086: Instagram and Beyond: How to Show Up Authentically Online with Melanie Lea
Being yourself online can feel awkward. It’s easy to want to just do what others are doing. But if you’re copying someone else, then how are your followers (and potential clients) ever going to see the real you?
In today’s episode, I’m chatting with Melanie Lea, a marketing and content strategist who helped me uplevel on my own Instagram marketing, which influenced my other marketing channels as well. We’re talking about being authentically yourself, sharing what’s important to you, and not letting others dictate how you “should” present yourself online.
This conversation is full of tips that will help you show up with ease, confidence, and alignment in your marketing.
What’s in this episode of Podcast Your Business:
[04:44] How Melanie’s career shifted from design to marketing and helping people understand how to authentically market themselves and their business
[08:45] How to not get caught up in what other people are doing and the importance of being you when you show up online
[15:40] Using what’s important to you in life as a starting point for what to talk about on social media
[25:18] How to form genuine connections through your content and tips for finding what works for you
Links:
Check out our services to Launch, Uplevel or Grow your Podcast
Meet Melanie:
Melanie (she/her) is a marketing and content strategist who specializes in the big picture messaging and appeal of your business. When she’s not working with clients or running her Close Friends community on Instagram, you can probably find her dreaming about somewhere tropical or telling her dog, Maddy, that she's a very good girl! She believes there’s always room for being human in business.
Connect with Melanie:
Ready to gain back some of your time, uplevel your podcast and focus on creating content?
We have openings for monthly management! Click here to learn more!
The Transcript for Podcast Your Business:
086: Instagram and Beyond: How to Show Up Authentically Online with Melanie Lea
[00:00:00] Melanie Lea Instagram's kind of my thing, and that's what I focus on. But it really is just the vehicle for everything else. Like anything you're doing on Instagram for your marketing should absolutely be the same things that you're talking about and doing on other platforms. Even if the medium is different, it's all the same. It's just tweaks in how you do it.
[00:00:25] Caroline Hull Ready to start a podcast for your business and share your message in a way that feels wildly authentic. Welcome to Podcast Your Business, where each week we share how to start a podcast and make sure it's working for you and your business. I'm Caroline Hull, podcast manager and consultant, and I've seen the power of podcasts can have. Ready to share your voice. Let's get started.
[00:00:53] Caroline Hull Hi everyone and welcome back to Podcast Your Business. Today I am sharing one of my favorite people with you. I am so excited to have her on the podcast. Her name is Melanie and she has been helping me a lot with my Instagram, but also with just how I show up online, my messaging, what I talk about and honestly, that's really bled into this podcast and what I'm sharing and how I am sharing what I'm sharing on the podcast. And so I want to bring her on the show to talk about how to share authentically. You know, we talk about being authentic all the time on the show and showing up as yourself and what that means. But I really wanted you to hear it from her because she has such great ways of explaining it and helping you to understand. In fact, one of my favorite analogies that she has taught me about sharing personal things is in this podcast. And so be sure to take notes because there are so many tips and tangible action items that you can do today to help you kind of figure out how you should be sharing and what you should be sharing in a way that feels like you, but can also help you create connections with potential clients and leads. So let's dove in to this episode with Melanie. Hi everyone. I am so excited to be sitting here with Melanie today and I'm just really excited to share you with my audience because I have had the pleasure of working with you. Gosh, this past year. When did we start working together? This year?
[00:02:28] Melanie Lea We might have in April.
[00:02:29] Caroline Hull Yeah. And then we work together for this summer as well. So we've worked on my Instagram stories and we've worked on my Instagram profile and a few programs that you have, and now I'm in your mastermind. So I want to tell a little story. I have to take a step back because this is really important. And so what we're going to talk about today and what we're going to talk about today is basically how to share authentically online on a podcast. Let's go back to the beginning of the year, and I knew that I wanted to make Instagram a bigger part of my marketing strategy, and I was kind of looking for somebody to come in and give me like a marketing strategy, basically. Like I wanted somebody to come in and be like, okay, here's what you're doing wrong, here's what you need to do. And I saw your account on Instagram and I immediately fell in love with your esthetic. Like the colors you use like we are just our esthetic are so similar. So I was like, okay, wait a minute, who is this person? And her amazing photos? I need to follow her. But then what I really fell in love with was how you share and what you share. And you just seemed so well. You just seem so real to me. Like you weren't trying to be salesy, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. Like you didn't come off as, like, somebody who was literally just on Instagram trying to make money. I just loved the vibe that you put out, and that's why I started working with you. It literally found you like a week later you were like, Okay, I'm gonna do this stories one oh, one course. And I was like, Of course I'm doing that because. The. Stories are horrible for me and. And I love your stories.
[00:04:09] Caroline Hull And so that's kind of how I stumbled upon Melanie. And I think that's a really important kind of lesson to learn here. One of the things I've been talking about a lot on Instagram and on my podcast is that when you show up as yourself and you show up authentically, you're going to attract the right people. And because Melanie showed up that way, she attracted me. I'm literally her ideal clients. Like. Yes, if you have a program. I'm going to do it.
[00:04:35] Melanie Lea It's magic.
[00:04:37] Caroline Hull So before we dove into all of that, can you just introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what you do and how you found yourself in this space?
[00:04:44] Melanie Lea Yeah, well, thank you so much for having me, Caroline. This is such an honor and it's so fun to be able to kind of talk about this through the lens of you going through all of these social media courses. And of course, it's about marketing. It's also about what you're saying and how you say it and who you're attracting through your marketing. And I feel like that's the tougher stuff to really get to, and it's also my favorite thing to do. So I guess a quick intro would be I started kind of being online as soon as I could. I was born in the late eighties, so I grew up with like dial up Internet. I was kind of a computer nerd. I made my first website when I was in sixth grade, I was I. Was in the chat rooms. I did the dial up AOL. I was just like, I love being online. And when Instagram came out, I was like, Of course I'm going to sign up. It's such a visual platform. I was blogging at the time, so I've kind of been in the online world for a really long time and I've always felt pretty comfortable sharing myself. I've almost felt more comfortable doing it online compared to in real life. It's almost and it's kind of weird. The Internet's gotten really big over the past ten years, but it almost felt like safer for me. So this is all just a very natural thing is for me to just get online and be a little bit weird. Yeah, not that it's always been easy though, because once I had a blog, I did kind of like the lifestyle blog. I eventually kind of got like my first freelance clients there that I would always design my blog and try to design like all my little posts and little ads. And I eventually had people say, Hey, can, can we hire you to do all of this for us? And then that eventually led to me opening up a design studio and working on people's branding and or websites, which I didn't realize how all of this would connect, but it was really like me learning how to get into people's heads and like figure out their vision and then go, Okay, great, this is how we can do it. So I did a design studio. I ran that for a few years, and then I started teaching designers, freelance designers, how to run their their client systems. Basically, they're also a huge systems and workflow nerd and I love organization. And so what I what I realized is I was helping people on their back end systems, but what I really wanted to help them with was more of their front end. How were how are you communicating the magic of your business and how are you trying to communicate to? And that kind of like translation of of how do we connect those two things? And yeah, so that's I started to do that in 2020 working on people's marketing. And it's been really cool to take all of my experience because even the design that and the blogging and writing all of that helps me so much with my clients now because I do think it matters what you look like on top of how you talk about things in your business. I think they're both so important for attracting right people and making it easier to sell without having to try so hard.
[00:08:03] Caroline Hull Yeah, exactly. So let's dove into that a little bit. I want to talk about what you just said before. You said selling and not trying too hard, but having how you look and how you write and what you speak, having that attract the ideal client. Right. But how do we do that without getting caught up in the the shoulds, I guess. I think I think what I'm trying to say is, you know, like we go on Instagram, we listen to podcasts and we hear what other people are doing. We hear how other people are speaking and we think, oh, we have to do that, but how can we kind of step back from that and be ourselves? Where is that line? I guess I'm trying to discern.
[00:08:45] Melanie Lea Yeah. So I, I know that all everything I just said make it seem like this is always been very natural for me. But whenever I took it as like this part time hobby slash freelance thing into a whole business, I got really tripped up because I think what a lot of people do is they put on their business voice, or especially when you're starting out, if you haven't created a business before, you do get caught up with those shoulds of like, Oh, this is what I have to sound like or act like or be like in order for people to take me seriously or to cover up imperfections that I feel like everybody notices about me, or to get the clients and customers back. And then it gets a little bit messier when you kind of zero in on those shoulds because when you don't know what to do it, it can be a good idea to look around you and see what other people are doing. But I think what has to be cultivated is this trust in yourself, because like I can't come in and tell any of my clients, You should do this. I can get to know them really well and I can make suggestions based off of, you know, what, their personality is what their resources are, but it's always going to be up to them to have that discernment of like, yes or no. And that can be so tough. They can be so tough. I think one of the first places you can start is by trying to notice the shoulds. And then also maybe noticing when you say you want to do something, but it never gets done. There's some reason why there's resistance. So that can be among those like like like suggesting look at the, the things that aren't going well. If you don't know where to start, because then that can start forming the parameters around like, okay, y'know, I don't want to sound like this or I know I'm trying to and it's just not happening for some reason, whether it's the podcast or putting out any other type of content or doing anything in your business, even if it's creating a new offer. I've definitely been guilty of like, Oh, I should make this offer because someone said it would sell really easily, or people are into this and like if it doesn't get done, then it is probably like, okay, let me put it on the shelf and if it still feels good later, I'll try it again. But I think it's just that discernment and like noticing things is as like the very first step.
[00:11:11] Caroline Hull Yeah, I'm thinking back to my own Instagram journey because, you know, I feel pretty good behind the microphone. But there's something about video, especially in the Instagram form, that used to just not terrify me. But I would just I wasn't it wasn't natural. It didn't feel natural. And I wouldn't start recording those stories and I would, you know, I would see somebody else's stories and I would try to recreate it for my account. And it just wouldn't work because it wasn't it wasn't me. I remember thinking, okay, my sharing too much about the fact that I homeschool, am I not sharing enough? Like there were all these these things that were kind of swirling. And so when we started working together, like, my stories were a hot, hot, hot, hot mess. And because because I just I didn't know how I was trying to show up in the way that, like, I thought I should be showing up the way that I saw people showing up and I wasn't showing up as myself. And I remember somebody even made a comment to me, you know, when I started making reels, somebody said, Oh, Caroline's doing so good with her videos because she just shows up with her messy band and no makeup. And I was like, Well, what is that supposed to be like?
[00:12:22] Melanie Lea Was that a compliment?
[00:12:24] Caroline Hull Like, that's how I am. Okay, great. Now do I need to get up every morning and fix my hair and makeup on before I can hop on Instagram? Like, is that what I need to be doing? Like, I just I think you just get kind of wrapped up in that. And the same with podcasting, you know, we think, Oh, we need a great voiceover intro. Oh, we need super corporate music to play in the background, you know, things like that. And that's, it's not really the case. So just like sharing that with everyone, like it's, you know, it's not always felt comfortable for me either. But when we started working together and kind of digging into like, what should I be sharing? Or, Hey, it's okay to show up as yourself? I think that really helped me gain some confidence as I started hopping more on stories.
[00:13:09] Melanie Lea Yeah. One thing that I think has really helped me, like when you were kind of saying how we connected when you found me on Instagram is a big priority for me, is being relatable. I have never, ever wanted to make people feel like I thought I was above them. Yeah. Or that I was like, what I'm doing is out of reach. I've always tried to share like how completely normal I am. I mean, I feel like I'm normal in a lot of ways and then also like very nontraditional in a lot of other ways that like I live a very normal, like boring life. Yeah. You know, and, and I deal with mental health issues, depression, anxiety, body dysmorphia. And I have. Always. If I have this pull to share things, I'll ask myself like, what's the motivation behind it? And if it's so that I can be a little bit more relatable and make people feel less alone. I feel like that's been something that's just really worked out for me, and it's so much in that authenticity and even more so in the connections and building trust with my audience and people I meet online.
[00:14:34] Caroline Hull Exactly. Like I know that when I think about working with someone like I want to work with someone who is going to be straight with me, who's going to be themselves. Ya know I don't want the persona that I see online or hear on their podcast to be different when we meet in person or on Zoom. Right?
[00:14:51] Melanie Lea Like, I think that's.
[00:14:52] Caroline Hull So important and I think that's what people forget is like if you put on a mask every time you create content and show up in the world, then when you sit down for a discovery call, is that really you? And I think that people now and I don't know if you've noticed this as well, but I feel like people are a little bit more careful with their money these days and like they really want to invest in somebody that they connect with, that they, like you said, relate to. And so I love that you talk about being relatable because I think that's really important. I think it makes such a huge difference. And sometimes that can sell itself. If you're just yourself and you're showing up as yourself and you're connecting with people that way, then people are going to want to be involved with what you're doing. At least I think so.
[00:15:40] Melanie Lea And to make this a little bit more tangible, even like if someone's listening to this and they're like, Great, but what do I connect on? Or How do I like, that's still so wide open. Okay, let me be relatable. Something that you could do is you figure out what are the things that are important to me in life. Basically your values and you will have to be wrote down a list, probably 20, 30 or more, that you would write out things that are important for you, things that you prioritize in your day to day. But you can kind of start honing it into like 3 to 5 bigger, like, very, very. Like all the gold stars. These matter to me so much more than everything else. You can use that as a starting point for what you talk about because that is what can drive that connection. And that's what's going to make a really great customer or client is when you're on the same page with like what you care about. Yeah. So that can be a great first place to start.
[00:16:40] Caroline Hull That's so true. And I know that when we were working together, I had mentioned that I was really into manga and anime and I'm still figuring out how to incorporate that into my content. So it doesn't happen yet.
[00:16:55] Melanie Lea When you told me that. I was like, That is so random. You need to tell people it's super random. Yeah. So unexpected. Like that's what that's another thing. I don't like shocking people just to have shock factor, but I like surprising people like, oh yeah. Like, don't try to put me in a box like that. Like, we're also multi dimensional. Like, humans just have so many facets to them. And I think, you know, you don't need to share everything about yourself, but like let people in on those super random things. I think it makes, it makes things so much more fun.
[00:17:34] Caroline Hull Yeah. And that's why I like, especially with my podcast, I'll try every once in a while to kind of share a little bit about like what's going on my life. I mean, like you said, it's you feel sometimes like, Oh, my life is super boring. Like all I do is get up work, homeschool my kids, watch the news, they go to sleep. Like that's literally my life these days. But there are other people out there who are doing the same exact thing as me. And so when I do share, like, hey, you know, oh, so crazy today, you know, we were trying to homeschool and whatever, you know, people connect with that. I mean, I've I've literally had clients come on board simply because they knew that I would understand, like, hey, I'm a working mom to my schedule's crazy. I have my kids home, so I appreciate working with someone who gets that. And so like, I don't know as far as like the podcasting goes, I think trying to inject these little like moments of This is who I am, this is my life. I'm not saying you have to share everything and every gory detail, but I do think it really helps form those connections. Which kind of brings me into a question I wanted to chat with you for a minute about, because you do share a lot about mental health and and things like that on your Instagram, but how do you decide what you are and are not comfortable with sharing? Or how do you decide what or what not to share? Like, what is that measurement for you that you use?
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[00:19:44] Melanie Lea Well, I will say I've kind of gone back and forth with what I share and how much I share. People generally probably don't notice when I pull back from the more sensitive topics, but I'll, I'll kind of still keep them in rotation. So like, for instance, mental health stuff, I will share. I'll share like things that have helped me or things that I've dealt with, but I might not show or share like a current situation. Something that was really good advice that was given to me probably in 2018 was think of anything that you're going through as either a scab or a scar. And if it's a scab, it's a little fresher and easy to, like, tear it open, you know, like it hasn't healed yet. Whereas a scar, maybe there's scar tissue, maybe it's not very pretty. Which, by the way, I love scars. I think they're beautiful, but it's more of its healed and it's not so raw. And so I've always thought that was such a great Northstar like, okay, maybe I do want to share about this. For me it's always been motivated by I don't want people to feel so alone. I don't want them to feel like they're isolated, especially when it comes to mental health. So that can drive me a little bit more because it's something I want to do that feels very important. That does not have to be what other people want to do, because I've even decided to pull back a little bit that scab versus scar, you know, you get to if you know it's a scab, okay, don't even worry about it. Go heal good, deal with things, process whatever you need to. But if it's a scar and it feels okay and it feels right and you're not like you don't have this resistance, which you can kind of pick hairs with that because it's that resistance because it's just new and scary but still good, or is it like a no? So then that comes back to that discernment and cultivating trust with yourself. I think what the most important thing to remember is personal stuff in your real life is privileged information and who you share it with should deserve that privilege. I don't think anyone should be sharing everything about their lives or like we get to curate what we put online. And as long as you're not putting yourself above people and you're focusing on those values, you don't have to get super vulnerable online and you can still connect.
[00:22:14] Caroline Hull Yeah, well, and I love this idea to like there are things that you can share and then you can you can pull back on and thinking about a story for myself, I've recently, like just in the last few years started really talking about the fact that I was a ballet dancer and that was like my whole life. And I was going to become a ballet dancer. And I really didn't share about it much at all because it didn't end well. There was a lot of negative things that happened to me during that journey and then like when I was ready to share, it was so interesting because the opportunity to share about it presented itself and I did a podcast interview. I mean, this is like early in my podcasting journey and it was the first time I had like publicly named the institution I was at. And what I, you know, what I had dealt with while I was there. And it felt good because it was the right time. And so I think that too, like is a really good way to kind of say, okay, is this something like is this even the right time? Like you said, is it a scar? Is it a scab? And like for me, by then it was a scar. So it was like, okay, I'm ready to talk about what happened. And I love that analogy. You shared that with us. I can't remember which course because they're all amazing together, but I remember you sharing that with us. And I was like, Oh, I love that because I think it's just such a good metric for measuring, you know, how do I feel about putting this out into the world? And, you know, and I think more recently, because I am starting to become more confident in showing up online as myself, I am becoming more confident and sharing like, Hey, this is what I believe about this and this is what I believe about this. But you're absolutely right. It goes back to like our values and also like my values that my company has, you know, the values that my team has and things like that. And what do you what are they comfortable speaking up about as well? And, you know, and we talk about that as a team like, okay, hey, you know, this political thing is happening. How do we all feel? Because I'm going to post this.
[00:24:12] Melanie Lea And so that's great. You do that.
[00:24:13] Caroline Hull Yeah, it's really needed because it's become like it's a part of who we are as women and, you know, in this company, in this world. And so I love I love that. And I didn't really think about values much until recently. And so I think that's such a great tip. So thank you for sharing that.
[00:24:29] Melanie Lea Yeah, well, just have name passing it along because that was really eye opening for me too to hear.
[00:24:36] Caroline Hull So talking about showing up as ourselves, trusting ourselves, being authentic. Not worrying if you're wearing makeup or not. I'm just gonna throw that out there now, can you? Like when we talk, you know, we are. We're wanting to form genuine connections through our content. Like we're wanting to. The whole goal here is to bring in potential clients, right? Like wanting people to understand us, understand what we're about, to the point that they want to work with us. All my clients have podcast. That's the whole goal of the podcast is to build authority to share their message so that people will want to click the button and come work with them. So how can we form those genuine connections through our content?
[00:25:18] Melanie Lea I think it's stuff that we've already talked about, but I do have an extra tip, but specifically with the values tip, like really, really thinking about and I'm so glad you brought this up, not only your personal values, but the values of your business. Because when you think about marketing, it's really just communicating. It's communicating something, right? And of course, it's communicating your offers, but that is only superficial, which makes things really hard to sell. So values is how you can go deeper. It's how I found that when you can kind of connect on a personal level first, people will care about your business stuff that is work out so well for me and pretty much all my clients is figuring out how to show people who you are. And for me, it's almost been okay after practice, like letting people accept me. And I know some some businesses aren't. Like, for instance, your your agency. It's not just you.
[00:26:20] Caroline Hull Right.
[00:26:21] Melanie Lea But I do feel like as founders of businesses, you know, your personal values create part of the bedrock of your business values. And so it's going to be important to understand those and really infusing your content through through that, angling your content through that. You can even talk about your offers by talking about your values. Hey, we, we created this part of our service to accommodate this need because this thing is important to both us and our customers. Right? So, so well, through talking about your values, and it makes it so easy to sell, but really, people are like, Oh, well, yeah, that feels really nice to hear. And if you can connect with, like, what people are needing, what they're even lacking, like the gap that you can fill for people through your service or your your product that can get them to care about them. But the other thing I was going to say is find content that resonates with you when you find someone, whether it's a podcaster, someone who writes really awesome emails, someone on Instagram, Tik Tok say what resonates with you and start to dissect what you like about it. Is it their style? Is it they're how they talk about things? Is it the medium that they're using? Is it the way they speak about something? You kind of have to start like discussing it and analyzing it and going, what? What is it that's resonating with me so much? And those give you those little breadcrumbs to go great. Like now I can apply this specific thing that I know I resonate with and just start seeing how it feels. And that can also be a great strategy to really break things down versus going, Oh, I like this person, so let me become a carbon copy of, right? It's never going to help you. But if you can kind of understand why you resonate with someone or a piece of content that is such a goldmine for the path for your content.
[00:28:27] Caroline Hull I love that. That's such a great way to look at it because I think a lot of times we hear or see something. We're like, I really like that. And then like I said, I was doing at the beginning of my stories, dirty those that I would watch stories and I would try to recreate them or I would watch stories and I'd be like, I don't understand how they did that, but when I try to record this, it's super awkward. But yeah, like taking those comes. I love that. One of the, one of the biggest takeaways I've learned from working with you has. So basically I went through the stories one on one course with you and then I did the profile power up and the stories was huge because it helped me gain confidence and like get on video and all that good stuff. But when we did the profile power up, we really honed in on like the things that I was going to be sharing and talking about kind of like content pillars. I mean, basically that's kind of what they were. But now that I'm like thinking about it, I'm like seeing how much of my values are woven into that, you know, one of yeah, like one of the big things that we always talk about is sharing your message, but sharing it in a way that feels like you authentically. I don't like to be authentic too much because I feel like it get that. But sharing authentically like that's a huge thing that. We talk about that I talk about online, but I had never really put like a name to it and like said, Oh, this is what I'm talking about. I'm actually talking about marketing authentically and how that relates to podcasting because it's really important to me, like I want to be able to show up as myself, so I want my clients to do that the same way. That's a value that we have. I'm pretty sure there's something very similarly written on our about page on our website. So it was so funny because, you know, I felt like we were doing a pretty good job of saying who we are and what we did. But when we went through that process of like defining those things, all the rest of my marketing kind of fell into place. And even like the messaging and my emails, the messaging on my podcast, in fact, I was talking to my team I think last week, a week before last, and we were talking about how good the podcast content feels this season. And and that's just it's just kind of like been this like, domino effect. And so I just really want to encourage people to kind of take the time, like she said, to write down the values and figure out what are the things that are important to you and and notice what you are already sharing because some of it might be falling into those categories and then you can like refine it and refining and defining it. I don't know. It's been a game changer for me. I even like in my asana, like I have my content calendars and asana and I made those tags so I can label each piece of content, like what category does I fall into? And that has helped me so much on those days when I'm stuck and I don't know what I want to talk about because I'm like, Oh yeah, the here's this thing that's really important. And I just talked about it on the podcast and blah, blah, blah, and it was this and it just it all falls into place.
[00:31:31] Melanie Lea That's awesome. Do your listeners know how incredible your Asana setup is?
[00:31:36] Caroline Hull I don't think they really grasp.
[00:31:38] Melanie Lea It's beautiful. It's beautiful. I love it. You're able to do that. It's so cool to hear you say that because like, I don't think I mentioned this in the intro, but like, Instagram's kind of my thing, and that's what I focus on. But it really is just the vehicle for everything else. Like anything you're doing on Instagram for your marketing should absolutely be the same things that you're talking about and doing on other platforms. Even if the medium is different, it's all the same right know. It's just tweaks in how you do it. So that's really cool that you were able to then kind of tweak things for the podcast. But then even more cool than that is that your team also was like, Yeah, this is right, this is like correct, this is good.
[00:32:27] Caroline Hull Yeah. Like it feels, dare I say, aligned because I say this on my podcast. Yeah, it all starts to align. And this is like one of the things that I preach a lot, because when people create podcasts, it's often an afterthought. Like it's like they have all their marketing content and then their podcast is over here and I'm like, Why is it over here? By itself? It should tie into and feed everything else that you're doing. And for me it was like the opposite. My podcast was like great creating. Like it was generating marketing, it was great. My Instagram was like over here. And so when I was able to get it all to work together, it's all aligned and so much easier than it was a year ago. Like it's just a world of difference. I recently took back over my email marketing and it's been it's been so fun because I'm like, Oh yeah, I've got like three Instagram posts I can combine into an email. It's all like, it's all this ecosystem. It all talks to each other, everything flows into each other. So if you come into my world like you're going to hear these things consistently, that's how you know, that's what I'm about. And so that's you know, that's been a huge thing for me these last few months, right?
[00:33:44] Melanie Lea Because then you can reinforce and strengthen those things. And if you think about kind of like the buyer journey, of course, you have the possibility of like someone finding out about you and converting into a client or customer immediately. Cause that can happen. But often it takes figuring out messaging and strategies organically and figuring out what resonates with people. But then you. That's why it's so important for organic marketing, I believe, is because you get to create those systems, reinforcing your messaging and increasing kind of your brand awareness and building trust. And that's what makes customers and clients online is is that cohesion of everything you're doing, reinforcing what you're saying on one place, doing it over here, too. That's really cool. Yeah.
[00:34:41] Caroline Hull Well, thank you. I mean. It's all you, all right? But, you. Know, it's funny. It's here because, you know, when when I was we were working together. It's so funny because I hear you say things that I say a lot to my podcasting clients, and it's so it's so one of those like, what's that saying? The cobbler's children never have any shoes, but it's so true. Like, you know, I haven't really been focusing so much on how my and all works together, but I'm going to tell you about it a million times. And so for the past couple of years, I've really been struggling. Like, where do I show up? How do I show up? But when I finally started putting all the pieces together and actually seeing how it could all work together and, you know, and going through that customer journey, which I also preach, it's amazing how it really does actually all work together. Yeah, it's been a game changer. So it can happen to you too. So listen. Listen to what we say.
[00:35:41] Melanie Lea It is hard to do things for yourself though, like especially as a website designer. Yeah. I never had a website that I felt was actually finished and. Oh yeah, yeah. So it is. My friend Sarah says it's, it's harder to read the label from inside the jar. Oh it's easier to read it from the outside.
[00:36:00] Caroline Hull Oh that's just a good one. Yeah. I don't feel like it's so important to ask for help when you get super stuck, you know? And that's what I've done with with Instagram, you know, I knew I wanted to take Instagram somewhere else. I knew it wasn't serving me the way I was using it. And and that's why I started getting help from you. And, and it's been great. So I'm excited to see because we're working on creating a close friends list now for me, and I'm super excited to see where this goes. So.
[00:36:28] Melanie Lea Me too.
[00:36:30] Caroline Hull Now that everybody has listened to this amazing episode and I'm so glad again that I got to introduce you to my listeners, can you tell everyone how they can connect with you and maybe what you have going on, ways they can work with you, that kind of thing?
[00:36:42] Melanie Lea Yeah. So like I mentioned, Instagram is kind of my main thing. So if you want to follow me there, it's @melanieannelea and I'm sure you all have that spelled out somewhere in the show notes.
[00:36:54] Caroline Hull Yeah, absolutely.
[00:36:55] Melanie Lea Yeah. Okay. And then my website is melanielea.com. And if you go there, I've got all the courses that we've been talking about. So profile, power up stories one over one and then close friends marketing. We're doing a mastermind, but there's a replay course of that available to all that is focused on Instagram marketing. But like we've also mentioned, it's so adaptable to anywhere you're marketing, it's obviously you shouldn't you shouldn't sign up for those if you don't like Instagram, but you'll learn a lot about Instagram. You'll learn a lot about how to communicate what you're doing and how to connect what you're doing with with the people you want to be attracting to your business. It really is all about like the confidence in what you're saying. So yeah, those are all those are all my courses. And then I also sometimes work with clients when I want to do their monthly marketing strategy. So I create a custom marketing plan for them every single month, and we kind of get to brainstorm how to grow and how to tie what you're doing when you show up online to your offers and to your business and your income.
[00:38:05] Caroline Hull Love that. Well, thank you so much. I'm so glad we got to chat. I needed this today.
[00:38:10] Melanie Lea Thank you so much for having me. Caroline, this was a lot of fun.
[00:38:15] Caroline Hull Wasn't that episode so great? Melanie shared so many amazing tips. And again, my favorite is just the whole analogy about the scab versus the scar, and that's really helped me kind of figure out what personal things I'm okay with sharing and how I'm going to share them. But I feel like there were just so many other gems in this episode about knowing which content to share and and showing up as yourself and trusting yourself and yeah. So I'd love to know what your key takeaways were from this episode. The best way to share those with me is, you guessed it on Instagram @wildhomepodcasting. And I mentioned in the episode that I'm starting a close friends list and this is very, very true. If you don't know what that is, it's a list on Instagram where you can share stories, content just to those people. And so I'm going to be sharing exclusive content to people who join my close friends list. And if you want to see how this works, go and follow Melanie. And we're going to put all of her links in the show notes because she has been using close friends for a while. And I just I absolutely love it. I think it's so smart how she uses this strategy on Instagram. So it's actually it would be a really great way to connect with your podcast listeners, which is what I'm hoping to do with my close friends list. So be sure to check that out. You just can follow me on Instagram @wildhomepodcasting. And if you want to join my close friends list, just DM me close friends and I will get you added and I'm going to be starting. Get up here pretty soon. Thank you so much for listening today and I will be back next week with a new episode.
[00:39:50] Caroline Hull Thank you for listening to Podcast Your Business. For more podcasting tips, follow us on Instagram @wildhomepodcasting. If you are ready to launch up level or grow your podcast, head to wildhomepodcasting.com to get started today.
