SPI 444: Instagram Reels and TikTok for Business—Yes, It Does Work

SPI 444: Instagram Reels and TikTok for Business—Yes, It Does Work

Pat Flynn:
All right. I got to admit I tried it and I actually liked it. I actually did. What am I talking about? I’m talking about Instagram Reels. If you don’t know or haven’t heard of Instagram Reels yet, R-E-E-L-S, it’s essentially a rip off of this thing called TikTok, which you may have heard of as well. This is a short-form video platform that is all the rage right now. Today we have a special guest on the show, Keenya Kelly, who’s been absolutely crushing it, not just because she’s doing some dances here and there, which is the thing we all see when we go on these platforms, but honestly, a true way to grow her business, to sell more books. It’s inspired me to get up on the platform and build relationships with my audience, but also yes, indeed, drive more traffic, increase my followers, unlike anything else I’ve done so far.

Pat:
Although many of us think that this may be a fad, this style of format is here to stay. Whether it’s TikTok, and who knows what’s going to happen to it in terms of it not being allowed to be used in the US anymore, that’s been something that has hit the headlines a few times, or Instagram Reels or whatever the next one might be, paying attention to the principles and the why behind this kind of content can be really fun and exciting, and definitely profitable, and bringing results too. That’s what we’re talking about today with Keenya Kelly from keenyakelly.com. She’s awesome and I cannot wait to introduce her to you, but first, let’s play the intro. Let’s go.

Announcer:
Welcome to the Smart Passive Income Podcast, where it’s all about working hard now so you can sit back and reap the benefits later. Now your host, his favorite pizza topping is pepperoni, pepperoni, and more pepperoni, Pat Flynn.

Pat:
What’s up everybody. Pat Flynn here and welcome to session 444. Yes, 444. It’s a nice-looking number right there, 444. My name is Pat Flynn. I’m here to help you make more money, save more time, and help more people too. This is the Smart Passive Income Podcast. This short-form video content, I didn’t think I’d like it. I didn’t think I’d have fun with it. I didn’t think it would give me results. I thought it was just for the teens who did funny dances or Renegade or whatever the latest dance craze is or challenge is.

Pat:
Honestly, it’s been pretty neat to see the results. If you want to see and check out what I’ve been up to on Instagram, you can check out instagram.com/patflynn. I’d also recommend you check out Keenya there as well, Keenya, K-E-E-N-Y-A Kelly, @keenyakelly. She’s there. She’ll show you how it’s done. She super. Let’s get into the chat. Here we go. Keenya, welcome to the Smart Passive Income Podcast. Thank you so much for being here today.

Keenya Kelly:
Thank you so much. I’m super excited to be here.

Pat:
I’ve been looking forward to this interview for so long because you’ve been absolutely crushing it lately on TikTok. Now Reels came into play and you are just embracing this. I’ve gotten to know you so well just through how you’ve shown up in those platforms. I definitely want to say thank you for the inspiration because now I’m doing Reels now and I’m getting some good results, and I want to unpack all this for everybody, for sure, who I know this is why they’re listening. Plus, they want to hear from an awesome entrepreneur like you. I’d love to unpack your origin story. How did you get started? Tell me your business history. I know about it from what you’ve shared on your Reels, but I think it’s an inspirational story with ups and downs, obviously. I’d love to have you speak to that a little bit.

Keenya:
Basically, I think in my DNA, entrepreneurship was always there because as a kid in school, I would buy candy for five cents and sell it for 25 cents and so everybody knew that I would go the entrepreneurship route. In college, I actually got recruited into a network marketing company and that is what caused me to learn about more who I am, the charismatic thing that I didn’t know that I had. They taught me how to speak in front of the room, be confident. Had me reading all these books and all this stuff. Well, later on in life, I ended up going back to full-time work, being an employee. I loved my job, but it’s something about being an entrepreneur that shifts your mind. It’s hard for your boss to tell you what to do. It’s hard for you to get paid $30,000 a year when you know you could be making that in a month.

Keenya:
What happened for me was … As a Black woman, our whole lives, we’re always taught to have straight hair. I had this chemical on my hair my whole life and ended up one day saying, “I’m going to cut all this off and let’s just see what my hair looks like without it.” Well, my hair starts growing out curly and the entrepreneur side of me said, “Wait a minute. I don’t know what I’m doing. Let me start a business and I’m going to do trade shows, and I’m going to bring in people to teach women with hair like mine how to care for their hair.”

Keenya:
Well, what ended up happening was that blew all the way up and one of the reasons it blew up was because of my branding. The way that I saw things, the way that I had things designed, people thought I was this big multimillion-dollar business. After years of doing that, I realized that the hair thing wasn’t really my thing. It was branding and teaching people how to have successful businesses, how to have good brands that will cause them to make more money. That’s what threw me into the loop back in 2016, to actually start my branding consulting business.

Pat:
That’s so dope. I want to talk about this hair business really quick. It sounds like it took off and it was because of the way you branded it. If you were to describe how you branded it and the perception that other people had of it, how did you make that happen? Tell us the brand. Tell us all about it.

Keenya:
It’s called Return of the Curls. I don’t do it anymore right now. The way that my mind works, if you talk to me for five minutes, I can see everything in pictures. When I thought about doing a trade show, one, I’m not in hair care, so why were they going to pay money to come to this event? What company is going to give me hundreds of dollars for a booth space? Why would big brands even talk to me? I knew that I had to appear in a way that was incredibly attractive to those that I wanted to reach, whether it was the customers or the vendors and/or the sponsors. Because of my background, I went to a designer and said, “Hey. I want a website. I want it to look like this and feel like this.” When someone comes to the site, looks at this flyer, looks at this media kit, I want them to say, “I want to be a part of this,” and not even ask themselves, “How long has it been established?” That’s exactly what happened.

Pat:
Got you. Was there any feelings of, “Hey, maybe I’m trying to be somebody I’m not?” I know this is a thing that a lot of people struggle with when they’re trying to build a business and they often have that self-doubt like, “Why would anybody trust me? What if I put up this beautiful website? What if I say these things, but it’s not true? Who’s going to follow me?” How would you reply to somebody who has these sorts of thoughts?

Keenya:
I think all of us deal with that. I mean I’m dealing with that still now. I think the average person does. I had no hair care experience. I had no trade show experience, but I just had this … There was this thing in me that said, “I can do this.” I really think it was because I read so many books in college. They forced us to read all these books, the network marketing, that something in me said, “If I fail, that’s okay because all the greats fail.” Michael Jordan always says, “You’ve miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” Because I heard that at 19 and I was now 30 at that time, I was like, “Well, I’m going to take this shot and if I fail, I’m not a failure. It’s just that this venture failed.” I just kept saying to myself, “I can do this. I can do this.” I didn’t realize how great I could do it, but I just said I could do it.

Pat:
Can you share what some of these books are? They seem to have had a major impact on your life. Any that stand out, that you want to share with everybody listening?

Keenya:
Yeah. The first book my mentor had me read was called Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki because I didn’t know that there was employees, small business, big business, and investors. All I knew was that I could have a job and so he had to teach me that there was another way of doing things. The second thing he had me do was every John C. Maxwell book that was ever written, I was reading. My first book was The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader. It was the smallest one he had. Then he had me read The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership.

Keenya:
After that, which is one of my favorite books, is How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. That book was teaching the value of … Basically, what I got from the book was listening to people. You can know all the things and be the best person in the room, but people will feel like you’re the greatest person in the room if you listen to them more than they have to listen to you. That book changed the way I do everything, even dating because if I listen to all these men, they’re all in love with me.

Pat:
That book is definitely very influential for me as well, I know a lot of listeners as well. If you haven’t picked that one up, maybe one of those books that Keenya just mentioned, absolutely pick up, for sure. You had mentioned earlier in your intro how you didn’t know you had this charisma in you. I would love to … Because I think people will see you on your TikToks and your Reels, and your videos and they’re going to be like, “Oh my gosh. Keenya just has this bubbly personality. She’s so amazing to connect with. I don’t have that kind of personality though. I’m not an extrovert. I am not charismatic like that. Can I still succeed?” How would you answer the question?

Keenya:
I would say that everybody has their own little thing. If you look at someone, let’s just compare, like Oprah. Oprah over has that. Me, I remind myself of Oprah a lot, but if you look at Ellen, Ellen doesn’t have that same, big, old personality that Oprah Winfrey does, but she’s still very successful. If you look at someone like, not President Trump, but Donald Trump, the businessman, his personality is drastically different from both of them, but all three of them are incredibly successful.

Keenya:
If they all three jumped on TikTok, they would come across very differently, but there’s an audience for everybody. When I look at your Reels, Pat, versus my Reels, they’re both very different, but there’s an audience for each person. We just have to love who we are and how we are and put ourselves out there. What ends up happening is thousands of people find us and go, “I really like them.” Some people, it’s the charisma. Some, it’s the simplicity. Some, it’s just whatever your IT-Factor is and the IT is just you being you.

Pat:
I love that. I think part of what you just mentioned is so important, that’s your ability to love who you are and to be comfortable with who you are and who you feel you should be. Before we discuss TikTok and Reels, and I promise we’re going to get to that in just a moment, in your TikTok and Reels, I know that you’ve had this incredible journey with perhaps people who didn’t believe in you as you were making these changes from your ex-husband to perhaps even friends who were just like, “Why are you moving to California? Why are you doing these things? Go get a real job,” and all these kinds of situations. Tell me a little bit about the kinds of hurdles that you had to overcome and how you overcame them.

Keenya:
For me, I’m the youngest of four girls. I love my family, but no one encouraged me to get good grades. No one encouraged me to go to college and so when I was in school, I would do just enough, but eventually, I watched my sisters go down one road and I was like, “I don’t really think I want to go that road,” but I didn’t have anyone to follow, so I latched on to friends and I watched them get good grades and go to college. I decided, well, I’m going to follow them. I even followed one of them to college because I wanted to have somebody at the college I was going to. I just started going down that road of other people that were doing things that I wanted to do. Their parents, of course, along the road started to encourage me, but even with entrepreneurship, getting into network marketing, people were like, “Oh, that’s a pyramid scheme,” all the things.

Keenya:
I had these two worlds, like we all do. I had to go, “I can listen to this, but what if I just tried it? If I fail, that’s okay. I could just go back over to getting a job.” The more I took a risk on the thing that everybody was saying the opposite, I realized that there’s something on this other side. God bless my ex-husband, but even in that situation, when I was with him, something in me caused me to go, when I was married like, “I was making $22,000 a year, which is not bad, but I was used to making six figures.” Something in me and in that relationship would not let me be who I was. With him, I mean I had my moments where I did not want to become Keenya Kelly, become this big phenom because he wasn’t going in that direction. He was just happy with the status quo.

Keenya:
I thank God for what happened in the marriage and letting me go out. I just kept having to say to myself, “Keenya, what’s happening in you and life is happening, but you’ve got two choices.” You can go the route that everybody wants you to take or you can go the John C. Maxwell route. You can go the Michael Jordan route. You can go all these other routes. Even with me moving to California, at first, I spent most of my years in Kentucky. Then I moved to Virginia. Before I did that, people said, “Don’t do it.” Before I moved from Virginia to Texas, they said, “Don’t go to Texas. This is going to happen in Texas.” When I felt like God was telling me to move from Texas to California, people were like, “Don’t go out there. Everybody that goes to California, they’re homeless. You’re not going to be an actress again.

Keenya:
That’s not going to work. Nobody’s going to read your book.” I don’t think that people were intentionally trying to do that. I think that it makes people very uncomfortable when you do something that they’re not doing. I read a book called The Dream Giver. It talks about how people are afraid. When they’re afraid, they say things and they do things. They didn’t want me to divorce my ex-husband, but he was cheating. They didn’t want me to move because they were scared, but I kept saying, “Keenya, if everybody keeps telling you how to live your life, you’re going to live their life, and next thing you know, they’re going to be gone. You’re still in this place, wishing and hoping that you had moved, and done something.

Pat:
I once heard this story that we live in what is the analogy of a bucket of crabs. If you ever have a bucket of live crabs, you’re going to find that none of them are ever going to crawl out because as soon as one tries to crawl out, the other ones will pinch it and come back down like, “No. Don’t leave. We need to be here together, even though one that wants to go.” I 100% agree with you. I love how even in college and throughout your career, you’ve always found people and mentors, and those who will support you all throughout, even outside of your family.

Pat:
Even though that can be tough sometimes, you found that mentorship. I also know you’re also a fan and almost a mentee of Chalene Johnson, just like I am. We connected actually through her. I’ve seen her on your podcast. Again, I’m so thankful you’re here. Thank you for being vulnerable and opening up your story, and sharing this with us. I think this is going to inspire a lot of people. I want to know, for all the listeners who are like, “Ugh. TikTok, Reels. Aren’t those for teens who do these crazy dances like the Renegade?” That’s all that TikTok is for. Convince us otherwise. I know, but I want to hear it from the expert.

Keenya:
Let me tell you how I first even got onto it. Chalene had been talking about TikTok for two years and I just couldn’t get it. I just couldn’t get it. What happened for me was I’m here in California and I rent a house, and I rented out some rooms to some students and so I was working from home. When the pandemic hit, we were all forced into the house. Here I am with these 20-year-olds, all dealing with the fear of getting the coronavirus. I’m like, “How in the world will I run my business?” I’m battling with fear and so I’m like, “What do I do?” I personally felt like I heard God tell me to get on TikTok. First of all, I was like, “God, what do you know about TikTok?”

Keenya:
I get on TikTok and I’m like, “What is the point of this?” I realized that one, I needed an escape from the craziness and the fear, and all that type of stuff. Once I got on there and I produced my first video or two, I realized that I was making people happy. Now, initially, I saw all the teenagers dancing, doing the Renegade and the Baby Shark Challenge and I’m like, “What is this?” I initially just used it as a source of entertainment, but it started to click when I saw some of the marketers doing things that were entertaining, but educating. I call it edutainment. I watched them go from 10,000 followers to 100,000 to a million. I’m like, “Okay. This is the same thing as Facebook, as Instagram, and all the other platforms before the marketers came over” because when Facebook first came out, it was only for college students and now we’re all there in the same thing.

Keenya:
I get onto TikTok and I start producing content, fun dancing content, or just teaching content and I hit 10,000 followers in a matter of three weeks or something like that. I don’t have 10,000 followers on Instagram and I’ve been there for years. Fast forward, five months later, I’m at 67,000 followers. I’m selling my books, courses. Email list is blowing up because people think that it’s just teenagers on Reels and on TikTok, but it’s not. There’s a high percentage of people that are over 20, over 25, on the app to be entertained. When people are there to be entertained, we just interrupt the scroll with our educated content and it causes them to then engage with us.

Pat:
I mean the fact that we’re a little bit older and on the platform, the other older people go, “Oh, that person is similar to me. let’s follow more of that person and skip through all the dancing.” The dancing is fun though. I’ve done a few dances here and there, but you’re a master at it and you’re, you’re so much fun to watch. I think that keyword, edutainment, is really key. What you said earlier, different people have different ways of being entertaining. You don’t have to be so extroverted and out there, and dancing. I mean I follow some people on TikTok and Reels, who were very helpful because they’re talking about podcasting and all this other stuff.

Pat:
It also makes me smile or it makes me laugh or it teaches me a thing here and there. How would you recommend people get started on one or the other? Also, maybe which one? Reels just recently came out, classic Instagram just basically stealing a feature of another platform just like they did with Snapchat and Stories back in the day, but it’s here to stay and it’s something that … We’ll talk numbers in just a minute, but how would a person get started? Where would you recommend a person who’s like, “I’m interested?” What do I do first?

Keenya:
I would tell a person don’t start with TikTok because if you’re brand new to the platform, the features on Reels are a lot less. There’s a lot less things to confuse yourself with, So I would start with Reels, but the first thing that I would do is that if a person is actually producing Instagram Stories, then you’re actually already producing Instagram Reels. I would create a Story that is only 15 seconds and then download that Story to your phone. Click it on Reels and literally upload that video to the Reels platform, and then you can watch how fast the engagement happens.

Keenya:
Once you do that, then you get onto Reels and record your own video. Then just start with trying to add text. You can leave things and drafts. Don’t necessarily post it to your platform, but at least start by playing around with it. Once you perfect Reels, then I will encourage you to go to TikTok because TikTok is this fast-growing viral sensation thing happened over there, but I don’t want you to get overwhelmed with that, so I would start with real Stories and then Reels.

Pat:
How does Stories differ from Reels? What’s the benefit of taking that Story-like structure and putting it on something like Reels?

Keenya:
With Instagram Stories, the only person that’s going to see your Stories are the people that are actually following you. When you take your video and you post it onto Reels, Instagram is going to push it out to the entire world. When people are going to the Explore page, you’re not going to the Explore page because you’re looking for the folks that you follow. You’re looking for new people to interact with. I have watched me gain hundreds of new followers in the last three weeks, just from posting my Instagram Stories or even new Reels on to the Reels platform. In addition to that, when you’re posting your things on Reels and is going to the Explore page, you can produce that same content in your Stories. You can put that in your timeline and you can even put it in your Instagram TV if you want to.

Pat:
I’ve done the multi-platform within Instagram, the Stories, the Feed, and the Reels and honestly, it’s depressing. Here’s why. Because I spend so much time on YouTube creating videos, and Legit, the first video I posted on Reels had 10 times more viewers and I was like, “What the heck is going on here?” I think this is the power of these platforms right now, is the algorithms that they have, the ability for you to be put in front of people.

Pat:
That’s why TikTok got big. It’s still pretty unique, but Reels is catching up in terms of findability, but when you go to your Explore page, you’re going to see the biggest box on there right now on Instagram, is Reels. They’re pushing it out there and, of course, TikTok is the same way. When we post our … Let’s just stick with Reels for now or even TikTok. I know the words that you include within that post as well are very important. Any tips or advice for newbies like me who want to be seen by as many people as possible?

Keenya:
One of the things I thought initially, I thought that, oh, every single video that I posted on Reels had to have text overlay, but I started watching Chaleen’s son, Brock, and some of his videos didn’t have text overlay. It was just him just posting the videos. I started making a correlation between Reels and TikTok. What we’re realizing is that when you are writing the caption just for your video, people will typically read the caption. Your video is going to pop up and they’re going to read the caption to determine if they should watch your video.

Keenya:
Now, I do feel like people that have captions and texts on their videos, you cause people to watch it even more. One, because if someone can’t listen to the sound, but they’re able to watch you and read the text, that’s going to cause them to stay longer and if you’re educating them, then that’s even more shareable content versus you just talking in a video. They can actually see what you’re saying, each bullet point in your video. Now, people want to share with other people.

Pat:
The caption, you also mentioned being really key. Should we include hashtags? How do we know what hashtags? Do we go crazy with it and add 100 them? Or what’s a good amount?

Keenya:
With the hashtag, I normally do not add hashtags to all of my Reels. I just add captions. If I’m going to share that Reel to my actual Instagram Feed, then I will share the video to my Feed and then upload my 30 hashtags. I think Instagram’s limit is 30 and so I typically will do 28 to 30 hashtags in my first comment of my video.

Pat:
Got it. Let’s say somebody is interested. They get up on the app and they’re like, “Okay. I’m ready.” They’re like, “Oh, I don’t even know what to do.” Where might you go to find inspiration? Are you allowed to watch other videos and adopt something from one video and use it for your own?

Keenya:
Yeah. With Reels, I’m not quite sure how people are feeling about that yet. That’s how TikTok has worked. They’ve got all these challenges and we’re all doing basically the exact same thing, with a little bit of spin on it. I think that on the TikTok platform, it’s more acceptable because that’s what we do every single day. On Reels, I think that because you’ve got a lot more business people, that may be a little more frowned upon if you 100% copy someone. I will see someone do a … I think I saw you do the Level Up Challenge, the five, four, three, two, one. I said, “Oh yeah. I want to use that audio too,” but I didn’t do the exact same thing that you did. I did my own particular content. I would not copy on Instagram because people it’s just a little different than when you’re on TikTok.

Pat:
I agree. I wouldn’t copy, 100%. What’s helped me on Reels is watching other people’s videos that randomly pop up to me. There was one video that I saw. A woman came in and then on the caption, it was like, “How my husband feels when I get my hair done.” She’s walking in the door. Her hair looks all good. She looks at her husband and then the Tupac song, Changes, comes on and it starts with, “I see no changes.” I cracked up because I was like, “That’s how a wife feels about her husband, about getting her hair done.”

Pat:
Then I was like, “Oh, how can I use that same audio?” What you could do is you can use the same audio that somebody else uses, so I did that, but I was like, “Let me put a spin on it. Hey. Hot new marketing trend to implement and seeing results. I see no changes.” That was one of my most … I had 21,000 views on that one. It’s crazy. I did another one that did really well. You can obviously see this on my Instagram. I’d definitely recommend you check out Keenya’s. What’s your Instagram handle so we can see you there?

Keenya:
It’s @keenyakelly, K-E-E-N-Y-A K-E-L-L-Y.

Pat:
Perfect. Easy enough. This last video I did was … I’ve seen other people do something similar. It was like, “Mistakes I’ve been doing …” I was like, “Okay. I’m going to do a whole series, one per video, mistakes I do in podcasting.” The first video I popped up was a little, just funny clip of me forgetting to hit record after an interview and then starting to cry.

Keenya:
Oh, I saw that.

Pat:
Then I play a song that’s sad. Anyway, I’m having a lot of fun with it, number one. It’s like scratching that creative itch, but in a nice little tiny container where I can get enough and have fun. If it were to fail, it’s okay. I’ve done a couple of videos that completely bombed.

Keenya:
Me too.

Pat:
What are some of your best videos, ones that surprised you?

Keenya:
What did I do? Oh, the one where I was talking about moving to California. I was surprised that people really watched it. They liked it and they engaged with it. It’s basically where I’m saying that I’m thinking about moving to California. People were saying, “Don’t go to California. You’re not going to be a good actress. This is not going to happen.” Then my screen changes to me, writing a book, becoming a paid actress again, and then producing a production studio. That video is doing really well right now on Reels.

Pat:
By, “Really well,” how well?

Keenya:
I think we’re at almost 30,000 views right now, but my inbox is flooded with people talking to me. I love the engagement, but I really liked the DMs and that one is causing more conversations.

Pat:
Let’s talk about that. These videos are fun and you can get viewers, but how does this convert into anything tangible for a business? How do we start thinking about it in that way?

Keenya:
For me, before you start onto Reels, producing things, you got to take a look at what’s on your Instagram page, in general? What’s going on with your bio? Do you have a free tool for them in the clickable link on your page? Because when people go and start watching your Reels and they like you, guess what they’re going to do? They’re not just going to keep watching more videos. They’re going to click on your page. If you got things on your page where they can opt into, now, you can pull them from just the viewer or follower to an actual subscriber on your email list. In addition to that, I tell people that with the same personality, make sure that you are producing Instagram TV videos because the Reels are 15 seconds and then our Stories disappear, but if you’ve got content, business content, whatever your thing is on your Instagram TV, well now, they’re going from the Reels to those different things as well.

Keenya:
In your Reels … Right now, I posted a video today talking about the difference between Reels versus TikTok. I point to each of them and then they disappear. Well, at the bottom of it, and it’s there the entire time, it has Keenya, it has my website, and a link to a Reels mini-course that I created. What I did was, I know that my goal is to sell people into that course or whatever, but instead of me doing a direct sale, I did a passive sale by making them focus on the things that I’m pointing at, but they still see this little thing at the bottom right-hand side of the screen and go, “What is that?” That’s going to draw them to the paid product that I’m trying to get them to buy. Now, other videos, I will do a direct sale and say, “Book me for a one-on-one. Let me help you design your logo,” but sometimes we just do passive things.

Pat:
Mixing it up is great and obviously, inserting some entertainment-type stuff with no pitch or nothing. Gary V Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook-

Keenya:
Exactly.

Pat:
That sort of situation. That’s great. I love that. The same thing can be done on TikTok as well? Do you find that the audiences are very similar, who find you eventually?

Keenya:
Yeah. Exactly. One of the biggest videos that I’ve done, it’s still viral on TikTok. It actually made me the number one TikTok self-care for the last three months. I’m still number one. That’s just a video of me talking about, oh, I remember when I was going through a divorce. I was really sad. Instead of being depressed, I wrote a book. I show my book in the video for maybe three seconds and I start dancing, and then the video goes off. Well, I’ve sold I don’t know how many of those books, just from that one video. People kept saying, “What is the name of your book? What’s the name of your book?” I get all these DMs on TikTok saying, “What’s the name of your book, again? I can’t remember the title. I can’t see the title.”

Pat:
That’s so dope. How many views does that video have?

Keenya:
That particular video has well over a million views, but I redid it again and that one has a million views.

Pat:
How long was this video?

Keenya:
15 seconds.

Pat:
How long did it take for you to create?

Keenya:
Well, 30 seconds.

Pat:
30 seconds, with editing and stuff?

Keenya:
Yeah.

Pat:
Dude, this is crazy. How do we know? I know there’s people listening, who are like, “Okay. This sounds great. You’re selling this. Obviously, it’s working for you. I am interested, but this could be one of those excuses as a distraction, another squirrel, another bright light thing.” How would you recommend? Who is this for? Maybe is a better way to frame it. Who would you say Reels and TikTok is for? How do we know now is the right time for us to do it? Who is it not for?

Keenya:
I would say that these platforms are not for people that … If you don’t want to get in front of a large group of people, if you don’t want to go viral, if you don’t want to 10X your business, then it’s not for you.

Pat:
There’s the opening. You’re totally a salesman, Keenya.

Keenya:
It is for anybody that has built something. Here’s the thing with marketing. Marketing is about getting our products and services in front of a massive group of people. We know all of them are not going to buy. We already know that, but we don’t know who is going to buy until we get our products and services in front of it. We do all this stuff on all these different platforms and get on podcasts and all that. Why? Because we’re trying to sell our products and services. This is for anybody. It doesn’t matter what your business is. Whether you are a painter, a dancer, a yoga instructor, if you’re trying to sell something, I guarantee you, this is for you. I’m really serious though. If someone doesn’t want to make a ton of money and go viral, then that’s not the person that wants to be here because you do one good video on Reels or TikTok and kaboom.

Pat:
I mean the algorithms were built for that. That’s a struggle with podcasting, for example. There’s no algorithm that helps us in that way. On YouTube, it’s an algorithm, but there’s so much more involvement in that. I’ve seen people’s first videos become the sensation. I’m not saying that that’s going to happen. The more videos you post and the more you learn about the platform, obviously, the more chances you offer yourself, which is key. This has been great, Keenya. Thank you. To finish up here, maybe in the last five, 10 minutes, I would love just a brain dump of your favorite tips when it comes to using these kinds of platforms. The beauty of these things is they’re easy to use, but they’re also advanced. There’s a lot of fun tools and things that you can use to make your video stand out even more, from text to effects and whatnot. I want to hear from your brain, what are the best things that we could do or the tips just to rock this?

Keenya:
If a person is first starting out first, I would say, download TikTok. I want you to go to the little magnifying glass, which is the discover page. In the search bar, I want you to search your business, your type of business, and then just start binge-watching all the ways that people are producing content in your field. That’s going to give you content ideas for Reels. That’s going to give you content ideas for TikTok because you can’t necessarily search for your business on Reels right now, but you can search it in TikTok. Once you start seeing all that stuff, you can screenshot things and you can write down a whole content calendar of ideas from what everybody else is doing. That’s the first thing that I would say. The second thing I would say is create a list of what you would be willing to do.

Keenya:
If you’re not willing to dance, then don’t do dancing. What if you just want to do a screen recording? What if you just want to do text overlay? What if you just want to show pictures of things, whatever it is? You’ve got to make a list of what you are willing to do on the Reels platform or the TikTok platform. Next thing is create a Story, create an Instagram Story and then I want you to take that Story and I want you to upload it to Reels, because the one way you’re going to know that it works is when you create a good video, you post it and you watch how much engagement you get on that one video, that you probably have never gotten on any other video you’ve ever posted on Instagram.

Keenya:
The moment you get that, what we call the quick win, then it’s going to cause you to want to produce the next one and the next one. Once you produce your first video, then I want you to try to use the text feature. That one could maybe trip you up a little bit if you’re trying to make the text disappear, go here and go there, but first, just start by trying to put text. Then each day, add a little feature here and there. Just know, nobody’s Reels or TikToks are perfect unless they have a whole production team. Don’t go for perfection. Go for consistency.

Pat:
I love that. Consistency over perfection, for sure. Adding text is something that does take a little bit of work to learn, but it is, once you get it, pretty intuitive. I’m sure the Reels platform is going to improve. It’s still very, very new. TikTok is definitely the place to go for getting inspiration and searching. Just to bring it down to Reels, I remember stumbling upon a random video on TikTok and it was showing these bugs. They were really disgusting. It had millions of views. You could tell because there was 500,000 likes. Then I go to their page and they’re a pest control company, so they were just showing these bizarre photos of bugs that might be living under your home. I was like, “Dude.” That hooked me in and now I’m like, “Okay. I don’t want that in my house. Now I know a company.”

Pat:
There’s so many fun ways that businesses are starting to use this platform. I think the cool thing is it’s not just a post something and hope it takes a little bit of creativity. Almost forces you to be a little creative and I like that. I like that a lot. It’s just a 15-second video, so it’s not as scary as YouTube. Any final parting words or tips for anybody who is going to be jumping into this world and putting themselves out there? It feels a little vulnerable. It feels weird to shake your booty a little bit on the camera sometimes if that is what you want to do. How would you offer a little bit of comfort for us who are just jumping into these platforms?

Keenya:
Even though I have this big old personality and you can watch me on Reels or TikTok, wherever, I started out just like you guys. I had no idea what I was doing. I felt like, oh, maybe I should lose 10 more pounds before I get on here because my belly was sticking out. I had all these things, all these reasons why I shouldn’t do it, but I kept having this thought. “Keenya, you have been trying to be on the front end of a trend for years. This is your moment.” I had to keep psyching myself up, saying, “This is your moment.” I’m so glad that I did it because fast forward, 67,000 followers later on TikTok, Netflix is reaching out to me.

Keenya:
All these big brands are paying me to do stuff. Whereas five months ago, I was like, “I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m this grandma on this app.” We’ve all been waiting for that moment where we can be on the front of a trend and this is that moment Reels. It sounds bad, but TikTok is having this legal battle right now and so Reels is like, “We’re going to take over.” In that moment, guess what? Instagram is trying to help you go viral, so get in front of it while you can and take advantage

Pat:
For sure. You said you had Netflix reach out to you, these big brands, because of Reels and TikTok?

Keenya:
Yes. A friend of mine, I turned 39 in June, she was like, “You’re viral on TikTok. Do a dating campaign,” because I’m all single and ready to mingle and I like all men. Just shout out real quick. Anyway, she was like, “Do this little dating campaign and see if you can go viral.” For seven days, I would dance and I would have texts overlay saying, “Here are my features. I love this. I love that. Here are my deal breakers with dating” and all this stuff.

Keenya:
I did it every single day for seven days and I didn’t meet anybody, but then three weeks later, Netflix reached out and said, “Hey. We want you to be on our dating show,” yada, yada, yada, but I had to have a teenage kid to be on there, so I didn’t get it. Last week, another dating app reached out and said, “We want to feature you. We just need you to create a 15-second TikTok and we’ll pay you.” I’m like, “What?” I knew it was because of TikTok because nobody else knows me but TikTok.

Pat:
That’s crazy. Well, congratulations to you. I’m so stoked to see how this takes you even further. One more time, where can people go to find more of you?

Keenya:
You can find me on keenyakelly.com and I’m on all the social medias, all of them.

Pat:
We appreciate you, Keenya. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for the inspiration. I’m going to go finish that Reel that I had drafted up.

Keenya:
Go ahead.

Pat:
All right. I hope you enjoyed that interview and just that education from Keenya Kelly, @keenyakelly. Check her out at keenyakelly.com. She’s got a great book. You can find all the things there. She’s given me a lot of inspiration, even since recording this episode, even just within a couple of weeks after recording this episode. This episode is going out a couple of months after we were recorded it, but now, when I’m recording this intro, honestly, it’s been pretty game-changing for me in terms of social media. Just to give you some perspective, a couple of videos I created recently have each over 70,000 views. My recent YouTube videos with a subscribership of over 250,000 people just have a few thousand views. That’s the YouTube algorithm for you. These Instagram Reels algorithms, the TikTok algorithm, man, they’re pushing them out there for us.

Pat:
This might be the time to do it. Who knows what’s going to happen later? We’ll probably have an update for you at some point. Obviously, just follow Keenya. She’s got all the latest updates and she’s teaching people how to do Reels and TikTok really well. Again, Keenya, thank you for coming on the show. Make sure you hit subscribe if you haven’t already. I appreciate you so much for listening all the way through. I appreciate you. I look forward to serving you in the next episode. We’ve got a really, really great success story coming up for your next week, with a duo, a fun duo on the show. That’s all I’m going to say. Do you have any idea who it is? I’m pretty sure you don’t, so make sure to subscribe to get access to that. Totally free. Totally fun. Thanks so much. As always, #TeamFlynn for the win. Peace out.

Announcer:
Thanks for listening to the Smart Passive Income Podcast at www.smartpassiveincome.com.