the bossbabe podcast - 118. Why Your Fear of Visibility is Limiting Your Instagram Growth

Episode Date: September 9, 2020

When it comes to showing up on Instagram, which BossBabe co-founder do you resonate with most? Are you someone who’s comfortable on camera like Natalie, or do you prefer to be behind-the-scenes like Danielle? Either way, both Natalie and Danielle have cultivated their confidence over the years to show up on social media. Having used Instagram to build her first business, Natalie understood how vital it was to show up every day to deliver consistent value for her audience, which is why she appears so natural on social media today. She knew that BossBabe’s audience growth and influence wholly depended on her commitment to showing up daily - rain or shine.   Whilst Danielle didn’t initially have this urgency to be on social media, she overcame her post paralysis by learning to hone in on why it was important for her to show up. By identifying the root of her fears and focusing on her ‘why’, Danielle was also able to build her confidence on camera.  Both Natalie and Danielle didn’t start out as superstars on social media, but with consistency and having a clear, strong ‘why’, they were able to overcome their limiting beliefs and attract an audience by showing up as their authentic selves (which means that you can do it too!).  If you want to stop second-guessing yourself, put an end to post paralysis, and become an expert in your niche that makes an impact, then this episode will show you how. Links: This episode is sponsored by the Insta Growth Accelerator. A 12-week accelerator designed to show you how to grow and monetize your Instagram account: https://bossbabe.com/iga Try ShipStation free for 60 days with code BOSSBABE.   Follow: @bossbabe.inc Natalie Ellis, @iamnatalie Danielle Canty, @daniellecanty

I think that is a big reason that we've been successful on Instagram is consistency and it's not sexy because it's not easy and it's not a quick fix and it's not a short-term thing. But also it's about showing up as my authentic self and not feeling like I needed to be anybody different but me. Welcome to the Boss Babe podcast, a place where we share the real behind the scenes of building successful businesses, achieving peak performance and learning how to balance it all. I'm Natalie Ellis, co-founder and CEO of Boss Babe and your host for today's episode. Today, Danielle and I are going to be talking about the number one reason that might be holding you back from growing your audience on Instagram. It's something that I see

time and time again, so I really wanted to hop on and talk a little bit about it, kind of lift the lid on this. So when it comes to social media, Danielle and I have had completely different experiences. I've been on Instagram basically since it started, while Danielle got started a lot later. We both have completely different zones of genius, which is why we work so well as co-founders. I'm more like creative type and Danielle is more ops management behind the scenes. So when it comes to Instagram, I wouldn't say I've always found it easy to show, but I've always showed up because I've always been very entrepreneurial. And so I've had businesses for quite a long time. So I kind of had no choice whether to show up or not because I had no marketing budgets I was like well Instagram

looks like a free tool and so I just built confidence very early on without thinking about it so now I find it really really easy to put myself out there however Danielle really prefers being behind the scenes knows where that's where she excels and so I have to really convince her to get on social and so it's that's led to like a. And so I have to really convince her to get on social. And so that's led to like a lack of practice and consistency. And when you're not doing something often, there can be a lot of fear around it because you're not used to doing it. So while it's more natural for me, it's not necessarily for Danielle. So on this episode, she's going to lift the lid on her experience with social and the process she went through to develop the confidence that she needed to show up and be consistent, which of course is my number one growth hack so if you resonate with

Danielle's experience and your lack of confidence might be holding you back from growing your audience and really getting visible then you're going to love this so with that let's jump right in and as always take a screenshot share your biggest takeaways and insta stories tag me at I am Natalie at Danielle Canty and at bossbabe.inc I really hope you guys enjoyed this episode now before you go I have a massive massive announcement to make so right now IGA is open but that's not the big announcement since IGA was created we have put over 1600 students through this program and have gotten the most phenomenal results. Ever since we opened this program, which was a couple of years ago, every two weeks I've been showing up and doing mentoring sessions for our students within IGA

Signature. And we have decided that now is the time to close the doors to IGA Signature forever, which means we're going to be open for another week or so to give you a chance to jump in and after that there will never be a chance to be mentored by me inside of IGA again so this is really really big because I know so many of you been on the fence about joining IGA and you've heard so much about it. So IGA is basically every single thing I know on how to grow and monetize your Instagram audience, all compiled into a 12-week course. It's the exact framework that helped us scale into a multi-million dollar company with over 2.5 million followers on Instagram alone. Whether you're starting from 100, 10,000, or even 100,000

followers, this accelerator is perfect for you if you're looking to attract paying ideal clients. We dive into really specific strategies and tactics, showing you how to stand out as an expert in your niche, even if you don't know what your niche is yet, amass a global following, and make money as you do it. So you're going to get coaching from me and support from the BossWeb team, as well as in-depth videos, tutorials, workbooks, templates, and audits. I am telling you, this course is a complete game changer. And if you do not join us within the next week, you are going to miss out on getting coached by me through IGA forever. So it is a complete no brainer. to be able to get coached by me and get this entire framework for $19.97 is mind-blowing but it is going to be the last chance that you can dive into signature so if

you're interested and you want to check out more information head to bossbabe.com forward slash iga to enroll like i said don't miss out because doors won't be open forever we're closing in about a week so that's bossbabe.com forward slash igGA. And you've also got all of the links below. If you have any questions at all on IGA, drop me a DM at I am Natalie, and I'd be happy to answer them for you. But if you've been thinking about joining us, now is the time. You don't want to miss out on this. A boss babe is unapologetically ambitious and paves the way for herself and other women to rise, keep going and fighting on. She is on a mission to be her best self in all areas. It's just believing in yourself. Confidently stepping outside her comfort zone to create her own vision of success. One thing that people are typically surprised by is they will purchase

Insta Growth Accelerator, which is our Instagram course, and start diving in and they're ready to hear all the growth hacks. And the first module that they come across is all around mindset and confidence, because I know that if someone is fearful of visibility, does not have the confidence to show up consistently, then they can really kiss goodbye to wanting to have a growing audience on social media and consistent content and growth hacking without consistent content is pointless and consistent content without the growth hacking is pretty pointless you really need both of them to have a really solid Instagram strategy and I wanted us to have this conversation because I think a lot of

people could probably relate to your journey on social media as you haven't been doing it as long as I have I've been doing social media now since Instagram really first began. I was learning how to use filters. I put a Valencia filter on a cupcake and I thought that I was Picasso. And I've really been on it since the very, very beginning. And whilst I wasn't the most confident person at the beginning, I've grown with it. And so me thinking back to what it was like to show up all that time ago I didn't have another option because I didn't have a backup plan and I had to show up and I had to make my business work so I just had to get really confident with the camera but your journey's been very different it's not really been essential to your growth and so can you talk a little bit about

your fear of showing up and what that's looked like for you? Yeah so I'll just take my story back to the beginning for those of you who don't know I was a chiropractor and I'd built a business in the UK and I was part of the fastest growing primary healthcare brand in the UK and that was all offline right there was no need to be posting on social media in fact at that point in my life I felt like social media was distraction. I was like too busy to show up on social media because the way it worked was very like location based and we would do more things like yell.com or Google ads, like those things. And so there wasn't really a need to grow a personal brand as such. Your personal brand would grow organically from referrals and word of mouth. So I just got really comfortable in that zone. And then as I transitioned

into being a co-founder of Boss Babe, I really started seeing that actually, you know, it was important to show up in a different way. And there were different ways of building a business. It didn't always have to be offline and it could be online. In fact, that's why one of the reasons I was so passionate about spreading the mission of Boss Babe so that people could have that freedom and people could have that impact, including myself so during that journey though I realized I'm like I'm watching other people and I kind of really took it for granted that people just show up on social media they would just like post these pictures themselves sharing like what they were doing their day and it just was like very organic and natural for people so I was like oh yeah that

doesn't really look hard until I went to try it and then I was like oh my goodness like I was just absolutely filled with anxiety like I cannot express around it and I think when I first started I didn't think stories actually were a thing back then it was more just like the post like posts and the feed but even just taking photos of myself like I absolutely hated it I would be like so criticizing how I looked on the pictures like who's gonna even like this like why on earth would anyone want to see a picture of me like who cares what I'm up to and I really really just had this complete barrier to entry like it was just this huge mountain I felt was in front of me that I was never gonna be able to do like I

was never gonna be able to show up I was going to be able to overcome this fear and it really just like started then and I had like this anxiety and I didn't really know how to overcome it but I knew there was an importance around it I remember sharing it with you at the time saying I'm just not sure how to do this and I just wanted to come we wanted to have this podcast and conversation today because that is like the real rawness and real behind the scenes and I'm going to share a little bit more as we go throughout this but I also want you to know this is still something that still comes up for me and we progress through it but I just want to kind of like open the conversation there. Let's take a quick pause to talk about my new favorite all-in-one platform Kajabi. You know I've been singing their praises

lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity which I love. Not to mention our team couldn't be happier because now everything is our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity which I love. Not to mention our team couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place so it makes collecting data, creating pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So of course I needed to share it here with you. It's the perfect time of year to do a bit of spring cleaning in your business, you know? Get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things as smooth as possible.

I definitely recommend Kajabi to all of my clients and students. So if you're listening and haven't checked out Kajabi yet, now is the perfect time to do so because they are offering Boss Babe listeners a 30-day free trial. Go to kajabi.com slash boss babe to claim your 30-day free trial. That's kajabi.com slash boss babe. Yeah and so what I thought might be helpful is I will share the advice I gave you because it's the same advice I would give to any of my clients inside of IGA and really anyone that asks me this question and to be fully transparent this has been a big sticking point in Danielle

and I's relationship and we've had many a crossword over the strategy that we will take so for context I've been the one that's the face of the business I've been doing Instagram for a really long time I'm very creative so it comes very naturally to me and Danielle's more the operations behind the scenes doing things that you typically wouldn't show on camera or think to say here's my spreadsheet or process or or something like that and you kind of went in and out of phases where one minute you were like I don't want to have a social presence I don't need that right now and then other times no I do actually want to have a social presence and one thing you said was okay well I'll just have the team write my captions for me and I was really against that and I think that was a hard conversation for you

and it comes up with clients in IJ too because I say the same thing you can hire a social media manager to be you to share pictures of you to write captions as you to share on stories as you without the video but just sharing like static images and copy but that is never going to build influence because if you want to be influential then you better be worth following and you better be worth having that influence and whilst you are behind the scenes if you can't translate that into value for the listener or the watcher then that's going to be really really difficult to build an audience around and and it can be really easy to just think okay I can hire someone to do it but until you've got that rhythm going it's really really difficult so I always say absolutely you can outsource it at some point but you only start to outsource it once

you've gotten consistent yourself which is probably the kind of advice people are listening like I'm with Danielle this sounds like bullshit advice I don't want to follow it but it's really really true because your tone of voice and your zone of genius your superpower is very different to that of your social media manager and the voice of boss babe is very much my voice something that I've been perfecting for a really long time and channeling that persona and we've been able to build a company where I don't have to be the one writing captions anymore or writing quotes because the team know how to channel that but had I not

put that work in to get consistent to figure out what my own voice was or what my tone of voice was then it would have been really really hard yeah and I think that's a really good piece and like what you're talking about now is like the execution of it right but I feel like there's even like a back step to take before then because when I started going from offline to online like I said I shared that that was really fearful and I wasn't actually able to start. But what was important to recognize as well, and like I say, as we've got bigger, there's been fluctuations in where I show up and where I don't because of my role. But even before then, it was more like, OK, I'm actually scared to show up in this because, you know, you had grown up on Instagram. It was very, very natural for you. And I remember remember being with you once even before as part of Boss Babe and you know I was like just posting occasionally and we had done

a workout together and you just grabbed your phone and you just did this story like really natural like oh my goodness like just finished a workout with Danielle it was really cool we were in San Diego at Brenda Burchard's event at the time we were just that was when we first met and put your phone away and posted it and I was like whoa like she did that that quick because what had been happening for me is I would, like, record something and I'd be like, oh, that's terrible. I'm not posting that. Oh, I'll record it again. And, like, those 15-second, like, 30-second clips were, like, taking me, like, 15 minutes. You know?

And I'm sure there's going to be listeners who really relate to that. All right. I hope you enjoyed the episode so far. Stay tuned as we share a bit of info about who supported this episode. This episode is brought to you by ship station i don't know about you guys but this year is just flying by for me i can't believe the holiday season is right around the corner and this year obviously we know that people will be buying more stuff online than ever before so if you're an e-com seller are you ready to meet those demands? If not, you can be ready with ShipStation. So it's the fastest, easiest, and most affordable way to manage and ship your orders. In just a few clicks, you're managing orders, printing out discounted shipping labels, and getting your

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that easy so get started at shipstation.com today click on the microphone at the top of the home page and type in boss babe again that's shipstation.com, then enter offer code BOSSBABE. And we're back. Let's jump straight into today's episode. And so what I actually realized is that I was really chasing, like my fear was coming from a place of trying to be a perfectionist. Like it was thinking that it had to be the TV stars or the people that you see in magazines or like, you know, people who are just showing up to be perfect. And I always had to have something so, so valuable to say. people that you see in magazines or like you know people who are just showing up to be perfect and I always had to have something so so valuable to say and what I really realized was actually it wasn't really about always bringing value because there is a big piece of that and we can definitely touch on that but also it's about showing up as my authentic self and not feeling like I needed to

be anybody different but me and I think when I started realizing that I was like oh okay well maybe I can do this like maybe I can post so I just want to share a couple of the processes that I went through to gain that confidence because it was a process and some of the first things I remember like I said I was getting that post paralysis where I just thought I don't really like this photo I don't really know what to say so I just won't post it and actually went then went to okay I'm going to write this I'm really trying hard I'm going to set something in my some time aside to rewrite this and I'm going to post it and I'm going to schedule it because that seems easier than clicking post right now and if I then post schedule it that's going to go out and it was like

a process and so I built my confidence that way and then I went from okay well I'm just going to do 15 second story and I'm not going to be in it but I'm going to you know talk about this book that I'm reading or I'm going to show an unpackaging and I'm going to talk over it but the camera's not actually going to be posted at me or pointed at me and it's going to be on this object and I would speak over it and that would help gain my confidence and then I remember going okay I'm ready now to actually put my face on and talk to that camera for those 15 seconds and I think like one thing I learned is something called exposure therapy where it's kind of like understanding like the steps that you need to take and I really would just anyone listening

who's kind of feeling a fear of audience because there is so much power there's so much power in social media and there's so much amazing you can build your business in a really authentic way by building your personal brand like we've seen like the Kardashians do it like we've seen so many people build on social media and sell products and create billion dollar empires if you're like Kylie Jenner right but what that takes and like that ability to just show up for yourself is so so important and then remember who you're showing up for as well and so I went through this process like I said of going okay what is the small bit that I can take what is the first thing I just listed them out in my order of what I was actually scared of so okay the first hurdle is doing the

post the second hurdle is doing the Instagram stories the third hurdle is actually showing up live on our society Facebook groups and I've always been very transparent about my fear around that and when I first got started and know are people who have been following us the last two years you'll have seen that to now where we're actually showing up lives together I never wanted to do a Facebook live and now when I see those views and I'm like actually I'm not only doing this for me but I'm actually doing this for the mission of Boss Babe and what that means to other women and just kind of being I want to be really vulnerable about this because I think it's important to know that it's not natural for everybody and that it does take like practice and it does take like okay I'm gonna dig deep I'm gonna channel into my why because it's not about

me if I allow myself to stop like I'm actually affecting that woman who is following boss babe and you know it does relate and maybe it's not so easy for her yeah and I think it's that thing right you know when you're looking at one word for a really long time and all of a sudden that word doesn't even look like that word anymore. That's what really happens if you overanalyze with social media. If you're re-looking at your stories and you're rejigging your caption and pulling apart your images, you can start to second guess them. And I think one thing that really, really helps is just pull the trigger, just go for it. What's the worst that can can happen you could delete the feed post later if you wanted to

but on stories people really enjoy that they they enjoy just seeing the behind the scenes and so that taking action like you say slowly and building it up is really powerful and a lot of people I get asked all the time what's your number one Instagram growth hack all the time and the answer that I give is probably the least sexy answer that I could give and if you take a look at Boss Baby, you take a look at my personal post combined, there's over 8,000 posts there. That was me showing up four times a day sometimes when I was hungover, I was tired, I had nothing to say, I was scared, I had all of these things but is that exactly what you said? It's coming back to your why. And I was consistent. And I

think that is a big reason that we've been successful on Instagram is consistency. And it's not sexy because it's not easy and it's not a quick fix and it's not a short term thing. It's being able to show up when no one's liking or commenting or sharing. It's showing up even when you think no one cares. It's getting those those crickets and I think that's the thing that I really want to get across and consistency won't come if you're not confident like you're saying if you're really scared of showing up it can be really really hard to do it consistently so with everyone in IJ I actually have them do a 30-day consistency challenge where they have to go in and they have to write their name down and tick every single day when they're posting because I know I can share the biggest growth hacks and

techniques and content strategies and all the things I can literally tell them word for word what to post but if they're not consistent they'll be on the what I call the follower roller coaster where it's up one minute and it's down another whereas I know if I can just get them to show up for 30 days every single day they're going to start to see the needle move and I think when you see the needle move that's when it's easier to show up when they always say it's really hard to keep showing up when no one is clapping for you right like consistency is harder when no one's clapping for you consistency is harder when you don't see a result whereas if I can get you to show up every single day for 30 days when you see that increase

in or engagement of followers you're like, people care or people are resonating. Let me just continue showing up. It's the same with weight loss. It's the same with all of this stuff. And I also think as well, like when you commit to it, there's that confidence piece as well. Like I've said it on some of our lives before, but actually a lot of confidence comes from you actually setting yourself something to do and actually doing it and then you feel like oh yeah I'm really I feel so much better

because I said I was going to show up for these 30 days and I'm on day 13 and I've done every single one so far and I really think sometimes for those of you are struggling with that visibility piece committing to something like that and I mean I've actually done this we actually did a challenge within the society around this as well. And it wasn't a formal challenge. It was like, hey, myself and another team member, we wanted to commit to showing up for a whole month on stories in some kind of way and actually just having that, you know, okay, well, I'm committed to doing it.

So I have to do it today as a push today, but I'm going to do it anyway. And you become in the habit of it. And then all of a sudden, that visibility piece really just goes away now I'm like okay well I've got bad skin right now but it doesn't actually bother me so much I am who I am like I'm coming on here like I'm just going to show up and I'm going to be visible because I've got used to being visible and I almost feel like it's a little bit of a muscle that you kind of have to strengthen and just once you start getting used to it and actually realizing it's not as bad as you think, and most of the time, like I would say, like 99.9% of the time, and statistic terms, maybe even 100%, you just get good feedback,

like no one is like, and most of the time you have this thing like, oh, people are gonna laugh at me, or people are gonna like DM me horrible things things and sometimes that's a story that we tell ourselves and it isn't actually true but i am gonna say because i know we've had this conversation before yeah some people will laugh about behind you back but you know you just have to let that go because you have that mission you have that why but in the same sense it you actually make it so much more bigger in your head i feel like we tell ourselves a story about visibility and you know we're the people at the center of our own universe but really what does everyone else care not that much yeah I can't remember who said this to me but I got a great piece of advice a while ago and it was no one

cares truly no one cares as much as you think they do they just don't care people are thinking about themselves and they are not they're really not out there to pull you apart so I just want to wrap up this episode by just really cheering you on and telling you that if you really do want to grow your social media and you want to grow influence then start being influential start showing up and delivering value and being consistent because if you do that you will grow an audience yeah yeah do you have anything to add I was just gonna add like I would love for them to tag us in that like tag at I am Natalie and tag Danielle Canty and I would love to get some DMs like if you're showing up after listening to this episode and you're like oh my goodness I'm so terrified but I'm

showing up my face is on the camera I'm doing this story please tag me because I want to cheer you on and want to be your cheerleader because I know that it is difficult but like Natalie says like when you have that why when you want to grow that business it's so important it's so important to be consistent so stick with it it gets easier I'm on the other side now I can tell you it gets easier and yeah we always love to hear from you guys if you loved this episode please subscribe download a few more and please leave us a review I really want to hear what you enjoyed what your main takeaways were and i also want to know what you want to hear us talk about next to say thanks for leaving us a review we'll send you a copy of the boss babe 25 the boss

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