Transform Your Business in 2025: Top Tips and Trends for Good Content

What an amazing year it has been! There’s a lot to unpack in this episode, I’m sharing a major milestone in my business journey and we’re talking about ethics in marketing. We’ll also look at current viral reels trends that you’ll be seeing more of in 2025.

In this episode we’ll be covering:

• A behind the scenes look at hitting business milestones!
• Staying true to who you are and standing up for what you believe in.
• Ethical marketing practices and how things are changing.
• Current trends you’ll want to pay attention to when creating content.

Links to reels in this episode:

• Reel #1: How to Measure
• Reel #2: Bec Stewart
• Reel #3: Dryer Sheet Tricks

Other episodes you might have missed:

• Episode 016: Overcome Social Media Overwhelm with Timeless Marketing Strategies
• Episode 027: Let Your True Personality Shine
• Episode 029: Tailoring Successful Reel Techniques to Your Niche
• Episode 037: Personalization is the Key to Your 2025 Content Strategy

Sign up for Reels Lab

Join the Social Squad Society

Love this conversation? Tap the follow button so you never miss an episode.

Connect with me over on Instagram!

Transcript

Shannon McKinstrie [00:00:05]:
I am your host, Shannon McKinstrie. Welcome to Good Content, the podcast where I remove the never ending content creation, guesswork and overwhelm so that you can actually enjoy being on social media again and growing your business with what has always worked. Good Content. Hey, we've got a lot to talk about. I am actually going out of town next week for the holidays. We're going to the Dominican Republic, a really fun resort there with the fam and I'm so excited. So I am officially in like, let's just bring on 2025 already mode. I'm officially like December done circle back in January.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:00:43]:
I don't know about you, but of course I'm bringing you some fun, awesome, practical, easy takeaway tips. Today I will be sharing at the end a few reels going viral right now to help you out so that you can kind of not copy, of course, mimic, tailor it to your niche. But real quick, I want to talk about a day I had in my business yesterday that is top three days of my journey so far to be honest. Two heavy hitter marketers in our field. One is an incredible copywriter for like some brands that I know you guys follow and probably get sales emails from and stuff like that. She is incredible. And the other is a master marketer who literally even spoke on the same stage as Gary Vee recently. So these two women are people I've looked up to for years and never thought they'd even give me the time of day.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:01:29]:
And both asked me to do Instagram strategy sessions with them and I did them yesterday. Probably good. I was still having my sinus infection and feeling a little crazy because I was like, I'm dulu for even thinking that this is going to go well. I was like, let's just live that dulu life. And what is this out of body experience that these two women have asked for my help with their Instagram. Both have great followings, both make a lot of money and both take their businesses very seriously obviously and have teams. Okay. So it's intimidating. Most of the people I do strategy sessions are usually personal brand.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:02:04]:
I mean I've worked with a lot of big time, you know, some speakers and stuff like that. But like to be in my field with me where I'm like, you guys know, marketing, you know, copywriting, what do you, what do you need little old me for? And but most people I work with are typically personal brands without a team. That's why they need my help because they're like, Shannon, I, you know, so I'm like, you guys Even have team members. Why do you need me? Huge compliment, very nervous. So I did all the work. I, you know, on these. I usually dig through their content, dig through the websites, watch some podcasts of theirs, watch YouTube videos to get all the content that. That sticks out to me.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:02:33]:
And then with that, I will go and grab hot buzzwords and hot takes and create threads and create reels out of them for them to now go create. I go, go, go. Now you've got your stuff and go create it. This is my, you know, Instagram audit, which I also offer as a zoom call, depending on if the person would like it. So call started out with me, very nervous. As soon as I pressed, you know, zoom to start and the first person popped up and she made this face. So excited. I'm like, I'm making the same face at her.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:03:02]:
And she's like, oh, my gosh, I'm having a moment. I was like, you're having my. I'm having my. Just like, it was crazy. It was out of body experience. I start going through everything I want her to do, and she's like, this is actually mind blowing. And she has worked with people. She actually works very closely with people who do what I do.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:03:16]:
So again, I'm like, why did you message me? You probably could have worked with them for free. She's called me a savant. I about died. Okay. I love it that I have it recorded because I can always watch my reaction. She was blown away by within the first five minutes of the content I created for her, telling her, like, here, use the script. Say this, have this hook here. She was already, already mind blown.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:03:37]:
It was enough to make me just go, thank you, Jesus. Like, I've been doing social media marketing since 2013. I've been doing media and marketing before 2004. You know, worked at CNN, did C span stint for a little bit, then went into marketing roles, sales roles. And I've had quite the journey. So to have someone at that level recognize that I have something to bring to the table was just a feeling I don't think I'll ever forget. And I know you might not have had that moment yet. And I promise you it's coming.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:04:08]:
And it just shows how just being completely you and standing for what you believe in. You guys know I take strong stances on my industry. Whether it's people copying from others, being unethical, saying fear, marketing tactics. I just, I'm done with the BS and I stand for marketing. I love marketing. It's what I am. Probably the most passionate about in life other than my children and my husband and my friends and family, right? Like, it's like God, friends, family, whatever, right? Marketing, I'm obsessed and I want to help as many of you as possible. Trust me, if I had, if I, if I could just clone myself and help every single one of you, I would.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:04:46]:
But that's what the Reels Lab is for. And again, I just want to preface this, by the way, speaking of ethical marketing, When I started going on that, you know, huge thing about like, certain people that copied me over the past few months and things like that, you know, I was getting a lot of dms from people. One people mad at me for calling some people out. And that's fine. I was like, well, staying silent has never done anything for me or anyone else. But then also on top of that, I had people saying that certain big time creators, I'm talking big time, they would have to literally change their credit card number to get the person to stop charging them. I got an email yesterday from someone that bought the Reels Lab, realized it was a little more advanced than beginner. And I'm very clear about that on the sales page.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:05:24]:
But I know not everyone reads the sales page fair. I'm very clear about that, that you need to really enjoy creating content and understand marketing in general. And then I just go, here's what to post. She said, you know, this is not what I. This is not a good fit. I said, here's your money back. She goes, wow, thank you. Yeah, that's.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:05:39]:
That's how we're doing things in 2025. Okay? The unethical practices in my field especially are enough to make me rage. And I'm not trying to do that. But I, I want to keep this podcast light, fun. But what I mean by that is this marketer, again, same for me, stands for that too. So to work with someone at this level, that stands for timeless marketing, that isn't here for gimmicks, and that is here to truly make a difference for business owners. It was just, it was beyond. Okay, so we hang up that call, then I go on to the next call.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:06:10]:
And it was another. The marketer who, you know, has a podcast where she interviews people that, like, wouldn't even know who the I was. She's been on stage with Gary Vee. She's huge, big time keynote speaker. Masterminds has worked with some of the big, when I say the biggest people in the social media marketing world can't say names, but I'm telling you, this girl, her accolades are ridiculous. Again, asked me, started going through the Google Doc of what I created. She had one of her team members on.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:06:39]:
And 45 minutes into the call, she goes, can I give you a compliment? And right away I'm like, oh, God, here we go. Like, I don't take compliments very well. I get slimy and. And I'm like, what do I do with my hands? In the first 45 minutes of that call, she said she has a, I think it was a client or a team member, someone that she's close to, who had paid $30,000 to learn from a top social media marketer on how to go viral and things like this. She goes, we've got. Cause she knows exactly what the person learned because they shared it with her. She goes, we've learned more in 45 minutes with you than that $30,000 call.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:07:07]:
Now, my Instagram this strategy session is a thousand. I think I don't even know my prices right now. $1497, I think. Sorry. I'm like, I'm such a spaz. I don't do them as much as I used to. Um, I only do a couple a month because Chloe and stuff being in preschool, only a couple, three days a week. So anyway, doesn't matter.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:07:25]:
My husband and I told him, he's like, so you're charging $30,000 for these? I was like, no, like, that's not the point. I would never charge anyone $30,000. That's insane. Unless it's like, you know, Nike, because I know they have it. Anyway, maybe, you know, we're going to manifest that I'm not a manifester, but y'all manifesters. You go manifest that for me. So, long story short, teared up, couldn't believe it, and she said, no, Shannon, you have no idea how brilliant you are. And then proceeded to DM me afterward and just say how brilliant I am.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:07:49]:
And I just. I want that moment for you, friend, so bad, because now that I have felt it, I just. It's. It's a feeling like no other. So I just want to say that because someone said, can you please talk about this more on the podcast? Because I did a reel about it. And I was like, sure. So there it is. That's the story.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:08:03]:
And after all the backlash I got last month for calling out two different creators for stealing my content, another it was. I don't know if you saw it, but I did a TikTok on it. And by then, people are like, yeah, you're right, Shannon. We should start calling this out. I'm like, yeah, I can't tell you how many times I've been copied. And I write them and they either block me or they tell me to F off or whatever. And it's just like, I am so tired of it. And I'm so tired of people thinking it's okay to steal.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:08:30]:
I mean, there are people that have stolen full courses of mine. And, like, it's just crazy out here. So protect yourself. Let's now switch gears. Okay. All right, here's a few reels going viral so you can take them and run with it. This is the big thing in 2025 already, and this is all we're going to talk about, is this style of reel. Stop telling us what to do and start showing us, think infomercial.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:08:53]:
We're not going to make it as cheesy, think QVC, think tutorials. So if you are a social media manager, I don't want you to be like, hey, guys, show me the hack. Show me your Air Table. Show me it. Cool, right? It's like that Easy. Here's a. I'm going to let it play. I'm going to actually send it to Stephanie right now so that when she does the show notes, it's in there.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:09:11]:
This now. Not that this reel went viral. I'll tell you exactly how many. Oh, my gosh. This person follows me. I'm gonna follow back. Oh, my gosh. She's in McLean, where area I'm from.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:09:20]:
Okay, so she got 42,000 views, but for her, that's really good. Okay, ready? I'm just gonna let it play. Ready? Here we go.

Reel Voice [00:09:26]:
What you want to think about is do you have any furniture below it? If not, you want to keep it 56 to 60 inches off of the ground.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:09:33]:
She's a home designer, and she's literally showing you how to measure. And she's got her measuring tape up and she's showing you how to measure, where to put a piece of art and where to put a mirror over a mantle. She's showing you stick, and she's talking right to the camera. Genius. 313 shares. Okay, let's go to another one. And then this. This creator, Bec Stewart.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:09:55]:
I'm also going to send this to Steph. She posts. Let me tell you. Let me tell you why you don't need to post every freaking day. Ready? This one's four days ago. She's just started posting a little more often. Okay, If I scroll 1, 2, 3. I'm trying to figure out on average, looks like she's posting like two to three times a week.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:10:13]:
And guess what? She has grown to 280,000 followers. I think last I checked, she was at a hundred thousand. All of her reels go insane. One of them got 10 million. This is what it says. And again, look at her. She's demoing it. She's showing you.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:10:26]:
Her B roll is showing what she says on screen. It says, this is your sign to get a standing desk and walking pad. My daily steps, goal and work from home days have completely transformed 10 million views. And you're over there overthinking it. You done overthinking? All right, let's do it. Okay, here's another one that she did again. She's talking to the camera. Our year to thrive.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:10:44]:
And she's just talking directly to the camera and she jumps right into it. All right, so that's someone to kind of look at. Again, we are not copying. You can tell she's a natural born content creator, but she does not post as much as you as you would think for her to have grown that fast. All right, so again, demo the thing. She demoed the treadmill. This girl demoed how to measure things. And this one dryer sheet tricks everyone should know.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:11:07]:
And as they're saying it, it's demoing again. How can you demo? So when I'm doing those reels, a few of them have gone viral. Where I go, do you see how I just place the phone down, do this? That is called a whatever hook. Do you see? That went really viral for me because I'm demoing and everyone in the comments was like, thank you for showing us and not just telling us. So that is your assignment for the next week. Don't just tell us, show us how can you demonstrate what you're saying, whether it's just a POV or whether it's a talk to camera. That's all I got for this week. I love you, friend.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:11:35]:
Thank you supporting me. You have no idea. This has been truly the most transformative year of my business and life. The podcast, the Reels Lab. I just, I'm so thankful. Every download, every review. Still more to come this year, but just thank you and I love you so much and I hope you have a beautiful holiday season.