Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Rachel Miller who is a mum of 6 children, builds and grows online businesses and also teaches people how to grow their audience and how to convert them. We talk all about how to get really good Facebook engagement without paying, what type of content you should be posting and how to convert your audience to sales.
KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
- The fastest way to build a relationship with someone is to start a conversation!
- Treat your Facebook profile like a conversation you would have with a stranger.
- Each platform has its own preferred types of content – such as Reels on Instagram.
- AMC – The right audience, message, and content.
- When you post on Facebook, you get the most out of that post between the first and third day.
- Facebook and Instagram are the same algorithm.
- Business Suite allows you to schedule your content on both Facebook and Instagram.
- Post depending on the size of your business.
- It’s ok to post the same content again!
- Talk about your audience and ask them questions.
- If you post a picture of yourself – ask a question about them.
- If you’re going to talk about a win, talk about one of your students instead of yourself.
- Facebook likes engagement as this shows the platform that your audience is enjoying that content.
- Build your audience then create content around them.
- Your content doesn’t have to be the answer – it can ask the questions instead.
THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…
ALWAYS link your content back to your audience and who they are.
HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN’T MISS
- An introduction to Rachel 04:56
- Organic traffic 10:32
- Organic reach for Facebook business pages 12:54
- What if I post and it’s tumbleweed? 18:17
- How to boost your Facebook organic reach 19:05
- How often should I post on Facebook? 25:17
- What type of content does well? 28:37
- How to make money from a blog 43:50
CHECK RACHEL OUT:
RESOURCES MENTIONED:
Join Marketing That Converts The Academy
Transcript
Hello and welcome to this week's episode at the podcast. How are you doing? Right? I just rewatched, uh, the beginning of the interview that we're doing today and it's so good. It's so good. But before we dive into that and I tell you who it is and what they're all about.
I want to give you a heads up that next week, the Academy doors are going to be open. So they open on Friday the 24th of September. And they're closing on Wednesday the 29th of September. The doors only open for about 10 days a year. And although it feels like I talk about it a lot. They only opened literally 10 days a year.
They've opened twice this year, I think. And next year they'll open twice. Now, the reason I'm giving you the heads up is because you don't have very long if you want to join. And secondly, the price is going up. So when I opened the doors, the price will be $59 as it is. Um, currently it has been last time I opened it, but when the doors close, the next time they open next year, it's going to be 97.
So if you are on the fence, if you are sat there thinking, “Yeah, I wanted to, I'm not sure, you know, see how it goes.” You really want to think about joining this time, because the next time it's going to be a lot more money. And the reason it's going to be a lot more money is because of, and this is so hard to say this stuff when it's talking about your own stuff, but like, The quality of the stuff in there is so good.
The time and effort and attention I give is immense. And the Academy is one of these things where if I won the lottery tomorrow, I would still do it. I love it. I absolutely adore it. They are my people, they come first, I do the best things for them. They have all the best opportunities and I do all what I do.
And, and I, I see some of the, you know, people out there sometimes who you can see it's for the money or you can see it's for the fame, or you can see it's for the, I don't know what it is for, but like genuinely, I just adore working with all these small businesses. And like, I constantly joke with my husband can we have a party at my house and invite everybody around.
I'm like, they're like my family. So I just wanted to let you know, before I jumped into this interview, which is amazing that that is happening and the doors are going to be closing on the 29th and they weren't opening until next year and they will be a lot more money. So like I said, don't delay come and join me.
What you got to lose? Nothing. Absolute nothing. It's going to be ACE. Okay. Let me tell you about today's interview. Today I am interviewing the very lovely Rachel Miller and oh my goodness it was so good. Like the phrase knowledge bombs is a bit irritating to me, but it was literally like everything she said. I was like, what?
Say what? How? This is amazing. She was amazing. She was so good. Also she's a mum of six. Children. Six. Like how on earth? Uh, so yeah, six children, she runs a huge, amazing business. She has devoted all of her time, teaching people how to grow audiences, teaching people, how to convert them, how to get really good Facebook engagement without paying.
Now, I don't think I've ever had anybody on talking about Facebook and engagement because it always felt like a bit of a lost course to me. But some of the stuff that Rachel said it was unbelievable. So, so good. She's built multiple websites, each earning six figures plus, and she loves seeing other people do the same.
I don't want to talk anymore cause she's too good. Enjoy this episode. Please let us know what you think. I know she'd be, she would love to hear it and I'll see you at the end.
Okay. I am really excited today to welcome to the podcast. The very lovely Rachel Miller. Rachel welcome.
Rachel: Thank you so much for having me today. I truly appreciate it.
Teresa: Honestly, the pleasure is all mine. I have heard the most amazing things about you and what you do. And funny enough, I was on a call just before our interview. And someone said, I said, “Oh I've got an interview next.” they said, who that who is with? And she's like, “Oh my God, she's amazing.”
So. But in case someone who's listening to this doesn't know who you are. Can we just give two minutes of like who you are and how you got to do what you're doing today?
Rachel: Oh, I always find, this is like an interesting like moment. Does that make sense? I am a mom of six kids. Right now I have bribed my children and told them they can watch TV early in the afternoon if they do their reading very quietly.
And they're, they they've got like a summer school. Computer thing they're supposed to do every day for an hour, like to make sure they don't have that summer slide. Like you will sit here and you, so when I close my eyes and I picture who is Rachel, I picture me, the mom with the kids juggling work and life.
And I also know that I love making an impact on people. And how can I be a mom of six kids at home juggling the pre-teen drive everywhere scenario. And still make an impact. And that's why I've run a businesses online is because I can manage all of those things. I can juggle all those things. I can seem like I've got it all together and I do have it together, but I don't because like, who does? But I can run a business.
If it's an online business, if it works with an audience where it's on, I basically can craft it around my life. And so that's what I do. I've built audiences. Um, I built blogs. I built websites. I've built e-commerce lines that then all serve my, my life, my lifestyle, and allow me to be at home with my kids.
And I also teach other people how to grow an audience, which is fun. But ultimately I am growing and running my own businesses as well.
Teresa: So like you should have seen my face when you said six children. Six children, like first off, Rachel does not look old enough to have even one or two let alone six. How old are they?
Rachel: A bottle? I'm great.
Teresa: How old are the children?
Rachel: My youngest is 10. And so we have three, 10 year olds, and then we have a 12 and a half, 14 and 15 year old.
Teresa: Wowses.
Rachel: I know.
Teresa: Like that is a busy house.
Rachel: And I thought I was busy when I had toddlers. But the reality is that preteen stage where they're having you drive everywhere.
Teresa: They take up so much more room.
Rachel: Take up more room and they need to talk to you a lot, like about all the things.
And they like, does that make it, like, I don't know how to explain it. It's very, it's a little time-consuming. I'm loving it, but I love the fact that I get to have a business that I can run and I can control. And I don't need to, like, it's not the 12 year olds dramas about who hers, where her shoes went, you know, all of those things that can't have.
I don't need to worry about that cause I can organize my business. So sometimes it lets me, I think be a better mom because I'm not, I'm not internalizing my kids' stuff as much, um, instead of like, “Hey, this is your choice, you lost your shoes. You're gonna wear the wrong shoes to wherever it is.” And instead I can say, I can control my business.
I know where my business is shoes are. Not that a business part shoes, but you know what I mean? I know where that is. I can, I can control it. I can help that grow. And I think it almost makes me a better mom because I don't internalize as much of the kids' stuff, but this is that pre tween teen stages. It's just drama.
Teresa: An 11 year old girl uh, who's my daughter. And then I have a step son who's 18, and I have a stepdaughter who's 24 and I met them when the step daughter was 15. Oh man, that was one hell of a learning curve. Like you're right. When they get to this age, it's kind of funny because in one way, they're like so much easier because you almost don't see them because it's like my daughter, if I allowed her, we'll just come in and go on her iPad and go in her room.
But on the other hand where they want a talk to you, you really have to like, “Yeah, okay, I'm listening.” And they're talking about stuff that you like either you don't know about or that's where it's at the home get. And I'm like, “Well, what are you saying? What's these words.” Yeah.
Rachel: Yeah. And they want to drive to like all of the places.
So my oldest two have like little part-time jobs, which I'm really grateful for. But they don't have cars yet. So. And then they've got braces because they inherited my mouth. So they all have braces. Well, not all, cause we're an adoptive family, but even the ones that are adopted, they are going to get braces too, because they got someone's mouth.
But my point is, yeah, we have a lot of orthodontists appointments with the family of six. It's enough see number of orthodontist.
Teresa: Can we have space? Like a car parking space. Can you put our name on that?
Rachel: So here I can run my business from the orthodontist parking lot. They just want it. With COVID, COVID has been the biggest gift because before this, I had to go into the office. Now because of COVID they want me to stay outside the office. I'm still supposed to be on the property because like, I can't leave my minor unattended, supposedly, but they're in the building and I'm happy as a clam with my cup of coffee in the parking lot, working in my car.
Teresa: So good. So good. You know, what I'm really excited about.
And I'm just going to like jump straight in is one of the things you talk about is organic reach and in particular Facebook. Like, and I realized that when I looked at bringing you on, I didn't think I've ever had someone talk about that because I didn't think it ever existed. And you must hear this all the time.
Like Facebook, dead. Organic reach, dead. Don't bother. See you later and move on something better. Like, what are your thoughts on that?
Rachel: We just, just that my blogging partner, just this morning sent me a screenshot. We got over 161,000 clicks from Google to our website. Now people will think, “Okay, well that's SEO.” But the reason why we got those clicks is because we got our URL to spike.
How did we get our URL to spike? We got our URL to spike because we drove organic traffic on Facebook and Pinterest and YouTube. So when we have all at the same time, traffic linking to these things at the same time, Google's like, whoa, this link is a verified link. We're going to put it higher up in the ranking.
And then once it's higher up in the ranking and more people find it where people click on it. Well, now all of a sudden those 10 posts that literally were not ranking at all, because at the same time we posted them on Facebook, Pinterest and Youtube and we had them linking in, we had them spike and now they're sending us consistent traffic and I don't even have to promote them on Facebook anymore.
Teresa: Like, so I know someone is sat there now with us and there earbuds going, “Say what? How can I do that?”
Rachel: My business make multiple six figures that. One does this, I have five different businesses, but that one business makes multiple six figures and I'm not working on it. Because once I did that promotion once, I now can sit back on my laurels and the other, the promotion like snowballs.
So now Google's going to pick it up. Now Pinterest is a long tail keywords. So the more I have the longer, it doesn't last for like the first three weeks that you get no traffic. The most traffic you get is about three months in. So I know like three months from now, I'm going to get, I don't have to work from now because for the next three months, it's going to work for me.
So all of that kind of snowballs when you have the right structure set in place. And known for all organic traffic and growing all or audiences. But I use Facebook as my catalyst.
Teresa: Like that to me being in this industry is like, If you had to put a profile or a platform to that sentence, Facebook would not be the one you chose.
Like it would be the last if I may choose. How on earth do you. And we're talking. So let's just kind of find people listening. We're talking about a page aren't we? We're not talking about your profile.
Rachel: So, yes, I use a business page and, um, we drive massive amounts of traffic with business pages. So we actually have clients right now that we've worked with, um, who are reaching 27 million with single posts on Facebook.
Like this happened two weeks ago. So we help people. And we had somebody last week tell me that she crossed over 70,000 fans. She started with me less than a year and a half ago. So she was like zero. Like she never had a business, never had any promotion whatsoever. Um, so like we have our fastest person in the year. One month, one week started from zero and got to a million Facebook fans without any ad spent.
She's spent under 183. She spent $183 to get back. It's totally possible. People who say something's dead. Well, if you think it's dead, you're gonna act like it's dead. Whereas if you say, wait a second, there's traffic in the world, what do, what other people are getting traffic? There's people searching stuff on Google.
There's people looking at content on Facebook. There are people browsing the internet, those people didn't go away. So if they're browsing, I can be in front of them. How do I do this? And gain the system? And it's a lot of fun to just turn the machine on.
Teresa: It just sounds like some wizardry, like this is the, this is the stuff that I tell people all the time doesn't exist.
Right. So everyone wants the magic ones. Everyone wants me to go to them and go, I'll do this one thing. We've been keeping it secret. Do this one thing and your business supply. And I say all the time, there is no magic wand it takes work. Which I'm guessing. And you just nodded it does take work. This isn't a, oh, you put a secret word in the algorithm goes, “Yes.” And brings it in.
Rachel: There is work. But there's also some like shortcuts. Does that makes sense? Like there's ways to get there faster. So if you're talking about yourself with your content. Well, that's the long way. Because like, think of like when you go to a party and what's the fastest way to get a stranger like talk to you, I'm an extrovert. So I'm really good at going to places and getting a stranger to talk to me because I desperately need every single person to say hi to me and say, they love me and smile at me.
And I get to talk to them. Like I need to talk to. Like my husband's like, “Why are you talking to the cashier?” I'm like, “Because I want to know how her day's going.” You know, like it's a thing. All the cashiers know who I am. So anyways, my point is I want, that that's something important to me. So I've watched, when you go to like a party or a social situation, what's the fastest way to build a relationship with that person?
It's not to go up to that person and talk about yourself. Let's say, “Oh, how, do you have a problem with XYZ? My business has a solution.” You would never do that in real life. Like you wouldn't be like, heck no, under the carpet, I'm dead. Like the world swallow up. But we do that on Facebook. So if we literally just treat our Facebook pages, our Facebook profiles, if we treat them like a conversation we'd have at the grocery store with a stranger, we're going to see that our rate rates skyrocket quickly.
Teresa: Yeah.
Rachel: So if we start the conversation with, “Oh, you dropped something.” “Oh, I see you're here.” “I had a question. Um, are you a mom too? Because I'm looking at this and I'm wondering about it. That's a way. I'm looking at this thing on the grocery store aisle, and I'm a mom. Do you have any feedback for this?”
Guess what if they're a mom, what are they gonna do? They're gonna stop. They're gonna talk to you about whatever the product is you're holding at the grocery store. I've had people ask me like, oh, my word. I'm like debating between these two things. I don't have kids and you're a mom and I got to go to the baby shower soon.
So can you tell me which one I should buy? I've had people do that to me. Whenever I do that on Facebook. All of a sudden my post take off. So because everyone wants to be that person who's helpful to the person next to.
Teresa: Yeah. Yeah. What about right? Because obviously, okay, so let's say you're sat here like me and I often like to use myself as an example because uh, you know, I am no where near perfect. So my Facebook and, you know, you can tell me off, that's fine. I have basically I just post to it. Right. And I just post the stuff I post everywhere else because rightly or wrongly I've told myself “Well it doesn't do anything.” So I'll just do that is the bare minimum.
Okay. I love Instagram. I'm all over Instagram. So am I often tell people that's where I hang out.
Rachel: Now. What are you doing in Instagram that's different from Facebook?
Teresa: So I guess on Instagram, I'm much more authentic internally. It's not that I'm not authentic on Facebook, but like Facebook is like, it's like, I'm showing the, oh, here's this link to this.
Oh, here's how you do this. Oh, here's a podcast episode.
Rachel: Oh guess what, when you do nothing, when you do that, no one response and they don't, they don't go, but you don't do that on Instagram.
Teresa: No. I talk about my garden and how the fact that building a greenhouse or share pictures of me drinking a cocktail, because I feel like another cocktail. Like I talk about.
Rachel: And if you did that on Facebook it feels a lot more like a relationship.
Teresa: Yeah. What if they start? Right. So I hit and I've been on your sites then I was looking and I'll put it in the show notes, but you've got some amazing downloads for free some opt-ins where you give people sort of lines that they can use, or example questions of things.
What if they start doing it and it's tumbleweed.
Rachel: It's usually tumbleweed. If one, you have the wrong audience.
Teresa: Okay.
Rachel: So like earlier today I literally got off a coaching call where the lady was like, “I am so excited. I have 90,000 fans on my Instagram and I'm wondering why I'm not selling my book.” Well, her Instagram feed is all about how to write, because that's what she likes.
She's an author and she loves knowing how to write. So her feed is all about aspiring authors. Her book was about like a biography of the film industry and Bollywood. Like it doesn't work. I'm like you don't have an audience for people who went up buy a book about film, photography, Bollywood, like you know what I mean. It's about authors.
Like, I don't care how active that audience is.
You have the wrong audience or you have the wrong message. So that's where like on your Facebook feed you're like a loudspeaker. Here's a link, here's a link. Here's a link. I have a promotion. Here's a link like that. Nobody really wants that in their feed. They feel like it's ads. Right? So, um, so that's the wrong message or it could be the wrong content.
And what I mean by that is every single platform has different nuances. So like, um, Pinterest right now really loves video pins. YouTube likes their community video, which is kind of convenient because you can put the same content in both places. Instagram really likes reels right now. So if you're putting up photos on Instagram, well, you're going to have a lesser reach.
If you're putting up stories on Instagram, you'll have a lesser reach then reels in. And likewise like on Facebook, if I shared a YouTube video on Facebook, I can do that once in a while. But if I did that all the time, well, Facebook's gotten be like even if the best content, best audience, best message. Facebook's like, excuse me, like, do you know where you are?
Like, why are you doing that? We have videos on our platform. We have reenter studio, they put a little banner at the top. It says, upload your video on creator studio. Like they want you to use there. So if it's a wrong audience, the wrong message, the wrong content. If you can fix that, the AMC, if you can get the right audience.
Get the right message, the right content. Then you just do what we call engagement boosters, like little, like little stacking tax tasks. And these are like really little things like tagging someone who's an influencer in this space on a photo that down on. Um, going to your top fans and tagging them in the comments and asking them a question.
So little tiny little engagement tax that you can do. Then Facebook looks at this and be like, oh my word. Right audience, right message, content isn't to YouTube. We liked this girl. Now she's got engagement on it right away. We're going to push this out in the algorithm. And that's how people like Vinny with only 2000 Facebook fans on his Facebook page got 1000 of them to share his post.
Yeah. That he's not the only one. So he got that because right audience, right message, right content, tiny bit of engagement that Facebook's like, oh, everybody wants to see this. Facebook then drives it to everyone else. That's how, like, I just, when I started this call, I told you guys how I, I gained Google.
I got Google to send over 160,000 clicks to my website. I got them to send that traffic because we gained it by saying, oh, here's a little bit of where the algorithm, Google, this is where we're doing. This is what people like. And then Google picks it up and Google runs with it. So it's almost like the person in football.
I don't play football. I don't know anything about the sport of football. I know I live in football town. So I've seen the game. I'm going to talk from the girl who doesn't actually understand football. Who's going to explain it to you. You know, the guy that like picks up the, they punt it, he kept catches it and then he throws it to the, to the person who's actually going to run it and make the goal.
Right. I don't know how to explain that.
Teresa: I get what you're saying.
Rachel: Okay. Facebook's that, because Facebook will take that post because it has a spike. Whenever you post on Facebook, you get the most juice out of that post for the first day to the first three days. So Facebook's that punt. It takes that oh not punt. The punt's gonna kick. Anyways punts when you post it, if the person between that punt who takes the ball and throws it to the person who is actually going to run and make the goal. I see Facebook as that for your traffic, Facebook will drive people into that sales page and they watch that sales page explode. Facebook will drive people to Pinterest.
So now you can have a pin go viral and have it last for like years. Um, literally one of my pins still going viral three years later. So if you can get the ball to punt, then you can have it run. And that's where Facebook is my, my punter. And it does the thing, just so you know, Facebook and Instagram are the same algorithm.
They were both made by Adam Moserri. So it's easier for me with Facebook because it's more established. I can schedule better, but literally right now they're actually rolling out emerged Instagram and Facebook feed and emerged Instagram and Facebook business suite, where you can post and schedule all your content, just like you can on Facebook.
So one of the things I loved about Facebook is I can go in there and I can schedule six weeks worth of everything. And I don't know when Netflix show, so I don't have to constantly be like, oh, six weeks from out. What am I doing? I don't know. Like, it just shows up every day and I don't have to think about it and I don't have to worry about it.
And it just, it just lives. And I couldn't do that on Instagram. On Instagram I had to like kind of show up every day. Um, for, yeah, I did. I had to do a real or a story in real time. So now they're actually merging all of those and they're giving us editorial tools and they're even giving us an insight dashboard that's United between both.
So now I can see all my stats from Instagram and Facebook at the same time. They're basically become the same feed and for all intensive purposes. So now, like now it makes sense to me. Especially it, is that tools rolling out for me to use Instagram just as much as Facebook because I don't, I can watch my one Netflix show.
My husband likes watching TV. I don't. So our compromise is he watches TV and I sit with him and I play on my phone or my little iPad. That's when I schedule my content. So I can go and schedule everything. Well, I'm sitting there and tomorrow, the next day, the three days later, I'm not on social media, even though it looks like I am. So.
Teresa: Okay. So you're scheduling your content because you're using creative studio to schedule it.
Rachel: I use only Facebook's tools because Facebook loves Facebook. Remember like the whole YouTube thing. Facebook wants to be the big dog in Facebook land. So Facebook wants you to use Facebook. Sapping gives you extra like juice when you use Facebook.
Teresa: Okay. So like I've got visions of you sat there crafting perfectly the most amazing content for every single post. And in my head, you were like, “Okay, I'll bring in this ingredient. And this ingredient.” like some mad scientist or something like I'm seeing this and I'm thinking, but how the hell, like how often do you post daily?
Rachel: Well, it depends which project. So my, some of my blogs we post every hour. Because we get traffic every hour because we have that much engagement every single hour. So if I post less, I just get less engagement. So, but that's because those pages have multiple millions of fans.
Teresa: Okay.
Rachel: So you want to post, depending on the size of your business.
What I love to do is create a hundred pieces of content and I have a whole system that can help you make that a hundred days of content in literally a day. Like I literally from 8:00 AM Saturday by noon, one o'clock you can have your entire a hundred days of content done in my system. And once you have that hundred days, you post day one, day two, day three, day four, day five.
And at the end of six weeks, you go back and you look, which ones didn't do well. And I don't like use any scientific thing. Like, oh, like check the numbers. No, I just eyeball it. Like, one's bigger than the others in reach and that little bar thing. Right. So the one that's bigger and reach, I circled that as, oh, it's a good one.
And the one that's like, wait, what, how, why did that flop? I just cross it out. And then at the end, I might have say 80 posts I can use again. I only have to make 20. And then next time. I have another 20 posts that I get rid of, but now all of the other ones are my better posts, so I don't have to work. So people think, oh, wait a minute, Rachel, you're posting every hour.
Well, no, I am posting every hour, but like it's content that I wrote six years ago. That's still doing well. So why would I rewrite it? I just kind of post it.
Teresa: And just love that. Your your, your regularly checking it a bit, removing the stuff that isn't working and keeping the stuff that is. Because again, people get terrified of reposting stuff.
They're like, You know, I don't want to do that. They've seen it. Well, the chances are potentially they haven't seen it. And even if they have, they're not immediately going to be like, oh, this is a joke. Like I'm going to leave.
Rachel: Also. How many times do you listen to the same song?
Teresa: Oh, if it's me continuously, I'm a nightmare. They hate me in this house.
Rachel: Yeah. And my children, I mean, kids are the worst of this. How many times do they watch one TV show?
Teresa: All the time.
Rachel: Like one of my kids I'm like, do you have, can you watch any other episodes, anyone, any I'm not picky. Any other episode, can this time really? Like, it's this musical, whatever, it's the most guys, most annoying voice at this.
Maybe it was amazing musical the first two times I heard it, but about now my daughter's into Hadestown and it's not that interesting. I'm done. Okay. But the point is I'm done, she's not. The person who loves that topic they're gonna listen to it again and again and again and again and again, and I'm tired of the post, but my audience is still clicking.
So yeah, not about me at this point.
Teresa: And if you got the click then that's okay. Like that's the thing.
So, like, let's say someone's coming to this brand new and they're like, okay, so I'm going to go back and look at what I've done. Is that a good place to start? I mean, if I looked at mine, it's like fall on its backside, fall on its backside, fall on its backside, like, because I'm just trying to think of like some of the posts I did where I did get a lot of interaction.
They tend to be more personal stuff obviously. They tend to be more here's my journey, story, whatever whatever.
Rachel: Know to know that you'll probably do even better if you're, what's your journey story. Because in a scope of like, what's going to do well and what's going to do badly, what's going to do well is stuff when you're getting to talk about your audience, what's going to do a little bit, not as bad as when you're talking about yourself, like your stories it's going to do the worst is when it looks like an act. It's promotion post. So if you can get as close to who is my audience, and I'm going to talk about who they are and feature who they are, you're going to do better.
Teresa: So when you're crafting your stuff, like I'm just, and I know everyone else is going to do, because I've just done it. I've just gone to your page right now. Cause now I'm looking at your content going, but how, and what, what are you writing about it and what is this stuff? And like, you know, some like it's really personally well-written as in.
You're talking directly to me, you're sharing lots of good things about other people who are sharing lots of posts, actually, which is interesting because I don't share anything. Like, it's just not a thing I do as in, I wouldn't share it. I only share my own content. Um, but yeah, so what's like, what's the secret, like magic. What's the.
Rachel: Do you want, like this status shortcut. Photo, video conversation starter, and it's not about you, it's not about your product. It's about your audience.
Teresa: Okay.
Rachel: So if I'm going to post a picture of me, I'm going to always ask them a question about them. If I'm going to talk about. Uh, when I'm going to try and talk about a, when my students had not something I did.
Teresa: Yeah.
Rachel: So if it's going to be a, here's a product that'll help you. It's going to be a way of, oh, my word, who has done this because I know somebody has already gotten bladadadada. So that way it's all about back to who they are. And oh, if you haven't, here's the product. So it's always about who they are in elevating who they're.
Teresa: Yeah, I love it.
So like with that growth, because again, people would just like eat that up and I do ads, right? So I'm running an ad at the moment. It's fallen on its backside. Like it's a lead magnet. People are like, yeah, bore off and it's not doing brilliantly, but like, I would never. And have I, if someone said to me, if I had to spend money on Facebook ads, I wouldn't suggest they do a light campaign.
Um, just because like, for me, it's like, well, if I'm going to spend money, I want it to do something. That growth, like how is it purely the fact of the more they're interacting, the more the algorithm showing it.
Rachel: That's it.
Teresa: The more people on them. That is it, there's no, like.
Rachel: Pretty much it.
Teresa: Like, it's just natural growth and I'm wondering as well, um, bless you.
Rachel: Sorry I sneeze.
Teresa: It's fine. We have to sneeze. We're human.
Rachel: Neighbor's just mow their lawn. No it's okay. My neighbor's awesome. I'm glad he mows his lawn. Sorry about the sneeze but yeah.
Teresa: What about the link thing as well, because Facebook don't like links, do they?
Rachel: Facebook wants a lot, like you were saying engagement. And so Facebook wants signals that readers give to Facebook to say this post is doing well. So those are micro reactions, like thumbs up hearts, like share or like smiles.
Those are all micro-actions. Um, minimal minimum, mid middle ground, medium reactions are like short comments, like, yes. Okay. Thanks. Those auto-populating ones like hearts, hearts, beautiful. You know, whatever those are. Um, what the better comments are. So the next signal would be three liner comments or any comment where you're writing a whole sentence and then you're tagging someone or comments where there's a back and forth interaction.
So like, I leave a gift, somebody else responds and I ask them a question and then they respond back. That's what Facebook is looking for. So if you look at like any of my ads. I engage with stack the heck out of those, the first person that responds on the ad, I write them an open-ended question and then I might tag another person.
So that, that way there's a back and forth dialogue happening on my ad. And then whenever they make a comment, I'll go like it I'll give their comment a thumbs up or like, or heart, because that's telling Facebook, there's a signal on this post. And you know, it looks weird if I like my own post. I'm not liking my own post, I'm liking the comments of someone that, I mean, I watch it for a Hawk for that first comment, because I don't engage engagement second.
So do we do ads? Yes. Do I do I prefer conversions? Yes, because I like making money, but I also love engagement ads because sometimes I need that. Just a little bit of a boost. Tell Facebook, this is going to get some juice in the algorithm and then I'll switch it to a new commercial at some times.
Teresa: And so when you talk about engagement ads, would you go to the effort of.
Let's say you post something on your page and you're like, oh, that was really good on my page. Would you then boost that or put that out as an ad? Just I'm assuming the, obviously generally I know the ads to help engage with the page, but I'm guessing just even that engagement on the post is going to help everything.
Rachel: Yes. If I get a post to be engaged on my page, then I have an audience that I can retarget because they're already warm to me. If they've taken action and they've liked the post now that they're not going to lesser like a post that's say about your day or your garden, they might like that posted their gardener.
That doesn't mean they're liking your posts because they're your perfect client. So you've got to make sure that whenever you're putting content out there, it's the content that your perfect person would only your perfect person would relate to. Because when you get them to like it, then you can invite that person to like your page.
Now you've got an engaged fan that you can then even drive into your Facebook group. I drive leads into my Facebook group yesterday. We added 300 new people to my Facebook group, without any ads without me having to drive traffic. I just did it without me having to click anything. I did an automatic in like invites.
So everyone who takes any action on my page that day, Facebook automatically invites them to join my group.
Teresa: That's. And this is like, it's fine. It's just like thing of dreams. Like, this is what people like. Hi, when you said it falls something go viral. Like we always talk about, you know, if you could literally make the formula of making something go viral, you'd make millions and millions and millions because people want stuff to go viral all the time.
Like, can I ask the blog that you're talking about? What's the subject of the, as in what's the, what does it talk about?
Rachel: I have one blog that I started one blog and sold it for pre-schoolers. I have a food Crock-Pot blog. I have a cat blog. I have a DIY home blog. We'll be starting one for budgeting and saving money soon because, um, the way the algorithms are working, we are going to be making more money on a mud, but that it's no longer eyeballs.
It's going to be more content as well. And there's a higher payout. So it will be moving into the budgeting as well. I have, I used to have a makeup one. That was a colossal failure. I don't know if you know, if you're watching me, I don't actually wear makeup. So that makeup, uh, I, I saw the markup and I got greedy and I thought, oh, 30 to 35% markup.
Heck yeah. I'm in the makeup business. No, Rachel, you don't know how to wear mascara. This doesn't work. Mascara, it tears your eyes. This really isn't gonna work. So not everything's been a win. Um, but yeah, we've, I've got lots of businesses.
Teresa: And just explain that to my audience. When you say you looked at the markup on it, and the fact that you said about the budgeting one, how do you mean like, is that a particular blogger thing?
Well, explain that to me.
Rachel: I always check to see if I, before I ever start a new business, I always test to see if it will be profitable and what products I could sell. And I test the market. And when I test the market with makeup, I was able to make a 35% markup. So what I mean by that is for every $2 I put in.
Um, or $1 and 75 cents I put in, I would get back $3. Okay. So it's a 35% lift. So that's a market to go into because now I could spend 10% of that and I could still become out ahead. And so it's a good long-term business to go into. So, but that said it doesn't work. If I don't care about makeup. And so I come across really disingenuous.
So you want to make sure it's a topic that you love and that you care about. Otherwise you can, people can just smell you're fake. And I should have, that was a moment where I had to like, take a little bit of a pride. Swallow your pride pill. Um, either hire someone who does makeup tutorials, but then I had to deal with ego, um, because like they wanted to be the hero of the page and then they wanted to make all the money and then they went to work for someone else.
So anyways, after a little while I was like, that audience is just going away now. And we're going to do something else. But yeah, I have a lot of different audiences.
Teresa: Like, okay. So I just want to one the Crock-Pot one, because like, you know, I do love uh Rusty's and things. So explain to me, and this is going in directions I never expected to do, but this is what I love so much about these conversations.
So you create a blog that talks about recipes and using a crock pot and that sort of thing. Okay. So let's say your stuff actually scratch. You create a little content. How often are you creating blogs? Once a week? Once a day? Once a month?
Rachel: Um, we create them in a big batch and then they go out for years.
Teresa: Okay. So you've written loads of blogs.
Rachel: As of writing team now that does it, but yes.
Teresa: Okay. So then you just send them out. Then how do you even start to get that six I know people who've written blogs for years and literally like still not getting much traction on it.
Rachel: So, because it didn't start with the audience, you create a blog, but you don't have an audience it's like creating a book with nobody to sell it to, or putting your store in the middle of the cornfield.
Teresa: Okay. So tell me how the audience started first then put blog.
Rachel: Yeah, so I build an audience and I want to build that audience up to 50,000 engaged fans. So if you have 50,000 people who like your page. But they don't actually take action on your page every single month, every single week, then they're not actually engaged.
So I want to have 50,000 engaged people because 50,000 engaged people brings roughly each post on my Facebook page will reach 10% of my audience. So 5,000 people will see it and maybe on a good day, 10% of those will click over. So knowing that I now have 500 people go visit that blog post. It's not worth my time to create a blog post with anything less than that.
So if I have less than that, I don't want to create my blog yet. I want to make sure I build my audience first. I'm pretty good at building audiences now, so I can build an audience and probably about six weeks time. So we're able to in about six weeks to have a next, next business up and running.
Teresa: Honestly, this to me is like immediately makes me.
Yeah, thanks. I'll have all that. That'd be amazing. But again, it's like maybe, I don't know. Maybe I've just never had anybody have this conversation. Maybe it's the blogging. I just don't. This is all new. So when you say, and I'm sorry for like, literally, but I know if I'm asking these questions, my audience are doing the same in their head.
When you say you, right? So you identify an audience. So you decide there's a whole audience of people that love the Crock-Pot stuff. Okay. You create a Facebook page and you start putting content on that Facebook page. Yeah. That content is just content stuff, I guess. Just do you create that content? So, because immediately I'm thinking, well, you need the blogs to put on the page, so, okay.
So tell me what you.
Rachel: I create my blog posts from my Facebook posts. So I don't create a blog post until I know people are going to click on that content. Because why would I spend two hours crafting a blog post? If I don't know, people will read it. What's faster to create a Facebook post that I know people that in test.
So I test different messages. Do you care more about? Let's say right behind me, actually, I was brainstorming with my team. This is my DIY home blog. So you can see I've got, oh, it's a podcast. You also sorry, but behind the screen of me is one of my handwritten spreadsheets because I'm one of those doodlers who has to have everything on paper.
So it looks like a spreadsheet, but it's on paper. And so we it's what Rachel does. Rachel is weird. And then I put it on the spreadsheet, which I couldn't put it on the spreadsheet to begin with, but whatever, anyways, so I have behind me and I'll create all, here's all the pieces of content. So do we, do people want to figure out how to fix a drafting house?
Do they want ramen or Udon noodle recipes? Do they want to know how to create waffle like me, um, ironing stations, how to clean up your house when iron your clothes, do they want to know that? Do they want to know about elf on the shelf or Firestarters like, I don't know. I find out by putting it in front of them.
When I put it in front of them, I found out, “oh, you guys really want garage organization?” No one else is talking about garage and how to organize your garage. And everybody's talking about how to organize it, you know, your kitchen and your bathroom, but nobody's talking my garage. That's what you want. I got that in the back.
And by the way, motorcycles, um, has a better keyword ad placement. So guess what? I just made more bang than if I had made one for kitchen, because kitchen doesn't make as much money as a motorcycle or a car mentioned. So anyways, my. I was able to figure out now, what did I spend time? Like making a kitchen post a bathroom, post a garage post figured this out.
No, cause that takes forever. Would I do is I create the audience and then I put posts in front of them and say, which do you want to clean up in your house today? Oh, your garage, the garage is where there's the, like if there was an avalanche in your house and you had to figure out where that avalanche happened, where did would you have suspected the most?
They all said the garage. So I go in, we make a post for the garage. It goes viral. I didn't have to, I even would say to them, what are your best cleaning your garage tips? They gave me the tips. Guess what the blog post was. Now, I don't have to write the post. I don't have to work as hard. And I already know they're going to click on it because they told me they wanted that content. Has been two hours writing a blog post if I don't have to.
Teresa: This is like turning content on its head.
Rachel: Like why on earth would people write the other way? I don't understand, but that's what I tell people I do.
Teresa: No, you're so right, because do you know what, like and I'll put myself in this category, you get so concerned with putting stuff out there that you forget to ask people what they want.
Like, you're like, oh, you know, this has happened. I should do this. Or I should do that. Well. And so the slight way in which I'd probably do it, which is good is I often take my concept from the stuff we've talked about in my academy, because if that's what they're asking, other people are probably asking that.
So I guess I'm doing it a tiny little bit, but certainly not as publicly as I could be. And I think you've just addressed something as well, that I bet so many people listening to this would be like, “oh wow, that's a ha ha.” Like your content that you're putting out on social media does not have to be the answer.
Like you are asking questions. That's what you're doing. That's your content. You're not getting the tips, putting together the thing, having the, like, creating a beautiful picture for it, doing all this stuff. You literally just.
Rachel: Honestly, if somebody posted here's how to clean up your garage, when it's a disaster and they tagged you in it, how would that make you feel.
Teresa: Like, yeah. “We'll fix it. Let's move in. Thanks. Yeah”
Rachel: Exactly. If you're posting tips all the time, you're literally making your audience not feel good about themselves.
Teresa: So.
Rachel: That doesn't mean we don't create content that helps their lives. It's just, we want to make sure that it's kind of on the backend step two is here's oh, your content, the garage is the avalanche.
Here's the post that'll help you.
Teresa: Yeah. So, so the way. Partly, I have educated my audience and partly I'm just nosing to this. So the way of, so you're doing the content you deciding what they want. You create the blog, you drive the traffic to the blog. Where does the moneymaking come in? Through a selling space on your blog?
Rachel: Ads are the easiest one. That's completely passive. So I just put the ads on my site like seven years ago and every month I make, we would literally make multiple six figures, just in ads. Yes. Um, we also sell affiliate products, which is the second easiest because I don't have to create the product. I don't have to deliver the product.
I don't have to worry about setting up emails where the tech, I just linked to the thing and put a picture up. Um that's and then those lasts for forever too, until the link dies. So that also is work. I do once and it lasts forever easiest one. The third way is you create your own products. So with my Crock-Pot site, we have a meal plan with my DIY home site.
We have like a home family binder. We have organization sheets. We have like a cleaning, little how to clean your house program. Um, I don't create those. I have other people make them for me and then we share them because I don't want to work on those. I also have other businesses like Mo where I teach people.
So I teach people how to drive traffic. And that's kind of where I have a lot of fun. It's actually probably not my most profitable business by minutes I work, but it's definitely my most fun business, but I, I mean, I'm doing just fine there. I've done multiple seven in it. Um, so I'm not hurting there, but the other one just has a higher per minute profit margin.
Teresa: Honestly, this is literally blowing my mind, like this whole conversation. The businesses you've created, uh, immense the fact that you can build audiences so fast, like that is like, Magic amazing thing. It's just so flipping smart. Like I want to be you when I grew up, like, please deny, like, should we be best friends?
I'd really appreciate that. Honestly, talking to you. And I'm so conscious about time for many reasons. One, when I booked this lovely guests and I put them for, you know, I'm conscious of the time. But two being a mom, uh, my school run is in 10 minutes time I have to leave the house. So again, I'm really like, okay, I booked this time and I do need to leave on time.
Just being a mom isn't it?
Rachel: It is, if you didn't hear me, I did the whole snapping my fingers thing. Cause one of the kids was like, “Hey mom. Hey mom.” Like you see me doing that? That's what that was. I'm on a podcast be quiet.
Teresa: Honestly, this blows my mind. It's so good. And like to do it with such what seems such ease, obviously this, you have to work all this out and you have.
This really is the laptop lifestyle that people really look for. Isn't it? You know, because you've worked at the figure, you've worked at with the system, the scenario, the whatever you've put your team in. Who picked your team at Pinterest?
Rachel: Well, that's actually kind of interesting. Um, I actually have like a small team, but a big team.
So what I did like three months ago is I looked at the blog and I was like, “oh, my word, we have so many blog posts that need to be re written.” We, at that time had one full-time blog writer and I was like, this is more than one full-time person can do. We're going to like, and you're not moving fast enough, which is not a problem.
It's not your fault. We're going to let you go. Um, but we found her another position with someone else. So it's not like that wanted another full-time person. And we hired 141 writers at the same exact time. And I gave them a course. So like, here's how you write the post. Here's how you organize the post. Here's how you find the images.
Here's how you did the links. Here's how you dadadad. And then they submit them and then we have, like, it just is checked. So I'm actually working less. Like, I mean, I have to, like, we just had 400 posts written, um, in the last, like three and a half weeks, three weeks and, um, all at one time. So now I'll have them all done and I all have to do now is. Well, I have a VA who works in my other business, but because like 15 minutes of work, she's going to schedule them. So on Tuesday she posted this one on Monday, this one, Thursday, this one, Friday, this one next one does. So it's, she's got like a 15 minute task every single day for like the next ever next year in, I guess, 45 days, 50 days.
Um, she's good to go. So.
Teresa: You know it hits me of batch stuff.
Rachel: I really love batching. Cause I don't want to have to think about it again. So I won't have to think about it again. I probably have another four or five days of, of fiddling with that system and then I'll be done with that blog and we won't have 140 employees or contractors on it anymore. They're not employees.
They, they did the, they get tasked for one and when they write it, they get paid. They don't write it. They don't get paid like that. They're definitely contractors. So when they're done, then they're going to move on to other teams and. I'll give him a referrals because people have found out what I did.
And they're like, “who the heck? How'd you do this? Give me your writers. I want them all. So, yeah, they're, they're going to find new positions and I'm going to have all the content done and then it's going to be on a system and I won't have to see it again.
Teresa: Wow. You Literally, like, I feel like. I've just had this little peek through the door, look at what you do in your life.
And now I'm like, I'm just going to go and stalk you and look at your stuff. I do definitely want to know the Crock-Pot group and the blog because I love it. I also really like the house organizing thing. I don't do it so much now because I run a business and.
Rachel: I actually don't organize my house and I don't cook.
Well, it was just, I don't own a cat and I have the crazy cat lead page. What I like a compulsive people collector.
Teresa: You absolutely are like.
Rachel: Yeah, that's a compulsive thing. I can't, I'm like, Ooh, like, okay, the other day my husband was like “What do you want to do when you grow up? Like when you're done with Moolah, cause you're not gonna do Moolah forever.
What are you gonna do next?” And like, “I think I'm going to go play the dulcimer.” My husband says “What?” I'm like, “I've seen the one play the dulcimer, it's this weird funky instrument that looks like a harp and you kind of like bang it with these hammers. And I was like, I am going to play that.” In so then I went online and I created the association of dulcimer players and.
Teresa: You are a true entrepreneur.
Rachel: Like learn the bells where I think I just wanted to make an audience, a dulcimer player so I can listen to it whenever I want to.
Um, that's what I do. It's a compulsive thing. It's like, let's make an audience for it.
Teresa: Entrepreneurial, like.
Rachel: This audience 40 I'll be 40 like three months. So like. I don't need a long time before I'm going to need this audience.
Teresa: But you never know.
Rachel: I know. Even I retire early.
Teresa: That you said it someone's going to get it.
Rachel: I got a bell some of audience.
I don't know why I started that one. That was just a, I literally say I was going to become a dulcimer player, but I'm not actually going to ever play the dulcimer. If I'm actually honest with myself, I don't want music.
Teresa: Brilliant. Rachel. I can not thank you enough.
Rachel: Oh thank you Teresa.
Teresa: Literally like smacking me round in the head and go. And what the hell are you doing? So I can go in now so my team, we've got to just change it all up. Now we've got to do some new stuff.
Rachel: Like where do I start changing it up for that content system?
We have a $27 product called social system and it's, you can get it done in a weekend. Like by this time tomorrow you could be done.
Teresa: Perfect. I'm off to buy it right now. Thank you Rachel so, so much it's been an absolute pleasure having you on the podcast.
Rachel: For sure. Have a great day.
Teresa: What did you think of that?
Oh, so good. So, so good. I need to go and listen to the whole thing again, make notes and give it to my team because she said such cool, cool things. She was so nice. I really, really liked her. I, I am so privileged that it gets into your amazing people and we've got some great ones coming up by the way. I got Stu McLaren.
That's awesome. Uh, Dennis Yu. That was another really good one coming up, but yeah, she is just so good. I loved it. Loved it so much. So I'm going to let you rush off and write down all the amazing things she said. Make sure you screenshot the podcast now and tag us in and let us know what you think. I can't wait to hear it. All right. I will see you next week for a solo episode.
