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How Instagram Reels and Digital Products Helped Kenna Silvestri Build a Thriving Business

Are you stuck wondering how to grow your audience and create consistent revenue? Meet Kenna Silvestri—a photographer turned digital entrepreneur who used Instagram reels and digital products to transform her business. With just 2,600 followers, she hit 200,000 views on one of her reels. She didn’t just go viral—she turned that attention into consistent revenue streams and creative confidence.

If you’re ready to simplify your marketing strategy and create content that resonates, Kenna’s story offers practical steps you can follow.

 

How Instagram Reels Helped Kenna Grow Her Business

Kenna started her journey as a family and motherhood photographer, building a loyal local audience. But she wanted more.

When she launched her first digital product, she leaned into Instagram reels to promote it. Her initial results were modest—her low-ticket product made $500 in just a few months. But the real turning point came when one of her reels reached 200,000 views.

“I wasn’t expecting it,” Kenna shared. “When I started getting notifications—saves, shares, and comments—I realized this was resonating with people. That sparked a new realm of creativity and motivation in me.”

 

Why Reels Are a Game-Changer

Reels aren’t just for entertainment—they’re a powerful marketing tool. Here’s why:

  1. Higher Engagement: Instagram prioritizes reels in its algorithm, increasing your chances of being seen.
  2. Versatile Content: You can showcase your products, share tips, or tell your story in just 15-30 seconds.
  3. Accessibility: Even with a small following, reels can reach a massive audience, as Kenna’s experience proves.

Kenna explained, “After seeing what reels could do for my photography business, I started creating reels around my digital products. Once I saw the engagement and sales, I knew I had to keep going.”

 

Tips for Creating Effective Instagram Reels

Kenna’s success didn’t happen by chance. Here’s her step-by-step strategy for creating engaging reels:

1. Take B-Roll Clips Anytime

Kenna captures everyday moments—cleaning, organizing, or working on her business—and saves them for future use. “I look at making reels as steps,” she said. “This approach keeps me from feeling overwhelmed.”

2. Leverage Trending Audio

Use Instagram’s Professional Dashboard to find trending audio with fewer than 7,000 uses. “I also follow creators in my niche to see which audio works for them and adapt it for my reels,” Kenna added.

3. Create a Strong Hook

Your first three seconds matter most. Kenna uses text overlays to grab attention and draw viewers in emotionally.

4. Optimize Text Placement

Before posting, check the “Profile View” tab to ensure your text is within the visible area on your profile grid.

5. Batch Create in Steps

Kenna records video clips, edits them when she has time, and drafts captions separately. “Breaking it into steps helps me stay consistent without getting overwhelmed,” she shared.

 

Using Email to Turn Engagement Into Revenue

Kenna doesn’t just stop at reels—she uses them to build her email list and nurture relationships.

Her strategy includes:

  1. Offering a Free Lead Magnet: A free guide or resource linked in her reel captions encourages downloads.
  2. Email Sequences: She sends follow-up emails to guide subscribers toward purchasing her paid products.

“I’ve already seen sales from my email follow-ups,” Kenna said. “It’s proof that combining reels with email marketing works.”

This approach is crucial, especially with the uncertainty of social media platforms. As Kenna pointed out, “If Instagram goes down, how will you reach your audience? Build your email list now.”

 

Staying Authentic: The Key to Building Trust

Authenticity is the cornerstone of Kenna’s strategy. “It’s easy to fall into the comparison trap, but people can tell when you’re being phony,” she said.

Her advice?

  • Put Your Blinders On: Focus on your goals and block out opinions that don’t serve you.
  • Be Intentional: Post content that reflects your true self, even if it feels vulnerable at first.
  • Stay Consistent: Remember, the more you practice, the better you’ll get.

https://youtu.be/zst_ysb8oooKey Takeaways for Entrepreneurs

Kenna’s journey is a testament to the power of reels and digital products. Here are her top tips for success:

  1. Start Small: Begin with one reel and build from there.
  2. Break It Down: Create content in manageable steps to avoid burnout.
  3. Find the Right Tools: Use Instagram’s Professional Dashboard and follow niche creators for inspiration.
  4. Leverage Email Marketing: Use reels to grow your email list and nurture relationships.
  5. Stay Authentic: Let your true personality shine through your content.

 

Simplify and Scale Your Marketing

Kenna’s story proves that you don’t need a massive following or perfect content to make an impact. All it takes is consistency, creativity, and the right strategy.

If you’re ready to simplify your digital marketing and grow a business that fuels your freedom, join She Is Collective today!

Inside, you’ll get:

  • Monthly training on reels, email marketing, and more.
  • Access to a supportive community of like-minded women.
  • Resources to help you grow your audience, revenue, and confidence.

Click here to get on the waiting list to join She Is Collective! 

Let’s make 2025 your most unstoppable year yet.

 

Transcript

Deanna Hinsz (00:01.512)

Well, hello, can I am so excited to have you back on. I you are one of my favorite guests. I might be biased. I know it is so exciting and so cool, and I’ve been watching you and I am just blown away by everything that’s happening in your life right now. And on social media, it’s just really cool to sit back and watch. And I’m like, my gosh, like.

 

Kenna (00:02.639)

Thank you. I’m excited to be back on. love talking about this stuff.

 

Deanna Hinsz (00:29.298)

I want to be like Ken and Marie. Isn’t that what we all do as entrepreneurs? before you every, you’re welcome. Before we dig into everything, can you just introduce yourself and exactly what you do?

 

Kenna (00:30.606)

I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m just winging it every day. Yeah. Yeah, but thank you.

 

Kenna (00:46.7)

Yes, so I’m Kenna. Most of my accounts you’ll see Kenna Marie, which is my middle name. I have a photography business, so I promote that a lot on social media and I’m mainly a family motherhood photographer I consider myself. So that’s kind of my target audience, the people I market to. And I’ve been doing that for eight years. So after so much time, I kind of just wanted more in my business. wanted

I knew that I knew a lot and I knew that there were other photographers out there that were just starting or wanted to start. And so I actually had some local friends who were wanting to be photographers come and ask me questions. I had just a few people through social media DM me and ask me questions. So I was like, I think I could put information out there that could help other people. And I kept seeing all these posts online, on social media about digital products. And so I…

I bought this course and I learned how to create and sell a digital product so I started doing that on my photography business page and it was pretty successful, not like overly successful but I sold a low ticket product and it made me a little over $500 in just a couple months so was like okay, this works and so the course that I bought was actually a course that you could resell to other people, it’s what they call MRR. So then I decided after a few months of sitting on it researching to start an account for that course.

And now I sell that course and some other low ticket items and then I give away some free guides as well that teach you how to like monetize social media through your reels and stuff like that.

 

Deanna Hinsz (02:23.268)

It’s so cool to hear that whole journey, right? You started off as a photographer, which you’re still a photographer and you started to learn how to market your business better and you took some courses and you really were, you were nailing it. In fact, I remember a year ago, you, it appeared to be a year ago. You can correct me if I’m wrong.

 

Kenna (02:28.619)

Yeah.

 

Kenna (02:38.306)

Yeah. Yeah.

 

Deanna Hinsz (02:45.524)

It looked as if you leveled up. You were like, okay, it’s time to increase my prices. It’s time to maybe lose clients. that you want to, but you prepared to in order to serve your ideal client. your whole marketing strategy completely changed. And then I look like a whole year later, right? Now we’re at the end of 2024, beginning of 2025 and

 

Kenna (02:57.807)

Yeah. Yep. It looks so different. And it was so scary to take that leap. was so scared. I really thought I would lose a lot of people, but

 

Deanna Hinsz (03:14.32)

It looks so different for you. So.

 

Kenna (03:25.033)

now like my bookings are consistent. So I mean they were always consistent but they’re consistent with like more of my target market I guess you could say. Yeah.

 

Deanna Hinsz (03:34.514)

Yeah. So you do a lot of reels and I’m really curious what inspired you to focus on reels as part of your content strategy.

 

Kenna (03:38.975)

Yeah.

 

Kenna (03:46.223)

that’s a good question. I don’t know if I was prepared for that. think just seeing everybody, I think just seeing how much other successful entrepreneurs on social media created reels and they were finding success, I just kind of thought, well, maybe this is what I have to do too in order to get my content seen. And so I started created.

 

Deanna Hinsz (03:49.3)

Hahaha!

 

Kenna (04:09.43)

creating a few reels for my photography business. And I think they were more so just geared towards my clients at first. I was just creating reels for like my portfolio of products basically. So the pictures that I was taking, marketing purposes to get more clients. It wasn’t for my digital products. And I saw a decent amount of engagement with those reels. So then of course, when I came out with my first digital product for my photography business, I just started creating reels around that product to get even more engagement and views on my page.

and it ended up working. So then after you see that when it works, you kind of just go full force and you’re like, well, I’m just going to keep doing this.

 

Deanna Hinsz (04:48.116)

Right? Why change it if it’s working for you?

 

Kenna (04:50.226)

Yeah, yep. And then you, you know, once you do that and you learn a little bit more, you start to learn, okay, now I’m creating reels, which is what I have to be doing, but then what keywords do I have to be putting in there? Where do I have to have my text on screen? Like, what do my captions have to look like? Like, and then it just goes deeper and deeper. So as you’re creating, you’re just learning and your reels are getting better and better. And yeah, it’s a cycle.

 

Deanna Hinsz (05:16.262)

Okay, you just you just touched on some really good questions that I’m going to ask you. But before I get into asking you about that whole strategy and how to format it and what those keywords look like when your first video hit two hundred thousand and it was the first time you were experiencing that. What was what did that feel like?

 

Kenna (05:34.755)

Yeah.

I was like, and this is so, you know, we doubt ourselves when we take the leap to do something new, like raise my prices. We doubt ourselves even when we take that first reel and post it. And even when I started getting all of those notifications and don’t get me wrong, like I wouldn’t, that’s not a viral reel. think viral reels are like when it hits a million or more. So I have not had a viral reel yet, which I would love, but 200,000 is still a lot of people when I have 2,600 followers.

 

Deanna Hinsz (06:04.66)

Yeah.

 

Kenna (06:06.515)

and I wasn’t expecting it. So when I started getting those notifications, I was doubting myself again, even though it was happening right in front of my eyes. And I was like, me? They’re commenting on my reel? They’re sharing my reel? They’re saving my reel? Like I had like over 20 saves and I was like, what? Someone’s gonna come back. Someone likes this enough that they’re gonna come back. And so I was like, okay, this is really great. This must be resonating with people. And that just sparked a new realm of creativity and motivation in me.

 

Deanna Hinsz (06:16.084)

You

 

Deanna Hinsz (06:38.03)

So it, obviously I agree with you, right? Like it had to resonate with people in some way in order for it to go viral, but let’s be honest, right? We are all as content creators are always trying to create that real, that carousel, that post, story, something that resonates. And it’s hard to get them to pay attention because it’s just so quick, right? So, but I know that you’ve implemented a few things.

 

Kenna (07:00.536)

Yeah. Yes.

 

Deanna Hinsz (07:08.088)

to really boost those reels and to grow your audience and not so much grow your audience, because I don’t I don’t think it’s so much about the number of followers you have. It’s more about like the revenue you’re making, the impact you’re making on people. I rather have 500 followers that are my ideal client than 5000 followers that are my ideal client. But that’s my belief.

 

Kenna (07:17.099)

Yeah. Yes. Or that are not your ideal client. Yes. Yeah. Hold on. We might have an

 

Deanna Hinsz (07:35.316)

Exactly. Right. That is not my ideal client. Yeah. So, so I don’t think the number matters, but you’re creating content that resonates. I’m laughing because I can, I can hear, yeah, I can hear the boys in the background, the doorknob. Yeah. And, and if you’re watching this on video, the, the mom look over like,

 

Kenna (07:45.813)

We almost had it. The doorknob.

 

Kenna (07:57.318)

Yeah, yeah, they might come back I’m not sure

 

Deanna Hinsz (08:02.664)

That’s okay. That’s you know what? That’s what being an entrepreneur and you’re doing this, right? Because you’re you’re a mom and you’re working and why are you doing? Let me ask you, like, why did you start creating these digital videos? Or the digital the digital product? Yeah.

 

Kenna (08:14.73)

Yeah. Why am I creating my reels or my digital products? To create extra revenue and semi passive income while I could spend more time with my family. I think that’s, you know, why most of us get into digital products or making money online because it is so much of a semi passive income thing. And I say semi passive because it’s, you have to put in the work to like market yourself or market your product. So you’re still putting in work.

But it’s the amount of work you put in to market that product on social media. If you were to compare it to like a nine to five in the amount of time you like sit at a desk, it’s like really not comparable. It’s truly semi-passive. And that allows me to have an income coming in, whether it’s big or small, whether it’s, you know, filling up my gas tank or paying my mortgage for the month. It allows me to make that income while I’m spending time with my family. It just takes a little bit of…

weight and stress off my shoulders to not be so paycheck to paycheck. know, not that I’m rolling in the dough, but I don’t feel stress living paycheck to paycheck anymore because I have this extra income.

 

Deanna Hinsz (09:24.22)

Yeah, I love it. And that’s so important to have that extra stream of revenue coming in. That’s, you know, supplementing what you’re making normally. So I think that’s really cool. So let’s get back to these reels and the when you’re doing this. Right. And I want to know exactly how you do it, like your strategy behind it, because creating reels takes a lot of time, but you make it look so easy. So how do you find the time to create this?

 

Kenna (09:32.914)

Yeah.

 

Kenna (09:38.345)

Yeah.

I know that’s so funny because I think that about other creators too and it does take a lot of time but I found that if I one take b-roll whenever I can so I bought a tripod which is a game changer because just to have your phone somewhere you don’t have to set it up you don’t have to hold it

you could just be hands-free, put it on the tripod, press record, and do what you are normally doing. I should be recording myself right now, but I didn’t. But when you’re doing a podcast with somebody, record yourself. If you’re cleaning up your kitchen, record yourself. I recorded myself picking up the boys’ toys, putting the coats away, washing my face. Anything that I could take B-roll doing, I do it, and I save it in my library. And I kind of look at making reels as steps.

 

Deanna Hinsz (10:19.06)

We should be, right?

 

Kenna (10:40.145)

That way I’m not overwhelmed with doing everything at once. Recording the video, creating the video, making the caption, making sure my keywords are in there, all that stuff. I kind of do that in steps. So I’ll take b-roll and then at some point I’ll put that together into a video form when I find an audio that I like. And then if I have time right then and there, I’ll write the caption, I’ll put my text on my video. If I don’t, then I save it as a draft. I come back to it maybe a few hours later the next morning and I finish it up.

and then I either schedule it or I post it right then and there. So I found that creating in steps helps me a lot with easing the stress of, my gosh, this takes so much time, because it does.

 

Deanna Hinsz (11:13.189)

my gosh.

 

Deanna Hinsz (11:20.52)

That makes so much sense just building that library of short little clips, video clips of what you’re doing anyhow. Like that’s a huge game changer, but now you’re ready to create this reel, right? And you said you were looking for different audios. So do you look for what’s trending or do you just create your own? What do you do?

 

Kenna (11:36.349)

Yeah.

 

Kenna (11:40.617)

Both well, I don’t create my own I have in the past but that also adds on more time So I would love to do that No, I would love that is a goal one day. But right now I don’t have that kind of time. So I use trending audios or So if you I’m learning this as well, but a few things that I’m learning is if you have like a business creator account This is a little a little trick

 

Deanna Hinsz (11:46.388)

Just being honest, be honest.

 

Kenna (12:02.395)

of the trade that I just learned, which you might, many people might know. You could go to your professional dashboard. So if you’re on your profile, you have that little button that says professional dashboard. It shows you all your insights. If you scroll all the way to the bottom, there’s a little line that says trending audio. And Instagram gives you trending audio as a business, as a creator account that you could use so you don’t have to go searching for it. Now, sometimes they’re really great. Sometimes they don’t fit you. You don’t use them. do, you you just have to sift through them.

 

Deanna Hinsz (12:02.654)

Yeah. that’s awesome.

 

Kenna (12:31.048)

But another thing that I found was also following people that I’m kind of in the same niche as and going through their reels and seeing which one of their reels have gone viral and using that audio and almost like the same messaging that they have to help my reels kind of get the same engagement. And then another thing that I found with the audio is you want to find trending audio that is like under

three thousand uses, well not under, sorry, I would say under like ten thousand uses or maybe seven thousand. Seven thousand uses and then once you click on that trend you could see that it made like, hold on we have an interruption. Hi. Let me just put that on my shirt and fingers. Can you give me one second? Okay one second. Okay.

 

Deanna Hinsz (13:04.468)

Okay. Yeah.

 

Deanna Hinsz (13:12.144)

You’re okay.

 

Deanna Hinsz (13:22.003)

Yeah. Alright.

 

Kenna (15:01.574)

I think that’s the wrong number.

 

Kenna (15:47.512)

It’s good.

 

Kenna (15:59.312)

Hold on.

 

Kenna (16:10.15)

Sorry. I’m like, of course you would put your finger in your poop now. Is there anything else I could do? Okay. Anyway. Okay. I was giving you my tip. My tip. And I don’t know, I don’t know if this is true, but well, I mean, this is one of my mentors told me. Go ahead. Okay.

 

Deanna Hinsz (16:14.228)

well. Yes.

 

Deanna Hinsz (16:32.116)

Okay, wait a second. Stop.

Okay, give it a little give a break and then you add in so that I can see the line so can cut it out. All right, so.

 

Kenna (16:45.563)

Okay, so we were talking about a tip for reels and trending audio and something that I learned recently was that you want to find the trending audios that have been used like 7,000 times or less and you’ll see that once you go to the trending audio it shows you how many reels have been made with that audio. You could click on it.

Okay, Sebastian, go out there, please. Shut the door, Shut the door, please.

 

Kenna (17:16.742)

Sorry. Okay. You want to find the ones that have been used 7,000 times or less for reals. I am going to. Sebastian, shut the door, please. It’s out there. All you came in here was your mouth.

 

Deanna Hinsz (17:33.139)

You

 

Kenna (17:35.725)

Okay, do we need to like take another pause? He comes in here and gargles water in his mouth. He just learned how to gargle. Okay.

 

Deanna Hinsz (17:45.492)

Aww. Yeah, take a pause and then just pick up like you’re answering the question.

 

Kenna (17:51.565)

Okay, should I start from the beginning?

 

Deanna Hinsz (17:55.476)

Yeah, about the 7000 reels. Yeah.

 

Kenna (17:58.085)

Okay, so we were talking about the trending audio.

I’m gonna kill him Andy, I’m so sorry.

 

Deanna Hinsz (18:08.052)

No, don’t! Don’t be.

 

Kenna (18:13.861)

Cleo is just crying. Okay.

Okay, so we were talking about the trending audio for your reels and how I learned something that you want to find the ones that have been used like 7,000 times or less. And when you click on those trending audios, it’ll pull up like all the reels that have been made with that audio. And so you could see on the reels like if they went viral or not, if they hit a million views. So a tip that I learned, somebody told me, was that you want to use reels that have like 7,000 or less views and that have two to three viral hits.

and then use that. Yeah, so I’ve been trying, it’s kind of hard though. Like it’s hard to find that, but you can find it. They are out there. And so I’ve been trying to focus on that, but also I do want to get content out there. So I don’t do that every day. I probably do it like two times a week that I actually find a real like audio like that. But yeah, that’s a tip that I try to use for my audios.

 

Deanna Hinsz (18:48.201)

okay.

 

Deanna Hinsz (19:13.086)

I love that tip. mean, yeah, even if you put aside like an hour or whatever a week and just kind of look, research, label it, then you know when you go back and you’re creating them. I love that. Like that’s like another huge time saver is just kind of like when you’ve got downtime, prepare, save it up and then build it all together. So now we’re going to build this, right? You’ve got your audio and you’ve got your video that you created. And now you’re actually putting the reel together.

 

Kenna (19:32.482)

Yeah. Yeah.

 

Deanna Hinsz (19:42.896)

Do you typically always put text over your reel? Okay.

 

Kenna (19:46.161)

Yes, because I always want, I know I get pulled in by what reels, normally by what they say, occasionally I’ll get pulled in by the vision of the video of the reel with no text, but normally like if I’m looking for something I get pulled in by the text that I see on the reel and I know many other people do too. So I try to create

a hook right then and there on my reel or something that will just hit an emotional point in somebody where they will want to keep watching to find out more. So yeah, I almost always, I think I always put text over reels.

 

Deanna Hinsz (20:22.388)

And is there any key like where to put it or how to put it?

 

Kenna (20:26.678)

Yeah, so this is another thing that I recently learned which was interesting because before I was kind of creating my Reels and putting my text wherever on the screen. But once you’re about to post your Reel on Instagram, there’s a little tab at the top. says profile. It’s either profile view or profile grid. And if you click on that, it’ll show you what your Reel looks like on your profile. When you click on that, you want to make sure that your text is within view of..

Whoever’s coming to your profile, you want to make sure that it’s not too high, it’s not too low, you know, it’s not over to the left, to the right, too small. When people go to your profile, you want them to be able to see that little snippet and see the text that’s on your reel. And that way it can maybe pull them in and they’ll click on it if they resonate with what it says.

 

Deanna Hinsz (21:10.536)

That’s so important to do because the worst thing I cannot stand it is if I’m scrolling and something gets my attention and their words are actually at the very bottom where when you’re watching it, the words from the post is over the words on the video and then you can’t read what they wrote on the video. It’s like, why’d you put it there? that’s such a

 

Deanna Hinsz (21:36.456)

good tip to make sure that it’s in the center and that that tool is available for you to look at it and view it. Now you do something, you take your reels a step further, which I personally love, but you use email also to just keep that momentum going with your reel. How do you do that?

 

Kenna (21:43.031)

Yeah.

 

Kenna (21:54.155)

Yeah. Listen, Andy, you’ve inspired me in this area because I didn’t always do this and I just recently started implementing this in the last two, well, last month, I would say, honestly, or two months, probably going on two months, but I have already seen sales from it on my photography business side with my digital product. So I know that it works.

 

Deanna Hinsz (21:58.674)

Yeah

 

Kenna (22:16.481)

But I basically, you know, I have a call to action to my free product. When people download my free product, of course that gets them on my email list. And then from there, if they didn’t purchase my paid product, because in my free product I always have a link to my paid product as well in case they’re going through and they want more, they can automatically get it. But if they don’t automatically get it, I have an email sequence that sends out. And right now I think I’m only at like,

Three emails for one of my products, two email follow ups for another product, but I’m getting there. So yeah, I’ll send email follow ups after that. I’ll kind of throw in like asking how they liked it, giving more tips, talking about my paid product. So.

 

Deanna Hinsz (22:49.011)

Yeah.

 

Deanna Hinsz (23:01.108)

I love hearing that because you know, I’m a huge advocate for email. Email is so important. right now we kind of hear what’s going on with TikTok and in January, they’re going to find out if they’re going to be banned or not banned. I mean, this is so perfect to make sure that you’ve got your email list because just say TikTok does get banned or Facebook or Instagram goes down or whatever.

 

Kenna (23:02.562)

Yeah, yep.

 

Kenna (23:18.21)

Yeah.

 

Deanna Hinsz (23:28.532)

how are you going to reach that audience? it’s like, do the work now and build that email. So I love hearing that not only that you are using email on there, but that you’ve seen a return. You, you recognize that. my gosh. Yes. This is so cool.

 

Kenna (23:29.976)

Yep.

 

Kenna (23:39.72)

Yeah.

 

Kenna (23:43.266)

Yep. Yeah. And I totally attribute that to the real like for my photography account, at least I totally attribute that to my reels reaching the right people for them to download my free product. And that’s exactly how I built my email list for my photography account. It’s really like no other way other than my reels on Instagram.

 

Deanna Hinsz (24:07.292)

Yeah, I love it though, but that’s perfect, right? Because I love that. And it’s so important that you’re doing to do that. So that’s super cool. And those reels are getting it now. You have a guide also, right? About reels that it’s free. So you’re going into even more tips than what we talked about today. Tell us a little bit about that.

 

Kenna (24:29.427)

Yeah, so it’s called the ultimate reals guide and I sell it on my business page where I promote like my digital marketing, digital products, how to make money online. I sell a course on there called Digital Wealth Academy. But my free product on that page is the ultimate reals guide, which actually some create like content creators will sell a product really similar to this. But I was giving this away for free to kind of bring people in to just show them like how good the content.

like my paid content is, but also I totally believe in Reels. Like I’m a very big advocate for using Reels to reach people for whatever you want to draw them in for. And so I just am giving this away. It’s one of my free products, but it’s called the Ultimate Reels Guide. And it just goes into more detail of what you need to do to create those Reels that will then convert into engagement on your page, people signing up to your email list, and even convert into sales.

 

Deanna Hinsz (25:29.956)

Yeah, I need to get that anyway to simplify. I’ll be signing up. So one question before I let you go. But if somebody is listening right now and they’re like, okay, I haven’t really done reels. I’m listening to Kenna and I should probably do it. Like what’s one thing they should focus on to make it effective?

 

Kenna (25:31.457)

Yeah. Yeah.

 

Kenna (25:53.633)

This is like, you hear this once you get into like the digital, like the social media real making world, you hear this a lot, but a lot of creators say put your blinders on. And this has helped me a lot because like I said in the beginning, like it’s intimidating to put yourself out there to post a video of your face on your reels. And so I would just say to put your blinders on, keep your goal as your like end point, your vision point and why you’re doing it in the first place and just

 

Deanna Hinsz (26:22.132)

you

 

Kenna (26:23.4)

like run towards that. Don’t worry about like what your mom is gonna think because your mom doesn’t understand the day, you know, she might not understand the digital age that we live in and how impactful creating a reel could be. Your grandma, whoever it is, your dad who thinks social media is like the worst, like I’m just like giving examples.

 

Deanna Hinsz (26:30.388)

You

 

Deanna Hinsz (26:37.683)

Yeah.

 

Deanna Hinsz (26:42.356)

You’re not speaking from personal, right? No, I understand.

 

Kenna (26:47.572)

family or like your loved ones, your friends, influence you a lot and they could almost scare you out of like advancing to a place where you could just like thrive in and that kind of held me back a while but like I would just say put your blinders on and start recording yourself in anything that you’re doing that’s you know worthy to put on the internet that you’d be fine putting on the internet. Make a decision if you want to show your kids faces or not and

 

Deanna Hinsz (26:57.843)

Yes.

 

Deanna Hinsz (27:10.249)

Yeah.

 

Kenna (27:13.032)

Stuff like that and then just start creating little by little. Like I said, take it step by step. Take the videos, save them in an album on your phone so you have all your content right there. Then when you have time, maybe find a trending audio and put your video to that audio. See if you like it. If you like it, put some text over the screen. Make your caption, that, save it as a draft. If you can make your caption right then and there, do it. If not, make it the next morning. And like don’t put pressure on yourself. Just put one reel out there to start.

and see how it does and I shouldn’t even say that because even if it doesn’t do good, like you need to give it a little bit of time. I heard somebody say one time, like if you’re starting a new account, give yourself till you get to a hundred posts to then decide like if you need to make drastic changes or I don’t want to say the word quit, but like either quit or pivot your marketing strategies or something like that. A hundred posts is a lot. So, but don’t put pressure on it. Like my,

 

Deanna Hinsz (27:48.948)

Right.

 

Deanna Hinsz (28:08.392)

Yes.

 

Kenna (28:11.392)

My post that I had 200,000 views on was probably only like the 10 or less, like within the 10th post of me actually promoting my digital products with my reels. So you never know when something’s going to take off, but you’re never going to advance if you don’t start and start practicing.

 

Deanna Hinsz (28:33.554)

Yeah, that’s such good advice. All those different pieces of advice are just so good. And I can absolutely relate to put the blinders on because Jason is anti-social media and I am like, well, that’s what’s kind of bring an extra money. I do get it. I do get it.

 

Kenna (28:40.574)

Yeah.

 

Kenna (28:48.505)

Yeah, yeah, which I get, which I get even even as creators, it could suck us in and we could play the comparison game and it could, you know, alter our mood. so you really have to make sure you’re level headed every day when you’re posting, making sure you’re confident in what you post, confident in what you’re selling. That way, if somebody that you love comes up to you and is questioning you about it, you could talk about it with passion. So and also like

 

Deanna Hinsz (28:57.618)

Yes.

 

Deanna Hinsz (29:03.54)

Right.

 

Kenna (29:14.804)

be yourself because people could kind of see when you’re being phony, you know? Which is also hard to do. It’s easy to post a video that isn’t really like you just to get that content out there. So it takes a lot of intentionality to be yourself and make sure you’re posting videos that are like you.

 

Deanna Hinsz (29:26.366)

Yeah.

 

Deanna Hinsz (29:33.316)

Right. Yeah. You know, and it sounds so simple and so common sense, but it’s so not. So I’m so glad you shared that because it’s really hard when you’re on social media to not be influenced by everything else that you’re seeing. So I am super grateful that you just said that because I know somebody’s feeling that, but it is like, I didn’t realize that’s what I was feeling. So finally, how can our where can our listeners follow you to learn more about Ken and Marie?

 

Kenna (29:38.983)

Yeah. Yeah, it’s hard.

 

Kenna (30:03.263)

Yeah, so if you’re a photographer, could follow me on Kenna Marie photography on Instagram and there’s two Y’s at the end because the other username was taken. So it’s Kenna Marie photography with two Y’s. And then if you want to get my ultimate Reels guide, which I highly recommend, it’s on my other account, which is at hello Kenna Marie. So pretty simple. And then you could just go to that link in my bio, download the Reels guide. And I tell people all the time that I’m always available in the DMS for further support or guidance because we’re all in this journey together. So.

 

Deanna Hinsz (30:11.656)

Yeah.

 

Kenna (30:32.967)

I’m happy to share what I’ve learned and it’s great to just have a community where you can bounce ideas off of.

 

Deanna Hinsz (30:40.46)

my gosh, yes it is. It absolutely is. And I know I’m always sending you stuff, text and email going review this, look at this. do you think? And it’s, is, it’s so important to have that. Well, Kenna, thank you so much for coming on. I love obviously talking to you. but you’re just, I just see everything you’re doing and it’s amazing. So thank you.

 

Kenna (31:02.526)

Yeah, you’re welcome. Thanks for having me on. It’s always fun being here and talking even more than we do. We get a visitor. get out. Bye.

 

Deanna Hinsz (31:06.804)

and at the very end, we get a little surprise. We get a little surprise. All right, everybody, we’ll see you next week. Bye.