223 | I Cracked the Viral Code in 8 Days (By Accident)

You know that feeling when you KNOW what you should be doing to grow your business, but you keep finding excuses not to do it?

I do too, because I was living in that cycle for months. I wanted visibility and to be sharing more BTS, real life reels and videos but I kept stopping myself from creating them because I needed things to look good.

Then I realized, I was the problem, not the messy house. So, I started a visibility challenge that changed everything. In just 8 days, I went from trial reels getting 100 views to multiple reels hitting 75,000+ views (with one at 150,000 and counting).

And it all started because I moved away some dirty dishes and filmed myself making coffee. And more importantly, I gave myself permission to EXPERIMENT. 

In today's episode, I'm sharing exactly what happened that helped me reach 400k+ trial reel views in the last week. 

We're talking about:

• Why my "expert" hooks were actually killing my reach (and the story-driven approach that changed everything)
• How I filmed my most viral reel in under 2 minutes with dirty dishes pushed off to the side in my kitchen
• The mindset shift that lets you play with data without letting numbers destroy your confidence
• Why doing what you say you're going to do is the fastest confidence builder in business (and will help you grow FASTER than any strategy)

I can't wait for you to tune in 🫶

Ways we can work together: 

• <<Website Design>> Create a website so strong that clients are sold on working with you as soon as they find you!
• <<Brand Photography>> Is it time to elevate your business with new brand photos?

I'D LOVE TO CONNECT WITH YOU!

• Say hello on Instagram 👋
• Join the email community ✍🏻
• Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 🎙

Transcript

Welcome And The Visibility Challenge

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to Amplify Your Brand and Business, the podcast that helps you create a brand that sells out your offers 24-7 so you don't have to. In today's episode, I want to talk to you about something that is really exciting that's happening right now. And that is my visibility challenge. And the reason I want to talk about my visibility challenge is because I have realized the biggest blocker that was keeping me from actually growing my visibility was me. And I want to talk to you about what I've learned. I have had now multiple reels go, trial reels go viral. I only just started posting to trial reels eight days ago. And I tested, I was trying some things. My first, like I don't know, eight to 12 trial reels got barely any views, like 100, 150, not very much. And then I kind of cracked a code on something that absolutely exploded. It got 75,000 views, and I've continued to iterate on it and slightly tweak and adjust and kind of learn how to share them in a way where they feel a little bit unique and different. And now I've had I think six or seven hit over 50,000 views. One of them I think is now at 150,000 views, and it's all happened really quickly. Um, I had no idea. I mean, I knew what trial reels were a couple weeks ago, but I didn't really understand them. And as I was doing this visibility challenge, I thought to myself, you know what? In the spirit of pushing myself to do really uncomfortable things, I'm going to try this. And I think I hesitated with trial reels for so long because they get pushed to a cold audience. And I had all these fears in my head of, you know, my current audience, even though it's small, it feels safe. Like I don't really worry about people judging me too much. And trial reels just felt like a really big push to my system. But I'm sharing all of this with you now, and I'm sharing this in at this time because I feel like this is the most relevant time for me to share what I'm learning in real time. And this unlock that I've gotten, this insight that I had around what was actually keeping me stuck and blocked, has been such a huge insight, and it's changing the way that I think about create creating content now. And so I thought I need to bring this to the podcast because I need you to hear this. Because I wish someone would have had this conversation with me six months ago, and I could have tried tried trial reels a lot sooner and iterated and experiment, but here we are. So, in case you missed it, a very brief overview. I started a visibility challenge for myself a couple of weeks ago. I think we're on like week three or four now, and the whole premise of it was that I wanted to stop overthinking my content. Like I found myself not posting, not saying the things I wanted to share. Like I wasn't sharing even just reels to my normal audience because I was so worried about like, well, I need to make sure my hair looks nice. I need to put on a nice sweater, I need to get in good lighting. Like I found myself spiraling over how everything needed to look. And what I found was that I wasn't showing up and sharing content. And I think the reason I love this podcast so much is because I just get to show up, hit record, talk behind the mic, and like you don't get to see what I look like. Like I am in full pajama mode right now. It's a Friday, it's 10:30. I have a brand shoot, I'm leaving for in about 45 minutes. But like I'm I'm here in my PJs and it's not aesthetic and it's doesn't look pretty, but it doesn't have to because the content that I'm sharing with you is important enough that I'm gonna show up and share it anyway. And so I started to take that same mindset and I thought I need to bring that into my content because it's silly for me to have all of these insights, all of these things that I know would benefit my audience, and yet I'm not sharing them because I'm so worried about like myself. Um, and so I just had this feeling, and I had this honestly, it was kind of a fire that got lit up my butt a little bit that was like you say you want growth, you say you want visibility, and yet you are literally the one holding yourself back. Like it's not that you don't know what to do, it's that you don't want to do it. Like that was the honest conversation that I had with myself. And as someone who has spent years uh working through, like go getting over my own BS, basically, like getting tired of my own stuff and being like, I'm actually gonna go for what I want. I had that moment of you know what, that's 100% correct. So we're just gonna go for it. And so over the past three or four weeks, I have been just challenging myself to show up more, not overthink it, not second-guess it. Like my reels that I'm sharing to my feed for my normal followers, like I they're not scripted. They're things where oftentimes in the moment I just have this thought and I'm like, I want to talk about this, I want to share it because I think it'll be relevant. And the reels to my feed are not going crazy. Like, I think a lot of the views I was getting was anywhere between 150 to 300. Maybe some got a few more, but but that wasn't the point. And and the reason I want to emphasize that is because I think for so many of us, when we start to show up and we start to share, especially when we're doing it from a place of this feels uncomfortable, but I'm gonna do it anyway. Like I'm gonna push myself to do this even though it feels uncomfortable in the moment. It becomes then really easy to start looking at the numbers and the data and making that mean something about your worth. And that was one of the things I caught myself on very quickly that I said, we're not gonna do that. This visibility challenge, I'm committing to it for six months. I'm gonna show up and share, and I'm not gonna overthink, I'm not gonna over-strategize, I'm just gonna put content out there. I'm gonna see what people convert, like what converts, what people connect with, like where are the messages that I feel like are landing the most. Like I just let myself truly experiment and I went into it with an experiment mindset. And so when the numbers weren't high, I wasn't freaking out, like I wasn't questioning this isn't working, this isn't converting. I'm I just committed to keep doing it and to keep showing up. And so I had the same thought when it came to trial reels. And so in the beginning, when I had, you know, my seven or eight posts that were however many just getting a hundred to two hundred views, like it was no big deal. I didn't make it a big deal, I didn't freak out, I didn't say it's not working, like even though I wanted to get big growth, like I wasn't overanalyzing it. And then here's what happened. I I did realize, now I think there's it's being smart with your data, right? I didn't make the data or the numbers mean anything about me, but I did realize, hmm, like these hooks that I'm using don't really seem to be connecting. What type of hooks have I been sharing? And so I looked at the hook structure, and what I noticed is that the hooks I was sharing for these trial reels that weren't really converting very well were kind of like uh experty sounding, if that makes sense. Like kind of like the ones that are like, um, I actually remember this is one that I shared. Like if SEO feels complicated, um, or if SEO feels hard, you're overcomplicating it. Like a very like expert, punchy could convert really well for certain people, but it didn't convert well for me. And I noticed that the majority of my hooks that I was trying all kind of had that same feel, you know, like they were different words, different uh angles, but they all had that feel. And I thought, you know what? That's also not really me. Like if you listen to the podcast, I think it's fun to be punchy and have little punchy hooks, but like the reality is like I'm a storytelling person. I have been a photographer for 15 plus years. I love connecting with people, I love telling their story through images. Like, I'm a deep person and I go deep on the podcast, and like that's my whole vibe. And so I did have that moment of realizing, hmm, these hooks aren't really converting for me. I think I need to, I think I need to change how I'm approaching this. And so I shared a hook that was completely different from everything else. It was much more story driven, it was much more connection driven, it was much more based on I had a conversation with someone and what they said to me like changed the way I do my business. Like that's the vibe of the new hooks that I'm sharing. And when I tell you, like I went from having my reels get a hundred average of like 120, 150 views. That first connection built story built one that I shared went absolutely viral. I think it's at 75,000 views right now, but like in the first 25 hours, it absolutely took off. And the reason I'm sharing that with you is not to say, oh, look at me, I'm getting so much visibility. Like, is it cool? Yeah, it absolutely is. Like, I'm actually kind of flabbergasted that I have only been posting trial reels for a week and I managed to like figure out what connects with my people. Like, I was expecting this was gonna take months for me to figure out how to build connection with people. But I think the reason I was able to get there quickly is because I didn't let the numbers mean anything about me. I didn't overstress, I didn't overanalyze. I simply just looked at what I was sharing. I thought about it from like my own lens of a person, I thought about it from my dream client. If I were my dream client and I read this, what would I feel? You know, like what would reading this like, what would this experience be like for me if I read this aloud? And I very quickly realized, you know what, yeah, that's probably why these aren't landing. And I switched. But I tell you this because even if that story one hadn't connected, that story, the insight I had around Cherry Moore's connection and story-driven hooks, I would have just continued to do that. And I would have continued to do that from different angles and different like um like hook strategies, but I would have kept that the heart behind it. I wouldn't have gone back to the expert post because not only were they not converting, but they also just didn't really feel fully aligned for me. So even if that one didn't take off, I would have just continued to iterate and try. Like, okay, how can I continue to build story into these hooks? How can I continue to make it feel more deep and connected as opposed to this like look at me, I'm an expert vibe. And so even if that one hadn't taken off, I would have still continued to iterate on it. And honestly, even now that I am having so much success, I have been iterating on those types of reels. And now I was just checking my Instagram stats today, and I have like 400,000 views over the last week, which is just absolutely mind-blowing to me. But like, I'm also not letting that mean anything about me. You know what I mean? Because it's so cool. I'm getting so many views, I'm getting so many eyes on my business. It's also kind of terrifying because it's like for so long we tell ourselves we want growth, we want visibility, we want to be seen. And then you start to be seen and you're like, whoa, these are a lot of people, and I don't know who any of them are. And like, I don't know if they're judging me or thinking weird things about me, but I, you know, you just have to like let those thoughts and feelings go. But I'm also not letting those numbers mean anything about me. Like, okay, great, these are working. Let me continue to try. Let me continue to try new things. Let's let's continue to iterate and experiment on what's working because the heartbeat behind this whole visibility challenge is essentially what I'm learning is don't get so caught up in there being like this one way of how things work. Because honestly, the play and the experimentation has been so fun. Like it's been so fun to challenge myself to actually show up on a regular basis. I will tell you, the fastest way I have grown confidence in my business is by doing the things I say I'm going to do. Not by buying more courses, not by getting more certifications, not by like investing in more masterminds or leadership things. Like, yes, of course, those things help. But the way that I have grown like actual confidence in myself as a business owner is by continuously telling myself, I'm gonna show up, I'm gonna do the things that I say I'm gonna do, I'm gonna commit, I'm gonna follow through, I'm not gonna make excuses, I'm not gonna do something once, get tired of it and burned out and do something else. Like when I have learned to follow through with the things that I say are important, that has been the biggest confidence builder and the thing that actually helps me see long-term growth because I'm not looking for an external thing to provide that sense of worth. I'm finding my worth in myself, in my ability to show up for myself, to do the things I say I'm gonna do. And so the biggest lesson I found in this visibility challenge is like, cool, they're taking off great. I'm getting a lot of views, I'm getting some followers. The numbers still aren't as high as I'd like for the followers and like blah, blah, blah. Like there's so many metrics I could overanalyze. But the thing I found is wow, I told myself I was gonna commit to showing up. And I also told myself that I wasn't going to let the numbers mean anything. And I didn't let the numbers mean anything about my self-worth when they were low. And I'm not let the numb, I'm not letting the numbers mean anything about me when they're high. I'm not telling myself, well, now I have to box myself into this one hook that works, and I can't try anything else. Like, no, the whole point of this is to experiment, it's to play, it's to try. Of course, we're gonna analyze data along the way. Of course, we're gonna look at like how are things feeling, how are things converting? Like, of course, we're gonna look at those things, but I'm not gonna dwell on them. I'm not gonna sit here and make my whole plan revolve around the data. And the biggest reason I want to share that with you today is because I know for so many of you, you are wanting so badly to grow your business this year. Like you're you're literally just like, if I could get more people, if I could get more visibility, if I could get more eyes on my business and on my content, that would like be the thing that would help me grow. And you have that thought and you have that desire. And then on the other hand, you're telling yourself all of these reasons why you can't show up. You're telling yourself that you have it has to look better, you have to film more B-roll content, you have to like spend four hours to do your hair and makeup and go to a pretty location so that you can film B-roll, so that you can share reels. Like you have this desire for visibility. And then on the other hand, you are literally blocking yourself from ever being able to be invisible. And for so many of us, especially the women listening in, like, there's so many feelings of like worthiness that are tied to that. There's so many fears and feelings of like, but what will people think? And like, what if I don't look perfect? And like, what if my makeup is off, or what if like the lighting isn't good, or like my house doesn't, I need to clean my house so that I can film b-roll in it. Like, let me tell you, the the reel that took off, I filmed it when I was making coffee, and all you can see in the frame is like I have my phone and then it's me and my coffee machine. Like, you can't see. I literally will tell you, I moved the mess to the side. Literally, my house was messy. Like, I kid you not, I didn't spend time, I didn't do this whole song and dance. I literally took all the dirty dishes that were kind of right there, I put them off to the side. Like, my husband would hate that I'm revealing this to you. Like, our house is not perfectly clean all the time, and that's just the reality. But instead of letting that be an excuse of like, oh well, I have to do all of this before I can film this B-roll, I literally just like moved it off to the side. You can't see it in the camera angle. And then it was literally a video with my my coffee maker and me making a coffee, and it absolutely took off. And that was the realization when I I it took me less than less than two minutes to record that B-roll. And I realized I have been the one making this overcomplicated, I have been the one stopping myself from doing this in the first place. And I wish someone had had this conversation with me six months ago because imagine where I would be now if I took this advice then. Of course, I'm not gonna dwell on that. Here we are, and we're doing it, and we're showing up, and I can't wait to see where I am six months from now. But I just hope that this is your reminder to like let it be easy, let it be simple, give yourself permission to like actually let yourself be you. I really, really hope that you can take all of these expectations that you have on yourself and who you need to be and how you need to look and like how your profile grid needs to look and how perfectly curated, like people don't care about that. What they actually care about is your message. And I know this for so many of you listening in, you provide like life-changing work to people. I know I have a ton of therapy clients that I work with on the brand photography side. I know some of you listen in. I need you to know the work you do with your clients literally transforms not only their lives, but the people around them, and you are helping to change the world. If you are telling yourself that you can't share B-roll because you don't look good enough or the weather is gloomy and cloudy and you don't have the best, like whatever, like I need you to know your message is so much more important than any of those things. And your people need to hear that. And that goes for no matter what industry you're in, no matter what niche you're in, your people need to hear you. And it is so much more important that they hear you and they hear your message and they can see it versus how pretty it looks and how aesthetic it looks on your feed. Thank you so much for listening in. I hope that this was helpful for you today. I always just trust every time I record, I'm like, I don't know who needs to hear this, but someone does. And if that's you, send you, send me a DM at Hey Krista Marie. I would just love to know what spoke to you and like what unlocked for you today and what you gave yourself permission to do differently moving forward to make it simple and to make it easy. I'm so grateful for you. I hope you always remember you deserve to have a brand that does all of the selling for you. And I'll see you in the next episode.