Grow Your Audience and Book More Clients with Instagram Reels
In this session, I'm chatting with Molly Cahill all about using Instagram Reels to elevate your business. I'm so stoked about this because we cover everything from creating engaging Reels that truly connect with your audience, to understanding the ins and outs of Instagram metrics. Molly's insights are a game-changer for health and wellness practitioners and chiropractors looking to up their social media game. Get ready to take your Instagram presence to the next level with this insightful discussion!
Takeaways
Reels allow for a personal brand and emotional connection with potential clients.
A strong hook and visual interest are essential in Reels to capture viewers' attention.
Practitioners should showcase their expertise and personality through Reels.
Balancing educational content with lighthearted and personal content is important.
Analyzing metrics and indicators of success can help refine marketing strategies.
Stories and feed posts can complement Reels in an overall marketing strategy. Everyone has different learning preferences, so it's important to provide content in various formats.
Connect with Molly on Instagram for further discussions.
Check out Molly's Reels freebies resource for 101 prompts and a tech tutorial.
Meet the Speaker: Molly Cahill
Molly Cahill is an Instagram and email marketing strategist and agency owner for health and wellness practitioners.
Over the past five years, Molly and her team have guided over 300 chiropractors, health & life coaches, functional medicine practitioners, and other health pros to gain hundreds of thousands of followers, rack up milions of Reels views, and book hundreds of new patients or clients for care.
Her unique view on social media marketing aims to reduce overwhelm and create a sustainable, holistic approach using timeless marketing foundations.
Transcript
Timestamps
[00:00:00] Welcome to Elevate Your Practice: The Power of Instagram Reels
[00:00:09] Meet Molly Cahill: Instagram Marketing Guru
[00:01:36] The Unconventional Path to Marketing Mastery
[00:02:32] Why Instagram Reels are a Game-Changer for Practitioners
[00:08:10] Creating Compelling Content: Tips and Tricks for Reels
[00:14:16] The Impact of Reels on Brand Awareness and Client Acquisition
[00:15:55] Navigating the Tech Hurdles: Making Reels Accessible for All
[00:22:54] Leveraging Instagram's Ecosystem: Stories, Feed Posts, and Carousels
[00:25:19] Closing Thoughts and Resources
Full Transcript
Welcome to Elevate Your Practice: The Power of Instagram Reels
[00:00:00] Samantha Mabe: Thank you so much for tuning in to this session of Elevate Your Practice. In this session, I'm talking with Molly Cahill all about Instagram Reels.
Meet Molly Cahill: Instagram Marketing Expert
[00:00:09] Samantha Mabe: Molly Cahill is an Instagram and email marketing strategist and agency owner for health and wellness practitioners. Over the past five years, she and her team have guided over 300 chiropractors, health and life coaches, functional medicine practitioners, and other health pros to gain hundreds of thousands of followers, rack up millions of Reels views, and book hundreds of new patients or clients for care. Her unique view on social media marketing aims to reduce overwhelm and create a sustainable, holistic approach using timeless marketing foundations.
Hi Molly, I'm so excited to talk about Reels today.
[00:00:42] Molly Cahill: Yeah, I'm excited to be here.
[00:00:45] Samantha Mabe: Why don't we get started with you sharing a little bit about what you do and who you work with?
[00:00:51] Molly Cahill: Yeah, so for the past five years I've been working with a majority of health and wellness professionals similar to you. A lot of chiropractors, functional medicine practitioners, naturopathic doctors. Now I'm really getting into more of the health coaches and life coaches because I'm like super into subconscious work and all that stuff. So yeah fell into this by chance. Have I started helping my chiropractor with Instagram seven years ago, and then the proverbial rest is history.
We have a done for you Instagram management agency that actually full. We usually stay on a pretty long wait list for that. But then I also have a program called holistic marketing hub that teaches everything we would do for you in the agency. And also includes like a huge social media caption bank that you can copy paste.
[00:01:35] Samantha Mabe: Yeah.
The Unconventional Path to Marketing Mastery
[00:01:36] Samantha Mabe: I feel like a lot of people that work in this field have a degree. They were a practitioner for a while and then they either are doing a business on the side or they've transitioned out of it, but you and I do not actually have a background in practice.
[00:01:53] Molly Cahill: Yes. Isn't that funny? I met somebody else too the other day. I was like, Oh, are you a chiropractor? Are you a practitioner? I'm like, no, but I think that makes us better. At our jobs in a lot of ways, because we don't, we see things from the outside looking in. When you're in that bubble and in that vacuum of information, you make a lot of assumptions, not on purpose, but you just assume that people know things that they don't know. And so your language is going to be different.
But when you're someone like us and we're on the outside looking in, we're like, no, nobody's really up Googling how do I achieve vitality? It sounds cool, definitely not like a specific marketing language best practice.
[00:02:31] Samantha Mabe: Absolutely. All right.
Why Instagram Reels are a Game-Changer for Practitioners
[00:02:32] Samantha Mabe: So we're going to be talking about Reels, so I want to know why Using Reels specifically is an important part and an impactful part of a marketing strategy for practitioners and chiropractors and the health and wellness space.
[00:02:51] Molly Cahill: So the beautiful thing about Instagram in general is that you do get to show that personal brand, have that more emotional connection with potential practitioner that you might not have on other marketing platforms.
And even if you work in a clinic with multiple practitioners or it's like a integrated clinic or something, for example, The Joint chiropractic like they're a franchise, but we actually have a client who's a Joint franchise. I'm like, Even though you're a franchise, sure, we'll stick to the brand guidelines, but we still need to show why your location of The Joint, right?
When everybody complains about being in a saturated market, it's yeah, but each one of you are so unique and Instagram is just like this beautiful place to blend your quote professional hat with your personal hat.
So Reels are just to me a step further. Don't get me wrong, I love the voiceover trends and like B roll, which is what I teach my people to do a lot, which I can talk about in a minute. But still just like face to camera talking Reels are some of the best way in my cold audience to convert.
But for your already warm or like hot leads in who are already following you, they can be such a wonderful way to just establish just that last bit of trust or authority that's needed to actually book with you. People actually get to see you speaking and you're like, Oh, like you're not some stock photo logo. And I'm not really sure what you're about.
From a technical standpoint, a lot of people think that they're really difficult to create. I get a lot of very brilliant people say, I'm not good with tech. And I'm like, It's not really that difficult. You're probably making it difficult than it really is. I had this post that did really well. It was, I was like, listen, you can adjust someone's circle, cervical spine, or help somebody reverse their Hashimoto's, you can make a Reel. And so typically, like I said, they can be put together pretty quickly, thrown up pretty quickly. And They're just really low lift, in my opinion.
[00:04:53] Samantha Mabe: A lot of people in this space, especially like chiropractors and massage therapists and even therapists, there are so many people that if you were to just like Google chiropractor near me, there's gonna be a huge list of people. And so we as potential clients are looking for a way to figure out who is the right person, like who's gonna be able to help me In this situation I'm in, or who is going to be able to help my child because I don't want to take him to just anybody to get an adjustment.
[00:05:26] Molly Cahill: There was a time I was driving 30 minutes for a massage when there was someone right down the street. When we lived in Florida, I drove 40 minutes to my chiropractor because, She and I became friends. I passed probably 10 of them to get to her. It really does matter to be able to showcase you as a human.
[00:05:44] Samantha Mabe: And even if you have been growing by referral, people are going to check you out before they actually book.
[00:05:50] Molly Cahill: Yes. Can I talk about that for a second? Yeah. I'm so glad you brought that up. So so much for that. No hate to the men listening. I love you dearly. But it is funny whenever I get on a discovery call with a man versus a woman, there the men are always like what's going to be my ROI? Tell me how many new clients can I get?
If someone's giving you a number, then they are lying because it's just like with a website, right? Or a podcast. Not all marketing is quantifiable as you input X and it equals Y. And I know that's really frustrating, especially when you're investing money into something, but with Instagram marketing or any social media mark, really just marketing in general, it's so much about that brand awareness factor.
So exactly what you just said. So if you were like, Hey, I noticed you've been having a lot of migraines. You should go see my girl. She does these, craniosacral work or whatever. And you could be like, Oh, the person might be like, yeah, send me their Instagram. Let me see your, send me their website. Let me see. And you check them out. And then you like, Make a decision based on that there. But then when I go to book my appointment, I'm not going to say I saw you on your website or I saw you on Instagram. You're going to say, Oh, my friend referred to me, even though that was like the clincher to make you book the appointment.
My degree is actually in PR. So I have to teach people look, it's like an overall brand strategy. Although we did just have a client who just texted me yesterday and she's Hey, a client saw our Reel about Chick fil A and said it was hilarious. And they booked an appointment. So I'm not saying that doesn't happen. It definitely does. But a lot of times people need multiple touch points, which is where having a good website, in addition to your Instagram, like what you do comes in handy.
[00:07:32] Samantha Mabe: Yeah, and doing something like Reels, if somebody follows you, it can also remind them to like book their next appointment, so they're not, you're not even asking where they came from, but you are seeing a return on the time and effort you put in.
[00:07:47] Molly Cahill: Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that too, because that's one really limiting belief. I have to bust a lot. It's this isn't just about new people in the door. This is about retention and rebooking as well, because people might be like, Oh, I didn't know you had acupuncture in your office or just, rebooking with you for whatever service they might get.
[00:08:09] Samantha Mabe: Yeah. Okay.
Creating Compelling Content: Tips and Tricks for Reels
[00:08:10] Samantha Mabe: So if somebody wants to use Reels, how can they really showcase that expertise and their personality and build the brand awareness through Reels so that they can then see some more engagement, more trust with their audience? How do we even approach that?
[00:08:30] Molly Cahill: One of the best things to know is that people have very short attention spans, so you really have got to work on a really strong hook. And one thing that people our age I don't know how you are, I'm 37, but , one thing people our age tend to do is they hit record on the video and they're sitting there. It might be for half a second before they start speaking that half a second, they call it the millennial pause. I don't know why, that half a second is enough for people to be like boring video next.
Making sure that before you hit post, you're watching it back and you're like, I don't know me and I have zero context. Am I watching this video?
Even if I'm using like a, if it's like a face to camera talking real, you always want to have your automatic closed captions on because about 80 percent of people watch with no sound. You're just going to scroll past, right? But even in addition to those automatic closed captions, I always add some type on screen static text, just for people to note literally in a split second, is this for me or not?
But I personally have a whole podcast episode around hooks and headlines. Like literally it took me a whole episode to talk about what makes it a hook or headline. So I'm happy to share that. But so that's one thing.
And then in addition to like the hook or headline, but just like the visual interest in general. So if it is going to be a longer face to camera speaking real, sometimes I'll just change up where I'm standing. Even something that little can be enough to keep the viewer Engaged. And then just like always check your energy too. Your eyes are dead. Like no one's watching.
And then speaking of eyes, the other thing that a lot of people tend to do wrong is position their head in the wrong place in the frame. So if you are looking at a phone screen, you want your head to be in that top third, not all the way to the top, cause it'll actually get cut off, but in that top third. A lot of people will tend to put their head towards the bottom of the frame where they have a whole bunch of headspace. So from their head up to the top of like your phone screen, there's two inches, three inches of space, and then they'll put that their text above their head. That's actually not effective. Because the reason video works is because people connect with your eyes. So if your eyes are way down low and your text is up high, people's eyes are going to your text, not to your eyes. So that's another good little fun tip.
[00:10:49] Samantha Mabe: So you've mentioned two different types of content. So you mentioned B roll and then the like kind of face to camera talking. So can you tell us what those are and what you would use each of them for?
[00:11:02] Molly Cahill: So B, let's say I'm watching the local news. The reporters on the boardwalk and the cameraman is Looking at the reporter, she's got the microphone in her hand and she's there was a shark attack today on the beach. Then the reporter continues speaking and giving her report, but then maybe the footage starts panning the beach and you can still hear the reporter speaking, but the video is no longer on her.
It's essentially video that is background video, if you will. Of your feet walking, of you sitting at your desk working. I did one of me folding my laundry, walking your dog, literally anything can be B roll.
I had a client who wasn't comfortable doing face to camera Reels and she sent me videos of like her chickens. I know that sounds silly, but it's still going to capture people's attention more than video or no video. And so how you would want to use those is that's where you'd really want to have like a really strong hook.
For a long time there was this really popular just to have five second video. You're like, this is the number one thing mistake I see as a website designer, see the caption for more. People were tiring of that now to where they really do want a little bit of context in the actual video itself before, of course, you can explain in the caption, right? But for in that same example, you could be like, I'm a hormone specialist and I've been seeing clients for 10 years. And here's the number 1 issue I see in my clinic. And you say it on the screen, then you could say caption explains. So that's how that B roll footage is used.
More than anything, that's what I do, just because I find myself more heavily editing my speaking reels just because I'm particular. I'll cut out like pauses and ums and you don't have to do all that like you know I'd rather you have get something out than it be the super tight Video with no pauses and ums.
I find the B roll videos are super quick to get up and you'd be shocked. You probably already have video on your camera roll and you don't even realize it.
And what I do is repurpose a lot of content that way. So I'll go to my Instagram insights and see what's performed really well and be like, okay, how can I like redo this copy and paste the same exact caption, but maybe put a different spin on the actual video.
I've been creating content for so long now that I'm in my repurposing era, I call it, but another good tip with the B roll thing is my friend, Shannon pointed it out in a way that made a lot of sense to me. And I always just explained it as again, that whole emotional connection, right? We don't buy based on logic or fact. We think we do, but we don't. We like to think we're better than that, but we're not. We buy based on emotion.
And so when you could infuse like a story or your own personal experience or any type of emotional experience versus just let me Google this thing. And then you're like regurgitating what people can read on Google. Those Reels are also going to be more effective.
During the year I had chronic back pain, I wasn't able to play pickleball because I was in pain, but here are three things that really helped me get back in the game rather than just saying three ways to get rid of your back pain. So you see the difference. There's like one has that emotion. People are like, you're painting the picture of them and Oh my gosh, it's not pickleball for me, but it's gardening or, whatever, people can see themselves infused in that story.
The Impact of Reels on Brand Awareness and Client Acquisition
[00:14:16] Samantha Mabe: So how do we balance things like All of that educational content with things that are a little bit more lighthearted, maybe showcase our personality. Should we even do that?
[00:14:26] Molly Cahill: Yes, of course. Of course. That's the whole point. Here's the thing, I will tell you that I would unfollow any accounts that are telling you there's one right way. I've seen some of these accounts are like, this is the type of Reel it's working right now. This is the type of real it's working right now. I'm just like, that's just all noise.
I actually have another podcast on awareness levels and how I was talking about like cold, warm and hot leads. So sometimes there's like quick viral, the short videos that are going to rack up views. Those are great for casting a wide net and that potential to reach more eyeballs, whereas you're speaking to camera Reels probably won't get as many views, those are usually the videos that actually get people to book. So I call it a content ecosystem and it all serves a purpose. Some is more casting that one net and some is more for nurturing and establishing yourselves in authority.
The other thing I would say with that is just not to ever judge what is quote working based on one piece of content. The very minimum is one month's worth and when I say one month, I don't mean like you post it three times in one month. If you're posting consistently, four times a week, let's say for a month, then you can zoom out and look at your data. But if you know yourself and you're like a nitpicky perfectionist, You're not even allowed. Don't look. I'm telling you. Don't open. Don't look at your stats. Just zoom out and wait until you've done like a month's worth. And then that'll give you way more data because if you try to nitpick one single piece of content, you're going to drive yourself nuts.
[00:15:53] Samantha Mabe: Yeah. Okay.
Navigating the Tech Hurdles: Making Reels Accessible for All
[00:15:55] Samantha Mabe: So you mentioned earlier, and I'm sure you hear this a lot, that people feel like they're not techie. They don't know how to do this. This is so overwhelming. I hear the same thing from website people. So do you have any strategies or tools that can help the people who think they're less tech savvy to create Reels without feeling super overwhelmed?
[00:16:17] Molly Cahill: Yeah. The first thing I'd say is just in the last year or two, the actual Reels interface itself has upgraded a lot and they've added a bunch of features that you used to only be able to do in like an outside app.
And so for the people who aren't, like I said, feel like they're not tech savvy, like really those B roll Reels are so easy because you just grab a piece of footage from your camera roll, put up a text box, which is right there in the Reels app. And hit posts. Like it's not that hard. The first couple of times you do it, probably the first 50 times you'll do it, you'll be like, this is confusing, but you just have to keep doing it.
No one opens it opens Reels and it's oh, this is super intuitive. I got that. You know what I mean? You've got to learn. So you just have to be willing to be crappy in the beginning and just take off that Perfectionist hat.
I also have a free tech tutorial That comes with I have a free download that's like a Reels prompts for health and wellness professionals with a little tech tutorial, if you want that too, for your audience.
[00:17:13] Samantha Mabe: You mentioned the b roll and I think that makes it a lot less pressured, like you don't even have to film something right away, you just go to your camera. I've used pictures of like my kid climbing on logs for some of mine because I have more videos of him than I do of me. And I just put that up. You maybe find some music, maybe you don't find some music. I couldn't figure that out for forever and you just got to get something out there.
[00:17:39] Molly Cahill: Yeah. I just recently found a feature I didn't even know existed. There's a delete button for a reason.
Simone Soule calls it her garbage post challenge. Susie Moore from Let It Be Easy, she had a podcast titled When More Is More. And really her whole point was just that, like the more you do it, the more room for error you have. And then you can be like, Oh I did 10 Reels and nine of them didn't perform that well, but one did, but still collectively I've got more views than if I had done two that were absolutely quote perfect. So it's like the more you do, the more comfortable you get, the more people you reach.
And I think the other thing with Reels is, what I always want to go back to is your why. I know a lot of people hate mindset stuff. They're like, Oh, just give me the nuts and bolts. But my sister in law learned how to breastfeed my niece who's now a year and a half old watching Reels. Literally. She literally learned because she didn't nurse my older niece, but she was like determined to nurse this one and learned and she nursed successfully for almost a year. And learned how to do it watching Reels.
So this isn't like, I should be doing this, let me add this to my to do list. You need to go back to think about why should you be putting this out? Oh there's a lot of people suffering from migraines and I know that I have things that can help so I'll put this Reel out there. It's a very different energy in my opinion.
[00:19:04] Samantha Mabe: I know you said, don't go check your stats right away on every post, but how do you actually Take a look at what's working and gauge how that's affecting your marketing strategy?
[00:19:17] Molly Cahill: You can really deep dive into your Instagram has some amazing stats and that professional dashboard.
You can see what Reels brought you new followers. One thing I like to regularly check for our clients is, like the downside of going viral as we have a client who's a local brick and mortar chiropractor. And she went viral and now she has a boatload of followers in Mumbai, so that's another thing to check. You can go to your professional dashboard, check, click on followers, and then scroll down to the bottom and you'll see the locations of where your followers are. So sometimes if you want to make your content a little more laser specific as to who you work with.
Another number I like to look at is reach, which is In the very beginning, when I talked about this being more of a PR campaign about brand awareness, and it's really hard to say like X equals Y, there's a ton of like silent lurkers who like double tap and never comment. But those people would be captured in reach. Reach simply means the number of unique people who saw that piece of content. So I always like to see my reach growing. It doesn't have to be by much.
Now if you do have a month where you have a video go viral or something, your reach is going to be down the next month unless you go viral again. And that's another thing we like to tell our clients is not a big deal. Don't panic. Like you had this one video get a bajillion views, your stats are going to look really sad the next month, but they're really not sad. It just was like one of those outliers, sometimes we'll throw out those outliers and we're showing our clients their stat.
The other thing I like to check is, I just was looking at my Reels from this week and I found it really interesting that the one that had a more viral trending audio, I noticed the people who saw the Reel were mostly non followers versus some of my other Reels that they might take off more with like my current followers. So I just find that interesting data to go again, Okay this is the stuff that casts a wide net to people who might not know me here, more of a cold audience. This is the stuff my current people either want. So how many followers versus non followers, all that piece of content and that's all available in your insights.
[00:21:25] Samantha Mabe: Yeah. That's super helpful. And like you said, that can help you if you want more followers then we need to focus on one type of content. Whereas if we want to build our current audience and looking at where people are located, it doesn't matter how many followers you have in Mumbai if you're not serving people there. And I think that's a good reminder that you don't have to have a huge audience if you are serving people locally.
[00:21:54] Molly Cahill: Yep.
I have this thing. I call it visible versus invisible engagement. This is not a technical term. This is a Molly term. So don't go like Googling that expecting to find an answer, but the visible engagement is what I can come to your profile, Sam and go, okay, I saw you got this many likes and this many comments. On Reels, I can see also the share data as well. So I can see how many people shared it.
But then there's also so many other things. Like I can't see how many people saved it. Profile visits is another metric I love. What that means is, Hey, I love this post of yours so much that I went back to your profile to look at more. So I've had companies try to send people like send one of my clients once Hey, they say my engagement rates only this based on my last six posts. I'm like, yeah, but you got 127 saves or you got, you know what I mean? Like people can't. So I think a lot of people get caught up in that visible followers, likes, comments. I'm like, sure, those are great, but there's so much more data that's way more valuable to you.
[00:22:54] Samantha Mabe: Okay.
Leveraging Instagram's Ecosystem: Stories, Feed Posts, and Carousels
[00:22:54] Samantha Mabe: My last question, and you can just give us a real quick answer. When you're doing Reels as your marketing strategy for Instagram, how do you also, or do you also incorporate stories and feed posts and all these different pieces Instagram?
[00:23:11] Molly Cahill: I think the answer to that is usually, you're probably overthinking it. That's why I love B roll. Like example, I filmed a video of me taking a walk the other day, used that video on my stories for something super personal and then use that same exact video on my feed for more educational content stories.
I always say there are no rules. Literally anything goes. People want to see anything and everything. This is like the behind the scenes. Like you feel Ooh, I'm getting a sneak peek at what their life is like exciting stuff. I still teach, you can still do educational stuff in stories too. But my point is anything goes in stories.
And I can't tell you how many clients have come from stories I've posted that had nothing to do with business. Do you know what my highest engagement story was the last month? I was like, Oh, I need to whiten my teeth. I got like a bajillion and then I still had two people last week. Hey, what was the verdict? What answers did you get for what teeth whitening? I'm like, I don't do anything with teeth whitening. But it wasn't a fake, I really genuinely did want to know, like it wasn't like a, yeah, it's like coffee or tea, like that feels very surface sometimes. I really did want teeth whitening, but then you get to start so many conversations with people too.
In terms of feed posts, carousels still very much are in like in a great thing. So the algorithm, a lot of people don't know this. will actually show you more on your floor feed of what you tend to consume. So if you consume more Reels, it's going to show you more Reels. If you consume more carousels, it's going to show you more of that.
I'll have people ask Hey this idea you had, should it be a Reel or should it be a carousel? I'm like, it could very much be both. So sometimes I've even sent Reels to my virtual assistant that helps me like, Hey, we put this into a carousel or vice versa. So I wouldn't overthink that part.
[00:25:04] Samantha Mabe: Okay. That's super helpful. And most people aren't going to see every post anyway. So it doesn't matter if they see it, if there's a carousel and a Reel.
[00:25:12] Molly Cahill: No, and sometimes they need to, they need to see it again anyway, or maybe they need to see it in a different form, or maybe there's somebody who'd rather read it than watch a video.
Closing Thoughts and Resources
[00:25:19] Samantha Mabe: As we wrap up, can you share where people can find you and then share your free resource? You mentioned one already, but anything you want to send people to.
[00:25:28] Molly Cahill: Yeah. The best way to chat with me is on Instagram. I'm just Molly a Cahill. C A H I L L. The A in there is like thorn in my side because Molly Cahill was already taken. DM me. I would love to chat with you. And that's not like a Passive invitation. Like I literally would love to chat with you.
And then my Reels freebie is probably the best based on this conversation today, but it's just mollycahill. com slash Reels. And like I said, it's 101 prompts plus the tech tutorial. It's really more than 101 prompts. That's just a catchy number. We just keep building on this document. It has B roll ideas on it. It has hook ideas on it. I'm like I need to think of a new name for this freebie because it's no longer 101 prompts.
[00:26:06] Samantha Mabe: Thank you so much for tuning into this session of elevate your practice. I was excited to talk with all of the guests in this round of the summit, and I hope that you'll share it with a colleague or a friend who could use this magnetic marketing magic as well. You can send them to elevateyourpractice. co to register now, and they will get access to the summit right away.
