Sophia is a social media strategist with a proven record for increasing a brand’s following, engagement, and reach. Her clients have tripled attendance at their free events, gone from 800 followers to 50k followers, increased opportunities for podcasts, magazines and even TV features, and at the top of 2020, one of her clients had a 6 figure launch from her Direct Messages... She’s also the creator of the online subscription, WHAT THE HECK TO POST, where she helps members stop falling victim to the algorithm and was most recently seen talkin' DM strategy on Forbes.

Sophia's Membership: whatthehecktopost.com

Grab Sophia's Free training: http://getcoachsocial.com/fixyourfeed/ 

Sophia's Instagram: instagram.com/sophiaparra/

Get Sophia's freebie, 12 Ways to Find and Convert Your Next Client in Social Media: getcoachsocial.com/clients

Episode Transcript

Lindsay [00:00:17] 

Welcome back to the Book Your Dream Clients podcast. I have a special treat for you today. We have Sophia Parra with us! She's chatting all about how to use social media in particular, Instagram, to get more clients. You're going to love this episode! So sit back, relax and enjoy.

Lindsay [00:00:36] 

Sophia, thank you so much for being on the Book Your Dream Clients podcast. I'm super excited that you're here. I think all of our coaches are gonna love you. 

Sophia: [00:00:43] 

Oh, my gosh. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me. 

Lindsay: [00:00:47]

Yes, I would love it if you could just introduce yourself and give a little backstory and tell us about what you do.

Sophia: [00:00:54] 

Yes. So my name is Sophia Parra. I actually just moved to London. I'm an American, if you can't tell from my accent, I'm a New Yorker. I actually grew up in Asia. Funny enough. So I moved there when I was about 18 to be an actor. I fell in love with creating content. I put on shows in comedy clubs.

I obviously wasn't an actress. I was in TV shows and indie films and things like that. I fell in love with content. There was this one point in my life when I realized, huh. It's interesting. I'm having more time, more fun, creating content to advertise the projects I was doing rather than auditioning and the process of getting in those projects, which is the majority of an actress's life.

So in that process, I just kind of threw up a business idea where I could help people with their social media and the whole intention. Actually at the time my husband was diagnosed. Sorry, not my husband. It was my dad at that time was diagnosed with cancer. And I couldn't afford a plane ticket cause I was out of work as an actor to get to him.

So I threw up this business idea to make $10,000 so I could go to be with him. Cause I thought he was going to pass. He ended up passing. Years later. And I was with him at the time, but long story short in that moment, I thought these were my last moments. So I threw this business idea up. I was like, I just want to help people with social media.

I have to make $10,000 in like six weeks. I have to get to him. And I got to him. He actually pulled through that round. I spent another five years with him. Which was amazing. But in that process, a business was born and I ended up not going back. I think I did one more TV spot. I played a Russian assassin on blind spot.

Lindsay: [00:02:43] 

I don't think anyone has ever said that.

Sophia: [00:02:49] 

You remember there was like one Russian line. Oh my God, I had a gun. It was so fun. I had this gun, like there's the scene where I'm shooting someone because he killed my brother and my face is psycho. It's, honestly need to find it, put it to ...

Lindsay: [00:03:05] 

You need it. Yeah. You need to use that as your podcast photo.

Sophia: [00:03:11] 

Totally. That was my last job. It turned into a business that actually supported us through my husband's. Uh, my husband later had a stroke and he lost his short-term memory and it supported us through the few years or the couple of years that he needed to get back to healing. So there's a couple of reasons that I tell this story one, because I'm so passionate about helping people get their voice out for their businesses, because I'm just such a believer in entrepreneurship, especially right now. 

But also, you know, I tend to focus on coaches and for me, I had a coach through that entire time as the first coach I ever had, who I randomly hired before my dad got cancer, like a week before he got cancer and she stayed with me through until his death and helped me build my business and get my mental health back on track. I just believe so much in the work that coaches do. So this business was born really in an effort to support coaches and help them get their voice out as loud and as clearly as possible. So that's, that's how I got to doing what I do and why I love supporting coaches. 

Lindsay: [00:04:20] 

I love that. I think you have that deep rooted passion to help, and that's why you're successful. It's not because you have this goal of being a seven figure coach or whatever it is you really, truly want to help people- that shows. Absolutely! So tell us a little bit about what you're doing now. How do you help coaches specifically with the social media? 

Sophia: [00:04:42] 

So in October officially, I had a beta thing going for a little bit, but I hadn't been focusing on the beta as much because my dad actually got really, really, really sick. And I ended up moving in to take care of him. So my beta period went on a little longer than I was expecting it to. But in October officially till 2020, I really sweat the heck to post, which is my membership.

I kind of describe it as like a mix between a social media strategist, a social media manager and a social media coach, like all wrapped into one. One of my favorite things to do is to help people pull out their authentic voice and bring it online and just truly connect with people in an authentic way versus like a sleazy impersonal way, which is kind of the reputation of social media.

Right? So in this membership, I get weekly content prompts and templates and things like that to give them. These are not fill in the blank templates. That's why I really need to stress that because I feel like when you have a caption and it's just like, change this word out for this word everyone sounds exactly the same and there's no real connection happening. Right? 

So my mission is to prompt people with very detailed prompts and tips and tricks for helping them to figure out what the topic would be for them to elaborate on and exactly how to elaborate on that. So that people are creating content that is sticking out from the crowd and really connecting with people so that actual relationships can be built because that is the point of social media. And sometimes people forget that. 

Lindsay: [00:06:16] 

Well, there's a lot of white noise with social media. I mean, it sounds like everyone's saying the same thing and it's hard to get your voice out there because there's a lack of confidence when it comes to putting yourself out there because that’s the number one thing everyone is doing, comparing themselves to everyone else. Is it, do you agree? 

Sophia: [00:06:36] 

Totally agree with that. I also would say that I think people are getting wrapped up there. There they are deciding on what metric equals success for them. And so often it's actually not the right metric. I'll give you just an example. That's popping into my head.

Like a lot of times I hear people say, “Oh, I'm just not getting enough engagement”. And so this is not working for me. Right? And I find it so interesting because my follow-up question to them is always with the engagement that you are getting or let's just say dream case scenario, you're getting the amount of engagement you want, “now what? What's next?” And then they say, well, I mean, I'm getting engagement so then they'll turn into clients. It's not actually about, “Oh, I need more engagement”, it's what is the system you have in place to turn that engagement into whatever it is you want to turn it into.

Right? And so for me, that metric is actually the number of conversations you have with people who are following you. My goal, when I was starting out, was to help one person a day on social media. Just one I show up, I help that one person. It doesn't necessarily mean that I'm selling to them.

It's about free lead magnets. It's about asking them something they need, they give me some, they say I need X. And it's like, Oh, I have a piece of content for you. I'm not reinventing the wheel here. I'm just simply making a connection and now we have a relationship, right? So if I have a goal of just one of those conversations a day, I am now in a place where I am building a foundation of a community that can actually convert.

I call it a profitable community versus just random followers who may or may not engage with a post. And that I just realized is up to, you know, how the algorithms are working at that time because social media changes as we move along. Right? So for me, I think another big mistake people make is that, you know, they're comparing themselves to others a hundred percent and from comparing themselves to others. They're like, “Oh, Susan's getting X number of leads. I'm not getting that. So I'm failing.” And now we're looking at the wrong metric and not considering our own audience, which is different from Susan's. 

Lindsay: [00:08:53] 

Oh, and it's such a trap to walk into, to voluntarily walk into, I believe it makes us have that victim mentality. And why is this happening to me?

And I'm just going to stay safe in my little box and basically complain that things aren't working out for me and they are for everyone else. And that's, that's not why we're here. We have to elevate our mindset so we can decide like, I don't care if 20 people like to post that I work two hours on, as that means I helped 20 people like being grateful for the things that you are, the engagement that you are getting switches up, everything.

Sophia: [00:09:29] 

Oh, amen. Yes. I think that level, it's interesting actually, when I think about this, because 20 people is actually a lot of people, that's a whole classroom, you know what I mean? And it's like, People are so convinced that if it's not a hundred, let's say, I feel like that seems to be a number everyone's going for. If it's less than a hundred, it's not a lot of people. And I'm like, do you know how many people like a hundred people? I'm pretty sure my high school auditorium, if like 150, you know what I mean? That's a huge amount of people, which means 20, 30, 40, 50. That's still a lot of people. So I think people, you know, they're forgetting these are not numbers. These are heartbeats. These are sets of eyes looking at your content. 

And this is another thing people don't even realize, you know,I hope I can remember these exact numbers, but I think I there's a whole, I actually have it on a carousel somewhere on my feed, where I calculated the amount of people on Instagram and how many people are actually engaging on Instagram. And the calculation was something like we, for as much time as we spend on social media, which is a lot, we actually only physically touch a piece of content where we tell them, Hey, I like your content 9% of the time. Right? So if we're only liking content 9% of the time, another, let's just say we are speaking Joko, She's like, I get it. I understand 20 people is a lot of people, however, I want more. Right? If that was the conversation we were having, the first thing I would say to them is like, okay, there's so many things we can do, but, we also have to understand that if people are liking 9% of their content, every single day, and that means you as well, like 9% of the content that you see every day.

Would you say that your content is in the top nine, right? And 99% of the time when I ask this question, cause I do ask it quite a bit. It's a no, they're like, well, Maybe not actually. Right? And so that conversation now starts something a little bit more productive because now it's not, I'm a victim to algorithm and curation and all these things.

Now it's a question of what can we do to improve our content, give people something that they're actually looking for and become one of the people in the top 9%. 

Lindsay: [00:12:06]

I think that is fantastic advice. And we're speaking to coaches primarily right now, and I think it's important to share what's working for us personally.

So I have coaches who follow me on Instagram and they love to be educated. They love to save content and to refer back to it. So for me, one of the insights that I pay attention to is how many people are saving my work, because I know that that's important to them. What's working for you right now. 

Sophia: [00:12:34] 

For me, I'm on a real scale and a lot of people don't like it when I say that, because real, they're getting a bit of a reputation for taking a lot of time and you know the way people are engaging. I should say there aren't any insights to Instagram, really, so people are getting frustrated.

They don't want to spend time on reels and then not understand what worked and didn't work. Right? So there's a bit of a frustration around reels and there's a lot of like, I'm not resentment is not the word, but hesitation to dive into them. However, I have started using reels. And again, we're talking technical stuff.

Obviously we could also have a conversation about topics and how to come up with what you're talking about, which is kind of a separate conversation. But in terms of technical stuff that was working for me, here's the thing that I love about Instagram reels. And truly I can talk about all of the pieces of content, cause they all have different things that are good for where you are in your business.

But with real specifically, they are such a creative challenge for people that I have noticed is when people, and right now we're doing an Instagram reel challenge inside of what the heck to post I'm really into watching people experience this. And they start using Instagram reels.

There is this creative freedom that comes out, that they haven't experienced before, because there's so many different things you can do with the reel that you suddenly turn into. Like, you're speaking the same messages, but you're doing them so creatively. Now you're doing it in a way that's kind of, that's popping up the feed.

That's different for you and you become this. Like what I was just joking on Instagram live yesterday. I was like, I didn't realize I was such a weirdo. Like I had been suppressing my freak flag, and I think it's because I was getting trapped in a place of just doing the same thing again and again, and again, comparing myself to other social media people and thinking I had to be like them, but there's this side of me that I've been kind of forgetting about.

And that is that. Well, for me personally, I was an actress. I used to be a dancer and I'm kind of goofy and no one knew that about me. Right? So when I started playing with Instagram reels and all the editing features and things like that, first of all, creatively speaking, there's something about me that came alive.

And I started playing with characters and I started demonstrating all the things I've been talking about for years, but in a video format that people were having fun absorbing, I started to educate. That's a mixture between educate and entertain versus just educate. And so now the same concepts, we're reaching more people because my reels are getting way more views than any of my other content.

And that's for a few reasons. One, because I think I am entertaining. But also because when Instagram shares a brand new feature, there is some algorithm priority on that feature, right? Because Instagram and Facebook, their businesses, when they put effort into a new product, they want as many people as possible to see it.

So those new products get more push than anything else. And then if the product is also popular, right then, it gets even more pushed. And thirdly, because Instagram reels are short. They are only 30 seconds long or at a maximum. It could be less than that. And, the most important metric that I have seen from my testing is retention or watch rate, how much time people spend on a piece of content.

The whole goal of an algorithm is to keep people interested in what you're talking about. And if you are creating content, that's keeping people on the platform. You get rewarded for that per the algorithm, right? You get pushed to more people. So for me, Instagram reels kind of ticks all those boxes.

It's new, it's popular. It gives something, people are more likely to watch a hundred percent of it, rather than if you put some IGTV video that is two minutes long. Very unlikely that people will watch a hundred percent of it. So for me, my Instagram reels are getting watched. I think based off of my overall analytics on how many new followers are coming from Instagram reels. I have reason to believe that a hundred percent of the 32 second, 22 seconds, 32 second reel that I'm filming is being watched. So it's getting pushed in front of new people and new eyes are coming my way from reel. So that's one of the reasons why reels has been working really well for me. 

But another thing that has been working well as carousels. It's the one piece of content. And especially if you're doing education content, right? Or value pack content, it's the one piece of content that gets pushed in front of your audience more than once. So if someone sees a carousel and is reading, let's say, they see the title page of a carousel or something and it doesn't grab them. They're like, Oh whatever. And they keep scrolling through, they don't pay any attention. The next time that they log in to Instagram, that exact same carousel will be pushed to them again, but on a different page, because Instagram is like, well, maybe you'll like this page.

So carousels are another thing that I post a lot. I try to post. I realize because I'm in a challenge right now. However, I typically try to post probably one a week for that reason, because I know it's one piece of content that's going to be pushed in front of people more than once, which gives me more than one opportunity to get them into my world or to get them talking to me. So that's another piece of content that works. 

Thirdly, I swear by this, I feel like this is the most important thing that people forget are simply the features on social media that asks for engagement, particularly Instagram stories. I just did a poll and I asked what type of content do you tend to binge? The results were overwhelming for Instagram stories. I can't remember the exact numbers, but it was something like 87% of people said they binge Instagram stories more than any of the other pieces of content. But Instagram stories more than anything, what's going to make your Instagram stories continuously pushed to more people is if you use polls consistently, if you use quiz stickers, if you use anything that asks for engagement that actually gets engagement on it. 

You will see your viewership grow and you will see more opportunity for relationship building, which is what I see to convert to clients and other things like that. So between those three pieces of content, those are the three things I focus on the most. 

Lindsay: [00:19:28]

I love that. I always say that to my students, to play with the tools that you're given to see what feels best for you. I know a lot of my students see I'm a very introverted person, so it's almost hard for me to even watch reels because they're so in my face and I have to, I viewed everything and like it's too much for me.

So I'm trying to brainstorm. I have a lot of introverted people that are in my world. And so this strategy feels very uncomfortable for them. So do you have any advice to the introverted people?

Sophia: [00:20:00] That's amazing that you just said that. So I do, you know, First of all. I really do understand that. I think that my husband's like I'm sure you would never know it. If you met him again, if you watched one of his Peloton classes, he's so goofy, but like literally at home, he hides from social media. He was like, 

Lindsay: [00:20:19] 

Peloton, you should share that. Bradley Rose. 

Sophia: [00:20:23] Thank you.

Yeah, of course. He's the newest team Great Britain trainer. And he's, you will be surprised if you watch him in his class. Like he's a bad dancer and he's like dancing on the bike. He's, you know, he's not serious, but when you get home, he gets really uncomfortable. Like when you're like, probably you really should be creating social media content. He's like, Oh God, really? 

So if someone was an introvert, wanting to get on Instagram reels, first of all, I would want to remind them to take the pressure off. Right? Just because there aren't people doing what I do, which is kind of like skips and costumes and a little bananas about it because that's my personality. That does not mean that's what you have to do. I would actually say, start much smaller. And I think that this exercise, while it doesn't pertain to Instagram reels right away just works for Instagram reels. And that is to start in a place where you feel safer and there's less maintenance. And that would be an Instagram story. I would make them show their face on Instagram story once a day. And that could be a picture. That could be saying good morning and asking like how'd you sleep last night? 

Something I like to do and I still do this for engagement purposes. For the algorithm often I will go, I will get on Instagram story and I'll say how's your day look, one option is busy. One option is I don't know, relaxing, whatever it might be. And the reason I do that is for two reasons. It's to get engagement, which helps with the algorithm, but also, I just want to show people those little moments, right?

That kind of gets you used to getting on video and builds your comfort zone a little bit more, right? The next step after you feel comfortable with that is to take it to the next level and now share something that should take people behind the scenes of something in your day. That could literally be like, How you make your coffee, what makes me focused every day, right? Like, let's say you're a fitness coach. Like how you do this little thing and it's, it doesn't have to be complicated. It can quite literally be showing people things around your room and you know what? It doesn't have to be your face on camera.

It can just be you talking at first. The point is to take this one step at a time and work your way up to an Instagram reel. So the first one would be a poll asking a question, using a poll. The second question would be sharing people behind the scenes, how to do something, just use your voice. The third step would be now we're putting our face on camera, right? And the fourth step would be the same work, but now we're turning it into an Instagram reel. It's exactly the same work. And now we're just trimming it a little bit, right. Making things a little bit more concise because we don't have as much time on Instagram stories.

We're not judging metrics. We're not looking at that stuff right now. The metric that we are focusing on is confidence and feeling safe and feeling good. So my biggest advice as you do this is to not look at views and engagement and things like that, because I feel if we are introverts with the goal of converting on social media. I think I'm making an assumption here because I'm not an introvert, but I think that there's a lot hitting heads right there. Not feeling safe or comfortable to do that. And yet we feel like we have to, because if we're not getting X amount of views or whatever, then we don't have a business.

We're telling ourselves these stories. So now there's a lot of butting heads, right? So the fourth or fifth step, whatever I'm on is to start creating reels, just like you're doing with your Instagram stories. Show how to do things you don't have to add sound effects. You don't have to go bananas, but do not look at the metrics.

The metrics that social media provides instead, the metric is how am I feeling? Right? And if I'm feeling good, if I'm feeling confident right then great. Now I move on to the next step. And then the final step would be kind of like where I am right now. And that is okay. Get more specific about the type of content you're creating, how you are showing up, how you can make it a little more entertaining, right?

That might be a sound effect I use, I love sound effects, right. And it's really not adding anything extra for me. Now we're just dressing up a little bit. And at that point, once we're feeling confident, then you can start looking at metrics if you have to. Right. But give yourself the time and space to work your way up to that point, without putting pressure on yourself.

That would be my best advice where I can say the goal is to get you on there. Right? It's not, I want to feel, I want people to feel like nurtured and supported through that, but also I do want to gently encourage you to try it out because what I had discovered and what so many have discovered is actually that their favorite piece of content now, you know, because it's like fun and, and they challenged themselves creatively.

Lindsay: [00:25:51]

That’s great advice. And I always say you're the only metric that really matters is how you feel. So if you had fun and that's all that matters, I don't care if no one saw it, if you had fun, just do it. Always do what feels right for you. So that's great advice. Um, I think the introverts can appreciate that.

It's hard to believe, but sometimes people will join my program and they don't even have an Instagram account yet because it freaks them out. So we can't even imagine that cause we've had it for years. Just even getting a profile updated is a big step. The important thing to know is every step matters. So if you're just starting, that's great. Keep on going. 

Sophia: [00:26:34] 

Absolutely. Yeah. And, you know, I think you actually are touching on something like celebrating the steps, right? Like not judging yourself because you're not at where Sharon is over there. Right? But actually looking at the steps and the courage it took to just get to where you are right now and patting yourself on the back. I love breaking everything down into steps because then I can actually look at my progress. So for me, if my steps don't work for you, that's fine. Decide what your steps would be and just go down your own list because that's going to help you see the progress you're making. 

Lindsay: [00:27:10] 

We have our own way. It's great to have the how tos with everything, but you have to pave your own way. I think that's so important with entrepreneurship. No journey is going to be the same as anyone else's, that's not possible. So whatever is yours is perfect for you. And the only thing you need to do is just keep going in your own way. That's it. 

Sophia: [00:27:33] 

Absolutely. I agree. 

Lindsay: [00:27:35] 

Why don't you tell us about your membership? What the heck to post that is like, that's something that I would say, I love that title. 

Sophia: [00:27:44] 

Thank you. And you know why I actually named it? I'm totally going to answer your question, but I have to say, because I think this is good advice for social media too. I named it because when I was thinking about deciding. You know what I was going to, I knew I wanted a membership. I knew roughly that it was going to be about content.

Cause I love creating, people create content, but I had no idea what the name was. And so I actually set up about 15 calls with people that were following me. And I asked every time someone follows me on social media. My first question would be like, Hey, I'm so excited that you're here. I create content to help coaches just like you. And so I'd love to know what's your biggest social media frustration so that I can speak to that, you know, in the next couple of weeks. And so I was always asking these questions and again, and again, and again, people were saying, gosh, I just wish I knew what the heck to post like that at the most. And I saw that so many times in the interviews I set up and then also in my welcome messages. I'm going to call it what the heck to post. Speaks to the heart of people instead of 10. So what the heck to post. It is a monthly membership. There is an annual option as well, where you get two months free, but it is a monthly membership.

That is where every single week I share strategic content schedules that you can follow. There are Canva templates with multiple designs of the same prompts so that you can make it your own. We have detailed prompts and examples. We have strategies to help you come up with the topics you're supposed to talk about. The whole idea is, this is what you post. This is how you come up with a topic that's right for your audience. Here's an example if you need it, here are the tools. If you're feeling stuck and we try to give you everything you could possibly need. So that you know what the heck to post that day.

We also have monthly coaching. We have a strategy call and a problem solving call. So it basically turns into a group coaching call. The problem solving call does, and then the strategy calls usually where we have a new I don't know if something's changed within whatever the platform is, let me help you figure this out.

I  have to say the thing that makes it most important in my eyes is that I think people are stuck in a dilemma on social media where they think it's all about posting content and then checking in to see how the content is doing. That's kind of the cycle, right? That is not the point of social media.

The point of social media is to be social, is to create relationships and to have a system in place to convert those relationships into clients, into members of your membership, into, you know, subscribers into whatever it is, right? There has to be a way to convert. And so what I think for me, what I try to hammer home in what the heck to post is. I'm not just saying here's a content idea. Good luck. It's here's a content idea and now here's what to do with that content, right? Here's how you're going to show up to engage when that content is posted. Here's an hour long training around the nine different strategies for engagement so that we are actually getting clients with our content. Here are habits to have in place. So that you are checking in for 30 minutes a day, but putting in some engagement and work into building actual relationships so that when you do have a launch or when you do have a moment where it's a season of conversion for you, it's a season of growth. You know what to do to turn this community that you've been building through so much of time and energy, creating content, what to do to turn them into actual buyers so that you can help them on a deeper level rather than just free content. Right? So for me, I think what the heck to post, while the name sounds like I'm just helping give you content ideas. I think the most important thing is that my intention is to change how you think about social media to change how you show up and so that you are actually prioritizing the engagement more so than the content. The content is important at 1000%, but what you're doing with your content is actually where you're going to see results. 

Lindsay: [00:32:05] 

So interesting. We're definitely going to put that link in the show notes. It's whatthehecktopost.com. Sophia also has a couple of free trainings. You're going to want to go follow her on Instagram. I'm going to go follow her on Instagram so we can get more and check out what Sophia is doing. This was an amazing episode. Sophia, thank you so much for sharing everything with us. Maybe we're feeling a little bit more brave to do something out of our comfort zone and try something new to help more people. I think that's a great way to put it. Do you have anything else to share Sophia?

Sophia: [00:32:36] 

Oh, my gosh. I'm just, I'm so grateful to be here and no. Good luck and have fun. If it doesn't feel fun, there's probably something that you can refine. Don't forget to build relationships. That would be my parting words.

Lindsay: [00:32:52] 

I love that. Great advice. Thank you for being here. Thank you everyone for listening, and we'll see you on the next episode. Before you go, I want to invite you to join my free Facebook group for coaches. Simply type Dreamclientcommunity.com in your browser and request access. We'll happily let you in. We have amazing coaches in there just like you, who are starting and scaling their business. We would love to see you there.