In this episode, Jenna delves into her unexpected journey from bartender and actor to becoming a social media strategist and entrepreneur. Her story unfolds as she recalls volunteering at a yoga studio in Toronto, where a chance opportunity to manage Instagram marked the beginning of her career pivot. Jenna reflects on the challenges of transitioning from artistic aspirations to running a thriving social media agency. She shares insights into embracing change, leveraging creativity, and building a personal brand. Her practical advice emphasizes balancing authenticity with strategy, finding joy in content creation, and navigating the fast-paced world of digital marketing. Throughout the episode, Jenna highlights the importance of understanding audience behavior and adapting content to meet evolving trends. From creating scroll-stopping hooks to planning effective growth campaigns, her expertise shines through as she explains how small businesses can thrive in competitive digital spaces without sacrificing their unique voice. Listeners will uncover Jenna’s approach to engaging audiences through storytelling, community building, and structured growth. She offers actionable tips for content creation, including designing posts for engagement, mastering social media algorithms, and crafting impactful messaging that resonates with both B2B and B2C audiences. KEY TAKEAWAYS: * Discover how to transform unexpected opportunities into a fulfilling career. * Learn practical strategies for creating engaging and authentic social media content. * Understand the importance of balancing creativity with business goals. * Gain insights into managing growth while maintaining a connection with your audience. Head over to podcast.iamcharlesschwartz.com to download your exclusive companion guide, designed to guide you step-by-step in implementing the strategies revealed in this episode. KEY POINTS: 4:20 - Accidental Career Pivot: Jenna shares how a reluctant $300 gig at a yoga studio turned into her first step toward a thriving Instagram marketing career, proving that opportunities can arise from the most unexpected places. 11:15 - Mastering Instagram's Algorithm: Jenna demystifies the ever-changing Instagram algorithm, emphasizing that the key to success lies in creating content designed to keep people engaged and interacting with your posts. 18:40 - The Power of Personal Branding: Jenna discusses how personal branding is crucial for service providers, explaining how authenticity and individuality can set a business apart in the crowded social media landscape. 23:30 - The Three Content Buckets: Jenna introduces her signature framework—growth, nurture, and sales content—and explains how balancing these categories can help businesses build trust and convert followers into clients. 35:05 - Breaking the Vanity Metrics Myth: Jenna addresses the obsession with follower counts, highlighting how even a small audience can generate significant results when the focus is on building genuine connections and conversions. 41:10 - Leveraging Past Success: Jenna reveals how a strategic sales post generated 10 sales calls in just three hours for one of her clients, showcasing the power of well-crafted content to drive immediate results. 54:20 - Fun as a Growth Strategy: Jenna explains the importance of finding joy in social media marketing, sharing how focusing on creativity and experimentation leads to better content and long-term success.
Chapter 1: What unexpected career pivot did Jenna Warriner experience?
Jenna shows us how questioning conventional wisdom and focusing on genuine connection over follower counts can create sustainable growth and meaningful impact, transforming not just social media presence, but entire businesses. The show starts now. Welcome to the I Am Charles Schwartz Show, where we don't just discuss success, we show you how to create it.
On every episode, we uncover the strategies and tactics that turn everyday entrepreneurs into unstoppable powerhouses in their businesses and their lives. Whether your goal is to transform your life or hit that elusive seven, eight, or nine figure mark, we've got the blueprint to get you there. The show starts now. Hi guys, welcome back.
I'm excited about this one because this uses Instagrams on a level that I haven't used in a really long time. But before we get into all that, thank you so much for joining us for the show.
Thanks for having me. Fun to be here all the way down in Florida.
All the way down in Florida and you up there. And thank you for coming on with your arm being broken. That is unbelievably sweet of you. And again, I'm so sorry that your arm had a moment, but I'm glad you're handling it as well as you are.
Yeah, it's okay. I'm like really tough unless it comes to putting a messy bun on the top of my head, in which case I'm not capable of doing that at this time.
Well, then we had that in common, except that I am not tough, nor can I do a messy bun on the top of my head. It just doesn't work out very well, but we'll get there. So tell me a little bit more about you and how you got here and all the magic stuff that you've done with Instagram as well.
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Chapter 2: How can businesses master Instagram's algorithm?
Yeah. So I was a bartender and an actor over in Toronto, Canada. Hi, Canucks. I'm Canadian. And I started volunteering at this yoga studio to get free classes. And I would like bartend all night and then bike to a yoga studio at like 9am and be just the worst customer service agent for them, to be fully honest. I'm not very good at that job.
And one day the owner asked me if I would help him with his phone. And I helped him with his Instagram. And I think I was the only person in his life that knew how Instagram works. So he got it in his head that I was some sort of Instagram social media person. And I'm like, no, I'm not. I'm just like a tired woman who is trying to make a career of being an actor while bartending.
And he wouldn't let it go. He was like, can you come run the social media for the studio over and over again? And I said no a billion times. And eventually he was just like, Jenna, what's a good day if you know NLP? He like kind of like talk ninja'd me. And he goes, what's a good day this week for you to come in and discuss your rate? I'm like, oh, God, fine. Thursday.
So I go in and I agree for $300 to run all the social media for this whole studio, the Facebook, the Instagram. Next thing you know, I am bringing influencers in from all over the city. I'm borrowing lighting equipment and taking it on the streetcar over and like running photo shoots and running contests at the front desk if you follow us on Facebook. And I'm just like loving it, like loving it.
So then I go to my bar and I'm like... Can I run your social media? Because that's like a thing I do now. And I blew it up, like made it huge. Was taking pictures of all these like celebrity comedians because it was a comedy club. And so then it just became a thing. And I resisted it for so, so long. And then I couldn't resist it anymore.
And now here I freaking am with this agency, teaching it, living it. It's my whole life is social media now.
God bless you for doing that. So I started back with my social media four or five years ago. I wasn't on Instagram in any way, shape, or form. And we grew 100,000 followers in 39 days, which was amazing. But what existed and worked four years ago doesn't even matter what happens now. So I'm completely out of touch with that because what happened even six months ago has changed so much.
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Chapter 3: What is the importance of personal branding in social media?
So as you go into this and you're trying to get clients and do all these things, what There's so much that's changed. I'm excited for you to say, hey, this is what works. This is what doesn't work as we go into this. So if someone's trying to grow this and they're trying to obviously monetize their social media, how do they do this?
How does it, when people come to you as clients, what are the biggest things you run into?
Okay, so monetizing it and growing it, kind of two different conversations. Let's start with growing it. Okay. So growing it first, you're going to be in the best situation if you don't blame the algorithm as this like third-party entity that has control over your life. Like when, as soon as you blame the algorithm, you give up your own control of growing.
And I know it's so easy because it's so easy to like buy into the drama and it does change, right? But we've never, like back when you grew so rapidly over a hundred thousand, we knew as much about the algorithm then as we do now. Like we've never known exactly how it works, but we do know one thing. So if you know this one thing, you will hack the algorithm always.
We know that the platforms want us on the platforms longer. And because they're robots, they're taking cues to know if people are interacting with your posts and they want people touching your posts and spending time on your posts. That's it. Get people to stay on your page for longer and get them to touch your post, right? So people go, yeah, you need engagement. You need engagement.
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Chapter 4: What are the three content buckets for effective social media strategy?
Yeah, you need engagement because you need people spending time on your posts. And watch time is really important, like the retention someone spends on your video and making sure they watch like as much of your video as possible because they're staying on the platform for longer, right? So then you start to build things in your posts like what we call engagement attractors, right?
making sure that you're designing the post to be touched, not just hoping someone touches it. And that can be as simple as asking a question in your caption because you're designing it for somebody to then respond and answer the question down in your comment section.
What are some of the questions? So having them engaged is a complicated process. When you're starting to do this and when you teach your clients how to do this, what are certain questions? What are certain practices? What are certain techniques that they're like, hey, this works really well based on specific industries? Because I know you work with some industries versus other industries.
Which one have you found to have the most success with?
So the people that I work with mostly are service providers and mostly women. So, but I mean- I'm fine being here with you, Charles. That's fine. I know. It's amazing. I'll allow it. So no, it's mostly women. A lot of like wellness practitioners, tutors, people who don't sell a product but sell a service so that their personality is a huge selling factor, right?
Like people don't just sign up to get a massage from – like so-and-so's hands, they like so-and-so. They like the way so-and-so talks to them, right? So then it's carrying this personal branding element with the business element and being the face of your business and really utilizing your own personality and making that be like one of your industry differentiators, just how you talk. right?
So B2B businesses have a really easy time because so many businesses have social media accounts. So when you're really in the weeds and you're trying to grow your account, it's easy to go like, okay, I got followed by at RMT Michelle because RMT Michelle has an Instagram account, but it can be a little bit disheartening when you're selling B2C because sees customers, random people.
They use Instagram really differently. They have a lot of private accounts. They have an account that just has two pictures of their grandkids and no context. And you're like, is this a real person? So both work. Obviously, there's billions of people. There's billions of customers on there.
But it can be easier for your brain if you're a B2B business sometimes because you can actually see the businesses that you're talking to. Like in my case, right? Like I'm selling to small business owners. And so they are really
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Chapter 5: How can businesses focus on genuine connections over vanity metrics?
Yeah. I mean, not wanting to do it and hating it are two very different things because one of my brand values is fun. And I credit a lot of my success to fun, finding fun in it, right? And If you hate it, I would probably tell you not to do it. Like I would tell you to go to find a platform that you love or that you can at least a little bit enjoy because they all work, right?
You could put all your eggs in an SEO basket as a small business owner. If you can only choose a few things, you could just go old-fledged website. I'm going to make a blog. I'm going to optimize it for SEO. Great. I'm going to go to YouTube. I'm going to do that. Like you don't need to be on every platform.
So deciding on the one that you want to commit to right now, master one of those social media platforms. And then add in others later or like repurpose your content in a smart way later I think is probably step one. If you really, really hate it or you have like a lot of mental blocks around it and it makes you feel bad about yourself, don't – I would say don't do it.
And don't feel like you need to do it because there are no rules.
Gotcha. And if they're going to do this effectively, if they've decided, yes, this is part of business. I need to have this as a digital billboard. This is how I show myself. How does one start increasing those engagement where they do stay on platform longer? Because there's a lot of people I've seen who try to off-platform people very quickly.
They're like, hey, click here, click the link in my bio, go get my book, go get this, go get that. And you're being off-platform. They're like, why am I not getting engagement? I'm like, because you're breaking the rules. How do you get someone to stay? What are some of the practices they can do to keep that engagement going?
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Chapter 6: What strategies can drive immediate sales results on social media?
Okay, so... You kind of alluded to this, like they're sending people to go buy something right away. So that would be sales content, right? So we have the sales content. Sales content typically is going to have lower engagement than anything else. Anytime you're trying to sell something, you can expect the views on that to be lower. Typically, right?
Sometimes there's anomalies, but the views on that to be lower, the engagement on that to be lower, but the website clicks to be up, which is great. And that's them leaving the platform to go to your site. So we want to think of our content in three different camps. We want growth content, nurture content, and sales content. So a growth post is going to be a post that is quick. It's short.
It's maybe like a seven second reel. It gives somebody a tip or makes somebody laugh, elicits an emotional response. It's like bite-sized. And it's kind of like you just like reaching out with a handshake at a networking event or waving at someone from across the room and you hope that they come over.
And you're not going to, when someone comes across the room to you at a networking event, they're not going to walk up and you go, here's my card. You should call me. Like, don't do that. Don't sell to them in that growth content. Nurture content is where you're really building trust. So this might be where you sit down with someone in a long form carousel.
Also a carousel meaning when you see a hook on a graphic and then you swipe sideways through it and it kind of tells a story or teaches you something. We're like three things to learn if you need to know these things. That's a really good hook to start. And then it takes them a little bit longer to, like, read that.
You know, they're not as distracted as they could easily be while watching a growth reel. But they're really getting to know you and they're really learning that you know your stuff. So... We can't expect a stranger to sit down with you for quite that long. So we use the growth content, the quick, easy, fun stuff to attract them. Then once they're there, we serve them the nurture stuff.
We teach them something they now psychologically owe us something. They trust us more. We look like the expert. And then the hottest people see that sales content and are ready to go to your link and buy or whatever.
So when they're doing this, there's so many different types. I love that you brought up carousels. There's carousels, there's reels, there's videos, there's this post, there's pictures of people with their dogs.
When they're doing that and they're having all of these and they're trying to decide what they should do, is there a proper ratio of like, hey, you should have this many reels and you should have these many videos and so on and so forth. What are the things that you have found have been the most effective to build that audience so you can actually ultimately engage with them and sell?
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Chapter 7: How can fun be integrated into social media marketing?
your experience is completely different. I was just in, I was speaking in Florida like a month ago and I went outside, like I mostly was in the resort, but I went outside and I was just like, fascinating. My skin inside is same temperature outside. Exactly.
You walk outside and you're completely drenched in sweat. Yeah. It's, it's brutal down here in South Florida some days, but Hey, it's August. You gotta do what you gotta do.
Crazy. Anyway, so for the summers, a couple of years in a row, last year and the year before, I just did growth content. And I loved it. And we called it a growth sprint. And it culminated in some viral videos. The first year I did it, it culminated in a very successful launch. Because when you're focusing on growth, you're focusing on serving people, right? You're like, can I make you laugh?
Can I make you cry? Can I teach you something really quickly? And it takes the onus off of yourself and your own ego. And if you're not putting pressure on yourself to sell, typically your content will be better, right? Because what happens with a lot of people is they mix up these buckets and you can do that once you're good, but it's kind of a learn the rules to break them kind of thing.
Yeah.
Does that kind of resonate?
A hundred percent. Yeah. Like what is the point of my post? What am I trying to do here? My clients will decide, is this growth, nurture, or sales? Just so your head is already like in the right bucket. And then what engagement attractors am I putting on this post? So how can I design this to be touched?
If it's a carousel, a really strong hook on the first page and then a big arrow because people see the arrow and they need to swipe, right? So as soon as they swipe, great. We now have engagement. That might look like a hook in the first line of the captions. so that they click read more or see more to read the rest of the caption, great, that counts as a hook.
So the two things in your head are, what's the point of this post? And like, am I trying to grow and nurture ourself? And then how can I design it to be touched?
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Chapter 8: What are the key elements of engaging social media content?
So how does someone do that? Not the breath before the ha.
Exactly.
Cut out the breath. Pretend you don't breathe.
Just coming up. What is, so what are the ways, because people are obviously they're, they're trying to figure this out and they're trying to cut through the noise because they're competing with puppy dogs and kitty cats and everything else that's scrolling through their feed. How do they cut through the noise? How do they become that lighthouse against the fog?
What are some of the ones that they could use that are, that do do that?
Okay, well, how about let's talk about pointing out a mistake. So in marketing psychology, especially if you're nervous about giving things away, because sometimes that takes people a little bit of mindset work to be ready to just give tips away for free. So let's talk about instead of telling someone what to do, let's tell them what not to do that they are currently doing. So a mistake.
So if you want result without thing they think they have to do to get it, you're in the right place, right? That could be your hook. If you want to grow on social media without spending all day glued to your phone, let me help you out. If you want to get more Instagram followers without selling your soul, let me help you out. I'm just making these up.
They're not amazing. Can I do that? Can I get Instagram followers without selling my soul? I didn't know that was an option.
I thought I had to give away my first foreign child. Did you already sign for that?
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