How to Consistently Show Up on Instagram Stories as a Busy Mompreneur

Have you ever wondered how you can possibly show up in Instagram Stories consistently when you're balancing a million other things as a mompreneur?

Or what you should even be talking about in Instagram Stories to begin with?

In episode 34 of Mompreneur Mastery: Simple Instagram Strategy for Busy Moms that is exactly what I lay out for you. Your most engaged followers hang out in Stories, so you need to be engaging and connecting with them there so that they turn into leads for your online business.

Stories are an incredibly powerful feature of Instagram for fostering a deeper connection with followers and showing them who you are and why you're the best person to help them.

Listen to this episode to find out the best tips for mompreneurs to stay consistent so they can use Stories to their full potential and get more leads, and what they should be posting there in the first place.

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Transcript

sydney: 0:49

So you've probably heard that you should be showing up in your Instagram stories on a pretty consistent basis, because it is just such a great place to foster more connection with your audience, because that is where your most engaged followers hang out. They are the ones watching your stories. So they're the ones that are also most likely to convert into leads for your online business. But as a mompreneur who is doing a million other things, usually at the same time, or maybe your house is like mine, and it's just never quite quiet enough to record the story. It can be really hard to film those stories that you need to foster that connection. So what do you do without missing out on new leads for your business? That is exactly what I'm going to share in this episode. Welcome to the mompreneur mastery podcast, where we share actual Instagram strategies that fit into a busy mom schedule so that you can get more engagement, more leads and more sales and less time. I'm Sydney O'Brien, an Instagram strategist who started my business with three kids under five and found a way to do it without Sacrificing quality time with my family and only working two hours a day. I love helping other mom business owners find that seemingly impossible mom work life balance. Instead of spending too much time creating content that isn't getting them the results they want. If you're an overwhelmed but very ambitious business owner and you want to strategize the heck out of your Instagram account so that you can save time and make more sales, you're in the right place. So, like I said, stories are great for fostering connection, converting followers into leads, and I've talked in previous episodes and in my Instagram content about all the money. Uses of stories for market research, selling your offers, starting conversations, all the things truly like an under utilized Feature of Instagram that not enough people are strategizing to use to its full potential. It's just another really great place to show up authentically as yourself to get more of that connection with your audience, because. While it is hard to sell on Instagram. The easiest, easiest way to do it is by being social and fostering that connection and you definitely should be doing that in your stories. The best way to do it is showing up on camera talking so people can see your face. So your followers can see your mannerisms, hear your tone of voice, see your facial expressions, all of these things. It plays a really important role and that's just super vital connection to be able to turn followers into leads. But like I said, you're listening to this because you are a mom business owner who is constantly doing all of the things, it can be really hard to show up in stories at all, definitely to do it on a consistent basis. Honestly I am less than three minutes into recording this podcast episode. My children have come in three times already. So I promise I get it. It's rough. And I have some strategies for you to try out, to make it a little bit easier, because I don't want you to stress over this, but I also don't want you. To miss out on the massive benefits from strategizing your stories and showing up to get more leads because more leads means more sales. So one of the biggest concerns I've heard about showing up in stories in this way as a mom business owner, and this is something I have seriously struggled with too, is the like aesthetics of it. You know, you're worried your house is too messy. You're worried your mom bun is too messy or worried. Did the. You're there's like paint from craft time on your shirt or something. So, if that has ever been your concern. I really want to remind you that your ideal client, the ones out there watching your stories. Are very similar to you. So they're not gonna care. They're probably in the same situation. And there is something incredibly powerful in just showing up as yourself. I honestly think that it will help with that connection piece because people will see you and be like, oh yeah, She's just like me. One of the greatest DMS I got was from another mom business owner. I was recording a story. And I was sitting on my deck talking to the camera, but I was in my backyard. So I was constantly like looking over my shoulder, checking on my kids and someone DMD me after watching it and was like, yeah, I don't want Instagram tips from someone who doesn't have to constantly be checking on their kids at the same time that they're trying to create content. I want someone who gets it like you clearly do. So showing up as yourself is really, really powerful. And I definitely think you should do it. And I love this trend that we're seeing in social media as a whole. I think it's kind of newer to Instagram, but has been around for on Tik TOK for awhile of people just showing up. As they are not into the perfectly curated, like backgrounds and transitions and all the things they're just there to be there being their full, authentic selves. And I encourage you to do that. It is incredibly helpful for you your own. Mental health and for your audience and for your business. And the second thing that I really want you to consider here. And I feel like this is something I say a lot of it. I know it's not doable for everyone just because different people's brains work in different ways, but if you can find a way to make it work for you. Planning ahead. Batching and scheduling things can save you hours each week. Like ours. Can you imagine what you would do with an extra three hours a week? I would nap. Or read. But if you can do it, I highly highly recommend it. Because you can film yourself, talking like face to camera, filming stories and schedule them in a scheduling tool. I use metrical. I know you can do it with that. You can't do it for stories that have those engagement stickers, like the polls, the questions box, but you can upload just a video of yourself with captions and schedule it to post when you want it to post. That is absolutely fine. And then you can record a few at a time maybe while your kids are napping or they're at a play date or there. I don't know whenever it is that you get enough of a break to just. Record a few videos. I definitely recommend doing that. And if you can't do that, At least have a plan, have a plan of what you're going to post and then have a plan of what you're going to talk about in stories on that day. I was talking to a friend the other day who is using my, what the heck to post content map. And she was telling me, even if she's not able to Batch create and schedule things. Even just having a plan of knowing what to post saves her ton of time and so much stress of worrying about what is going on, like what she should be posting that day. It can be the same for stories because. One of the ways you should be showing up on stories is to expand on your post for that day. So, if you already have a plan for what you're going to post that day, you can easily plan what you're going to talk about in stories and reduce some of that mental load of staying consistent in stories. Now, if you don't post on Instagram, like to your actual feed every day. And you're wondering, okay, well, if I don't have a post to talk about what do I talk about in stories? I always suggest. Two things. One, what you're doing for work that day. It's a great way to. Kind of talk about your offers without talking about your offers. Without exclusively promoting them, you know, but reminding people, oh, this is a thing I do. And also. Showing them the non-work things that you do showing little bits of your life that they will connect with. Because not everything has to be or should be about. I work and business. They should see just glimpses into your life and your personality so that there's more for them to connect with. So that they turn into a lead for your business. If you follow me on Instagram and have seen my stories, you will see endless pictures and videos of me T. Going with my kids. On walks or going to nature centers or different playgrounds or parks, museums, things like that because that's what we do most of the day. So you don't have to go out of your way to find new things, to get pictures and videos of just do what you normally do and grab some footage while you do it. It doesn't have to be a ton. But a picture or a video a day of it alongside a to-do list can be incredibly helpful. And then I know I briefly talked about expanding on your post in stories as a video. But I want to talk more about it because I think this is just such an important and under utilized strategy for your Instagram stories. So we talked about plans for doing it consistently, but now let's talk about what exactly that looks like. Because like I said, just a super powerful strategy here. So the first thing you're going to do in your stories is share a question or something that uses an engagement sticker in stories that's related to your post for that day. So I'm just going to give an example. Last week I had a post It was a carousel post about why people shouldn't be scrolling Instagram feeds to get inspiration for their own content. That was like the main topic that was covered in the hook. So before talking about that in my stories, I asked a question and my stories with like a yes, no poll. And it was, do you scroll your Instagram feed to get inspiration for your post ideas? Literally everyone said yes. And from there, it is so important to validate. Everyone does it. It's fine. I've done it too. So I said, I've done it, we're guilty, but there's a better way. And then I show up in stories and I take what I talked about in my carousel and just expanded on it in my stories. Because people connect with people much more than they do text on a screen. Any time you can show up and talk about your post face to camera. It's going to make a world of difference for your Instagram strategy and using Instagram to generate leads for your business. So think about how you can expand on the post, think about how you can validate your followers, experiences, or feelings around that topic. Think about how you can reframe it in a way that is super specific to your followers. Like how can it be different from the generic advice you see around this topic? And always ask questions because the best way to foster connections is to start conversations. So ask questions, ask people what they think, ask for opinions, ask if they have questions really use those engagement stickers. And by using an engagement story before you show up to talk about your post you will increase your story engagement, which works just like it does in your Instagram feed, where that story will get pushed out to more people, which means if you're doing a good job in your story, it's going to foster more connection with more people, the people being the people in your followers that are already most likely to convert into leads. So you're helping your business out a ton by doing this. I know that was a lot of information. So just to recap here. Don't sleep on stories. Plan ahead to reduce stress and overwhelm. Batch and schedule when you can, but at least have that plan to go off of. So you're not scrambling last minute or you don't forget. Show up as yourself. And as far as what to post share to do lists, share bits of your day. And strategize based on your posts for the day. So I hope that was helpful. And I cannot wait to see how you use that in your own stories. And I hope that it saves you a ton of time in doing it while getting more leads for your business. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of mompreneur mastery, simple Instagram strategy for busy moms. And I cannot wait to be back in your earbuds next week.