it meant that I could kind of put my skills to test and really use it as a case study. So that was exciting. But also the other part, I was like, I was mourning five years of hard work was just gone. So yeah, I lost everyone because I have lots of fake accounts being made about me. So someone's obviously reported a fake account and Instagram has thought my account was fake. So that's what happened. And jumping through hoops and blah, blah, blah. 12 hours later I got my Instagram page back, thank the Lord. But it really was a moment for me in my mind that was like, we are living on rented space, on Instagram, on TikTok, on any other platform that isn't owned by you. You are living on rented space. So it's really important to take your audience from Instagram or from TikTok or from LinkedIn and move them into your email marketing because if you have their email address, it becomes more of an owned media as opposed to a borrowed space.
Sally:
Yeah. Even podcasting's a little bit safer.
Monique:
Exactly. Right. But even so with podcasting, it's like, cool, have a freebie. Get people into your email list because you don't exactly know who's listening to your podcast every single week.
Sally:
This is a great spot to remind you, it doesn't matter what you say or to who you say it to, if you are not connected to your voice, people could feel it. This is why you need the Magnetic Voice formula. If you're a Soul Speaker, it's in the portal. If not link is in the show notes.
Sally:
Our clients would be similar in this way, where we would hear, I am scared to put my face on social media. What will people say? What will people think? I don't like the way I look. I don't like the way I sound!
Monique:
All the time. And it's very much a reflection of what will people think? What will, and it usually is someone like one person. Usually it's what will my mom think? What will my best friend say? What will my ex-boss say? So the first thing I would say is identify, okay, cool. Who is that actual person you're worried about? Who is that person you're worried about first? And then ask yourself, why are you worried about this person? Because you are only ever going to be judged by someone doing less than you, not someone doing more than you. So if you are worried about an ex-boss messaging you, if you are worried about your mom and what they might think, it's not about them. And I want you to think about who is your target audience? Who are the people you're here to serve? Because the more and more that you hide behind a screen, the more that you don't show up, you are actually doing your audience a disservice because you are in the business of providing solutions.
Monique:
Every single person is in the business of providing solutions, providing answers, and really getting people a transformation that's going to transform their life. Right? But by you not showing up, by you being scared to use your voice, by you not using Instagram stories or posts or reels, you are only doing them a disservice. And so with that, I want you to reframe who you are creating content for and reframe who will see this content. It's not your ex-boss, it's not your mom. It's Jessica down the road who's struggling with her two year-old who won't eat their their meals. But you are a nutritionist for toddlers.
Sally:
So well said. Yes. Amazing. One more bit of resistance I've been getting lately is I'm too late, I'm too late. It's too late to get a big following the algorithms against me.
Monique:
Yeah. There are people to this day that generate tens of thousands of followers every single day. So whilst yes, it is harder now than what it was 6, 7, 8 years ago when I first started out. It took me two and a half years to get 10,000 followers. Then it took me four months to get from 10,000 followers to 50,000 followers.
Sally:
Wow.
Monique:
So whilst, yes, timing does play a factor. It's your content at the end, at the end of the day, and it, it's showing up the more and more that you delay. Oh, I've missed the bandwagon, I've missed the spot is leaving you with nothing. Right now you have zero. You'll continue to have zero if you don't do the work, if you don't show up, if you don't post, if you don't show your face. But if you show up, you have a better chance of getting followers and getting an audience than if you don't.
Sally:
Everybody who has thousands of followers began with none.
Monique:
Zero. I had zero followers, zero. And I didn't use paid ads. I didn't use anything. All I had was consistency. I showed up the best time to start anything was yesterday. The second best time is today. There's never gonna be a perfect time. There's never going to be 2017 again when Instagram was fabulous. Never. But there are people online every day giving it a crack. And that's all that you need to be focusing on.
Sally:
Absolutely. And remembering as well, that virality doesn't actually equal sales. It's interesting to peek behind the curtain. You would see this as well that some people who have a relatively small following are making millions of dollars. Some other people who have hundreds of thousands of followers are, you know, working a couple of jobs.
Monique:
Yes. I have two things to say about this. Number one is asking you if you are scared that it's too late, why is it too late? Is it too late because you're scared you're not going to get followers? And if you don't have this massive number on your Instagram, does it make it mean something about you? Does it mean that you are not good enough? Does it mean that you are not the expert? Does it make you feel less than? These are all things that are just feelings for you and have nothing to do with your audience or your business. And so technically you are letting your ego take over the impact you can have for other people.
Sally:
Especially when so many followers are bots.
Monique:
Yep, exactly Right. And there's no way to stop that from coming to your page as well. It just happens. And the bigger your account is, the more bots that you attract. And also, secondly, the most amount of sales that I make in my business come from the Post that have the least amount of views. If you think about a funnel, you've got the smallest amount of space in the bottom of the funnel. It's really, really thin. That is your conversion content. When you are trying to convert people to become a sale or a customer or a client, you're getting hyper specific in the content that you are sharing. You're getting hyper specific in the messaging that you have, which means it's not going to speak to everyone. And that is a good thing. So people often think, Oh, my social media's not working because I am not getting the followers, or I'm not getting the likes, whatever it might be. I had a recent launch and it's been my biggest launch yet.
Sally:
Congratulations.
Monique:
Thank you. And I had the low, the lowest amount of views across all of my socials that I've ever had in history, yet it was my biggest launch. Why? Because I wasn't out here trying to sell 10,000 spots in my program. I just wanted 20. And so when I took away my, again, my took away my ego, I took away the vanity metric and I focused on who are these 20 people that I want in this program? What are they dealing with? What are they struggling with? What do they want? My content automatically became so much more refined. It spoke directly to them. So when they saw that piece of content and they saw the next one that related to them, they saw the next one that related to them. They messaged me, they said, I'm in, and it's the easiest sales you will have.
Sally:
Come on. Amazing. Was there anything else you wanted to add?
Monique:
People get really hung up in all the tactics. You know, only post a seven-second reel. Only post reels, not carousels or images. Only post one Instagram story a day. And when we live our life by these rules, we're actually at the helm of Instagram or at the helm of these influencers or these gurus who say they know everything when in actual fact we're creating content for our audience. And it isn't about tricking the algorithm to try to get more views. It's about creating better content with messaging that actually connects to your audience to a be to be of service to them instead. And that's the real important thing here. It's, it isn't about the type of rule that you create. It isn't about the video, it isn't about all the bits and pieces. It's really about the message that you're sharing with your audience. It's really about how you are showcasing your authority, right? Like it's not about dancing on videos, it's not about, you know, being inauthentic. It's about how am I showing my audience that I'm the go-to leader here?
Sally:
It's such an important reframe. And Mon, you always have fantastic freebies on the go. Do you have anything at the moment that people can sign up to?
Monique:
Yeah, so I have a free hooks guide. So I know a lot of people get stuck on what hook do I write for my piece of content. And they end up with generic hooks, like three tips two, or here's how to do X, Y, Z. And it's boring and generic. It's not gonna get you across the line or get the audience that you want. So I have created a hooks list with 20 Instagram reels or carousel hooks that you can use to really attract an audience and convert them. So yeah, you can download that and get all of the hooks with examples so you can start making better content with hooks that actually do convert.
Sally:
Monique Forcella, you are an absolute force. Thank you so much for coming on That Voice Podcast.
Monique:
Thank you for having me. So, so fun chatting with you.