It’s no secret, to grow your business you need to provide value-driven content, but sometimes you’re missing a key piece and that’s your everyday stories.
In this episode, I share why your everyday stories are important for your content, tips on how to keep track of your amazing stories and how to incorporate them into your social media content.
Reminder: the 8-week Instagram group coaching program is now open! Apply today because seats will go fast!
In this episode you will learn:
- why everyday stories are the key piece to value-driven content
- tip on how to record and track your stories
- 5-step formula to creating great content you’ll audience with want
Don’t forget to grab Brenna McGowen’s Segue guide: https://brennamcgowan.co/segues/
Full Transcription at the bottom of this blog post.
Before you go, I’d love to connect with you and give you some gifts to help you grow your online presence!
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Full transcription:
Hey, welcome back to another episode.
I’m really excited about this episode. I know you’re going to get a lot out of it because today I’m going to talk about how you can infuse your stories into your value driven content. So it’s no secret to grow your business, especially online on Instagram. You need to provide a lot of value to your audience, but sometimes when we are providing so much value to our audience, something tends to get left out. And that is sharing your stories. Now I’m not talking about the overarching why or, you know, your why or your main story of why you started your business. I’m talking about your micro stories and these are your everyday stories that are relatable to your audience. So here’s a tip before I get into the five step formula that I use to actually tell my stories and provide valuable content at the same time.
But what you need to do is you actually need to start paying attention, you know, throughout the week, throughout your day of what is happening in your life, in your personal life, in your business that you could share with your audience that is relatable to them. So what I’ve done and you can do this too, is I’ve actually created a Google spreadsheet and I have two columns in my spreadsheet. One of them is my micro stories, but the second column, and this is really important as I have. Why should my audience care? So you, we need to relate our story to our audience. Why do they care? What would they learn from it? So make sure that you do that. And if you don’t want to use a spreadsheet, you can certainly just use your notes app on your phone and just start collecting or jotting down these small stories in your life that are relatable to your audience.
They can be funny stories. Those are the stories that I like to tell. They can be inspiring stories. They can be lessons that you’ve learned, mistakes that you’ve made. Maybe, you know, something happened to you that made you super vulnerable. The point is, is we have to make sure that these stories actually relate to our audience. We don’t want to tell stories just for our own vanity reasons. We want to tell our stories. So our audience actually feels understood by us and they relate to us because down the road, that is why our audience is going to do business with us, right? Because it’s a complete relate-ability factor there. So here’s what it looks like. This is how you can infuse your stories into your content on Instagram. And I’m talking about Instagram posts right now, and then I can show you or tell you how you can use it.
And other formats for Instagram and even outside of Instagram. So first for an Instagram post, once your audience stops the scroll, they’re looking at your image or your graphic. They’re going to see the first line. That’s where you want to put your hook or your headline. You want to draw your audience in, to read more. You want them to interact with your posts directly underneath your headline. This is where you want to share your micro story. Now you don’t want to go too long and drag on, right? People are in a rush. People don’t have time to read these long captions anymore. So make sure that your micro story is direct to the point. You’re keeping them drawn in either it’s inspiring or funny. But after you tell your micro story, this is really important. Do you want to transition to what they will get out of it?
What will they learn from it? So you need to transition to your value-driven content. And that transition is called a segue statement. And this is just simply, you know, a one-sentence statement saying, you know, why should you care? Or the reason I’m telling you this story, because, or here’s what you can learn from me. There’s a lot of resources out there to get segue statements. You can just Google them or you can, um, visit my friend, Brenda McGowan. I will put the link in the show notes. She is a copywriter, she’s a genius. And she actually has a freebie for segue statements that will help you transition your story into your value driven content. So make sure that you have that transition in there. And then this is where you will provide your value driven content in your post. And then at the end, you don’t want to leave off your call to action.
Make sure you put your CTA in your caption. So for example, let me give you a couple of examples of how I did this in my Instagram post. I got a lot of engagement from this, but I had a post and it was a quote about how I misread a text and I needed to hurry up and drive my son to bowling. And I had complete anxiety. I was freaking out, you know, stumbling to get my shoes on, get out the door in. And I really just, I was so nervous that I wasn’t going to get him there on time. Now, my transition is a lot of people feel that when it comes to posting on Instagram, they forget at the end of the day that they didn’t post for the day, they’re scrolling through their phone. And they’re just trying to find like a random photo to post.
They really don’t know what to put in the caption and they just post it and it gets no engagement. And the whole point of that story was my son got to practice on time with no problem. I really didn’t need to worry about it. And my relationship, my whole point of that micro story is I don’t want my audience to worry about Instagram. If you forget to post, it’s going to be okay. You know, your brand is not going to fall through the cracks. Your followers are not going to go away overnight. So do you see how I took a personal story? That’s completely relatable. We all misread text, right? But I transitioned it to a lesson about Instagram. That is the whole point or the whole reason of why you want to infuse your micro stories into your value driven content because you’re relating to your audience first, right?
They’re like, oh, I’ve been in that, that situation. This girl totally understands me. I know how she feels. And then you transition to content that will help your audience, teach your audience something or inspire them. So that is the five step formula. First, you want to hook them to then tell your micro story. Then you want to segue into the transition. Then you provide your value driven content, and then don’t forget your call to action. Now here’s the cool thing. You can apply this formula or apply your micro stories and your value driven content. It’s not just for Instagram posts. You can easily do it for your blog, posts, your emails, even your videos. If you go live on Instagram or if you go live in your Facebook groups, this is a great formula to follow, and you can also follow this formula for your pod cast episodes.
So that is how you infuse your micro stories, your everyday stories into your value driven content, just follow that formula. And you’re going to get a lot more engagement and you’re going to get a lot more interaction and make, make more connections on Instagram, even on Facebook, even on your podcast. So just want to let you know, before I let you go today that I just opened the doors to round two of my Instagram growth boot camp. I’m so excited about round two. This is an eight week group coaching program, and this is going to help you clarify and build your brand on Instagram, but we’re going to do it with simplicity and control. So you can attract and work with your dream clients. It’s a lot of fun apply today. The link is in the show notes because I’m only accepting 20 gals in this program. I may or may not do round three in the fall, but right now it’s only 20 people. Again, that link is in the show notes or what you can do is you can go on DM on DM. You can go on Instagram and you can DM me if you have any questions about the group coaching, but until next time, stay sassy sparkle and wear those sweatpants!
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