Podcast Summary
From law school dropout to multi-million dollar business owner: Believe in your abilities, stay persistent, and use social media to grow your brand and build a business around your passions.
No matter your background or past struggles, you can build a successful business and achieve your dreams with determination, creativity, and the right mindset. Jasmine Star, a social media guru, photographer, business strategist, and podcast host, shares her journey of dropping out of law school to pursue photography and building a multi-million dollar business, Social Curator. Growing up as an immigrant with homeschooled siblings, Jasmine's upbringing fostered creativity, freedom, and a belief in the power of possibilities. Despite starting behind in academics, she went on to receive academic scholarships and eventually law school scholarships. Jasmine's story highlights the importance of staying persistent and believing in your abilities, even when faced with seemingly insurmountable odds. She encourages entrepreneurs and creatives to use social media to grow their brands and build businesses around their passions.
The influence of being a twin and having an outgoing sister: Identifying as an introvert despite an extroverted appearance, observing patterns, and persevering under pressure shaped the speaker into a successful business owner, driven by her experiences as a twin and a first-generation college student.
Being a twin and having an outgoing sister influenced the speaker's personality in unexpected ways. Despite appearing extroverted, she identifies as an introvert. This dynamic empowered her to observe and understand patterns, leading her to become a successful business owner. Her academic background, including a full ride scholarship to UCLA law school, instilled a strong work ethic. However, when she realized law school wasn't a good fit, she felt a sense of responsibility to her family and community to persevere. This internal pressure led her to complete her first year despite misgivings. Ultimately, her experiences as a twin and a first-generation college student shaped her into a resilient and determined individual.
Defining moments inspire personal growth and entrepreneurship: Adversity can lead to transformative experiences and motivate individuals to pursue their passions, even when uncertain or lacking skills.
Difficult experiences in life can serve as powerful motivators for personal growth and entrepreneurship. Both Jasmine and the speaker had defining moments that made them reevaluate their lives and pursue their passions, despite feeling uncertain or lacking the necessary skills. Jasmine's dream of becoming a photographer began with just a dream and no camera, but she was determined to learn and improve. Similarly, the speaker was inspired by her mother's battle with cancer to reassess her career and find fulfillment in her work. These experiences demonstrate the transformative power of adversity and the importance of taking risks and following one's dreams.
Starting a new venture requires perseverance and adaptation: Stay committed, adapt, and focus on progress, not perfection, when starting a new venture.
Starting a new venture, be it a creative pursuit or a business, requires perseverance and a willingness to adapt. As the speaker shared, they faced the reality of their limitations and the need to pivot when they started their photography business. Over the years, they encountered people who joined their journey but eventually dropped out. However, they learned that it's essential to keep going and not be discouraged by setbacks. The speaker also emphasized the importance of not putting too much pressure to monetize a passion right away, allowing time for education and growth. They shared their personal experience of pursuing photography as a side hustle while still having a day job, saving enough money before quitting to reduce financial stress. Overall, the speaker's journey highlights the importance of staying committed, being adaptable, and focusing on progress rather than perfection.
Embrace your side hustle as a kite carrying you to your goals: Consistently create value on social media, be proud of your efforts, and attract followers who become customers.
Starting a side hustle requires dedication, creativity, and consistency. Jasmine, a successful business owner, emphasized the importance of being proud of one's side hustle and treating it as a kite that carries us to our goals rather than a weight. She shared her personal journey of learning social media by doing it consistently, without any formal coaching or education. Jasmine encouraged everyone to harness the power of social media by creating content that weaves their personal story into their brand narrative. By being consistent and providing value to followers, Jasmine saw a shift in the followers she attracted and turned into customers. In essence, the key takeaway is that anyone can learn and succeed in a new skill or area, like social media, by being consistent, proud of their efforts, and providing value to their audience.
From Twitter to LinkedIn and Shopify: Embrace Learning and Smart Money Management: Learn new skills, adapt to new platforms, manage investments wisely with tools like Yahoo Finance
With determination and a willingness to learn, anyone can expand their skills and adapt to new platforms or opportunities. The speaker's journey from Twitter to LinkedIn, and the ease of setting up a business with Shopify, are testaments to this. Additionally, investing your money wisely is crucial for growth. Yahoo Finance simplifies this process by allowing users to link and manage all their investment accounts in one place, providing valuable tools and data for informed decisions. Overall, the key takeaways are embracing continuous learning and smart financial management.
Niche down to build a strong social media presence: Focus on a specific audience to create targeted content, engage deeply, and expand your reach
To effectively grow your presence and expertise on social media platforms, it's essential to niche down your audience and create a niche market. This strategy may seem counterintuitive, as the conventional wisdom is to aim for mass market appeal. However, carving out a niche allows you to speak directly to a specific audience, making it easier to create content and build engagement. When starting with a small audience, focus on giving comments, liking photos, and responding to direct messages to increase your visibility. By creating content for your dream customer, you'll resonate with them more effectively, and in turn, attract a broader audience. Engaging with your audience also signals to the algorithm that this is your community, increasing the likelihood that your content will be shown to more people. In essence, niching down allows you to build a strong foundation and expand your reach effectively.
Use relevant hashtags and craft compelling captions for social media success: Effective use of hashtags and captions can attract the right audience, increase engagement, and grow your social media presence.
Engaging with your audience and using relevant hashtags thoughtfully are key to growing your social media presence. Hashtags are not a magic solution, but rather a tool for discoverability. It's important to ensure that your caption and visual content align with the hashtags you use to attract the right audience and increase engagement. Additionally, copywriting is an essential aspect of social media success. Your captions can make the difference between popularity and profitability. Invest time and resources in crafting compelling, authentic, and engaging captions that resonate with your audience and align with your brand. Remember, your visuals may get you noticed, but your captions will keep them coming back.
Effective Social Media Engagement with HIC Formula: Use HIC formula for social media engagement: Hook, Insights, Call to Action. Focus on meaningful connections with targeted audience, not mass appeal.
Building meaningful connections with a few key people on social media is more effective than trying to reach a large audience indiscriminately. To engage your audience effectively, use the HIC formula: Hook, Insights, and Call to Action. A hook grabs attention, insights build trust, and a clear call to action encourages engagement. Use industry-specific hooks to target your audience and personalize your insights to show the value your business brings to them. Remember, every click on "read more" signals to the algorithm that your content is of interest, moving you closer to reaching a larger audience. So focus on creating genuine connections with a few, rather than trying to appeal to many.
Showing vulnerability and consistency in social media content: Use tools like Social Curator to create visually stunning content, develop a strategy for consistent posting, live stream on multiple channels with Restream, have an appealing LinkedIn header, and manage small businesses efficiently with Gusto.
Authenticity and consistency are key elements in creating engaging social media content. The speaker emphasized the importance of showing raw vulnerability while maintaining professionalism. With Social Curator, they provide tools and resources to help users create visually stunning content and develop a strategy to consistently post on platforms like Reels and Stories. Additionally, the speaker recommended using Restream for live streaming to expand reach and engage with audiences on multiple social media channels. They also highlighted the importance of having a visually appealing LinkedIn header to showcase personal branding. Lastly, they mentioned Gusto as a solution for small business owners, offering easy-to-use payroll and HR services to save time and manage their businesses more efficiently.
Don't Neglect Your Own Content Creation: As a social media manager, prioritize your own content creation to build a strong personal brand and future business prospects. Use tools, explore trends, and batch content to save time and maintain a consistent schedule.
As a social media manager, creating content for yourself is the most important thing you can do. This advice comes from the analogy of a cobbler's children having no shoes. Social media managers can get so caught up in creating content for their clients that they neglect their own content, which can harm their personal brand and future business prospects. To overcome content creation blocks, consider using tools like social curator or exploring trending content on platforms like Instagram and TikTok to find inspiration for your industry. Additionally, batching content can help save time and ensure a consistent posting schedule. Set aside dedicated time each month to plan, create, and schedule content, including any necessary props or outfit changes. Remember, your clients look to you for expertise and creativity, so prioritize your own content creation to effectively serve them.
Growing Instagram organically vs. shortcuts: Focus on creating content for your dream customer and building a genuine following over time for successful Instagram growth. Avoid shortcuts like paid shoutouts, converting meme accounts, and engagement pods, which can lead to unreliable audiences and disingenuous endorsements.
While there are various ways to quickly grow an Instagram following through paid shoutouts, converting meme accounts, and engagement pods, the speaker strongly advocates for organic growth. They believe that these shortcuts can lead to unwanted consequences, such as an unreliable audience or a disingenuous endorsement. Instead, the speaker suggests focusing on creating content for your dream customer and building a genuine following over time. They also caution against the potential pitfalls of engagement pods, such as inequity and resentment, and the fleeting nature of engagement that doesn't occur naturally. Ultimately, the speaker emphasizes the importance of authenticity and consistency in growing a successful Instagram presence.
Streamline your hiring process with Indeed: Using Indeed saves time and resources for SMBs by allowing them to attract, interview, and hire all in one place, delivering 4x more hires than other job sites. Analyze Instagram engagement data to boost account performance.
For small and medium-sized business owners looking to hire, using a powerful hiring platform like Indeed can save time and resources. The entrepreneur in the discussion shared his experience of cracking the code on hiring by looking for character, attitude, and reliability, but finding it time-consuming to ensure candidates have these qualities alongside their core job skills. He praised Indeed for allowing him to attract, interview, and hire all in one place, saving him from the inefficiencies of using multiple job sites. Indeed's data shows that over 80% of employers receive perfect resume matches when sponsoring a job, and the platform delivers 4 times more hires than all other job sites combined. For businesses looking to hire their next superstar, Indeed is offering a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade job posts. On a different note, for those struggling with low engagement on Instagram, the advice was to accept the reality of the algorithm and understand what followers want to see. Analyzing the last 30 posts and identifying which ones received the most engagement can provide insights into what content resonates with followers. Recreating similar posts with fresh captions can help boost engagement and resurrect a dead or poor engagement account. Overall, using a powerful hiring platform and analyzing Instagram engagement data can lead to significant time and cost savings for businesses.
Reviving a stagnant Instagram account: Engage followers via direct messages, maintain content quality, and consider audience changes for growth.
Reviving a stagnant Instagram account can be beneficial if the content and audience remain the same, but starting from scratch might be necessary if the content or audience has significantly changed. Direct messaging followers is an effective way to re-engage them and indicate interest to the algorithm. As for not having access to Instagram reels, it's important to note that business accounts can still use reels with limited music options, and switching to a creator account may not necessarily solve the issue. Shadow banning is not a confirmed feature on Instagram, and it's essential to focus on creating high-quality content and engaging with followers to grow an account.
Crafting Engaging Captions on Social Media: Use the HIC method: Hook, Insights, and Call to Action for scroll-stopping captions on social media to encourage meaningful engagement. Hook grabs attention, Insights provide value, and Call to Action invites engagement.
The importance of crafting engaging captions on social media, especially on platforms like LinkedIn. Jasmine Star shared her HIC method for writing scroll-stopping captions: Hook, Insights, and Call to Action. The hook grabs the audience's attention with emotional or curious language. Insights provide value to the audience by educating or motivating them. Lastly, the call to action invites the audience to engage by commenting, messaging, or taking another desired action. Remember, having a great photo isn't enough; you need to put effort into the post's content to encourage meaningful engagement. If you want to learn more about branding and marketing, check out episode 88 with LinkedIn influencer Chenay Marais.
Listener's Business Journey and Praise for Young and Profiting Podcast: Listeners can engage with content by sharing their own experiences and praising the podcast's guests and format, while the host values feedback and can be found on social media.
As a content creator, you don't necessarily need to have your own stories to share. You can find and share other people's stories, put your own perspective on them, and engage your audience. People love a good story, and it can lead to connections and sharing. A listener named Federico shared his experience of starting a business and the importance of continuous learning. He also praised the Young and Profiting Podcast for its guests and layout. To support the show, listeners are encouraged to leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. Hala, the podcast host, appreciates feedback and engagement from her listeners and can be found on social media.
