The Floral Hustle

  📍 Hello, flower friend. This is Jen. And you're listening to the floral hustle podcast on this week's mini so we're going to talk about three things you can do on Instagram without showing your face that will help boost your engagement that will help, um, boost your followers and also will provide value whenever I'm thinking about what I'm doing on social media.

I don't look at it from a, what is this doing for me perspective. I look, what is the value that I am delivering to my audience? And if you can't answer that question or there's no value and it is self serving, I would maybe think of a different direction to go because people want content. That benefits them and that benefit could be educational.

It could be something just beautiful to look at, but maybe, like, explaining, you know, some of the background or, you know, details of that photo that really gives it context so that they're, like, escaping to that. If it's just this app, you know, post that is like, Hey, I did this wedding and you can buy this too.

Without like putting any love or intention or really, um, details that can support and make them visualize that, you're going to be posting a lot and having minimal engagement. So, the first thing that you can do without showing your face is just saying hi to other wedding professionals. So, my strategy for a while was going in, and especially when I started growing the Floral Hustle page, is I went in to 10 similar pages a day and commented on a couple different posts of theirs, and then I went and simultaneously followed them.

So if you are a florist, go and find wedding planners, venues, photographers, people who are at the part of the funnel that is likely before you, and go and interact with their pages. Go and follow them. But then... When they follow you back, send them a message, thank them for following you back. They did something they didn't need to do, and they could have just said, Oh, that was nice that that person went and commented on my stuff, and they could have just ended that relationship.

So they are serving and volleying you that ball back, and if you take that opportunity, tell them thank you for that, and then send them a message, send them a DM, a personalized message that says, Thank you so much. I absolutely, um, am so grateful that you followed me. I was looking at your page when I hit that follow button and I just absolutely loved this about your page.

People love feedback. And that feedback, that you loved whatever on their page, is going to make them feel good. And then, follow that up with a benefit for them. I often have people that are looking for wedding planners or photographers or Um, I have, um, sometimes like they book me before they even book a venue and I would love to be able to refer.

And so I'd love to meet for virtual coffee and just hear more about your business and then see what they say. You're serving it back saying, I want to support you. I love what you're doing. And that is going to normally resonate. They might not have the time or capacity to meet with you, but they might remember your name.

Next time somebody is looking for a florist because you are top of mind. So go and follow, develop a strategy you can stick to. If it's five wedding planners or five people in the wedding industry a day, five times a week, whatever it is, start having some like plan to go and grow your Instagram with people who are doing business with people You do business with.

Okay, then Interacting. Interacting is not having you make a video pointing to a million things. This is a way to foster relationships with other wedding professionals, venues, whatever it may be and I don't know if you've had the post that you were like, Oh my god, I love this photo. I love my caption I wrote, and you're feeling really good about it.

And then there's fucking crickets. And you're like, that was a flop. What happened? You will start getting better engagement from people if you start interacting with those people. So step one,

you need to continue to foster that relationship. Go and comment on their posts. If they comment on yours, you make sure that you respond with thank you so much. I loved that too. Whatever generic comment, just so you are serving it back over to them, that I see you and thank you for interacting with me.

And make it so it's not some stupid emoji or something, make it theme thoughtful like you actually thought through a response. Number three, how I just was mentioning in number one, create a strategy. Consistency in your Instagram content and your interactions is going to grow your Instagram following.

And this could also be your TikTok following, your YouTube shorts, whatever it is. If you are consistent about it, you are going to start seeing results. Consistently go and interact. Consistently build a strategy to show up there. And I'm not saying show up with your beautiful face. That could be just showing up with posts, with stories, with whatever.

And I have so many people, because I do consistently post, I have so many people just like, Oh, I just saw that my, cause I'll post about my kids because they're adorable and they do a lot of fun stuff. And I, um, I think it's fun to share that they're out at karate. It's fun to share that we are at Nerf Gun Night.

It's fun to share that they are out helping me garden. Whatever it is. And I'll have people say Bodhi is so cute and they love his blonde hair. And he looks like he is a little tornado or whatever. So I have people like, in, like I, I deliver a wedding and I see somebody that follows me. And they're like, your son is so cute.

I've consistently posted his cuteness. I have built a relationship with that person because of my son's cuteness. They remember me because I'm showing up. So build a strategy behind showing up. And showing up. It could be using a scheduling tool so you are not leaving it to chance that you are going to go post because chance is not going to happen.

So I use Plani Lee, I have also used Tailwind, and I go in and I can schedule all of that and I think it's $15 a month. You also could use Meta's tool to schedule things, but with that I am building a plan on, okay, every Monday. We're posting some type of Meet Us Monday content. So that Meet Us Monday content could be, um, introduction of like how we love to use locally grown flowers.

Um, it could be about our rental inventory. It could be about, uh, if you're a sustainable florist. It could be about that. It could be, my funniest About Us Monday was, um, when I was in high school, my senior pictures. I was a florist in high school a million years ago, and I had my senior picture, and I had grocery store flowers, and a pink sweater on, and all these daisies, and Alstroemeria, and baby's breath, I don't know what I was thinking.

But they were laying in front of me, and I had my platinum blonde hair, and if you have seen me now, I have very red hair, and I have since I, shortly after my senior pictures. And, um, I had so many people comment on that, that, cause I went in the house and dug it out, and I was like, this would be funny to post, and, um, we just posted a, like a throwback, and talked about how I've been doing flowers since high school, and that got great engagement, like what can you do that could be, um, relevant to your audience, that people can relate to, and people Bye.

Could be inspired by. Like, sometimes your life is inspiring even when you don't think it is. Maybe you're showing up to the gym consistently. Maybe you, your dream of doing a wedding at a certain venue happened. You should share that victory. Share, like, those things and make yourself relatable. Make yourself humanized.

Because people want to be surrounded by that energy. That, that energy of, like, happiness and joy and that you're winning or whatever it is like that positive vibes. We don't have enough of those. So if we can have a little bit more and you could foster that it, it totally can change the feel and look of your Instagram and um, it's so worth the investment of time.

So thank you so much for listening flower fan and have an 📍 amazing flower filled week.