Ep 83 - Secrets from a Social Media Manager: An Interview with Emma Donnelly

Episode Show Notes

 

What Health Professionals Need to Know About Instagram Marketing

Social media can feel like a minefield - especially if you're a dietitian or health professional trying to grow your online presence without getting sucked into trend-chasing or daily posting.

In this episode of Beyond the Clinic, I sat down with social media strategist Emma Donnelly of Ask Emma Social to demystify what actually works when it comes to Instagram marketing for dietitians - and what doesn’t. 

Whether you're running an online clinic, building a group programme, or dipping your toe into digital marketing, this conversation is packed with insight.

Here's what you need to know.

 

Why Instagram Still Matters for Health Professionals

Some dietitians feel uneasy about social media. It can seem performative, time-consuming and inauthentic - but Emma reminds us that platforms like Instagram remain one of the best ways to:

• Build brand awareness
  
  
• Nurture trust and connection
  
  
• Generate leads that convert (even if it’s not immediate)
  
  

Instagram isn’t just for influencers or trends. It's for business owners who want to serve, educate and reach the right people - including those who don’t even realise they need your help yet.

“Even if engagement is low, your content is still working behind the scenes. That quiet lurker might message you in six months ready to buy - because you showed up.” - Emma Donnelly

 

How to Know If You’re Ready to Hire a Social Media Manager

Most solo business owners reach a tipping point. You might still be posting here and there, but you’re:

• Not seeing the engagement or growth you want
  
  
• Spending too much time trying to come up with captions or graphics
  
  
• Unsure what’s actually working
  
  

Emma shares that you don’t need to be “big” to outsource. You just need to be ready to hand over the content creation process so you can focus on the parts of your business that matter most - like planning social media strategically, working with your clients, developing new offers, or organising your next sales campaign.

ACTION STEP: Track how many hours per week you’re spending on social content creation. Could that time be spent better elsewhere?

 

Metrics That Actually Matter (And Ones That Don’t)

Likes, comments and follower counts don’t pay the bills. Emma encourages focusing on deeper insights:

Look at:

• Watch time on Reels and video posts
  
  
• DM activity - are people responding or asking questions?
  
  
• Conversions from links (e.g. downloads, bookings)
  
  

Stop obsessing over vanity engagement metrics.

Your social media strategy is a long game. What you do now might not have instant results but will make an impact in the future. That could be 6 months or two years from now. Believe me. I’ve seen this in both my businesses. 

You’re building trust with your audience, not chasing instant dopamine hits.

 

Viral Posts Can Hurt You - Here’s Why

Going viral can bring you thousands of views… but if the content isn't aligned with your niche, those views won't turn into sales. Worse, it can tank your reach later if your new followers aren’t engaging.

Business owners should never create content just to go viral. Instead:

• Stay consistent with your message
  
  
• Talk to your ideal client
  
  
• Focus on value, not virality
  
  

ACTION STEP: Review your last 9 grid posts - are they speaking to your best-fit clients, or are then following trends or trying to appeal to everyone?

 

Repurposing Content the Smart Way

You don’t need to post every day - or reinvent the wheel.

Both Emma and I agree: repeat what works. Recycle high-performing content every quarter. Repurpose carousels into Reels. Turn your Reels into static grid posts. The more places your message shows up, the better.

Emma says: “Only 10% of your audience sees any one post. No one’s going to notice if you repeat yourself - and if they do, it means your message is working.” 

Actually I’ve read recently that it is now less than 6% on Instagram!

 

Do You Have to Be on Video?

For success in 2026 YES! Video is powerful. 

Emma’s experiments on her own social media accounts show that face-to-camera Reels build trust faster than B-roll or Canva graphics.

And we know from the research that video is king. All platforms are prioritising it over other content types. 

Why does it work so well? Because people buy from people. And if you're a solopreneur or small business owner you are a personal brand - your face and voice are your most recognisable asset.

That said, if video makes you freeze, there are other options - start with voiceovers on b-roll footage or carousels. And make it a priority to work on your mindset so you can overcome this fear. Don’t let perfectionism stop you from showing up at all.

ACTION STEP: Commit to taking action, whether that’s addressing your fears or just diving in with face-to-camera videos. Start simple: a story or Reel answering a common client question.

 

YouTube Shorts, Facebook, or LinkedIn? Choosing the Right Platform

Trying to “be everywhere” leads to burnout. Emma recommends focusing on 2–3 platforms, depending on your audience:

• Instagram for connection and brand awareness
  
  
• Facebook (especially groups) for community building
  
  
• LinkedIn for B2B or professional collaborations
  
  
• YouTube Shorts for fast reach + long-form SEO-friendly video
  
  

YouTube is growing fast. It’s worth considering if you love creating educational content or tutorials. Even this podcast now goes on YouTube to tap into new search traffic.

Personally I advise my clients to start with just 1 platform and dedicate 95% of your efforts there. You can repurpose your content to a second or third platform with the remaining 5%. 

The most important thing is to post where your ideal client expects you to be - not just where you like to be.

 

The Bottom Line: Social Media works best as a relationship building tool

Although used strategically it certainly can become a sales machine!!

Your content might not lead to instant clients, but it’s always building trust, brand awareness, and authority - quietly in the background. 

Keep showing up, keep refining, and remember - the metrics you can’t see like word-of-mouth referrals are often the ones doing the best work.

Nevertheless without strategy it will never bring you clients. If you need to learn how to use social media strategically, you can join the Social Media Made Simple Waitlist for FREE today and be the first to know when doors next open.

 

Helpful Links & Next Steps

🎧 Listen to the full podcast episode here
▶️ Watch on YouTube
📥 Grab Emma’s Freebie: 30 Days of Social Media Prompts
📬 Join my Social Media Made Simple programme Waitlist

 

The Master Plan:

Helping you build the business of your dreams. Get your 22 point step-by step workbook here: https://www.sarahalmondbushell.com/master-plan

Connect with me:

Website: https://www.sarahalmondbushell.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dietitiansinbusiness/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dietitiansinbusiness

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/beyondtheclinicbusiness

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BeyondTheClinicPodcast

 

Episode transcription:

Welcome along everybody. I am really excited about today's episode because I'm interviewing a colleague of mine, Emma Donnelly. So Emma is a social media marketing specialist. She's the founder of Ask Emma Social, which is a social media marketing agency. And she's dedicated to helping busy moms in business grow online without sacrificing precious family time.

So through Done For You strategies and content, Emma and her team take the overwhelm out of social media so that clients can focus more on what matters most. So welcome, Emma. Is that an okay introduction for you?

 

Emma Donnelly (00:40)

Thank so much, that's a lovely introduction and it really does cover exactly what we do here. So yeah, thank you so much for that, that's really great.

 

Sarah Bushell (00:47)

You're welcome. So let's kick off by talking about what is a social media marketing specialist.

 

Emma Donnelly (00:53)

Yeah, sure. So social media marketing is basically the way that you communicate your brand and your services through social media platforms. And what we do is we work with clients who are all a different industry. So we're not specific to a certain industry in particular, but we tend to find that our clients tend to be busy mums in business who have lots of things juggling on their plate.

So they're looking for ways that they can reach a wider audience. They're looking for ways that they can show their brand awareness to people so that more people know about what it is that their business does and how they can help. And reaching a wider audience, basically. So obviously social media encompasses a worldwide audience of people.

So a lot of offline businesses, particularly, are benefiting from having social media marketing specialists working with them because we can then help them to reach a wider audience, connect with more people. But bigger than that, I feel like it's also about building that community around your brand. So you've got people that actually recognize you and your business for what you do, the values, the mission that you have, and all of that gets expressed through your social media marketing.

So it's not just about the selling side of things, which I think sometimes is quite often a misconception around social media marketing. People feel that they have to go on social media and sell, sell, sell all the time. Actually, there's different elements towards social media marketing that also mean that you are subtly selling, but in a way that is not in people's faces, if you like.

 

Sarah Bushell (02:28)

That sounds great. And I think one of the things a lot of my colleagues feel is that social media is almost like it's something that they don't necessarily like. It's something that they might feel a bit uncomfortable with, particularly being health care professionals and knowing what to post and what they shouldn't be posting. And it can honestly, actually feel a little bit like chore on your to do list that often doesn't get done.

So I would love to know from those of us who are running our own businesses and most of my colleagues and my clients and friends are solopreneurs, we do it all on our own. How do you know when you're ready to work with a social media marketing specialist?

 

Emma Donnelly (03:09)

That's a really great question to be honest with you, and it's something that I think a lot of people think they need but they're not yet quite at that level where they can actually invest in it. But actually when you sit down and think about how much time you are spending on your social media, because it's not just a case of ⁓ just a quick post, whip one up and then post it. You've also got to think about the consistency of having that going out maybe three, four, five times a week.

Then you've got to think of the video that you're going to accompany it with. Is that going to need subtitles to it? The caption that you're going to write, has it been optimized for search engine optimization or SEO? All of these different factors play a massive part in how much reach your post gets and how far it gets. 

A lot of people I think think social media is quite an easy thing to do, which it is, and anyone can do social media, but it's whether someone can actually do it well. And if you feel that you're at the point where, you know, your social media is maybe being done, but it's not being done as well as you feel like it could be, and there's definitely ways that you can be doing it better, that's probably the point when I would say that you're best looking at speaking to an expert because you'll already have the content, you'll already have everything that you wanna get across on your social media, but you're just maybe not getting the crux of the little features that make it a different type of post.

And that's where the expertise of having a social media marketing specialist can make it into an amazing post that one that will land better. That, and also if your DMs are overflowing, which is a common theme that comes through when I go on to discovery calls with clients that are interested in working with us.

I ask them what their challenges are at the moment. Like what is it that they're struggling with on the social media aspect side of things. And it is just that whole keeping up with ⁓ responding back to people and DMs. And it's not necessarily sales inquiries. It's generally just community building and your customer care levels, which rightly so businesses care about because what makes us different as small business owners is because we are unique, humanized, personalized and we're not like those big corporate brands where, you know, it's not always as personal and we make it personal.

That's one of our strengths as small business owners, people rely on us to, you know, communicate with them. So if you're finding that your DMs are getting to a point where it is just becoming unmanageable, that's another aspect where we can step in and help with not just the DMs, but also the engagement.

So a huge part of, again, your social media marketing is not only just putting posts out there, but communicating with the community that you've got via comments and watching stories and interacting with your community so that they can see your posts more. That's how the algorithms all work. You've got to show and establish that relationship between yourselves.

So just posting alone isn't enough anymore. It might have worked maybe pre-2022, but now it's all about showing the platform and the algorithms that you're active, that you're commenting, that you're communicating with people and then when people see your brand then they obviously go and have a little look at what you're doing as well on your page and vice versa. You know it's a recipe if you like, you've got to get all the ingredients together to make it work and it is a lot to ask for a solopreneur to have to have all of that going on all at once, you know.

That's why we step in and do that. That's why I set up this business, because I recognise that this was something that people were really struggling with and you know it's something that we can step in and provide that support with. So yeah I really really love helping people with that particular challenge.

 

Sarah Bushell (06:56)

Yeah, brilliant. And I think what you said just at the start there that actually it's not an afterthought. It's not a quick post. It's not something that you can just quickly put up there. Actually, there's a lot more strategy behind social media, isn't there? And that's what I help people with, the strategy behind it. So actually, I'd love your take on whether you think, well, I think I know the answer to this, but so why is social media important in business as a solopreneur, as somebody who perhaps is like a dietitian like me, who maybe has an online clinic or sells a group program or something like that. Why is social media important?

 

Emma Donnelly (07:32)

Yeah, it's massively important. I mean, it's the way that you can express yourself online as well. I feel like every company and brand, even if you're doing the same thing as maybe, you know, hundreds of other people in the same industry as you, not every person in that industry is you. And not every person in that industry has the same mission as you, the same values or the same audience. So, you know, all of that allows you to then be authentic as yourself.

I know that's a bit of an overused word now, but it is still something that you should strive to always be genuine and authentic in what you do online. So people can then relate to you more. Because if you try and live up to a standard of someone else and copy someone else's way of doing things and it doesn't come naturally to you, it's just going to show really obviously to your audience and it will have a disconnect then with the engagement that you get because your audience can tell, that they can feel that energy and feel that it's not genuine.

So I feel that when you are genuinely yourself, showing up with your mission, your values, you're able to reach such a wide, wide audience of people. But you can also hone in on the specific ideal clients that you want to work with. So rather than having to post out to everyone in the whole world and make it really sort of vague messaging, you can really hone in on the type of people that you want to work with by making your messaging on point with exactly what they need the support with.

So it's just making that connection, building that community of people around you that are interested in what you do, but also share it with other people. Because I think one of the things people miss as well on social media is that, you you might get a period of time in your business where for six months you're getting really low engagement and feel like, is this not working for me? No one's seen my stuff. I'm not getting any inquiries in.

But then in six months time, you'll get a message from someone who will say, my friend said I should follow you. And I've just seen your post about this. And actually, I really need to order that or I really need to book in for you, you your service about this. And, know, it will completely come out of the blue. And you think to yourself, you know what I'm glad I still carried on pushing through those six months when I felt like nothing was working because actually things are working in the background.

The problem is as a business owner you can't actually see that conversation happening. So although you may not get high engagement on your posts don't take that as a kind of - well it's not working, there's no point me doing it.

 

Sarah Bushell (09:57)

Yeah, and I've experienced that.

 

Emma Donnelly (10:08)

I'm not getting the leads through, because I feel like that's sometimes what people get to a certain level with and they think you know I might as well just give up because it's not working but what they're not seeing is what's going on in the background and like I say that that makes all the difference. And that that's why your brand awareness matters because if you weren't posting then that person wouldn't have you know passed on that recommendation to the other person who's then contacted you because they've not seen you posting for a while.

 

Sarah Bushell (10:35)

Yeah. And I've experienced that in both of my businesses. So in my nutrition business, my Instagram account in particular, and also Facebook, I used to do quite well on Facebook, actually closed my Facebook group. But one of the things I found with there is that when I was much more broad and generic, I got lots of engagement, lots of followers, had lots of things to talk about, but it was really hard to sell.

Now that I've really honed in on exactly who it is that I want to target I get much fewer followers, engagement, that sort of thing, but they're coming by from me. So it definitely has an impact, although you can't see it. There's nothing obvious from the outside. And then in this business, so my follower count in this business is tiny. I think it's like a thousand and something, but I'm fully booked.

I think again, it doesn't really correlate with how the business is doing, does it, from what you can see from the outside, but for me, I know that it really helps with, like you say, the brand awareness, the nurturing, the connecting with people, the making people feel seen, heard and understood from the type of content that's going out there. And so when they are at the stage of wanting to work with me, they do, they reach out, they book discovery calls, they buy things. So yeah, it's interesting because you can't directly say, yes, it's because of that post that this happened. But I think if I stopped I'd be fearful that my business wouldn't grow.

Let's talk about going viral. So I know we had a little conversation about going viral before we started recording. So, you know, a lot of influencers or even, you know, people who teach Instagram, for example, talk about finding the thing to go viral, which is something that I don't think that we need. What's your take on that?

 

Emma Donnelly (11:59)

Yeah. I am absolutely with you on that. feel like when people focus on chasing virality, it takes away the value of actually what it is that you can do for people because you are just chasing a particular goal that is very hit and miss. By all means, experiment with your content and try new things. I'm not saying that you have to keep on a set path of what you're doing every time you post.

Going viral is one of those things that you have no control over. You either do a post and it goes viral or you do a post and it doesn't. And if your sort of aim is just to go viral, it's not really gonna give you any end results because what happens when a post goes viral is it brings in a massive audience of people that are following you and connecting with you, not for the purpose of why you're actually doing your social media marketing.

So what you tend to find with viral posts is that, you know, there'll be an element of it that is not really linked to your business. So for example, you know, it might be a video with your dog in it or whatever, and then everyone, you suddenly get an influx of people that are, you know, dog fans, but actually that's got absolutely nothing to do with what you do for your business.

So you've built and you might think to yourself, oh, that looks great. I've got this massive audience. I've got all these followers now and they're not actually the right type of followers. So unfortunately, that's gonna just end up being that you've got an audience of people that will never buy from you off a viral post. And that's all you've kind of gained from it.

And yeah, it's a little bit of an ego boost. Let's be honest about it. When you see the views are going up and all the notifications are going off. Yes, it is an ego boost and yes, it is really nice in the moment, but as a long-term strategy, that post in a year's time is not gonna do anything for your business. So I would always say for me, building a community and connecting with the right audience and the right type of clients that you wanna work with. So who it is you wanna serve, the type of person that you know that you can support and help with your business.

 

Those people, although they might not engage on all your posts and they may not communicate with you daily, if they're actually following your account and seeing your content, it's those touch points that they're getting.

So every time you post, every time you watch their stories, every time you maybe pop them a message and see how they're doing, that's all different touch points that people are getting from building an awareness of your brand, which is then gonna help them along the buying journey because the problem you've got as a business owner is you've got people at all different levels of the buying process.

So you've got someone who will just come across you that doesn't even realise that they need a social media manager at this point. They just want tips and advice because they're just starting out in the business and they need some ideas and they're looking for some inspiration. And then you've got other people that are actively searching for support. They've got the money to invest and they're just looking for the right person.

You've got all these different buying sort of processes and people at different stages. So for me, the focus rather than going viral is thinking about how you can address in your content all of these different buying stages for people that are going to be entry level, if you like, all the way up to ready to buy and just looking for the right, you know, connection with that person, whether it's something that's, you know, a personal connection, maybe you've wrote a personal story that relates to them and their lives as well, or whether it's something that is more linked to your mission and your values of your business and they feel aligned to that. So it's all these different elements that come into it.

But for me, I would focus more on that and getting the messaging right for that because that's, like you said rightly before, that's going to bring you the sales in, regardless of the engagement, regardless of the virality and the views and all that kind of thing. Your metrics don't pay your bills. So unfortunately as a business owner, you do have to think about what actually is gonna make me money and which is actually gonna bring in the right type of client that I want to work with that I'm aligned with as opposed to what's gonna look good on paper.

 

Sarah Bushell (16:17)

 

Absolutely. And I've had clients before who have experienced the viral post and exactly that. Lots of new followers, never going to buy because they weren't their ideal client. And what's been worse is because they've suddenly got this audience and they carry on putting out posts that are relevant to their niche and, you know, nurturing people.

The algorithms are going okay, well, you've got this massive audience, you're putting out this content, no one's resonating with it. So actually your account is not good. And so it's actually negatively affected their reach, their views on reels and things like that because of this viral post that they've had. it's actually been damaging for them. So yeah, I agree with you entirely there that chasing virality is not the way to go if you want to grow a business. No. So I would love to know actually, is it just Instagram that you focus on or do you work on across the different platforms?

 

Emma Donnelly (17:27)

Definitely not. So we focus on three. Instagram is our primary one. And we also do Facebook and we also do LinkedIn. We don't do TikTok at the moment, unfortunately. So I'd refer you to a TikTok specialist for that. But yeah, we do also now do YouTube. So I've got a lady on the team who's a YouTube expert and she's built and grown monetized her own YouTube channel. she now trains and supports other business owners to do the same.

So that's something we recently started doing this year and that supports clients that are basically wanting to have a presence on YouTube. Because what we are finding, especially this year in 2025, is that obviously video content is very much the go-to thing that people are looking to watch at the moment online. And obviously YouTube is a video format platform. So I find it's helpful for those types of people and it might help your health professional audience as well, for people that want to explain things from like a desktop view.

I find that that's quite difficult to explain if you're doing like a demonstration of some sort or webinar where you were using diagrams, et cetera, to showcase a point or something like that on a reel can be quite difficult due to the dimensions and the size of the screen. It can be quite difficult to get across what you're trying to say without it sort of looking really small across the middle of the screen.

So YouTube I think is kind of like the educational side of it which I feel like a lot of your health professional audience will benefit from because obviously you're in that space of educating and helping people. So yeah, I think that would be a good thing to think about moving forward. If maybe social media and Instagram and Facebook, LinkedIn is not something you want to do, think about maybe doing it on YouTube and that way then you've got an alternative platform to consider because that's not going anywhere. It's growing exponentially and actually a lot of business owners aren't utilizing YouTube for what it is with the Google optimization, the SEO optimization.

Now there are so many ways that you could be found on YouTube, which is kind of like a little bit of an underrated platform that not a lot of business owners do use because obviously people tend to go for the main three, the big three, like Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, then you've also got TikTok. You've also got the new version of Twitter, which is like, you've got threads, which is like Instagram's version, then you've got Blue Sky.

You know, there's tons of different platforms. Don't get too overwhelmed with obviously, you know, trying to be everywhere all at once. I think you can kind of get into a rabbit hole spiral of, I need to post there, I need to post there, I need to post that. And then before you know it, you've not actually posted anywhere.

 

Sarah Bushell (20:08)

Yeah.

 

Emma Donnelly (20:16)

So for me, think just pick two or three platforms that you want to focus on. If you're a business to business owner, LinkedIn is your place to be. If you're looking to interact with an audience, like consumer audience, then you're looking more like Instagram and Facebook for that.

Facebook groups as well is still another thing that a lot of people say, you know, people don't use anymore, but I still see a lot of success with people that have got Facebook groups because again, it's that community feel. And I feel like with the age of AI at the moment, people are craving that kind of community, know, connection, genuine, real connection with people that are aligned with them and on the same page with them. you know, having that community, actually think is still very much, you know, valid.

 

Sarah Bushell (20:47)

 

Yeah, very relevant. Yeah, I agree with you there. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And it's interesting what you say about YouTube. So I read recently that YouTube shorts are the fastest growing platform at the minute in 2025. And so this podcast goes on to YouTube. It was a relatively new thing that we started probably about six months or so ago. And at that time, I also started posting on shorts as well. And I really noticed that the number of views that I was getting on the full length video was massive. The more shorts that I produced because each short, directed people to go and watch the full thing.

And actually I was telling my clients this morning in our group coaching program that I've had two weeks where I haven't posted shorts because I've been so busy. I haven't got around to doing it and I've noticed the tank. It's having that much of an impact that I've just noticed the numbers dropping right down. So I can see how it's a very powerful, fast growing platform. And like you say, owned by Google. So it's not going anywhere. It's got all the SEO, you know, there already. I think it's definitely one to take advantage of provided, course, you know, you've ideal client users, YouTube for whatever they're looking for. But yeah, I think it's a massively untapped potential. 

 

Emma Donnelly (22:03)

Definitely, and I think there's different ways you can use the YouTube channel as well. Where you might have your Instagram for your brand awareness and your community involvement and sharing what you do and your updates and all that kind of thing.

You might want to use your YouTube as a kind of different strategy almost. You could have it as like an education platform where you kind of bring in people in through that route where people want to learn more about the topic that you deliver, whatever that is in whatever industry it is and then you can use it as almost like a funnel, like a lead magnet if you like to people getting on your email list because don't forget on YouTube you know you can put your email list, give them a freebie and the show notes underneath so people that are watching these videos and thinking this is great I'd love to learn more or hear more from this person they can just tap the link and then they're straight onto your email list so it's definitely worth considering if you've not already thought about it.

Because I know when I've had conversations in networking events and things like that this year with other business owners, just asking their opinions on YouTube and what they thought of it. And nine times out of 10, they're like, you know what? I've never really even thought of posting on there. I thought it was just for people that have like podcasts or, you know, have vlogs and things like that where they've done like vlogging. And YouTube is so much more than that.

And I just wanted to give people that kind of signal that if it is something that's calling you and you do like doing video content, because obviously everyone's different. Some people don't like doing video content. Some people do. If you do really well and you can speak really well on video, then YouTube might be a great opportunity for you to be able to then showcase what you do in a clear, consistent way that works for you. As I always say to my clients, know, create content that feels good for you.

 

So if you don't feel comfortable doing video, there are other formats and ways that you can still have an impact on social media without having to go live or without having to film a video talking to the screen. There's all different ways you can do it. It's just finding what works and what feels good for you.

 

Sarah Bushell (24:28)

Yeah. And what do you think about repurposing content across different platforms?

 

Emma Donnelly (24:33)

I definitely think it's worth doing because you've got to remember that all the time your audience is building and growing. So, you you kind of get a bit in a rut sometimes thinking, well, I've already posted that so I can't post it again because everyone's going to say, I've already seen this. Like, you know, why is she posting it again? And you do, you think in your head like, I can't repeat that.

And you know, people are going to think that I've run out of content ideas, et cetera. And that is just so not the case because only 10 % of people based on the algorithms and how they work will actually see the post. And I've actually tested this theory myself on my own social media because I was just interested to see whether or not people did see it. And I ran a poll in my story and I said, I've posted this 12 months ago. If you do remember seeing it, then tell me. And absolutely not one person voted on that poll say that they've seen it before and there was about 25 people that had voted on that poll. a#

And I thought well, that just kind of proves it because you've got to remember people's attention spans are so so small at the moment and for them to remember one piece of content that you did 12 months ago you might remember it because you wrote the post and you put all the effort into doing it and obviously it's very memorable for you but for people that are watching it, they don't they don't always see it and I feel like you can always repurpose into different formats.

So if you are that type of person who's like, absolutely don't want to repurpose it, I've already posted it, how about doing it in a different way? So how about doing it as a carousel this time, rather than doing it as a single post, or how about doing it as a video instead of a carousel? You you can do different formats and different ways of the post without it being the exact same copy and paste post.

Because the thing is with your message, it needs to be consistent and it needs to keep going and going and going. You're kind of talking one message all the time and you are going to get fed up with it because you are going to feel like you're repeating it but you need to keep consistent with that message so people know that you're that go-to person for that thing that you talk about and if you're talking about all different things and you're going off in all different areas then people get a bit muddled as to what it is actually that you do.

 

Sarah Bushell (26:34)

Yeah.

 

Emma Donnelly (26:46)

Whereas if you just stay consistent with what it is you do, how you help people, how it's you can serve people, then that's when people really do relate to you and go, right, she's the go-to person I need for this thing. And that makes a massive difference in your marketing generally.

 

Sarah Bushell (26:46)

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. I agree with you there, you know, having like maybe five or six pieces of core messaging that you become known for because you say it often and you'll say it differently every time you say it probably, or you might have like certain catchphrases that you always say. And like you say, you could always, if you did it as a real, you could always then turn it into a carousel. You know, you can use the same stuff, but actually in my nutrition business, because it's been going for such a long time, I know which content works.

And so I will literally have a tag, I've put everything on Asana and I have a tag to say best performer and that gets repeated and we repeat content probably every quarter. You know, it's exactly the same thing. Same caption, know, same carousel, whatever it is, we just repeat it because we know it works every time. And no one's ever said, I've seen that before.

 

Emma Donnelly (27:52)

Absolutely, that's the thing isn't it? You never get someone who would say, that's not new, I've seen that before.

 

Sarah Bushell (27:54)

Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. I was going to ask you about how do you know you're doing well on social media? So analytics, goals, that sort of thing. How do you know it's working for you?

 

Emma Donnelly (28:10)

Yeah, so the analytics is something that I feel is something again, not many people think about. They just tend to look at the metrics people look at is mainly the views and the likes and the comments. And that's really all people tend to from a very foundational level look at for whether something's doing well or not doing well. Or also the follower count, you know, if the follower counts going up and how much it's increased by or if it's decreased.

So what I think people really now moving forward into the rest of the year and also into 2026 is I feel like people need to look more closely into the insights, especially on Instagram, if you are posting on that platform for your videos, because you will be able to see on there now how long your watch time is.

Your watch time is going to make a huge difference going forward into whether or not your post gets more reach. Because what the platforms want is for people to be spending longer on the platform. So if people are watching your videos for longer, that means that to them that that's a good piece of content because it's kept someone on the platform for longer, which means that they can then feed ads through to them based on what their likes and preferences are, et cetera. So it's all part of, you know, the whole game, if you like, of social media.

But ultimately, if your watch time is low at the moment, one piece of advice I would give you is to have a think about your hook that you're doing at the beginning. So what I mean by a hook is just that initial three seconds where you've got the opportunity to capture someone's attention, and you really capture it in that three seconds. If you've not captured it, they've gone this swiping through to the next one.

So there's different ways you can use different hooks. You've got visual hooks, so you could do spinning around into your chair. So it's just that pattern interrupts. So when people are scrolling through, it's like, what's this? Or if you're talking to camera, you can give them a particular hook. So you can say, you know, this is one thing that I wish I knew sooner in my business.

So people are instantly like, I wonder what she's going to say and listen to the next part rather than just going on and saying, hi, my name is this. This is what I do, which again is fine. But through a hook, you need to really draw people's attention. And it doesn't have to be click bait. It doesn't have to be made up or, you know, dramatized to what to make it. So it's not actually true. It just needs to be enough to give people that curiosity of them watching a bit longer.

And then once you get into your full point of the video, they'll, you know, the watch time will increase. But that's really going to be a significant metric for the next year or so. Have a think about how you can get people watching your videos for longer, make it more interesting as you can.

I appreciate that this is obviously more time and effort that you probably don't have. But if you're going to put time and effort into doing your marketing and you want to do it well, these are the types of things that you need to think about, not how many people are going to like this post and how many people are going to comment on it. You know, because that isn't going to, you can't control that. You have absolutely no control over how many people like or comment on that post. But you do have control over how much quality and effort and time you put into the video production and, you know, doing it as best to your ability as you possibly can. 

 

Sarah Bushell (31:12)

Yes. And what's your opinion on B-roll style video versus like talking heads?

 

Emma Donnelly (31:37)

So interestingly, I've been testing this on my account. So if you want to go and have a look at my account, you can see it on there and there's different ones. There's B-roll where I'm not in it. There's B-roll where I am in it. There's ones where I'm talking to the camera. So I did want to test it just to see. And people might not want to hear this, but unfortunately the one that did well was the one where I'm talking to the camera and people can see my face.

So, you know, people always say, oh, let's do the B-roll cause then, you know, I don't have to talk to the camera and I can just be in the back and hide away and you know it doesn't have to be all about me, but actually human connection is always going to win over any other type of content and that just goes to show how important social media is for, you know, building that connection with other people through the screen because they want to see who they're going to be working with, they want to hear what you sound like, they want to understand what you're like as a person and building that trust over a number of months, maybe even years before they actually reach out to buy from you.

Because it's not always overnight success, it's not always gonna happen like, as soon as you post a video, someone's gonna drop in and buy from you. But ultimately, you need to build that trust and with AI and everything that's going on at the moment, that is one thing that we've got in our kind of arsenal, if you like, of things that we can use because ultimately, we are the small business owner. We are the person that they're going to be dealing with.

Other brands and companies have to obviously think about ways they can personalise it and make it better for the corporate side of things. But for us as business owners, small business owners, we have a really unique opportunity to make that connection. And actually the ones that perform best for me have been the ones where I'm talking to camera, explaining things.

 

Sarah Bushell (33:18)

Yeah. That's exactly what I've seen as well. And at the end of the day, you know, as business owners or solopreneurs, we are our brands, we are personal brands and people buy from people. So they don't want to see logos. They don't want to see, you know, lovely Canva graphics or, you know, made into video. They want to see the person. And so even when I do B-roll style reels, it's still me doing something in the background. I think it's really important for that.

And I think that also links into things like, you know, your brand being recognizable, because if you look at someone's grid, you want to make sure that it is instantly recognizable, isn't it? So you've got, you've obviously got colors and things like that and fonts and whatever, but you also want to have you on there as well so that people know straight away, oh, that's a post from Sarah, you know.

 

Emma Donnelly (34:07)

So you've got hackers and you've got, you know, people are very suspicious at the moment around, you know, spending money online. So at this point, people want to make sure that that person that they're going to be parting their money with is a genuine person. So having that trust built between you by building that connection is so important.

 

Sarah Bushell (34:27)

Yeah, yeah, totally wholeheartedly agree with you. Emma, this has been brilliant. Now, I know you've got a freebie. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that and how people can get their hands on that?

 

Emma Donnelly (34:36)

Yes, yes. So this freebie is just built for business owners who are looking for help with posts. So I've created 30 social media templates for you to use. So it's not written all out in full for you, but it's just giving you kind of prompts of what you can do for your posts.

So if you're struggling thinking, I really could do with some ideas for what to actually talk about on my social media, because I don't really know where to go with it. And at the minute, I feel like I'm just talking about the services all the time. And you maybe want to introduce a bit more of a personal angle to it, where we can help you with obviously, objection handling, personal content, and also your sales content, which I feel are the core three pillars that you really need to focus on as your foundations. Then this will help you just to build those posts up.

So you can go away and maybe spend a day or two writing through some posts with some inspiration of where to start from. So they're not written for you because obviously you need to write your own post, but they're just prompts that will help you to get started because I feel like there's nothing worse than staring at a blank page thinking I don't even know what to talk about or where to start or how to even begin this post.

Whereas I feel like if you've got those prompts there, it just gives you that motivation and you've got a whole month's worth there as well. So even if you don't wanna post every day, which is absolutely fine, and I would never say to anyone that you've got to post every single day because you don't, then I would say use maybe three a week, four a week, and then you can spread it out even over two months then so you've still got more content that you can write for the following month.

And that might cover you, you know, upcoming for like December and January time when obviously you're to be quite busy doing things with family etc. So if that's helpful for you, I hope that that will be helpful and I'll pop the link obviously underneath.

 

Sarah Bushell (36:26)

Brilliant, that's great. I'll make sure everyone gets that link. And do want to tell us where everyone can connect with you? Give us your social media handles, your website, whatnot.

 

Emma Donnelly (36:29)

Thank you. Yes, sure. So I'm on Instagram. So it's Instagram at Ask Emma Social or one word. So no, no underscores or anything like that. Just Ask Emma Social. And then on Facebook again, I'm on Ask Emma Social on there. LinkedIn, you can find me by searching for Emma Donnelly and that's D-O-N-N-E-L-L-Y. Spelt like Declan Donnelly from Ant and Dec, but we're not related.

So yeah, and then not currently got a website live at the moment, but when it does go live, it will be www.askemasocial.co.uk. We're working in progress on it at the moment. So hoping to get that live in January. So in the new year, it should be up and running.

 

Sarah Bushell (37:15)

That's great. Thank you so much for your time Emma. It's been really lovely to have you here.

 

Emma Donnelly (37:20)

You're so welcome. Thank you for having me.

 

Sarah Bushell (37:21)

It's a pleasure.