Unpacking the 30 Reels in 30 Days Challenge: Lessons Learned and Valuable Insights

Kristina Stubblefield: [00:00:00] Thank you for tuning in to another episode of WedPro Business Solutions. I'm your host, Kristina Stubblefield. As always, we're diving deep into the world of wedding business strategies and solutions. And boy, do I have some information to share with you today. But before I get started, I want to take just a moment and give a huge shout out to all of the amazing wedding vendors that are listening.

The work that you do and your dedication to making dreams come true is truly inspiring each and every day. So keep doing what you're doing. Now let's get started with this episode. Today we're unpacking a challenge that I took on. Head on and live to tell the tale. Yes, you guessed it. I'm talking about the 30 reels in 30 days challenge that I set out for myself to provide 30 straight days of helpful information for wedding vendor community.

Buckle up, because we're about [00:01:00] to break down the highs, the lows, and the invaluable takeaways. Now, I've compiled a bunch of notes, because there were so many things that I wanted to share, and I wanted to make sure that I could get it all into this episode. Picture this, 30 reels in 30 days. And that takes a lot of creativity as a marketing strategist.

I decided to really push my limits and embark on this incredible journey. Why? Well, I really wanted to share consistently for 30 days and be able to pull back the curtain and really show you those insights and how it made a difference. Or what the results were with our Instagram channel. It really allowed me an opportunity to share valuable insights every day in a real format.

Our EEL format. A little bit behind the scenes. I'm going to share with you some of the nitty gritty. [00:02:00] And how I pulled this off. First of all, one of the secret sauces to this challenge was batch recording. And at first I didn't realize exactly how important that was going to be. But it didn't take long to know you did not want to be doing a video every day.

So I really hopped on the batching train recording multiple videos in one go. Most of the time I would record about eight videos per week at one time. And it saved me a lot of time, but it also gave me the peace of mind that I would have consistent messaging and not wonder, Hmm, what am I supposed to say?

What am I talking about? And we're going to dive more deep into this, but we really put together a plan. The importance of a plan. We put together a plan before [00:03:00] the challenge ever started. And that plan started out just with ideas of what the topics were going to be that I was going to talk about each time.

And I used a teleprompter when you're batch recording, it's gets really hard to keep your thoughts concise and make sure that you get to the point that you're wanting to share in every message. And I say this because when you do multiple, you know, they all start to blend together and you can get frustrated.

So a teleprompter super helpful. I am going to have all of this information available to you. There'll be a link where you can get a swipe file that will give you the software that I used and really kind of the step by step framework that we followed for this challenge. As wedding professionals, you know, it can be very hard cause you're going from event to event.[00:04:00] 

And when you're trying to record, Remembering what you want to share with your audience, you can get tongue tied, you can get to where you forget what you're going to say, and a teleprompter that you can use on your phone, your tablet, your computer can be really helpful, especially to nail those one minute to a minute and a half videos. And for reels, the max is one minute, 30 seconds. Now, I don't know about you all, but sometimes I found that challenging to get everything I wanted to say into that timeframe. And with reels, with short form video in general, you really got to get to the hook. You got to get to what are you using and what you're sharing to pull people in.

And we've really went back and just started to evaluate each reel. And we're going to dive [00:05:00] more into that over time, me and my team. But For now, right after the challenge, we were looking at the results and I'm going to get more into that. So hurdles, let's see, life can happen. I don't need to tell any of you all that.

So just as the challenge started we had been in it maybe a week to 10 days. Life decided to throw me a curveball. I started to have a lot of trouble with my sinuses or allergies or a combination of the two and what became of that was a terrible cough I had nothing it was just the cough was from sinus issues and when you have sinus issues or drainage and you cough constantly, no matter what you try to take I had enough honey and tea and [00:06:00] lemon over the last I guess four or five weeks at this point in time to I could go without it for a while to say the least.

So the point of my story is it started to affect my voice. At first it made my voice seem pretty scratchy. Okay, no problem. We can work through that, but then. About the third week of the challenge, my voice started to go away and thank goodness I had batched because if I had not, I'm not sure that I would have been able to consistently put out the content every day.

So as you can imagine, this added additional stress to the situation because what we did was we really started to try to hold off on batch recording. To when I could get a good day. Or a good hour with my voice and we made it through. But the point to this is. In business, life can [00:07:00] happen at any time, doesn't just have to do with your voice.

And I talk to people a lot of times about plans, strategies with your business. And this right here was just another way to shed a light on you can't control what's going to happen. Just like we can't choose or change the weather. I could not do anything about my voice other than try each and every possible thing that anyone told me about, and there were some things that helped more than others, but the point is life's going to happen no matter what. And having a plan, actually even scheduling out content or blog posts or anything in your business can take some relief off of yourself for when life does happen. So for me, I was very fortunate to have a team and good technology.

That was a big help for me [00:08:00] and by using those right tools and my team We were able to get through the videos that we needed to which truthfully What it came down to was about seven I believe videos that were a challenge to record so Let's talk about teamwork. You've heard me mention team a few times.

You might be wondering what does that consist of or who does that consist of? First and foremost, I have an integrator. And in this specific challenge, that person organized the topics, helped me with the content creation, and really ironing that out to get pretty specific with what we wanted with each and every reel and also ensured everything was smooth sailing. Especially when life happened and then an editor who was able to take the videos which didn't necessarily have [00:09:00] editing as far as cropping out things throughout to the video recording, what it really was trimming the beginning the delay and me starting or trimming the end where I may have left it record a few seconds after I was done, but also adding those captivating captions the gifs and the graphics and transforming each reel into kind of like a mini work of art and it really didn't end there.

We go back to the integrator who took charge of scheduling. Getting the captions loaded in the hashtags and really leaving no stone unturned. Now with our business, we have multiple moving pieces at one time. So it is really important for us to utilize our team. To best do a challenge like this. Now what I'd like to hop into are the numbers. You know me, I like to talk about numbers when it comes to analytics, insights or [00:10:00] reporting and this and these matter. On this challenge, we use the Instagram account, wed pro business solutions. And we saw some growth during the 30 day challenge. What I did is at the end the day after the challenge, I went in and pulled a report, looked at the insights, made screenshots of them for the 30 days from the day the challenge started to the night that the challenge was over.

128 new followers. 2, 484 non followers reached and 4, 184 impressions. Now, these numbers, they're just the beginning. And even as I record this episode, which is now 5 or 6 days since the challenge has ended, those numbers still keep going up. What does that mean? Well, the important thing is, Whatever you [00:11:00] put out as reels, that content can continue to grow.

Those messages can continue to get out to your audience and beyond. So that's one of the things is we're really seeing those numbers go up across all 30 reels. Now, the big takeaway, content is king. The more content you have out there, the more your audience can dive in, they can connect with you and it can resonate.

Your brand can resonate with them. And now am I sitting here suggesting that you start posting a reel a day? Absolutely not. I firmly believe quality, over quantity always so beyond Instagram. So now that this challenge is over, what does that mean? In all honesty, when we set out to do this, Instagram wasn't the end point.

That [00:12:00] was the beginning point for us, and we are now repurposing. These reels, these videos that we used for the challenge for TikTok and YouTube shorts. Why? Because it comes down to meeting your audience where they are and sharing valuable content across multiple platforms. And you want your valuable content to reach far and wide.

And I'm really excited to be able, in another probably 30 days or so, to share with you the results from TikTok and YouTube Shorts. But then to do a comparison across those three platforms. Data that is a thing that people don't often look at. They don't necessarily look at their insights or their reporting to know, is your content really hitting home?

[00:13:00] Are you getting results of the time, energy, and effort that you put in to whatever it is you post? And I don't mean just videos, whether that be graphics, pictures, carousels, whatever it is. You want it. To do something for you. You want something out of it. You want eyeballs on it. You want people to go to your website.

You want them to contact you. You want them to turn into a warm audience, potentially a lead for an event. So that's what I really want to look at is. Those numbers from across the three platforms to really see what the results are now some people get hung up on the views how the reach or the views now just because a video is viewed 2, 000 times what does it turn into?

What is the result? Now it's important to have a very good call to action to get those results. But[00:14:00] step one is getting people to see your content. Step two is really honing in on the message, your hook, how you're pulling people in your calls to action, because that step three is you really want them to become part of your audience or warm leads.

So the road ahead, let's go to that. As we move forward. We are adopting a mixed media approach. And what do I mean by that? I mean that you're probably not going to see us put out on WedPro Business Solutions, a reel a day going forward, we are going to use a blend of photos, carousels, videos, graphics, that's going to become part of our strategy is using mixed media because we want to focus on building the know, like, and trust factor, and we're going to do so across various platforms. 

Now the swipe file. [00:15:00] I want to share with you exactly what we did. And really kind of a roadmap to this 30 days challenge and what it's going to consist of this swipe file is about generating the ideas all the way to looking at the numbers at the end of the challenge and it's going to be a treasure trove of insights, tools, software.

And more, and you'll be able to get information about exactly what we used to accomplish this challenge. So no matter where you're listening to this podcast episode, if you're on your favorite podcast platform, or if you're on YouTube, go to the show notes or the description and you will find a link where you can get access to that swipe file.

So before I wrap up this episode, I want to give you just. Some of my general feedback. Was this challenge easy? No, [00:16:00] it was not the easiest thing. It's doable. We completed it. One video as a reel on Instagram every day. Accomplished it. 

Now, could be more difficult for someone as a solopreneur that is trying to do this on their own without the help of an editor and different things like that. Now, That doesn't mean if you want to take on this challenge that you can't do so. Of course you can. One thing that I'd like you to take away from that though is batch.

Maybe even before you set out for 30 days challenge to make sure that you have most of the videos recorded. Because then what you could do is work ahead with getting your captions on your reels if you're going to do that and having them ready. To go live when the day [00:17:00] comes around that they need to go out.

So I would say teleprompter and batching, super important. If you're a solopreneur and you're going to take on this challenge and here's the deal, whether it be a 10 day challenge, a seven day challenge, a 15 day challenge. The whole point of doing this challenge for us was to know these numbers. For our own Instagram account for us to be able to really look at that and share wholeheartedly the results.

I will say this, the platforms you post on your posting schedule, all of those things depend on your specific business, the industry you're in, there's a lot of factors that go into figuring out the best plan for your business. Most of my listeners here on this podcast are wedding professionals. Most of the time they wear multiple, [00:18:00] multiple hats.

And my thing is I would rather see someone put out three reels or videos a week that pack powerful and very useful information than I would to see someone basically throw up seven videos or reels in a week that they're just recording to record, get done and check it off their list. And for me, because I have a team involved, I was really able to focus on each video recording and give it the time that it needed to really hone in on my message and what I was delivering.

To my audience, a couple of things as we wrap up, number one, if you do not have a plan or a strategy for your particular business and you want to have a discussion about that, you can go [00:19:00] to the website wedprosolutions.com and you can schedule a free discovery call. And let's talk a little bit about your business.

I offer a strategy session where we can come up with a marketing plan for your business. So that way, you know exactly the path ahead. Number two, if you are not part of my free Facebook group, I encourage you to join WedPro Business Community where you can connect with other wedding professionals. We also post additional information in there so you can learn other things, but also we continue the conversation about each of the podcast episodes.

So I hope you will consider joining the group if you're not already there. So now we live to tell about the 30 reels and 30 days challenge. As I said, it wasn't a walk in the park, but to be honest, I really believe it was worth it. I'm glad that me and my team took on this challenge, and I'm [00:20:00] glad that I now have the insights, the numbers to really dive deeper into and also be able to look back at those in 30, 60, 90 days and evaluate over time how those reels are still performing. So I hope that you found this episode helpful. And until next time, keep working on your business.