In this episode, I am joined by Christy from Plann to talk to us about the top 10 Instagram hacks to grow your business such as using hashtags, posting stories, great photography, and a lot more. We also discuss the fast growth of Instagram, why Christy chose to hone in on Instagram among all the social platforms, what Plann does and how it works, jumping into Instagram TV, future plans for Plann, and Christy’s mentors in business.
Important Links Mentioned in the Show:
Angela Henderson Active Business Facebook Group
Angela Henderson Facebook Business Page
Prefer to read Top 10 Instagram Hacks to Grow Your Business? Here’s the transcript:
ANGELA:
You’re listening to the Business and Life Conversations podcast, with Angela Henderson, episode 14.
Hey there, you’re listening to the Business and Life Conversations podcast, my name is Angela Henderson, and on this show we talk about improving your business, life or both. By having amazing and rich conversations with brilliant guests. Who will inspire you and who will give you tips and tricks, to help you grow both in life and in business.
Hey there. Welcome back to Business and Life Conversations Podcast with me, your host Angela, from Angela Henderson Consulting. I’m so thrilled that you are tuning in today because it’s going to be an epic episode as we have Christy from Plann joining us today, where she’s bringing her A game to talk to us about the top 10 Instagram hacks to grow your business.
This episode is going to be filled with juiciness, just like a jam donut, so let’s get ready to rock and roll. Welcome to the show, Christy.
CHRISTY:
Hi, now I’m hungry for donuts.
ANGELA:
I’m glad you are because one of the things I do with all my guests as we.. I like to get them to know you a little bit more, is my first question to you, actually, is what’s your favourite donut?
CHRISTY:
Oh my god, can I tell you something really crazy? I used to not be able to eat gluten at all and then my appendix exploded and I got it taken out and now I can eat gluten. I am still delving into the world of donuts. I don’t think I’ve tried them all, but I think anything with custard or the original glaze, that’s kind of where I’m at because I haven’t been used to eating such sweet things and just going around the edges still.
ANGELA:
Oh my goodness.. and if you’re ever at the airport, make sure you hit those Krispy Kremes because those suckers are next level.
CHRISTY:
The original glaze, Krispy Kreme for me, always.
ANGELA:
So sorry to hear about the appendix, that’s not fun in any ways, but I guess on the other side, hello gluten.
CHRISTY:
Yeah, didn’t need it anyway.
ANGELA:
Exactly, it’s just in there. Same-same. Now listen, obviously, we’re going to talk all things Instagram today, which is going to be great, but before that you know, I wanted to share a little bit of stats because I went to Social Media Marketing World in San Diego earlier this year and let me just say it was amazing and there were some serious levels of goodness, but specifically, they really honed in on Instagram and Messenger bots this year. It was their biggest two takeaways.
Mari Smith, which is one of the world known Facebook experts, she really talked about Instagram, because obviously Instagram is part of the Facebook overarching platforms there, and interesting data that she talked about is that 25 million business profiles worldwide, that was as of March, so obviously those numbers would have increased. Two million advertisers used Instagram to share their stories every single day. They’ve got 200 plus Instagrammers visit at least one business profile daily. They also talk about 60% of people say they discover new products on Instagram. 80% increase in time spent watching video on Instagram. One-third of viewed stories are from businesses, which is pretty phenomenal. Thinking that’s quite.. 33% of stories are coming from businesses that are being watched.
CHRISTY:
Correct, and they just hit one billion users, so officially still the fastest growing and most engaged platform.
ANGELA:
Oh my goodness, it’s like.. I always say pick your platforms, obviously, you don’t want to be on everything but Instagram, especially from a product base, e-Commerce, on a service base but there’s so many levels of goodness, if you can just kind of find how to use it appropriately. Obviously, you know this from being a multi-award winning Instagram planning and scheduling and analytics app guru. What are your thoughts though about how fast Instagram is moving this year, because I agree that they’re moving fast and it’s great, but I guess from my side, when I’m working with my business consulting clients, there’s a bit of overwhelm and I’m just wondering, is that going to work against them? What are your thoughts?
CHRISTY:
The thing with the beauty of tech and social media is that it always changes and it’s kind of adapt or die.
ANGELA:
That is true.
CHRISTY:
I mean there are some days that I even struggle, I take a week off sometimes, which is very, very rare and I come back and I’m like, “Whoa, look at all these changes”, but as long as you accept that that is just life in social media, then I think you’re okay. If you have the people that you reach out to or people follow us to get the information when there are changes, then just keep up with it. If it is too much for you, social media is one of the first things in a business to outsource, or delegate or get a team member because marketing is really important in a business and if you are feeling that overwhelmed then maybe it’s time to look at delegating.
ANGELA:
I couldn’t agree more on this one because so many times when clients come to me and we’re looking at things and I work with them about what do they love doing, what do they kind of go, “Yeah, I don’t love it but I’ll do it” and what do they hate, and there’s a lot of hate going into the social media, because I think it’s just them trying to get their heads around all the platforms and all the changing pieces..
CHRISTY:
As a business owner, you’ve also got 17.. I actually sat down one day, because I mean I’m a small business owner myself and I started out completely on my own, and I sat down and wrote all the different jobs descriptions in my business and I had 17 jobs. I decided to write the job descriptions out and then sat delegating as a started to.. A – hate them and B – focus on other things.
ANGELA:
Yes, I think it’s also important that in order to grow your business, you need to be able to have time to work on new projects and things, so sometimes doing the Instagram, it might not be as important because it might stagnate your overall business growth, so I do think there comes a time when outsourcing is there.
CHRISTY:
Great.
ANGELA:
Cool, you obviously, there’s a million different social media platforms, what was it that made you decide to hone in on specifically on the Instagram platform? Why was it your go-to choice when you decided to start Plann?
CHRISTY:
I was working in corporate and I was working in marketing and advertising, making TV commercials, and I was also at home when I come home at night and I was a little bit bored. I’m not a TV girl, so I’d draw and I’d illustrate, and I’d always been super creative, and I started posting my work on Instagram, and then I started selling work on Instagram and people were like, “Oh, what are you doing?” And in my head I’m like, “Well, this totally makes sense to me because it’s all about your Instagram grid”. It’s about how it looks, it’s how cohesive it is, and when someone comes and they want to hear about your story, but there was no product in the world, back then, when I was coming out with this idea, that you could visually drag and drop and design how everything would look in advance and I saw how fast Instagram was growing and I was like, “Okay, everyone’s getting this amazing engagement, but that’s not going to continue forever.”
ANGELA:
Totally.
CHRISTY:
Why not put the control of how your brand is perceived in your own hands? I started talking to people and they were like, “Oh, well, I have a secret account that I post on to see how the grid looks or I paste and then delete or..” all these random things. Someone even said to me that they had MS paint that they were dragging and dropping images on, and I was like, “No!”.
It came from something that I wanted and I was doing it by sight because I’m quite creative but when I started consulting, and then I started consulting on Instagram, a key that entrepreneurial that’s got a bit away.
ANGELA:
Then low and behold, Plann was developed.
CHRISTY:
Exactly, that’s how I got started., but I mean I didn’t have any tech experience, I had no bloody idea what I was doing.
ANGELA:
They say all the time that sometimes that’s the best way because you go in with no preconceived ideas. You’re just working on what you know, what the user needs, you got you’re solving a problem and you know, you make it happen. Sometimes that’s not a bad thing.
CHRISTY:
Solving your own problem as well, I wanted.. as I marketed, there’s a lot of people that don’t understand that marketing means metrics, so it’s always about what return you’re getting or what statistics or what click throughs you’re getting. I was like, “Well, why can’t I bring the creative work and introduce them to analytics in a beautiful way?” And it just kept evolving.
ANGELA:
That’s a beautiful entry into.. tell those listeners who aren’t aware of Plann, because they should be aware of Plann, but if they’re not, because there will be some people who aren’t, and they’ll also be people there going, “Okay, I think it might be a scheduling tool, but what is it?” So let’s hear it from you, exactly what Plann does and how it works, so that it will flow on for the rest of our conversation.
CHRISTY:
Of course, so what Plann is, is a productivity tool that sits alongside your Instagram. A lot of people have a lot of overwhelm with what to post or what to make or what to put out there, so I wanted to create a tool that teaches you how to tell your brand story to make money with Instagram. I created a content creation, scheduling and analytics tools, and in through all these pieces, there’s also a strategy tool that can teach you what to actually post, to tell a well-rounded brand story. Then I, of course, needed hashtags because hashtags are actually a really crucial part of growing your feed that I then created hashtag sets. So you can save sets of 30. It mentions.. so when you’re typing in hashtags to save in your set or your families, it tells you how many mentions it has so you can actually choose inside the app which ones you think will have the best reach for you.
What I’ve done is then overlaid it with.. there’s a lot of people that are like, “Well, I don’t really know how to use an app like that”, so I’ve laid it with help so it teaches you as you use it, so you don’t get overwhelmed.
ANGELA:
Oh, gosh, how cool, so, so cool. I say that because I outsource mine, so I would love to say that I know exactly how it works, but I’m not going to sit here and lie and say that I do, I’m like, “Cool,” shaking my head, going, “Yeah, that could be cool”. Especially for.. because Instagram’s such a visual aspect anyway and that so many people are also visual learners, so the fact that you’re able to have that opportunity to, like you said, drag and get that help along the way, I think it would just go hand in hand with helping the overall experience.
CHRISTY:
The thing with marketing is that a lot of people don’t understand that it’s not about putting your work into the world and saying, “Buy my stuff”, this is not how it works. This is about people falling in love with you and your journey and your story and Instagram is such a visual story telling metric, so it’s not a portfolio. I see a lot of mistakes where people are just putting their portfolio out there and saying, “Here’s my stuff, now you can buy it”.
It’s about the person behind the feed because we’re all humans and it’s about connecting with humans. I created a piece called strategy so it can actually pre-populate the themes that tell your business story and we’ve preselected the themes that work the best so that you don’t have to do too much thinking.
ANGELA:
Dude, that’s awesome and it is all about.. I’m one of Australia’s leading parenting bloggers, and as that, story-telling is it. You drive emotion in people, you get people thinking slightly differently, it’s relatable, you know? Some of my best Instagram posts are just me with a shopping cart at Coles or Woolworths and it’s an empty line, but because my idea client is mums with small kids, you can get four or 500 people going, “Oh my gosh, I totally get this. I’m walking up and down every aisle without a screaming kid, thank you so much”, right?
It absolutely is about bringing them on that journey, but so many people are still are just dropping their products and going, “Buy here”, and it’s not working, and then they get crappy because it’s not working. Going into, obviously, with Instagram growing so fast and so quickly over especially the last eight months and it overtaking the world, there’s got to be some hacks, and I’d love for you to share with us a few hacks that you’ve got up your sleeve, to help the listeners to grow their own Instagram accounts. You’re up for sharing some hacks with us?
CHRISTY:
I definitely can, I can be here all day doing this one. But there are things that are consistent. There are things that change and they’re considered hacks and then there are hacks that are just, this is how Instagram works. The number one thing that I’d say is obviously hashtags, with 30 hashtags on every post, a lot of people are like, “Whoa, that’s a lot”, but hashtags are those neon lights that say, “I’m here”, and it’s how you get external visibility. You definitely want to be using them.
Number two would be consistency, so the Instagram algorithm rewards consistency. If you’re constantly engaging or posting or being on your stories then Instagram will actually reward you. A lot of people then freak out, which leads me to number three, where.. oh my gosh, mind blank. I have a mind blank all the time. Posting stories is also something that people forget to do. They’re nice quick win, they don’t have to have huge production behind them, people like them, but again, they’re an extension of your brand. So it’s not like you’re on Snapchat, that’s still your brand and then with the hashtags on top of that, you can actually put 30 hashtags inside your story, so just change the colour of them, squeeze them down and hide them up in the sky, and then you can put your visibility up in your stories too. That’s like a little hack. Who knows how long that’ll stay for, by the way.
Instagram’s always changing. One big thing that I’ve seen brands and things do, you know those colour schemes where everyone has this beautiful colour schemes? There’s no reason that you need to invest in great photography for a platform with one billion users, you do need to invest in great photography, and inside Plann, we’ve got over 60 professional filters, but a lot of people think that when they use filters, they have to use them at 100%, but at a lot of the time, if you slide them back to about 20, 30%, you’ll get better imagery, and you’ll be able to have more consistency, because it’s just slight hues, rather than complete greens or oranges.
There’s that. I am a strong marketer, so my next tips would be about you need to understand the metrics. You definitely need to understand, how many click throughs you’re getting to your website, which types of posts work better. If you did a behind the scenes, did that work? Or was it an inspirational post that got you more sales or.. you need to understand that so when you come up to a client or your own KPIs at the end of the month, if you know what’s going to pull the lever to get you more sales, then that’s your strongest tool in your toolbox. There’s that one.
Analytics are a big thing, so have a look at the best times to post and what’s happening, so inside Plann, it even dives into your best performing colour schemes, so you can actually see those orange photos of your sunset probably didn’t perform as well as a blue cocktail. You can also dive into your colour performance, which is something that I’m really proud of because it’s something that I wanted.
ANGELA:
This one has to get over the line this time.
CHRISTY:
It has to. What I wanted to do with that piece is teach people that doing a cocktail shot in a dark bar doesn’t work. The colour schemes that are orange just..
ANGELA:
You would say orange is one of the no-gos?
CHRISTY:
I would definitely say orange is.. dark, dim oranges are a no-go.
ANGELA:
What would you say are the number one colours?
CHRISTY:
The bright blues and greens.
ANGELA:
The blues and greens, alright. There you have it people, blues and greens.
CHRISTY:
The nudes, blues and greens, so that’s personally what I see in my target audience. It’s going to be different if I had a younger female audience, I’d probably be looking at pinks and jades. So, it’s all about understanding your people.
ANGELA:
Absolutely, then that’s with any marketing thing. If you have a.. my ideal client, a 38 year old woman, but I’m showing Instagram photos of a 21 year old in bikinis, even though my 38 year old can probably still work a bikini, but she’s also potentially have had a couple kids, who have got some love handles, but I’m more proud of those, but we’re not the 21 year old in the thong bikini.
CHRISTY:
It’s not relatable.
ANGELA:
It’s not, so yes, you’ve got to constantly be thinking about, even again, colour, where are they shopping? Etcetera. Totally, blues, greens, potentially the pinks but not the oranges.
CHRISTY:
That’s my personal experience, I’ve looked at a lot of account but that’s kind of an overarching theme I’ve found. One of the biggest tips that I give a lot of people is that you can schedule and you can plan, but it’s actually the beauty of social media is in being social, so I would say its 20% posting and 80% engagement. That’s anywhere between from going over and liking other people’s post or having a real conversation. Try and stay clear of going, “Thank you” or “Nice”. If you actually respond to a comment with another question, you’ll have a higher reach because you’ll have more engagement on your post. If you’re responding to someone that just says, “Hello, great post”, and you just go, “Thanks”, you’re kind of cutting your own reach off. Having that chatty conversation there.
I think I’m almost at 10, honestly, like I said..
ANGELA:
Actually, you are.
CHRISTY:
I could do way more but people come and they find you for the images, but they stay for the captions. Be intrinsically you, be fun, be what your brand is and I think one of the best things about Plann is we have so many people coming back because we don’t talk like.. we’re not a professional, we’re a start-up, we’re tiny and we’re all super quirky and super creative, so it’s all about captions like, “Well, dip me in bacon fat”..
ANGELA:
I love me some bacon.
CHRISTY:
Just the quirkiness that people are not expecting. We kind of thrive off that.
ANGELA:
Again, you know who you’re talking to, so if it was quite stale and whatever, that’s fine for another market, potentially, but for your market, that quirkiness has.. but you’ve also, I guess, separated yourself from everyone else by adding that fun-ness to it and that little bit of a twist to it, and you stand out and you’re memorable.
CHRISTY:
It’s what I’m hoping for.
ANGELA:
Are you.. I mean multi-award winning is pretty cool thing to be able to say, so well done with that.
CHRISTY:
Thank you.
ANGELA:
Hashtags, always an ongoing debate, I mean Instagram, they’re killing with it, but, I agree, 30 hashtags, let me to ask you this. In the body of the text or in the comments because it’s switched that many times, I don’t know here we’re at?
CHRISTY:
It doesn’t matter.
ANGELA:
Alright, so clearly it doesn’t matter.
CHRISTY:
I don’t think it’s ever mattered.
ANGELA:
Oh, cool, because it’s always these things, you hear, and you’re like, “Is this just someone writing this to get a viral post?”
CHRISTY:
That is it, because what happens it that.. okay, so in the world of SEO, so obviously I’m a marketer on Instagram, I’m also a tech founder and I run a business and as part of my business, I have a blog to get awareness. If I know what people are searching for, then I’m going to try and get in front of them, if I know people are searching for where should your hashtags go, then I’m going to write a blog post about it because I’m going to get traffic, then I can retarget. I have that holistic view of how that all works.
ANGELA:
Do you have to.. let’s just say you decide to put it in the comment section, and then there’s all these dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, you know what I mean? Again, it does matter to doesn’t it matter?
CHRISTY:
No, it doesn’t. A lot of people think that if they have those three dots it means that when people are scrolling, they won’t see a big kind of cluster of hashtags underneath their post, but Instagram changed it, and the first comment’s actually hidden, you’ve got to see comments right, so..
ANGELA:
It doesn’t matter.
CHRISTY:
For me, it doesn’t matter because I can’t see them anyway. Because my customer support team, we have a lot of questions, this is one of our most asked questions, in our FAQ and they say, “Can we put stars in it?” And we’re like, “Why” and then I literally make them go and look at their feed, like, “Go check out your feed and have a scroll, you actually don’t see the quip, you don’t see them, so why you are putting them there?”. But I mean, each their own, everyone got their own.. If you’re used to doing that and it’s part of your routine and it’s just how you flow then do it.
ANGELA:
Regardless, it doesn’t matter where they are, just do the 30 hashtags.
CHRISTY:
Bingo.
ANGELA:
Okay, perfect.
CHRISTY:
And post them as quickly.. actually here’s a fun hack for you. Post your 30 hashtags right, you might find all of the mentions between, say, 250,000 and 750,000 mentions. You might have a cluster of hashtags that sit within those mentions. Give them an hour or two and then delete them, and then put in your hashtags that have under 50,000 or under 25,000 and you’ll get the tail end of those that are smaller.
ANGELA:
Interesting. I’ve never done that before. Very cool hack, I may have to do some split testing, I think. Very, very cool.
CHRISTY:
Let me know how you go.
ANGELA:
Alright, so start with one, hour or so later go back, delete them and then enter the other 30 and you’ll get the, like you said, the back lash of the algorithm per se.
CHRISTY:
Of the smaller.. you’ll get the smaller hashtags trending. You might only stay for an hour or two in the big hashtags but you might get a day in the small ones.
ANGELA:
Okay, let me ask, speaking of bigger ones, my biggest thing is when I work with and clients who run some of the Instagram profiles, they initially think that if they go for.. one of my clients yesterday had a hashtag, “Glam”, right, but she had an enormous.. she had some really other good ones, but I was saying to her, “You understand that glam..” and I actually went and checked it out, it had 23 million other people competing in that space, and I was like, “You do realise that if you use those bigger ones, it actually.. I’m not saying don’t ever use those” but what I said to her is that it’s okay to use a handful once in a while, but if you consistently use those you’re going the get pushed down so far that you’re not going to ever be seen in the thing because there’s 23 other million people utilising those.
CHRISTY:
Correct.
ANGELA:
What are your thoughts? Is it better to use hashtags with smaller amount of people or to mix it up? What’s your experience?
CHRISTY:
Well my experience, it depends on your actual engagement rate because the better your engagement rate then the more visibility you’ll get in those hashtags. That’s my personal feel on that and that’s why inside Plann, when you’re writing your hashtags, we will show you how many mentions that hashtag has had and they’re colour coded to try and give you a hint of if its good or not.
For example, glam will show up as a red, anything over a million inside Plann would be like, “No” because you’re just not being.. it means you haven’t niched, it kind of means you haven’t understood your audience and it means that you haven’t understood the niche that you’re kind of living in. Glam, I would never use, but maybe a couple in a million just to try them out because if you have great engagement and you do get picked up by those million, then amazing. But I’d only be doing one or two, maybe three, max in a post.
ANGELA:
Perfect, that’s what I’ve been saying, so yay that I said that. I do not say I’m an Instagram pro in any way, but I have Jadah Sellner who owns Simple Green Smoothies before, she was a big Instagrammer a few years ago, a pro blogger and that’s kind of why I learned a few of my things, so cool.
Let’s talk about Instagram TV for a minute. Obviously, it’s just been released, how do you think this is going to help businesses?
CHRISTY:
I just think it’s another channel, and again, this comes down to overwhelm, do you as a business owner have the capacity and the bandwidth to be on another platform? Can you repurpose your work to be on here? I think it’s going to be amazing for tutorials because Instagram stories, so I think maybe it’s not going to be an hour, I think maybe a couple of minutes for now. I mean they are trying to compete with YouTube in a way but what we are doing here at Plann, so we all have personal accounts, and we do all our own testing before we then come back to our community and say, “Here’s what we’ve found”.
As early adopters, obviously we get better results, so that kind of skews the first piece. We’re actually all halfway. Mackayla, our marketing manager at Plann, she has been posting almost every day on Instagram TV and so we’ll have our round up next week. I’ll probably be able to tell a more next week.
ANGELA:
Cool, no, that’s still awesome. And I think, again, it’s important that.. I’m a big believer, if you’re doing Instagram posts and Instagram stories and you’re doing them well, and going to TV is going to tip you to then the other two not doing so well, I still think it’s better to just stick with the two that you know really, really well until you have the capacity to jump into the TV side of things because just because everyone else might appear in your Facebook feeds and news feed and everyone’s doing it, not everyone is doing it, so there’s no need to panic and feel that you have to just do it because everyone else is doing it.
CHRISTY:
If you think about Instagram, they’re trying to get that early adoption, they’re trying to make it part of your routine, so Instagram, the platform itself will be pushing it harder to try and encourage you to adapt to use it, because they’re all aware that social changes and everyone does have a lot of platforms. They’re trying to teach you that they want you to use it, you have to think with that mind as well.
ANGELA:
They are competing with YouTube, let’s be very clear, with Mari Smith talked about the grids, with Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, what’s the other one? It starts with an H, I think. There’s Netflix and all those, and Facebook collectively is going hard. You’ve got Facebook blog, you’ve got Facebook TV, you’ve got the episodic shows that are there, you’ve got Instagram being released. They are competing big time with those other platforms to try and kind of win that monopoly. It’s going to be interesting to see when I go back to Social Media Marketing World next year where we’re at with that data because I think they will have gained a little bit, but equally as they gain I think Netflix and those guys also gain.
CHRISTY:
I think the history of Instagram, for me, because I’m a bit of a future thinker, I have a feeling that they’re just going to start.. you know how Facebook has become an ingrained piece of your daily routine, if you’re on it to be on Facebook groups or to read the news or look at memes, it’s part of your daily routine. I feel like Instagram will start connecting and interacting with others. We’ve seen it with Shopify, we’ve seen it coming out with a whole.. I think they’re about to launch a hotel booking system, so I feel like it’s just going to start integrating into your own life.
ANGELA:
Hands down, absolutely, it’s a fun.. I find Instagram to be fun. There’s just so much colour, you have photography’s very different, whereas Facebook, it can be nice but sometimes you’re like, “Well, I’ve had one positive post and the there’s killings over here and there’s this and that” and I’m like, “Okay, back to Instagram”. Not that I live in a bubble, and minimising what happens in the world, and some of those horrific things, but I’m just like, sometimes I just need my happy zone. I’m just going to go back to Instagram.
CHRISTY:
I’ve started, this sounds really random, but I’ve started roller-skating as my escape because I didn’t look after myself for a couple of years, while I started running a business and I started roller skating, so for me, by feed right now is just full of roller-skating tricks.
ANGELA:
Yeah, you’re killing it on the roller-skating field, what is it called? Not a field, roller skating rink?
CHRISTY:
I just go outside and just do tricks and jumps and..
ANGELA:
Okay, so you’re not doing a derby or anything?
CHRISTY:
No, I’ve just got this bright pink and bright green skates, so I jump outside and put headphones on and skate along the water, it’s great.
ANGELA:
Are you feeling better for doing that?
CHRISTY:
Yeah, 100%.
ANGELA:
Getting back outside, connecting with nature, all that.
CHRISTY:
Not working, you know because running a business, you get to choose what 18 hours of the day you work.
ANGELA:
Right. Especially when you’re in start-up, let’s be honest. I do talk about this in a lot of my other episodes, it’s not necessarily about the hustle but the reality of it is you have to work hard, and that will look different for everyone. So well done for getting back outside and finding something that you love again.
What’s the next plan for you and Plann, other than.. I mean you could be the next roller-skating derby queen, but besides doing that, what’s the plans for you and Plann?
CHRISTY:
We’ve been an app for a very long time, when I say a long time, 18 months, but it feels like forever already. The company is boot strapped, which means it’s completely self-funded, which is almost unheard of for a tech company..
ANGELA:
That’s so cool.
CHRISTY:
I’ve had a lot of requests for new features and thing but I’ve been working really hard with a different team on building a web platform. We’re about to enter our beta. Keep your fingers cross because who knows what happens in the world of tech, so that we can bring Plann to bigger companies or people that like to work from their computers and give more flexibility and options for people.
ANGELA:
Oh my goodness, how amazing would that be?
CHRISTY:
I am so excited, honestly, I’ve been wanting to do it for over a year, but it costs so much money and I’m the product designer as well, so I have to design like 100 screens and then find developers. It’s been really challenging but I’m literally one of those annoying people that wakes up on a Monday, “Oh yes, going to work. I get to do something”..
ANGELA:
In regards to liking your job, I genuinely like what I do, I don’t look at it is as work. Some people might choose at night to sit on the couch and watch Netflix for eight hours, and that’s totally fine because that’s their choice, but I actually don’t mind that if hubby and kids are away, I potter around and do something else because I just like what I do. What’s your take on it, how do you feel? There’s no wrong or right way, but what do you like?
CHRISTY:
I am not the poster child for work-life balance and I’m terrible and I don’t condone how hard you should work and I don’t have any rules around that, but I work a lot of hours. I do enjoy it, I might go for a.. I will try and take a couple hours in the day or go for a walk or something like that, but I mean I get home and when I say I get home.. I have two tech teams, I have one for web that starts at 05:00 AM in the morning from New Zealand, and then I have an international team then they start at 04:00 PM. My day doesn’t really end.
ANGELA:
That’s, again, there’s no wrong or right way, but I guess you’ve also identified that you brought roller-skating back in, you’re connecting with nature again, and balance looks different to everyone else and so I think it’s important for those listeners out there that think neither Christy or I are going to be, “You must meditate for eight hours in the morning before you do this, or you must drink..” I’ve been chugging my Diet Coke during this thing. You’ve got to find what’s right for you and what balances..
CHRISTY:
Later and later at night I’ve stopped working maybe an hour before I go to bed and just spend some time with my husband. I do meditate, I do some stretching on the floor and I do all that before bed because I was finding that I was waking up having panic attacks in the middle of the night, so I’m like, alright.. there’s some self-care things that needed to come in, hence the roller-skating, going out for a walk. I learnt where my limit was, and now I’m working backwards.
ANGELA:
But it’s a good thing to talk about because I talk about.. I’m a huge mental health advocate, I’m a mental health clinician by trade of 15 years and I too suffer from depression and anxiety, so I talk quite open about it and I also love when other people talk about it. Not because of the pain that they’ve had to go through, but to kind of normalise it because..
CHRISTY:
Just normalise it, yeah.
ANGELA:
Society very much has.. don’t get me started on the mental health family.
CHRISTY:
I didn’t even know what panic attacks were until they started happening and when people used to tell me they got panic attacks, there’s no way I could understand it until I then experienced it, and was like, “Wow, this is horrible”.
ANGELA:
Yep and we’re roller-skating people, we’re back to roller-skating, so good on you. Plann, you’ve got potentially.. you’re in beta for the desktop version of Plan, which is super, super..
CHRISTY:
Almost.
ANGELA:
That is so fun, and one thing, again, I like to end with is another question so people get to know you. Who at the moment are you looking up to in life and in business? You know, do you have a mentor, do you look up to someone who isn’t a mentor? Do you.. what is it? Who do you look up to?
CHRISTY:
I look up to the people who have been able to build beautiful lifestyles, so who’ve made a really cool business and they’re really happy but they’ve built a lifestyle that goes with it and they’re not usually in tech and they’re not usually in marketing, so it’s like a mixture of things. I do have mentors that I look up to that are product owners, so my love, I found through doing this, is that I love creating products, so the people I look up to are the people who have created cool things, have designed cool things. I’m more that way inclined, rather than here’s this amazing person, so I like to.. not one particular person, just particular things, I think.
ANGELA:
No, that’s awesome, very, very cool. For the listener that are out there, if they’d like to get to know more about you or more about Plann, or if they want to purchase and start testing Plann for their own Instagram accounts, where can they find you?
CHRISTY:
You can download the app on Apple and Android, at Plann for Instagram. If you search Plann, double N, Plann. Plann Instagram on the app stores and then www.plannthat.com and we have PlannThat on Instagram as well, so we do daily Instagram tips and tricks and more hacks and how to use the app and hot to make images looks great. One of the biggest things for us is teaching our community how they can grow and be better.
ANGELA:
Awesome and I know when I have potentially, what’s the word? Scrolled, stalked your blog because there’s so much value over on the blog, that for those who.. hacks and tips that you gave today, if you guys couldn’t write them all down or you’re in a car, make sure you just head to Plann That, can you just repeat the, your website so that we all have that?
CHRISTY:
Yeah, so Plann That, P-L-A-double N that, T-H-A-T dot com.
ANGELA:
Head over there, hit the blog because you’ll, they’ve got articles coming out the wazoo, of super ways that you guys can look at your Instagram account.
CHRISTY:
Yes.
ANGELA:
Great to..
CHRISTY:
The goal of the blog.. definitely, I’m so glad that you said that because the goal of the blog was that I wanted to give people a value that most people charge them for. It’s all free.
ANGELA:
It’s amazing, I’ve been there and looked at it many, many times, so make sure you head there. Super, super amazing and for the rest of you guys that are listening, my team and I will also be putting together the whole transcription for the episode at www.angelahenderson.com.au and of course I cover all sorts of things related from business to life topics and inside my Facebook group, The Australian Business Collaborative, with over a few thousand people in there. So, make sure to join the community, as I’d love to see you there.
But in the meantime, have an awesome day no matter where you guys are in the world. And I look forward to you guys tuning in on our next episode all about productivity hacks. Have an awesome day everyone and thanks for joining us, Christy.
CHRISTY:
Bye.
ANGELA:
Thanks for listening to the Business and Life Conversations podcast with Angela Henderson, Top 10 Instagram Hacks to Grow Your Business. www.angelahenderson.com.au.
