Webinar: Optimizing Your Social Media Channels to Sell Meat

Meat Marketing via Social Media: In the dynamic world of online marketing, social media has become a powerful tool for businesses to connect with their target audience, showcase their products, and drive sales. In a recent webinar featuring Amy from Sell Beef Direct, valuable insights and strategies were shared on how farmers can effectively sell beef online using platforms like Instagram.

Let's delve deeper into the key takeaways and tips discussed during the session to master social media marketing in the agricultural industry.

Watch the webinar replay below or scroll down for a summary and full transcript! 

Optimizing Your Instagram Profile:

The webinar highlighted the importance of optimizing your Instagram profile to capture the attention of potential customers within seconds. Amy emphasized the significance of having a clear profile picture, a searchable name field for enhanced SEO, and including a compelling call to action and hook in the profile. Farmers, especially those selling beef direct, can leverage their profile to showcase their brand identity, values, and products effectively. By utilizing Instagram as a visual storytelling platform, farmers can create a compelling narrative that resonates with their audience, ultimately driving engagement and sales.

Creating Engaging Social Media Content and Value:

Amy stressed the importance of providing value through social media content, rather than focusing solely on direct sales pitches.

By sharing valuable information, recipes, and educational content related to beef, farmers can establish themselves as trusted sources in the industry and build credibility with their audience. Addressing specific audience needs and interests, such as recipes for different occasions or debunking misconceptions about meat, can help farmers create meaningful connections with their followers.

By fostering engagement and interaction through informative posts, farmers can attract a loyal following and convert them into customers over time.

Strategic Social Media Marketing Approaches:

During the webinar, Amy shared examples of successful posts that emphasized the significance of nuanced and strategic marketing approaches. By focusing on storytelling, highlighting the benefits of beef consumption, and addressing common concerns or questions in the industry, farmers can resonate with their target audience on a deeper level.

Amy's demonstration of promoting organ meat sales through an informative post showcased the effectiveness of providing valuable content that educates and informs customers, leading to increased sales and product popularity.

By adopting a strategic and customer-centric approach to marketing on social media, farmers can maximize their reach and impact in the competitive online landscape.

Navigating Social Media Challenges:

In the discussion, the challenges of dealing with Instagram glitches and understanding the algorithm were addressed. Amy recommended following relevant accounts for Instagram advice and emphasized the importance of consistency in posting content to maintain visibility and engagement with followers.

By staying updated on platform changes, leveraging analytics insights, and adapting to the evolving social media landscape, farmers can overcome hurdles and ensure their marketing efforts remain effective and impactful.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, the webinar featuring Amy from Sell Beef Direct provided invaluable guidance and strategies for farmers looking to enhance their social media marketing efforts and sell beef direct online. By optimizing their Instagram profiles, creating engaging content that provides value, embracing strategic marketing approaches, and navigating social media challenges with resilience and adaptability, farmers can effectively leverage social platforms to connect with their audience, drive sales, and grow their businesses successfully in the digital age. With a mindful approach to social media marketing and a commitment to delivering quality content, farmers can carve out a unique and engaging presence in the competitive online marketplace.

Full Transcript:

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:00:00]:
We are super excited to be partnering with Amy Hay of Sell beef directs tonight. She does an amazing job of helping farmers sell direct to consumer. And I know it is Sell beef direct, but whatever you are selling, she can help you. And so we are very excited to have her on tonight. If you are not familiar with ChopLocal, we do like to chat a little bit about that here at the beginning. So we are an online farmers market specifically for meat. So if you're looking for a place to be able to sell your products online, we'd love to talk to you. And in addition to that, we offer lots of educational resources, free and low cost ones.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:00:40]:
And in the past, we have always shared that those are available at sell.choplocal.com but we have recently been making a switch and so all of those resources are now available at ChopLocallocaluniversity.com. and then of course, all of these webinars are available on our YouTube page. So with that, I will go ahead and pass things over to Amy. If you didn't hear us talking there at the beginning, the Q and A box is open, so feel free to type in your questions and get those submitted as we go along and we will be sure to answer them. So with that, Amy, I will pass things over to you.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:01:21]:
Awesome. So, hi. Hi, everyone. I can't see or hear you, so I'm just going to go for it. So this is based on using social media to really capture leads and drive traffic to where you want it to go. It's something that is super easy and it's free. So I'm going to give you a little bit of a background of who I am. My husband and I are first generation ranchers.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:01:50]:
We only started ranching full time in 2018. We gave up our jobs. My husband has a little bit more farming experience than I do. He's from New Zealand and he helped his granddad out on a sheep ranch. We both come from the maritime and yachting industry. And if you can hear it in my accent, I am from Scotland and he is from New Zealand. And we literally chose Canada because it is halfway between both. It was picked somewhere.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:02:21]:
That is, no one could accuse us for favoritism, and we picked British Columbia, Canada. My husband was chief engineer on big luxury mega yachts, privately owned yachts, and he was chief engineer. And we met when I was designing and installing the satellite communications for the yacht that he worked on. I'm an engineer. I have a master's in business. And during that past life, I was headhunted twice as being the highest performing sales director in my industry, having both an engineering and a business background. And it's this experience and this knowledge and practicality that kind of lends itself to the success of our ranch and what I try and teach all the farmers I work with. So the history, a little bit of history, is that we almost lost our ranch.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:03:13]:
So we gave up our careers. We had a small six acres on the coast of British Columbia, and we remortgaged that with an agricultural lender to purchase the ranch that I'm sat in now. So for a little while, we carry two mortgages. The property market took this massive dive. The bank got nervous that the amount of money they lent us, the properties didn't cover anymore, so they wanted to cut their losses and foreclose. And it was like, holy crap, we just gave up everything to make this work. So it was go big or go home, and it was. Selling direct was the only thing that we were going to do.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:03:55]:
So selling direct literally saved our ranch. It was looking around to see if there's any help out there. And I'm not going to name any names, but the only other people that I found in this space, I thought, yes, you can help us, wanted at that time, $16,000, and it was like, oh, no way. Like, I'm going to lose my farm and my home. And I have three young kids. There's no way I can afford to pay you money when there's no guarantee it works. So I literally, I bought this book here.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:04:25]:
Sabri Subi. Sell like crazy. He's amazing. He's Australian. And it helped me kind of target a direct market better. But we sold beef like, we were selling four head a month, six head a month, eight head a month, to the point where I went over our banks head to their head office in Saskatchewan, and said, look, I'm bringing in $50,000 revenue a month, and you still won't accept this as income? To which they kind of went, okay, we believe this works. And they halted proceedings, and they actually settled, I should say, because they went back and took away a lot of what we owed them, which was amazing. But that was just like a story in a little bit of history of why we do what we do.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:05:12]:
The secret of our success really is social media. I honestly, truly believe that. So back in 2021, we were not using Instagram at all. It was something that I didn't even have. I didn't even have an Instagram account. My husband did, and that's the one that we use, which is why it's his face, because it's verified. But I just assumed it was a photo sharing app. And when you dive into it more, it actually has three times the reach of Facebook.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:05:48]:
And more and more people in businesses are turning to Instagram to grow their business because it is a free sales funnel, if you know what one of them is. And lead generating machine like if you think of a funnel like this, and here's your sales. Oops. Help if I could spell. I was trying to write salsa by the look of it. And sales up here is social media and this is where you capture all your leads and you bring them down the funnel until they purchase. That is how important and how powerful social media is. And I think everybody should be using it.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:06:40]:
Your story sells that. Don't think that your life is boring or don't think that nobody is going to want to hear about what you do or your daily life. They really do. If you think of your customer as somebody who works in a cubicle and they drive an hour in rush hour to sit at a cubicle and an hour in rush hour back, they want to kind of look at your life where you're working cattle and you're riding a horse or you're working with lambs and sheep or piglets. Like they want that. They think it's romantic and they could be part of that by purchasing your meat. So your story really does sell. And then something that I'm going to go into a little bit more later down in this presentation is nuance.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:07:25]:
That the tone of your voice and the tone of your marketing, whether that is a post or a caption, really makes all the difference to somebody stopping on your page or on your post to purchase and someone scrolling past, past. So we'll go into all of these a little bit more detail in the next few slides. So, as I said before, social media is a free sales funnel and lead generating machine. Something like 4 billion users on social media and you only have to attract a few hundred. I mean, that's how massive it is. And it is such a powerful tool and it is free. You don't need to spend a fortune on ads when you can do it all for free. It just takes a little bit more time.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:08:15]:
But once you kind of crack that code, it's easy. Social media builds a pipeline of leads and sales and leads turn into customers. Social media builds a connection with your customers that you don't get in emails. So what I mean by that is if you're just posting ads and you're generating a cold email list and then you're bombarding your email list with information and purchase this and purchase that. Or people are unsubscribing, they don't get that connection. Whereas if you're building that audience on social media and they see your face and they hear your voice, it's very like being at a farmer's market and interacting with your customers, but on a much larger scale. And social media really is a business channel and a powerful business tool, not just an app to waste time on, it's how to use it correctly. So your profile is super, super important.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:09:30]:
It is the thing that people see first. And I'm going to optimize your profile. So I have some instructions and I have two examples of profiles from people in our free group. We went through a live and I just kind of picked two to go through just now. But I'm going to show you how to optimize your Instagram profile so that you can go away and make sure that your profile is capturing leads. There is a statistic that if you have 1000 followers, you should be able to make $1,000. That if everyone was to give you a dollar, every follower was to give you a dollar, that is what you should be able to make. So if you have 55,000 followers, you should be able to make $55,000.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:10:18]:
And you might think that's impossible, but it really isn't. These are the five things that you need on your profile. And I will go through these on the next few slides and kind of give you examples. But your profile, it's like an elevator pitch. And the old elevator pitch, I think, was two minutes. You literally have three to 7 seconds for someone to think if they should follow you or look at your profile in more detail, or whether they should just keep on scrolling. Three to 7 seconds now, that's whether they're landing on one of your reels or posts or hitting your profile page. That's how much time you have to capture them.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:11:03]:
So it is super important to get all of these things right. Number one is a good profile picture. It should be clear. Even better if it has your face on it, smiling, no sunglasses, something super clear on a solid background. Or you know, something that's easily recognizable. Or if you have a brand like your freeze brand or your hot brand, you could use your brand or your logo. Don't just have a picture of a cow's head, or don't have a picture of like something that's too busy. It should be something that's super recognizable.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:11:46]:
And easy to recognize and easy to kind of make that connection. If you have more than one platform, if you're on TikTok, and if you're on Instagram, and if you're on Facebook and if you're on Pinterest, your profile picture should be the same across all platforms so that you're kind of starting to build a brand for yourself. The next thing is a searchable name, and I will go into this in the next couple of slides. But the name field on Instagram, a lot of this is all based on Instagram because that really is where the money is. But you would link Instagram and Facebook, but your name field on Instagram is the only field that has SEO. And SEO, if you don't know what it means, it's search engine optimization that websites have, and so does your profile name. So if you are going to go into a search bar on Instagram or on Facebook or into Google, the name field is the only field that is indexed, and it's the only field that would appear in a search. So you need to make sure that whatever you're selling appears in that name field.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:12:59]:
And again, I do have some examples. A call to action and a hook in your profile. These can be the same thing in reels and posts. They are two completely separate things. But what they are is a call to action is what you are telling your customer to do. So if you have a link on there, so you must have a website link, your call to action would be click my link. You're telling them to click your link. But if you add a hook in there, like 10% off your 10% off, click below.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:13:35]:
So the 10% off is the hook and the click below is the call to action. So you are telling people what they have to do when they hit your profile. And don't discount that. Like, if you are in that hypnotic zone and you're scrolling and scrolling when someone says gives you an instruction, you're really more likely to follow it. So that's the five things that you need to optimize your Instagram profile. These are ours. These are old now. Good.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:14:06]:
Sorry, Amy. Okay, so I'm working on mine right now for ChopLocal University. Like, I'm following along, like you said. So the name part is, like.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:14:20]:
There'S.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:14:20]:
A username, but then there's the name, and the SEO part is the name one. Right.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:14:28]:
So this here, that is the name field. That is bold. It's the bold field. So it's not your handle, which is this one.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:14:42]:
Okay. I think that's your username in the. Okay, gotcha.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:14:46]:
Yeah. So it's this name field here.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:14:50]:
Okay, I have another question. Do you ever put the location and toggle that on in the profile? I know it takes up room in the profile, but for local farmers, does it make sense for people to find them in their local area?

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:15:06]:
I put it here.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:15:10]:
Ah, okay. So that it's searchable.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:15:13]:
Searchable, yeah.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:15:14]:
That makes sense.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:15:16]:
If you're delivering. If you deliver nationwide, like, if you ship nationwide, then I would maybe put american beef, or. And then in your description, you could put ship everywhere or contact us for shipping or ship to 40 states. Like, you could put that in here. But, like, if your location, you might put grass fed beef Nebraska or grass fed beef California, and you put it in that searchable string. So if I'm living in those places and I'm like, oh, I want to see if anyone local to me sells beef, and I'm going to search beef California. I'm not going to search beef USA. I'm going to dial down and then go out.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:16:01]:
So I. I stick it in there.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:16:05]:
Awesome. Thank you.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:16:06]:
You're welcome. So this one is Facebook. This one is Insta. So we only ever had Facebook. Like, we started our Facebook account, I think, when we bought this ranch. So we started it. I think it was December 2018. I started a proper ranch Facebook page because I'd never had Instagram, I knew nothing about it.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:16:29]:
And we kind of used some of the local groups and started growing a following. Like, I think our Facebook now is up to almost five k, but that's taken us six years to grow. I started our. So this was in 2018. I started our Instagram in October 2021, and it's just grown so much more. And it was when we really embraced Instagram that we jumped from doing eight head a month to doing 15 head a month and then 20 head a month, which is where we've kind of stopped. But it was Instagram that I truly believe facilitated our growth because I was able to reach a super motivated audience. So these are just some examples that I've taken that we will go through.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:17:21]:
I thought they're pretty good examples. So this one. So this field, is it bold? So this field here is the name field, and this is the one that has SEO. And you can see it just says Stoney Meadows farm. So there's nothing in there that says, like, if I'm going to be searching for pork, that account would not turn up. So you are losing people who are actively searching for you. Having it in here is fine, but it's kind of redundant because by then they've, you know, you've not appeared in a. In any kind of search.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:18:01]:
I also really like having, like, you see, I have little emojis for every bullet point. It kind of draws your eye. Like, if you just have a block of text, your brain kind of switches off. And even though this is bullet points, nothing there jumps out at me. Like, I would put. I mean, it might just be a square, like a colored square. You could put anything here just to kind of make that stand out more. But I would have stony meadows farm, pastured beef, pork and chicken.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:18:34]:
Like, I would put something in there. A family farm established 1972 is fine. Second generation is also fine. And they could also, you know, everything else is okay, but there's no hook. Like this is going to kill anything. Like, I don't know anyone who clicks more. So you really want to make sure everything fits in that space without having more. Like, there's no more on ours.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:18:58]:
It's just there. So you kind of have to play around with your profile. You go into edit profile and kind of play around with it and do it on a phone. Don't do it on your desktop. But they're missing. There's no CTA and no hook. So they have two links there. But what are those links and why do I want to click them? There's nothing there that appeals to me.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:19:24]:
So I've probably scrolled on past. They have made changes now, but this is just to try and show you and illustrate how important this profile is. The next one, l is Prairie meets. This is much better. They do have meat in there. So I know that they're. That they're doing meat, but this also. I mean, is it a butcher? I have no idea.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:19:47]:
Just by that name. Like, I have no idea what. What that is. So I would put. I would have put Ellis Prairie meats and then something. And then grass fed beef. It'll fit, but I would. I would put something else there.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:20:05]:
This is your account type. You should choose entrepreneur because that means you can get all the trending audio, but toggle it off like that little toggle symbol that's like this. You want to toggle it off so that it doesn't appear there because it is taking real estate. And then it's a run on sentence. I wouldn't have that. I would have grass finished beef. And then the next line, prairie to plate the next line, regenerative ranch, Texas. I would even put up in here.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:20:41]:
I would probably put Texas. So that's how you kind of can model your profiles to really hit home as soon as someone lands on it. And these are just super simple things, something that isn't in any of the slides. But I would recommend that you have a business account, not a creator. I think now they call it professional, not business. It's the same thing. But I would do business account, not creator. And then when you go into edit profile further down, that's where you link it to your Instagram.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:21:23]:
So, sorry, you link it to your Facebook. So you would have your business accounts, Instagram linking to a business page on Facebook. And then every time you post on Instagram, it'll automatically post to Facebook as well. Or you can schedule things inside meta, which takes all that pain away, that scheduling things. You don't have to be online 24/7 you batch them, schedule them on a Sunday evening for like the next two weeks. But I always do reels inside Instagram and then share to Facebook. Instagram prefers it that way. So nuance.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:22:12]:
This is what I mean by nuance. So you're creating content. Amazing. You're really using Instagram to try and try and attract customers. But there's a right way and a wrong way to display your posts. And what I mean for that is do not sell on Instagram. That might seem really counterintuitive, but do not sell. Instagram is where you give value.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:22:45]:
So you're giving value by the information, your post. You're giving value by posting recipes, you're giving value by educating your customer base on the industry, on cattle, on livestock, on the environment. You're giving value. You don't want to be super salesy. So for example, you have your ideal customer, you have your, and you're saying like, you have a real, and it's all buy my beef. Like. Or you've got a post with a beef box or a beef bundle and it's buy my beef. Picture this, I'm going to set the scene.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:23:24]:
So I am your ideal customer. I am a carnivore. Forget that. I'm a rancher, I'm a carnivore. I literally eat beef, breakfast, lunch and dinner. So I would be your ideal customer. But if your post is just buy my beef and I've just been to Costco, my freezer is full. Nothing about that post is going to grab me because you're not answering any questions I have or you're not attracting that inner voice of mine.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:23:55]:
You sell beef, my freezer is full. Ergo, I do not want your beef. But if that post said something like, are you a carnivore? Did you know buying in bulk is cheaper than buying individual cuts? And then you maybe went into, you know what cuts are inside a quarter or maybe an 8th. If you do an 8th, you would have stopped my scroll and I would have been, huh.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:24:21]:
Well, when?

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:24:21]:
Now this is gone from Costco. I'm going to give them a call or I'm going to look them up and I might have put in my email address. So because you were talking to my internal voice, I stopped that scroll. Whereas just telling me that I have beef for sale, it doesn't. And you can ask me questions on that afterwards. But that is what the nuance of your marketing means. You just have to kind of turn things slightly on their sides. Another example I like to give when I'm doing calls is, again, me, I'm a carnivore, for example, or me, a younger me, and I'm 27 and I'm 23 weeks pregnant and I am craving pickles and ice cream.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:25:05]:
Even though I love beef, I'm craving pickles and ice cream. I see your post for beef and it turns my stomach and I don't want it. But if that post said, did you know you get all the nutrients needed for a healthy pregnancy from eating steak or eating red meat or having, you know, I would have put down my pickles and ice cream and clicked because I want what's best for my child. So again, it's changing the nuance of your marketing. You want to talk to that inner person. You don't want to just sell beef. So I hope that makes sense. Like, there are lessons, hours of this inside the course that I do.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:25:47]:
So I'm literally just trying to condense it to give you brief example. But we do go into so much of this inside all my offerings, from the tiny little course to the full course. So these are canva templates that I do share and these are kind of things that have made me money. Like these are posts that I, they're not even real. These are posts that I post on our ranch page and they always bring in sales. So I'm not saying buy my grass fed beef, I'm saying where to start buying grass fed beef. Like, people sometimes don't know how to go about buying from a ranch. And it wasn't my ranch specific, it was any ranch.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:26:35]:
Like it was. If you want to buy grass fed beef, then look at this. And then as you went through the carousel, I went into how to start, but then the last page was, and if you're in British Columbia, Lincoln bio, which is now obsolete now, I would be comment, buy beef. But on the last page, it guided them to me. But nothing in there was saying, buy my beef. This one was actually, we got, normally our butcher packages, the organs per carcass. So if someone orders a quarter cow, there's already a quarter share of organs with it, and we just hand them the bags. This month, I don't know whether there was, there was a mistake made and we just got a bag of organs.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:27:22]:
So I had, like, ten cows worth of organs and I did not know what to do to do with them. So the hook is four ways to benefit from grass fed beef in the most nutrient dense way. And then the next slide, like when you, when you split across, went organs, and it was in a big kind of, like, explosion. And then it had a recipe for liver pate, and then it had pictures of my kids eating it. And then it had a recipe for steak and kidney pie, and then it had a recipe for tongue tacos. Like, if you've never tried tongue tacos, get your head around it, because they are amazing. My kids now beg me to make tongue tacos. Um, and then heart.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:28:05]:
I haven't actually tried heart yet, but I've heard roasted is almost like a tenderloin. So I did this. It was ten pages about how to buy grass fed and finished beef in the most nutrient dense way. And then on the very last page, it was, I have organs for sale. So they'd gone through all those pages, and I sold out of organs. Um, this one is, again, it's. This is the hook. Is meat really the enemy? And when we're healing, where, when we're hearing so much about, um, red beef causes cancer, and red beef will make you fat, and red beef, you know, red meat is the enemy for everything.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:28:42]:
This was. Is meat really the enemy? And it was comparing things, you know, like proteins and amino acids and fat content and nutrient density and satiety within this post. So it was, again, it was aiming at anyone. I wasn't selling meat, but again, that last page was, and if you're in BC, look me up. Like, if you're in BC, comment. Buy beef. And people would comment, and they would get sent a link and they would buy beef or sign up to our newsletter. So this is what I mean about the nuance of your marketing and what a difference it makes.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:29:22]:
There's just a couple more. So let's talk about proteins. Was very similar to that one about is meat really the enemy? It did so well that I posted it again. So inside there, it was like comparing things. Like it was 25 grams of protein and it was all the different things. And 25 grams of protein would be, I think, 4oz of steak at 125 calories. My nib is going on my pen. And then the equivalent in quinoa is six and a half cups and it's 600 calories.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:30:12]:
Maybe it was three and a half cups. I have to go and check. But anyway, it was like so much just to get the same amount of protein. And it's. And I can't imagine eating six and a half cups. And my stomach hurts just thinking about it. But it was educating people and giving value. And then on that last page, if you want to buy beef, comment, buy beef.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:30:31]:
This one actually got me and it continues to get me sales. It was, do you work out? And the information inside was, did you know red meat has more creatine than a supplement? So if you want to build your muscle, have a pre workout steak, not a supplement. And then it was also, you know, did you know there's more electrolytes in red meat than there is in Gatorade? So have a post workout steak and a glass of water. And then there was a picture of me working out and there was also, you know, if you want to buy beef, buy beef. This guy, he's a construction worker, he just went carnivore and he ordered a side, didn't think much of it. And then six of his friends sides. So there was then six more sides. So there was seven sides in total.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:31:22]:
So three and a half cows worth. And they do that every three months, even now. So every three months they buy three and a half calories worth of beef just from that post. And then this is a static. And again, I'm not selling my meat. I kind of am, but I'm not really. I'm telling people, what is the cheapest way to buy beef? And that is my hook. And then I think in the caption it was, comment, buy beef to buy my beef.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:31:59]:
Just to ask Sydney or Katie, if someone's raising their hand to ask a question, do you want me to wait until the end or do you want me to take them going through? I normally wait until the end, but I'm not sure whether it's something urgent or.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:32:12]:
We normally wait to the end too. And I saw that there's a hand up. If you want to use the q and A, you can type it in there. If you feel like it's too complicated to type out. We can wait until the end and then we'll call on you then. So.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:32:25]:
Okay, perfect. I didn't want to think that I was ignoring her. I think we're almost at the end. So before you post, these are things that you need to check. Like, does your tech stand out? Like, all of that is pretty. It's pretty. It stands out. The hook stands out.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:32:44]:
It's big, it's bold, it's bright. You know, the hook here stands out. Make sure it stands out. Make sure that whatever you are trying to get across is seen and clear. Is the text hidden on a reel? So when you post your reel, you can actually move that cover page so it fits inside the grid, so that when people look at your grid, your actual profile grid, they can see all the text on those hooks inside reels. And do they even have a good hook? So these are all things you need to ask yourself is, you know, does the text stand out? Is the text being hidden? Do I have a hook? And if Instagram glitches, it glitches all the time. So I'm going to have a drink. My throat's really scratchy.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:33:28]:
You can delete a reel so you can delete it and then say delete on both. If you post to both Instagram and Facebook and then don't be scared, it'll then after you say yes, it'll pop up, move to drafts or delete, and click move to draft. So then just move it to your drafts folder and then you can repost it. Or what I do is, because I haven't posted it yet, I can download it and I download it with all my text, as it should be. There's no watermark on it yet because it hasn't been posted. And then go back into your reels instead of using the video you have upload the one that you've just downloaded, and then it'll post with no glitches. So that's like a good way to get over those glitches. Instagram is an instant you will get frustrated, but I promise you, it is worth it.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:34:21]:
Some people are super lucky and they hit gold in a week or a month. It took me three months to get to a thousand followers and then we just took off from there. But if you are consistent and you consistently post and you're doing your hooks and you're doing your call to action, and you're talking to those inner questions that your audience has, you will succeed. These are people that I follow. Brock Johnson was great when I first started. Now I find him annoying. But if you are just starting on Instagram, he has some great simple advice. Maya Nicoll is awesome.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:34:57]:
Lauren Taylor is awesome. Small business growth club is awesome. These are all accounts that I kind of have learned from along the way. Something else I do want to point out here is your ranch account. Is your ranch account. The algorithm learns from what you post. So if you have kids, amazing. Try not to post them inside your account because then the algorithm doesn't know whether you're like a mom profile and they need to push your content towards stay at home moms or kids or something.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:35:33]:
Or are they pushing your profile towards meat or ranching? That whatever you post, that's how the algorithm learns from you. So just be careful what you post. It's fine sticking them with stories, it's fine doing the odd one. But just make sure your caption and your call to action is ranch related. But the more you diversify on your profile, the less the algorithm knows where to push you. So the algorithm is what is going to make you successful for free. The other thing I would say is be consistent. So the more you post, the more you grow.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:36:13]:
Though they are making changes to the algorithm to support smaller groups. So the one thing that Instagram says is be consistent. So if you can post twice a week, post twice a week every week and it's almost like you accrue points, but then if you take a week off, you lose all those points and you've got to start again from zero. So if you're going to commit to posting, schedule things in meta, make sure that you are consistently posting a minimum of like once or twice a week that more is fine, less is not, and do the same. So that the algorithm gets to know you and knows you're creating content, you're using the platform, you know, you're building that community and it will reward you for that. So these are the things that I do. So Selby direct, I have so much free material. We have a free Facebook group where we have weekly lives and challenges and advice.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:37:11]:
There's so much free material in there that will help you. I think I have the link somewhere, but maybe I can email you the link to that, but join that, it's free. And there's so much information in there and people keep on telling me they're learning more in my free stuff than they do for courses they've paid for, which is amazing. This is my entry level. This is $67, but it has a mini course inside there all about the nuance of your marketing. I touched on it in here, but it goes into that in a lot more detail. There's also a template of a lot of those canva templates that I use, you have access to. So instead of having my picture, it's kind of that blank, you know, it looks like a cartoon sun, grass and blue sky that you would just drop your image into to create it your own.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:38:05]:
And then it also has a sales guide in there that's going to really teach you how to post on social media. So that's the entry level. I have people who have literally left testimonials saying, we just started Instagram beginning of the month and we've now sold all our pigs and mini cash cow is what we use, so it's really worth it if you need more help and handholding. And social media is kind of where you fall. I did a poll across all my stories and all my groups and all my customers and all the calls that I have see, like, where do you struggle? What are your pain points? And 90% of it was social media. So this is just social media. There is three, I think just now it's 397. There's three mini courses in there, all targeted to how to use social media, how to market, how to post.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:38:59]:
There's a 75 paid guide bundle, there's guides on hooks, like really get those hooks, and there's a whole heap of templates. And then this is what I launched just last year, and this is empowering farmers and it is everything it will take you from never, ever having sold online to selling out. It's designed to take six weeks. There are so many lessons, like identifying your customer is three lessons just for that. And that's how you find your leads. There's email marketing in there, there's maximizing yields, there's how to ship. Well, you don't really need how to ship because you all have ChopLocal local, which is amazing, but there's so much information in there and it really is designed to take you from zero to hero, and that's 1897. But I am offering all of you, and it's on the next.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:39:55]:
So before I get there, so follow me on Instagram. This is my Instagram, this is my website. Super easy to remember, really log into all that free stuff. But for all of you, you can book a free strategy call. There's links all over the place for that 30 minutes and I will help you join my free Facebook group. But I'm also offering everyone on this call or everyone on the top local list a 20% discount on any of my products. You just have to. When you purchase, your discount code is ChopLocal local.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:40:39]:
And that, as they say, is that. So? Questions my voice is.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:40:47]:
So I put a link to the Facebook group in the chat, and I'll just tell everybody while Amy gets a drink. I did a free challenge in the Facebook group last week. That was or two weeks ago, maybe now already, but optimizing your Instagram profile, which was really helpful, and then Amy talked a lot, and during that free challenge, it had videos. So, Amy, you talked about not really, like, pushing sales super hard on Instagram, but you talked more about getting people to opt into your email list. Can you go over that just really briefly? And then I guess my question is, like, if you are building trust, if you're providing value on Instagram, do you eventually, like, do you sell a little bit on Instagram or do you just really keep that to your email list?

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:41:39]:
I mean, I mean, I guess I sell, but it's not in your face by my beef. Like, it's giving value. Like, it's, you know, grazing, well managed cattle are good for the environment. And then it be, you know, like a tongue in cheek. Do you want to save the environment? Eat my beef. Comment by beef so that would. So that hook on that first page is never sell, sell, sell, sell. So I think what you're asking is driving traffic.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:42:10]:
So, Instagram is. So I opened up the question box and now I can't get rid of it, and it's on top of my screen. I don't know how to do that. There we go. So Instagram is that funnel. So remember, your funnel is like this, and social media is up here. So everything that you do in social media is driving traffic into your funnel. You want everyone in here so that they make a sale.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:42:37]:
So in here is email, and then here is your purchases. So if you're just starting out and you want to build that list, then you would be driving traffic towards an email. Capture and pop ups are good, but I wouldn't rely on a pop up because if I've been on your website before and I've shut that pop up quite often, it stores a cookie, and I don't see that pop up again for 30 days. So you cannot rely on just a pop up to capture email addresses. You need some kind of landing page. Capture. To capture email addresses. If you're using a website in front of ChopLocal Local, then you can create a landing page just for your newsletter.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:43:29]:
If you're using a more sophisticated web design or web platform, then you could have an unlisted page as a landing page. So it's a link that you give out. So I would have an actual email sign up bar, but not at the bottom of a page. I'd have it at the top of the page, a third of the way down the page, two thirds of the way down the page, and at the bottom of the page. So while people are scrolling information information, sign up to my newsletter information information, sign up to my newsletter information. So they're getting hit with newsletter, newsletter, newsletter, and they're more likely to give you their email address. I also wouldn't have first name, last name, phone email for that sign up because it puts people off. The only one you need is this.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:44:26]:
You will get their first name and last name when they place an order just to capture that lead and to then send them emails. That is all you need.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:44:38]:
That's a really good tip. I read a statistic about it recently. Like, the more fields that you add, the less likely people are to actually fill it out. I like that.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:44:48]:
Yeah, you just need an email and it can just be super thin, and it's, you know, sign up to my newsletter email. Yeah.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:44:55]:
Gotcha. Okay, so the question that we have typed in here from Elaine, Elaine sells lamb out of Michigan. Elaine wants to know, how much does it matter if you're following others on Instagram, you know, and I also wonder, like, do you need to be interacting on Instagram with other accounts in order for the algorithm to be like, we really like this account because they spend a lot of time on our app. You know what I mean? Or is that something that I've kind of made up in my mind?

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:45:26]:
Some people. So I follow quite a few Instagram gurus, and it's kind of split. Some people say you've got to be social on social media, and you do. Like, for example, if you follow a foodie and you're commenting on their stuff, their followers are your customers, if that makes sense. So you do want to kind of start being interactive again to drive traffic to where you want it to go. If you're constantly following farmers and ranchers and commenting on other farms and ranches, that's our industry, but that's not our niche. So I often think we straddle this. We straddle two industries, because, yes, we're farmers and ranchers, but other farmers and ranchers are not our customers.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:46:13]:
Our customers are people who want to buy beef. So we need to make sure that you do follow chefs and follow carnivores and follow health fanatics. You know, health, health fanatics or things that. So that when you maybe do a collab with them, their followers are your customers. Does that answer the question? Like, I once thought, like when I started Sellbeef directly and not our ranch page, that I wouldn't follow. I wouldn't follow any musicians and I wouldn't follow any, you know, any comedians. And I've kind of come to the opinion that it doesn't matter. It's who you interact with.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:46:55]:
Really, then it doesn't matter if you follow other accounts. But you do kind of need to be social on social media. Think of it. If you're at the farmer's market, if you're stood at your stall and not talking to anyone else, your eyes are front and forward. You're not talking to the veggie guy next to you or the lady who makes soap, you don't look very welcoming, do you? You want to be social, so be social on social media.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:47:19]:
That makes sense. I think that that answers it. But Elaine, let us know if not Cassandra. Cassandra earlier had her hand up, so I'm going to click allow to talk. If you still have a question, you should be able to now just for Cassandra should be able to ask a question.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:47:43]:
Kim asked something saying, where does the search go? There's an overlay on my screen and I can't see it. I wasn't sure what she was meaning.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:47:49]:
I didn't know what she meant either. I sent her a message and asked if she found it. So I'm assuming that she probably did at this point. So I had a question earlier. Gosh, I just took a lot of notes like you did the other night, too.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:48:10]:
You need a remarkable when you so.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:48:14]:
Talk to me about growing your instagram following. Now, I've been trying to do reels a lot more often, and I am noticing when I go into my insights that reels are seen by, like, a very small percentage of my followers are seeing reels, and a lot of people that aren't my current followers are seeing reels, which is great. And I'm putting a call to action in there that says, like, follow for more like this, or follow to learn how to buy from local farmers or, you know, something like that, or comment local, things like that. But I honestly haven't gotten a ton of interaction on that yet or a ton of followers. So am I missing something in there?

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:48:58]:
I'm just going to have. I'm going to bring up your instagram.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:49:00]:
You're going to go look. Okay, great. Nothing like putting ChopLocal local on the spot here, right?

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:49:07]:
Um, so the first thing that hits my, that hits me is there's no hooks. Like nothing. Nothing is hooking that audience in. Everything looks good. Like, this picture is a beef, but like that you've got. It's a rib eye with the, I can't remember what you call them. It's not a Thor's hammer. It's the tomahawk.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:49:37]:
Tomahawk. It's a tomahawk steak, which is amazing. But this could be you in your caption. You should put something on the reel. Like, it could be, do you want this? Or, you know, can you hear this sizzling? Or, you know, like, to capture people into that reel?

Katie - ChopLocal [00:50:00]:
So, like, put the text on top of the. So you're saying, like, put the text on top of the video so it's visual for them, not just a hook in the caption.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:50:09]:
Yes, because when people are scrolling, like, you know, you scroll through your reels, you, you're scrolling the reel. You don't stop and open the caption unless something hooks you to. So you don't have to put text all over the screen because that's a beautiful, colorful video. But putting a hook on there would get more people to stop and click into it. Does that make sense?

Katie - ChopLocal [00:50:29]:
Yeah. No. And it seems like when you say it out loud, like, it seems so obvious to me, like, duh. Why didn't I figure that out myself? But that's why we need somebody like Amy to coach us through these things. Right, everybody? Yeah.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:50:42]:
I mean, it's just, it's, I say this all the time. It's not easy, but it's simple. Like, it's, there's so much to remember and so much to kind of work through and, you know, working through what hooks work and what hooks don't, that you kind of have to find your audience. But, for example, there's, I need to close this again. But there is those internal questions or the, or the hooks that the subjects that hook people the most, money and health. Like, they hook more people than anything else. So if you can, if you take money, for example, it's, you know, save money. Whoops, I can't even write today.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:51:31]:
Save money on your groceries. And you're going to stop the scroll from moms who are trying to feed 2.4 kids, you know what I mean? And then it would be buy fresh. Buy fresh from a farmer. It's cheaper than you think. You know what I mean? But if you're trying to target, like, I don't know, on ChopLocal local, are you trying to attract farmers to sign up with ChopLocal local. Are you just trying to get people to go to ChopLocal local to choose a farmer to buy beef?

Katie - ChopLocal [00:51:57]:
Yeah. So on our ChopLocal local instagram, it's all consumers, you know, buyers. Chop local university is more attract farmers to everything. So, yeah, we, that's one thing. Okay. That leads in perfectly to my next question, which is, you know, you hear the marketing gurus talk about your target audience and I saw error. I've heard you mention like, you do some posts that appeal to people who are looking for money saving tips and you do some posts to people who are looking for weight training. You know, like that workout, you know, comes under health.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:52:34]:
Yeah, health. Okay. Yeah. So do you, you feel like it's work? It works okay to kind of target different, almost sub audiences or target customers in each post. But then your, your profile as a whole is about the benefits of buying beef direct from a farmer.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:52:54]:
If you think of like a Venn diagram and you have all these different types of customers like this, this bit in the middle where they all connect is beef. Makes sense. So this might be money and this might be, this is a weight, you know, someone who works out and this might be someone who is super granola. I'm going to put a cloud in here for the environment. I'm trying to think. And this one, like there's, well, this one might be someone who really wants to support local, but their commonality is beef or meats. You know what I'm, so you would appeal to them all because if you just appeal to this one, then you will knock out all the rest and.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:53:45]:
You, that's what I've always felt like. But like I said, I've always heard, you know, you continually hear define your target audience, define your niche, you know, and, but yeah, a lot of people need or want to eat meat and especially a shop local where we work with grass fed and grain finished and, you know, the whole gamut. We don't want to get too narrow. We want people who appreciate buying directly from the farmer for a variety of reasons.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:54:15]:
Yep. But, like, I think people sometimes take that too literally. Like, I'm not trying to appeal to, I'm not trying to appeal to high school dropout who is clipping coupons and going to Walmart. They're not my customer. Even though they want to save money and they eat beef, they're not my customer, you know, so I'm only targeting people who can afford that. And I'm not targeting health people who want to be a vegan. I don't want to target them so that your niche is people who want to buy, who eat meat, eat beef, cook something, but. And that is the commonality.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:54:50]:
But if you only focus on one avatar or one character trait, you miss out on all on all the rest. That you're not trying to like me as a beef ranch. I'm not trying to appeal to someone who buys lamb or someone, you know, like, I'm a beef ranch. I sell beef. So all my customers sell beef, whether they are a guy who lives on his own and lifts weight and is a carnivore, or whether she is a mom who has three kids and wants to feed them the cheapest, most nutrient dense meat. They're both my customers.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:55:22]:
Yeah, I love that. It totally makes sense to me. I don't want this to just be Amy coaching Katie here, but you must have covered things really well because we haven't had anybody else ask any questions. Cassandra, you can unmute and ask your question if you're still there. Otherwise, if anybody else has any questions, they can go ahead and pop them in there if they want. I'm going to have to go after this. I wrote down the names of those people you said that you follow for Instagram, so I'm going to have to go follow all of those and get some more tips there. And I love the idea.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:56:04]:
I mean, when you're talking about hooks, your static posts that you gave examples of, really had those hooks on the front. Like, is me really the enemy that is gonna draw people in that are wondering that or that, feel that, like, you're right, it's been vilified too much and then they're gonna click through, like you said. So, yeah.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:56:25]:
And don't be one of our best things is like, I love the angry vegans, and I know that sounds so wrong, but it's great for engagement. And as long as you stick your ground, you're never rude, you're just giving information. As long they can get as angry as they like, don't let it affect you. But one surefire way to reach, you know, to extend your reach, is if a vegan posts on your page, like, murderer or don't eat beef, go plant based. I'm like, no, thank you. And one of the. One of the best thing, one of the best posts I've ever done was a plant based diet may be meat free, but it is not blood free, you know? So. And it gets people thinking that, you know, like, a plant based diet kills bees and hummingbirds and foxes and deer and rabbits and what just because you're not eating them doesn't mean they're not dying.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:57:26]:
So it's like, you know, and that always gets a really good response and gets people talking, which is great.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:57:32]:
A little bit of controversy there. We'll do that. So, yeah, just a couple other comments. Michelle said, not a question, but lots of good information. And Elise said, no questions. Just want to say that this was incredibly insightful. Thank you for all the information. I look forward to following along with you on Facebook and Instagram.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:57:51]:
You will not regret it, Elise. You will. I know Elise likes this type of thing. She's going to geek out over following all of Amy's tips. So it's gonna be really good. So we are at the hour here. So just remind everybody, sellbeefdirect.com. you get that 20% discount using ChopLocal local.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:58:10]:
We're gonna put the recording, if you wanna go back and watch it. Sydney will upload this to YouTube tomorrow. So we will put the recording up there. And of course we'll send out an email like we always do. Sean just had another Sean up in New York. He's up in upstate New York. Says, absolutely great class. Thanks so much.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:58:29]:
So awesome. Yes. And Sean does his, I think it's. His wife does a great job on their Facebook of posting farm content. And it's beautiful. Beautiful farm. Some calls to action. Sean, some calls to action would be helpful for you.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:58:49]:
I just want to finish with something that I read a lot about recently is that you may sound redundant and you may feel like you're repeating yourself, but you cannot assume that everybody who, everyone on your Facebook or Instagram sees your posts, that it's such a small percentage. Like, I think it's less than 20%. So repeat that call to action in every single thing that you do. Like, never forget the call to action because people don't. Either they don't read or they literally have not seen it. So you will get bored of your content before other people do.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:59:24]:
Yep. Totally agree. Okay, awesome. Amy, thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us tonight. We really appreciate it.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [00:59:33]:
That was fun. Thank you for having me. And I'm so happy we met. That was awesome.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:59:38]:
I know, I know. It's. That's one of. I think I said this the other night and you probably feel the same way, but one of the best things about, like, what we get to do is meet with all of these farmers that have, like, viewpoints and, you know, just get to know them all over the country. Or in your case, you work with people all over the world. English speaking all over the world. So it's just amazing to see everybody's journey. And I know you feel the same way that we do when you see them having success, because they're putting these things into action.

Katie - ChopLocal [01:00:07]:
Like, that's the ultimate best thing. So love it.

Amy - Sell Beef Direct [01:00:12]:
For sure. Well, thank you so much, and I hope to hear from everyone soon. Sign up to the free group and hopefully claim your 20% discount.

Katie - ChopLocal [01:00:21]:
Awesome. All right, have a good night, everybody.