the bossbabe podcast - 119. Behind the Scenes of How I Built Over 2.6 Million Followers

Episode Date: September 14, 2020

Do you want to learn our secrets on how to gain followers organically on Instagram? If so, this episode is for you! Today, BossBabe CEO, Natalie Ellis, is lifting the lid on how to attract and build an audience organically without spending a single cent on paid ads. Tune in as Natalie shares the exact social strategy she has used to grow the BossBabe account to 2.6 million followers - for free.  Around three years ago, Natalie had no idea how to make money online until she discovered a handy hack that totally changed the game for her - a hack that you can use too.  After this episode, you’ll have a ton of tips to help you make the most of Instagram, including why you should curate before you create, how to predict what will and won’t go viral, and how you can come up with your own foolproof formula for creating content. If you’re serious about gaining more followers AND converting them into customers, then you really don’t want to miss out on this episode.  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: instagrowthaccelerator.com Use code BOSSBABE to get 20% off on SOUL CBD products. https://mysoulcbd.com/ Follow: @bossbabe.inc Natalie Ellis, @iamnatalie

Post it and I want you to see which ones go viral, which ones are getting really, really good engagement and see which ones got you followers. Another thing that I want you to be aware of is MSI, meaningful social interaction. And I don't see anyone talking about this yet. It's what the Facebook and Instagram algorithm is built on. 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. So before we dive in,

I want to just give you a quick reminder. So if you didn't know already, since we launched InstaRoth Accelerator, we have put over 1,600 students through this program and we have had the most incredible results. It is the best course on the internet showing you how to grow and monetize your Instagram account. I have not seen any program that teaches what we teach. I have taught seen any program that teaches what we teach. I have taught your favorite mentors how to grow their Instagram. And the big announcement that I've been making this week

is that I am stopping Instagram growth accelerator signature, which means I'm stopping mentoring anyone through IGA once doors closed for the final time this week. So since we opened a couple of years ago, every two weeks, I've been mentoring our IGA students and helping them get epic results. And right now we've decided that we're going to close doors and we're not going to be mentoring anymore inside that program. So I will not be doing any more mentorship. You will not be able to get in ever again to be coached by me and do the program after doors close.

So if you get in on time, of course, you're still going to get all of that coaching from me. You're going to still get inside of the Facebook group, but then once we close, we close for good. So if you've been on the fence about joining us and you're wondering if it'd be a good fit for you, you can head to bosswave.com forward slash IGA. It is an incredible program that's going to show you how to grow and monetize your audience online. Even if you've got no idea what your niche is or you've only got 50 followers and most of them are your aunties and uncles, we are going to show you exactly how to get clear on what you do, why it makes you unique and how you can attract ideal paying clients to

follow you and really build that community of raving fans online. I know it is possible for you because like I said, I've helped 1600 students alone just through this in Insta Growth Accelerator. And beyond that, I've actually helped over 17,000 paying students across all of our programs. So I have so much experience in working with entrepreneurs just like you. So I know that I can help you. Okay, so with that, if you're interested, head to bosser.com forward slash IGA. All the info is going to be on there. And you can always DM me if you've got any questions about whether it's going to be a fit for you. Okay, so let's get into today's episode.

Are you ready to learn how to grow your Instagram account? If so, in this episode, I'm going to take you behind the scenes and show you what we're doing organically to grow our audience. In fact, we're getting around 82,000 followers a month for free. And there's one hack that I discovered about three years ago and it just completely changed the game for me. And also at the end of this, as a little bonus, I'm going to share a secret about how you can get Instagram

to curate content for you so that you never run out of things to post. I know post paralysis is one of the biggest issues for people. So I'm going to completely eradicate that for you. So trust me, you do not want to miss this. Get your notepads, pens, and matcha lattes ready because I am delivering pure value in this podcast. And the crazy part about it is no one else is teaching this stuff. So with that, let's jump right in.

And as always, please take a screenshot, share your biggest takeaways and Instagram stories, tag me at I'm Natalie, tag at bossbabe.inc. And then if you do get any value from this podcast, please leave us a review because it makes such a massive difference and helps us get out there in front of more women just like you. So with that, let's just dive in. 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. So I remember starting Instagram years ago and I was trying to grow my account and I really had no idea what I was doing and I came across this hack completely unexpectedly. I was sharing content

that I really thought would resonate with my ideal clients, right? People who could sell products to, who I was really trying to target. So I'd been creating tons of different content and I was creating my own content and I was also curating content from other accounts. Now, what I started to notice on Instagram, you can look at your analytics and see how your post is performing. I remember one day I looked at my insights and I saw that one post had gotten me 4,000 followers. Like I'm not kidding, one post, 4,000 followers. And I started looking back on my other posts and I was seeing, well, this post got me 10 followers.

This post got me 150 followers. What did I do differently to get 4,000 followers from one piece of content? And so when I looked into it, I realized this was a viral piece of content. So I had two to three times the normal level of engagement and people were engaging with it. They were tagging their friends, they were sharing it on their stories, they were saving it. And this is what helped me to get that

viral content. So my content was being shown to people that weren't actually following me. So I decided to have a little experiment. What if I could do four posts a day and each of them got 4,000 followers? Like surely that's a no brainer equation, 16,000 followers a day, feels good. So I started trying it and obviously it was harder than it looked. I couldn't seem to hit it consistently and I couldn't predict which post was gonna do well

and which post wasn't. So I decided to go back to the drawing board and create my own system for viral content so that I could really consistently make sure I was hitting viral so I'm going to show you exactly how you can do this for your account so I want you to write down 10 accounts influencers competitors who have an audience who are really similar to the audience you are trying to attract so go write those down and do some research to make sure these accounts actually have a good amount of followers in there

because you really want to using content from accounts that have got good engagement. So go write those 10 down. Now I want you to go through their content and look for viral pieces of content. That's content that has two to three times the normal engagement level. So let's say you're scrolling Instagram and you're seeing 2,000 likes, 2,000 likes, 2,000 likes. Wait, this one has 6,000 likes. This one went viral. So take a screenshot of it and just in your phone, put a folder together of viral content.

So take a screenshot, put it in that folder. And I want you to do this for 10 accounts. And I want you to find 10 pieces of content that went viral. So you should end up with 100 pieces of content. Now, what you're going to do is sit and go through, just scroll through and have a bit of a gut check. Do I think this would resonate with my audience and why? So go through and kind of form your hypothesis. Yes, this one's gonna work.

No, I don't think this one will hit. Go through and kind of mark them. And I want you to pick 10 pieces of content that you think are gonna do really, really well and mark those down. Then I just want you to schedule reposting these on your account. I don't want you to go and create this content from scratch.

It's not about copying someone else's content. You can just repost someone else's content as long as you're giving credit and you're doing it in an ethical way. And I want you to test it on your account because what you're gonna see is of those 10 pieces of content that you've pulled and you think they're gonna do really well,

they're not all gonna do really well. I hate to break it to you. There's no real way of knowing. You can, you'll get better at that insight, but you don't fully know. So post it. And I want you to see which ones go viral, which ones are getting really, really good engagement

that, you know, likes, comments, shares, saves. And then after 48 hours, go back and see which one's got you followers so if you're starting an account from scratch you're not going to get 4 000 followers off the bat you're probably going to start this post got you 100 followers this post got you 200 followers and it's going to be something that you'll really build up but that's the first thing that i really want you to do is go and curate a ton of content and start reposting on your own account and then once you've started to see which piece of content go well i want you to analyze start reposting on your own account. And then once you've started

to see which piece of content go well, I want you to analyze it and come up with your own viral formula. So for me, I noticed that certain words got a lot of engagement. There were words that kind of shook people, like stopped their scroll. They were really interesting to people. That really got the retention. What I also noticed was the design of my posts really mattered. So if I was posting things with tons of fancy writing and it was really hard to make out, it wasn't going to stop the scroll. It wasn't going to catch someone's attention. So there's a reason you see posts with white backgrounds and black text, super plain. It looks like a tweet. There's a reason you see that. And a reason you see that's going viral is people are really

conditioned to like content like that. They've been liking it for such a long time they're assuming this is content that they're gonna like it's the same way viral videos are always done in that same style where you have the video and you have copy on top so I want you to take note of that for yourself and start to see okay are there specific words are there lengths of phrases quotes infographics how like long is this copy how easy is it to read what is the design start to mark all of this down 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 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. And then I want you to think about the themes. So what themes are you really tapping into? And I'll just give you a little secret about Boss Babe. The theme that we really tap into is independence, empowerment, strong women. We really create content that makes women feel really independent, makes them want to reshare it and declare it to their audience. That's what really has helped us achieve viral. But for every account, it's going to be completely different and your idol client is going to be completely different. So that's how I recommend starting with this. So once you've got a really good idea of what kind of content is performing for you, that's when you can make the decision to move from curation,

where you're reposting other people's content, into creation. So you're actually creating your own content. Now a big mistake I see people make here is they want to create this fancy looking content that's in line with their branding and the minute they do it, their engagement plummets. So like we said, it's all around the design that people are conditioned to like. So don't stray too far from that. Do something that's really easy to engage with. And by the way, I'm sharing here,

this could be quotes, infographics, it could be interior design, it could be travel, it could be anything. So really think about the kind of style that people are engaging with. Do you need to buy certain with. Do you need to buy certain presets? Do you need to do a photo shoot? Do you need to download any apps to create this content? Are you going to use Photoshop? I personally use Word Swag if I'm going to create

any kind of quote content on the iPhone. It's really cheap. It's really easy to use. I love that. So once you've figured this out, you can move from the curation style into the creation. So that's just one piece of creating viral content and getting followers. Another thing that I want you to be aware of is MSI, meaningful social interaction. And I don't see anyone talking about this yet. It's what the Facebook and Instagram algorithm is built on. Okay, we're going to take a quick break right now to hear from our sponsor this episode is sponsored by soul cbd i've been using soul cbd consistently for over 18 months now and please do not take it lightly when i tell you that it has been a game changer for me and so

many people that i know i've noticed a really big difference in a lot of ways so i'll just dive into a couple specifically but firstly my deep sleep. You know I track absolutely everything I do in regards to my sleep with my aura ring so when I take sleep supplements I do them individually so I can see which ones actually make a difference. I'm all about simplifying to amplify. I don't want to take 10 things if it's two things that are actually making a difference. So I tested it and when I take CBD on an evening I get almost double the amount of deep sleep that I'm used to which means your sleep is more efficient you're waking up feeling a lot more refreshed it's really really good for your brain your focus all the things that we need more of

so there's a couple of tricks I want to share with you so what I do is I put the liquid straight under my tongue it tastes really good but you want to leave it there for a few seconds before swallowing it this is really important and then every week or so you want to take a couple of days off taking it before bed so that your body doesn't get used to it, so the effects don't reduce. Trust me, try that. Just even if you try one bottle, I know you're going to be hooked because it really, really changes the game for your sleep. And then the second thing, you know I'm all about reducing stress in every shape and form, but like you'll know, entrepreneurship is not always the easiest career option. So if I feel like I'm having an overly challenging day and notice any anxiety creeping in, I take some CBD.

I have it in my desk drawer, both at home and in the office. And I just take a dropper of it under the tongue. And within half an hour, I feel so different, so much lighter, so much less anxious and stressed. I love this product. I know you'll love this product. And that's why I'm so excited to genuinely continue sharing it with you. So listeners of this podcast can actually get 20% off on soul CBD products using code BOSSBABE. Their top products are the tincture that I mentioned,

gummies which taste so good, bath bombs and sleep capsules. Their products are 100% organic, zero THC and third-party tested and you can get them at mysoulcbd.com and whilst I can speak to my personal experiences using soul CBD our bodies are all different so please consult a doctor or other medical professional prior to deciding if CBD is right for you also worth noting that I live in California where it is legal to purchase and use CBD so just give it a little check to see if it's legal where you are and we we're back. Let's jump straight into today's episode. So let's talk a little bit about MSI. Meaningful social interaction is people interacting with you in a meaningful way. So that's them commenting on your posts. It's them tagging friends in your

posts. It's them sharing content. It's them saving content. It's replying to DMs. It's really them signaling that the content you shared resonated with them somehow and they wanna tell other people about it or they wanna start a conversation with you about it. And so this is something that you really wanna aim to achieve. But if you're starting an account from zero and the only person commenting is your grandma,

we're gonna need to change that a little bit. So I really recommend starting a mastermind group. And this can be super simple. If you have friends that are trying to grow their Instagram accounts as well, you can put yourself into like a WhatsApp group with them. And basically every single time this person shares a piece of content, you will go on there and engage with it and they'll do the same thing for you. If they're sharing something that really resonates with you, you can share it on your stories. You can give them shout outs to your audience and tell them to go follow this person. You can do group giveaways where say there's 10 of you in this mastermind group, you can come together and do a giveaway where you can each help each other build followers. But really the whole

point of this is to build meaningful social interaction when you might not have any because your grandma commenting is not going to signal to Instagram that this is a really good piece of content. So you're going to have people come on your post and comment, like, share. And another thing that I really want you to do is to reply to the comments. So meaningful social interaction is not just one-way interaction. You can have a conversation with your followers too. And so it's amazing if you're already getting people commenting on your posts that you're able to have conversations with. But regardless, I want you to reply to those comments. Because let's say five people comment on your posts. That's five

comments. If you reply to every comment, that's 10 comments. We're starting to signal to Instagram that this is a really, really good piece of content. So I really recommend thinking about meaningful social interaction. Whenever you're on stories, ask people to respond to you. Whenever you're posting something, put something in the caption that's gonna really make them want to engage with you. Is it comment below and I'm gonna pick five people to do a giveaway with or tag three friends below who need to see this. Whatever it is, think about how you can really hack that engagement and get people engaging. And then on top of that, if you can, set up a mastermind group on the side and have your friends commenting or people in your space commenting, that would also be really, really helpful. Okay, so the

thing that I told you I was going to share with you, a way that you can basically get Instagram to show you the content that you should be sharing. And I don't see anyone else talking about it. I guess they don't know about it or they're keeping this hack for themselves, but it's been a game changer because I don't know about you, but curating content for Instagram used to take me so long. And then I found this hack and it changed my life. I could curate content for the next month in about an hour, which is a lot of content considering I post four times a day. So what I want you to do is I want you to use Instagram in the way that your ideal client or your ideal follower would use it. So I want you to follow all of those people, those 10 people that we listed. I want you to engage with their content

and it might take a few weeks but on your explore page you're going to start to see that your explore page looks a lot like the explore page of your ideal client. And the reason that's important is Instagram is saying on the explore page, hey, I think you're going to enjoy this content. I think it's going to resonate with you. And so they're showing it to you. So anytime someone's content goes viral, it gets syndicated to the explore page so that when you go on Instagram and you go to explore, you're being shown all this content. So that's step one. Step two is on the explore page I want you to find a piece of content that you would genuinely repost because you know it would go viral. So for me it might be a quote.

I would be looking for a quote to repost so that I can go viral. So let's say I go on my explore page. I've been using Instagram as my ideal client for months now. I go on the explore page and I see a quote that would really resonate with my idol client. I'm going to tap the quote. Now what's going to happen, it's like magic, you are going to be shown hundreds and hundreds of posts just like that one. So I'm going to tap this quote on my explore page and then I'm going to start to scroll and I'm going to be shown hundreds and hundreds of other quotes that have gone viral. So all I'm going to do is go through and screenshot each one of these quotes and all of a sudden I have a ton of content. So that's the first way of doing it. The second way of doing it is using Pinterest. So if you use Pinterest as your ideal client or you type

in the kind of things that your ideal client's going to be looking for, it will also show you content that you could be sharing. But for now, focus on the Instagram explore page, focus on using Instagram in the same way that your own ideal client would use it, and you'll be surprised how easy all of this stuff starts to come to you. 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 have 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 IGA and you've also got all of the links below. If you have any questions at all on IGA, drop me a DM at IamNatalie 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.