How Growing Six-Figure Social Media Accounts Returned Profits of Over Six-Figures

Watching family Vlogs, fishing videos, business leaders, and additional content produced by Influencers in the online space created awe and sparked inspiration of becoming like the people behind their camera. All of them held a charm and captivating essence while delivering value, sharing their message. The habit of consuming media, through social platforms, led me to start my own exploration into the subject and discover what it took to step into an internet presence.

Overview of my firsthand creation of a personal brand about fishing shared with these slides:

In high school, my fishing channel which highlighted sweet fishing memories with my dad grew at a slow pace. I credit the language difference (we spoke in Portuguese), shaky filming, and lack of compassion for the stunted growth. A few years later, in university, I opened another account. One with more growth tactics, better film quality, and English audio led to greater results, numerically. Through the first year of that channel, I brought along around two-thousand subscribers to YouTube and seventy-five thousand followers to TikTok. However, one thing I quickly discovered was that pursuing social media influence with the goal of reaching the next vanity metric will not bring happiness, fulfillment, nor motivation to continue. So, I set up on the path to increase my skills- with a purpose.?

Renata is a family friend who became aware of the opportunities social media brought, as an equalizer for those who have the ambition to succeed, and reached out to me after seeing my growing numbers. After our phone conversation, discovering her goals and challenges, I noticed that this would be a great opportunity to help - with meaning - while still contributing to my skill attainment. I agreed to step into the role of her soon-to-be company’s intern and work?alongside her in reaching?goals.

During our call, I utilized the CGPTCIBA format- taught in HubSpot’s inbound sales course. This discussion format is helpful, I find, to get both sides of the conversation on the same page and check alignment before moving forward with a project.?

Our Discovery Meeting

Through our meeting, I discovered:

Challenges

Renata was in a position where she felt unfulfilled. She needed a way to gather money to support her two kids and mother, who live with her. At the same time, she faced the challenge of not sensing a connection to a community of people who enjoyed similar passions (tarot/spirituality) because of her town’s small population. Along with meeting more people- digitally, she faced the obstacle of meeting people around the world. Studying tourism in her college days, she longed for greater travel experiences.

Goals

Through my help, Renata had goals of becoming more emotionally and spiritually fulfilled. She hoped we could create a position for her that included flexible work hours to enjoy her family as well as becoming spiritually fulfilled through what she offered (a position that aligned with her values). Renata wanted to be challenged intellectually and learn new skills to keep up with the modern world, with technology. After being retired from the workforce for over twenty years, she felt unplugged from reality. (Her side hustles during the 20 years of retirement did not require technology, but focused on her artistic pursuits- instead).

Plan

Knowing the goals Renata had set, I shared and created a plan to move forward. This plan showcased the skills I had developed through previous experiences while being a manageable workload for her to process. We would use inbound marketing through social media to provide a lucrative, flexible, opportunity to internationally provide tarot card readings, services, and products.

Timeline

Time is money, right? But, importantly, time is also an indicator of mutual success. So, we established that within a year of her first video’s creation, we should have created a stream of income to support her family.?

Consequences

If Renata did not succeed, she would need to search for a job and accept that it may not be flexible to her desired hours. Potentially, she would not be able to support her children and mother. Also, she would have to return to skills and industries that did not provide fulfillment within a difficult job market. All of these consequences would ultimately result in her passions being pushed to the bottom of her priority list, unfortunate.

Implications

A future result of her success would be understanding new skills used in the modern world: social media marketing, international business, tolerance for different cultures, current communication strategies, small business skills (bootstrapping, willpower, adaptability, etc). Lastly, she would work in a state of flow, where her personal motivation would coincide with being head-of-house.

Budget

This project would have to be bootstrapped, she did not?have the funds to initially invest in outbound marketing, professional equipment, or RND. Instead, relying on her current iPhone, inbound marketing (free), and relationship-building to scale/communicate will be needed.

Authority

This project required personal approval, because she is autonomous, and she agreed to work with me without having to consult additional viewpoints.

First 3 Months

During the first three months of the project, we set out on an exploratory mission to conduct market research and invest in self-awareness. In order to become aware of the demands of the current tarot audiences, online, we reached out to one of Renata’s friends named Samara.

She has been working within the tarot industry and has built a medium-sized Youtube channel (which has grown tremendously after synthesizing with Renata). Link to Samara’s Channel: LINK

Renata and Samara discussed what strategies had worked for Samara’s channel; she passed that information onto me. Instead of hopping on the exact path that had proven successful, we knew it would be both strategic and more fulfilling to tap into Renata’s natural delivery strengths and content that made her most comfortable. To do this, we went over Renata’s friction-filled moments while producing content and brainstormed ways around these challenges.?

Friction Points/ Solutions

Gear

Renata’s gear included her limited tarot deck collection, her non-professional camera and lighting, the space she was in (noisy and not-consistent), and an outdated computer.

We outlined the gear which was ‘essential’?for her to succeed, so she purchased a tripod for the phone, upgraded her WIFI connection for faster uploads, and invested in minor tools required to communicate readings better.

No-Face

Renata felt vulnerable as it was, creating a channel about a polarizing topic relating to faith. However, she felt the most comfortable when omitting her face from the uploads.

This is all right, as long as the content she offered held value to the end-consumer. Eventually, she felt confident to share her full essence which resulted in a dramatic face reveal- let’s just say it was EPIC.

Language

Many of YouTube’s features are not translated into Portuguese, so Renata?faced that as a challenge.

Luckily, she had access to a native speaker - me - so it worked well along her growth journey. Plus, I got to sharpen my Portuguese at the same time, win-win.

Experience

Because Renata’s prior work experience did not involve incessant storytelling, technology use, or knowledge of all areas of business, she had limited experience to lean on.

Luckily, she had worked in sales, so pitching and creative relationship building were skills of hers.

Age/Family

Renata was at an age in her life where she had created a family which required much of her energy. This resulted in her disconnect from technological updates in society.

However, age and family are not always success barriers. Her willpower and determination to grow to prove that intention triumphs any stigma. #GoRenata

Content Delivery Methods

We knew that the delivery of YouTube content resonated with the tarot-viewer audience, but we were curious about uncovering the specifics. During the first three months, we tried it all.

Long-form content, short-form content, strictly audio content, vertical content, live streams, were all on the table. We had the luxury of committing a timeframe to experimentation and understand that this is not the case for all entrepreneurs, but we do acknowledge the competitive edge this provided us.

Platforms

YouTube

Link to Company's Youtube

While experimenting with YouTube, we approached it with an open mind. Producing content in three different sizes allowed us to see what worked best. The first was content pieces less than 10 minutes. These videos had high retention percentages, mostly surpassing 50% watch time, but had low shares and overall views. We believe that YouTube favors, not only the watch time percentage but also the time total. So, short videos were a nice supplement for the primary delivery format. Videos that were greater than ten minutes but less than twenty minutes were the second type of content. This produced better results, so we decided to go full-force to see if longer videos were the key to success in this genre.?They were, videos exceeding the 20-minute mark produced the best. They did require the greatest amount of effort, on Renata’s creation, but the returns were worth the effort. Soon, her videos gained rapid popularity because of the increased shares, watch-time, and favorability.

Instagram

Link to Company's Instagram

Experimenting with Instagram was a journey! At first, we conformed to the norms of what was expected. Renata created scenes emanating the video thumbnails?shown on her channel but failed to gather the attention of her audience through pictures. We tried something new, posting short videos repurposed from her TikTok page brought in the highest engagement and community building.

TikTok

Link to Company's TikTok

TikTok, in the US, was growing at unimaginable speed during the time of Renata’s channel creation. So, I suggested that she jumped on the bandwagon and she became one of Brazil’s earliest adopters of the new platform. This proved a great decision, bringing in over ten thousand followers and countless clients within the first month. The content on TikTok was tried as horizontally filmed, vertically filmed, fifteen-second videos, and minute-long videos. The most successful for Renata was the minute-long storytelling videos filmed vertically.?

Podcast

Link to Company's Podcast

Anchor, is a platform that allows users to create an original podcast for free. We created an account, posted a few episodes, but came to the?realization that tarot readings required visual interpretation. Additionally, the organic distribution of content created on Anchor was not highly rewarding for Renata’s inbound approach and stage of growth.

Livestream

We attempted live-streamed content through Zoom, which was difficult to set up and could not be repurposed.?It worked phenomenally for our email-gathering campaign (explained, below) but we chose not to move forward with this format.?

By trying it all, and being open to possibilities, we were creative in our delivery strategy. Here is the final approach of what we would stick to, for now:?

Delivery Method

We believe in Pareto’s theory, the eighty/twenty rule. (Where eighty percent of our results arise from twenty percent of our actions.) So, we focused 80% of our efforts on YouTube and used the remaining 20% as insurance- providing value on other platforms while building smaller, more loyal, audiences there.?

YouTube

Our strategy on YouTube included daily videos exceeding twenty-minutes in length. This content, on YouTube, is evergreen. This means that it has an unlimited “shelf-life” and can be viewed at any time.?

We noticed that the videos that do not stick to a time-sensitive subject (holiday, daily readings, or monthly predictions) have the greatest share numbers. But, content that is time-sensitive is incorporated into our strategy. We created two series, contributed to twice a week:?(Boa Noite com os Anjos- Good Night with the Angels, Cafe com Cartas- Coffee and Cards). Both series are unique to Renata’s channel and framed her personality, greatly. The time sensitivity created urgency for the viewer to watch as well as creating a deeper level of intimacy through greater episode watches.

(Example of CDA's content series)

After many posts to YouTube, Renata may feel comfortable appearing on camera (she did). We used the mystery behind who she truly was, more than floating hands, to create a shock/hype factor. Now, whenever she shows her face, it is a treat. This is unique to her channel, too. Most other readers show their faces as a part of the video.

For YouTube, we also?wanted to create pillar, content series. So, we divided our content into subcategories and used the playlist feature to share through this method. Separating the content into our buyer persona’s needs allowed easy-access and filtering to best provide the content they sought.

(Example of CDA's playlists)

Sequentially, the community-tab on YouTube’s platform allows for redistribution of prior content. So, we reshare content created in previous months to restart a cycle of shares from our new subscribers.

(Example of CDA's community tab)

TikTok

Due to our early adoption of the platform, Renata’s account experienced exponential growth very rapidly. The exposure led to an unpredicted increase in her Instagram followers and her YouTube subscribers.

Our strategy for TikTok included a minute-long video every day or every few days. This was enough to create a presence on the platform, but we invested the heaviest on YouTube because of the long engagement period (deeper relationship with the audience) and monetization opportunities.

TikTok’s strategy is also focused on reactive and real-time content. On there, holiday content and videos referencing cultural events proved the most successful.

Instagram

Our strategy for Instagram was, admittingly, the weakest. We understand our target audience and accept that the content Renata is naturally gifted in producing did not fit well with this platform.

Re-uploading the videos that were created for TikTok required minimal effort while encouraging new members to become aware of her brand. We did not want to leave out users who were not on YouTube or TikTok regularly, so we thought: “why not?”

Occasionally, Renata uses Instagram to share stories about her life which is successful through pictures, seen here.

CDA also displays pictures sent in from people using the products we sell, seen here.

Content Delivery Themes:

Now that we had the format of our content discovered, we wanted to crack down on an optimal theme strategy for the content we would produce. By experimenting with these different themes,?we pointed out that the tarot content should be the primary focus of?the channel. 80% of the content produced would be focused on Tarot/Oracle readings. 20% would be focused on extra projects such as the unboxings and message from the CEO.

Tarot/Oracle

Example

Tarot readings required intense storytelling to predict futures, entertain, and inspire the viewers. Renata enjoys making this type of content most, she holds a gift for storytelling- we discovered.?

Unboxings

Example

Buying new card decks and equipment is something that excites Renata. Sharing her impressions of the items positions Renata as an expert in the field. Plus, it brings novelty to the channel and its viewers.

Other tarot readers and the common viewer will come to her as a reliable source of advice when diving into the world of spirituality because they see her perpetual investment into the business.

Numerology

Example

Numerology plays a role in spirituality, Renata took a course in it. However, most of the content that can be produced in this subgenre is time-sensitive. So, it did not fit with what we discovered earlier.

Meditations/Affirmations

Meditations seemed enticing, viewers?may rewatch the videos because?they are habit-forming. However, the audience Renata had cultivated preferred the tarot content. Certainly, if she showed up with this genre consistently, she would attract an audience for it. But the benefits of tarot content outweighed the benefits of this new genre.

Message from the CEO

Example

Renata appeared in her first video after many uploads showing only her hands, which proved massively successful. Never had the comments reflected such high levels of?appreciation, amazement, and surprise as when she appeared for the first time. Additionally, the like-ratio on this first video sparked more videos of her showing her face.

Defining the Brand

Uncovering the different buyer personas within her business was the next priority. Buyer personas are generalizations of common patterns presented by the consumers of the company.?

In this case, YouTube’s analytics provided enough insight sharing location, age, gender, platform usage, and shares to create three main personas for Renata’s channel.

By knowing these personas, we catered the content specifically for these three common groups of people. When creating personas, it is important to imagine and note details about the group. The examples, below, are merely an overview of our top three personas. Take these examples to create some of your?own.

Heartbreak Heather

Example Videos

• What: Content and product created for Heartbreak Heather included themes of love, hope, and healing. They were videos that explained opposing stories of relationships, played by the cards.?
• Age: 35-45
• Gender: Female
• Location: Brazil

Spiritual Sally

Example?Videos

• What: Content and product created for Spiritual Sally included themes of spirituality and?religion. These women were faith-oriented; they believed heavily in the content and themes.
• Age: 45-54
• Gender: Female
• Location: Brazil

Financial Frank

Example Videos

• What: Content and product created for Financial Frank included themes of career and money. The content is intended to ease stress and inspire the next steps.
• Age: 45-54
• Gender: Male
• Location: Brazil

Unique Value Proposition

After knowing the brand strategy,?buyer personas, goals, and strengths of the CEO along with becoming?comfortable?with the platforms, it was time?to create the mission,?vision, and values. I wrote an article on this subject (FOUND HERE), which explains these in detail.

Brand Name

Caminhos Da Alma: Lose translation: Your Soul's Journey

Vision

Inspire fulfillment while uplifting the spiritual community to overcome mental barriers?

Mission

Lead a continually growing community of tarot enthusiasts while becoming financially free to pursue additional passions and inspire others who are destined to do the same

Values

CDA Top 5 Values

1. Motivate: We push to uplift people who believe in tarot’s truth and the message brought through intuitive readings
2. Inspire:?We strive to bring positive action into the community by leading through joy
3. Authenticity: We are transparent with our processes, additions, and services
4. Connect: We support an uplifting culture created through the community our platform brings
5. Creativity: We show up, consistently, bringing non-repetitive messages to support our vision

Financials

An aspect of being able to show up for the community is to receive value in return. This must extend past the intrinsic rewards because of?Renata’s financial commitments. So, we outlined a plan to bring financial gain through her efforts.

80% of Revenue

Traditionally, tarot readers are confined to the leads within their geographic location. Many establish physical shops to greet customers. However, with the advancement of technology, access to a tarot reader becomes global. Connecting through the internet and voice-call-platforms is what makes this possible.

Charging for one-on-one time with Renata, where she sells slots of her day, is how she will earn the majority of the starting revenue. The more the demand for her time grows, the more she charges. In her service, she offered different levels of consultations initially. (30-minute slots answering one question through a tarot reading, 1-hour slots answering two?questions, and 3 questions without a necessary time allotment.)

Through growing demands of one-on-one consultations, she cut out the smaller meetings and remains with the larger options. This way, she can focus on the people which she brings the greatest value. Her offers change, depending on the season’s popularity, and her conversational marketing through WhatsApp allows for easy communication of these plans to her clients.

Once a customer receives a consultation with Renata, she requests a written testimonial/feedback for her services. We found that through nurturing, through direct messaging, Renata’s?repeat customers grew and the lifetime value of each customer did as well. The effort of customer acquisition also decreased through increased referrals and repeat visits.

Other 20%

Along with the consultations, we planned on setting up streams of passive income. These included monetizing the YouTube videos through AdSense, setting up channel merchandising through TeeSpring, creating and distributing an original card deck, and more.?

Original Card Deck

The original card deck, “Oracalo Caminhos da Alma”, was the most difficult to set up but brought the highest long-term returns. Along with bringing in financial gain through the sale’s revenue, it brought immeasurable brand awareness. The collaborative process between Renata and me was a memorable experience.

Starting with the design, we communicated across the world- I am located in Las Vegas and she is in Brazil. She sent sketches and communicated through words what the design entailed. After receiving her vision, I coordinated with an American graphic designer who took in the vision to create a design. Back and forth communication to produce the highest quality end product was an adventure that required my translation, but it was incredibly exhilarating.

When she manufactured, in Brazil, there were errors with the printing-?factory defects. So,?there were reprinting time rushes that made us be adaptable. Renata and I calculated a profitable selling price based on other cards in the market, our production cost, shipping costs, and incorporated a scarcity factor by producing a one-time batch of two-hundred cards (allowing us to bump up the price).

We sold out, success! After selling and distributing, we found videos of other tarot YouTubers using Renata’s deck and mentioning her channel. Unknowingly, we- naturally- created a large?brand-awareness campaign through product distribution.

First Version of the Cards:

Communicating Changes:

After Manufacturing: (Notice manufacturing error on right)

Shipping:

TeeSpring

YouTube allows for a TeeSpring shop to be showcased below each video once a channel surpasses ten-thousand subscribers. This shop grants the chance of selling merchandise: clothes, mugs, bags.

One of the benefits of TeeSpring is that the creator does not worry about customer service, manufacturing, or distribution. Instead, providing a design is all which is necessary. TeeSpring cashes out a chunk of the profits, but it is fair for the amount of work they take on.

Here is what the CDA store looks like: HERE

AdSense

Through AdSense, Google’s advertising distributor, YouTube creators are given the opportunity to gain money through the YouTube Partner Program. Once reaching 1,000 subscribers and exceeding 4,000 watch hours on the channel, you may apply for the program.

Once accepted, following community guidelines, you can link an AdSense account and select the type/frequency of advertisements displayed on your videos. Videos less than ten minutes allow for one ad to be placed but longer videos give the option of more advertisements (Works amazingly with our 40-minute videos).

Each time an advertisement plays at the point where you determine one is appropriate, you receive a portion of the CPM which the advertiser has paid Google for displaying their advertisement.?

At the time of this writing,?CDA has exceeded 12,549,959 views and 136,364 subscribers- a significant source of ad revenue.

Course

In the future, CDA has plans on offering a tarot reading course. Having an ambition for growth through offering value to what the community asks for is how we continue to bring success into the company.

Through social listening, we have identified that this is a strategic next-move.

Growth Strategy

Knowledge of how inbound marketing works is what helped me create an impactful growth strategy for CDA’s business. Much of what I learned came from HubSpot’s- free- inbound,?inbound marketing, content marketing, social media, and additional courses.

Through the courses, I learned about a company’s flywheel. This takes the place of the better-known sales-funnel. Instead of having numerous leads on the top of a sales-funnel and being ‘done’ with offering service to a client once through the funnel, creating advocates and repeating customers through the flywheel model is more beneficial. Here is how CDA utilized the flywheel: awareness, consideration, decision

Attract

Generate awareness of opportunities

When consumers become conscious of a need, they want to do research. They rush, online, for this information. This is where Renata, as an influencer, comes in. She creates and shares content that will inform potential customers. This is done through her social media platforms.?

The impressions her brand receives are an opportunity to communicate. Each point of contact brings the chance to push the conversation forward. Platforms like TikTok give Renata large?brand awareness but pushing to YouTube allows for her to engage deeper.

Engage

Inform about your company

When the viewers of her long-form content become familiar with her style and contact her through the WhatsApp information provided within the videos,?she is engaging with the customers. Through these interactions, both parties are filtering through the possibility of working together to solve a problem.

If Renata sees that another tarot reader is a better fit for a client, she sends the lead in their direction. The same goes for her contacts within the tarot influencer community, they send some people in her direction.?

Delight

Give value

Once, both, Renata and the client agree to a consultation or purchase, it is time for delighting.

By offering value with excellence, and some happy surprises, Renata delights the customer- transforming them into advocates.

Advocacy

What keeps the flywheel spinning

Advocates reduce the friction in a company’s lead generation process by acting as word-of-mouth marketers. Testimonials and referrals play a large role in her success. Her reputation as a service provider is the most valuable asset, so she focuses on customer service.

Advocacy campaigns are part of the CDA strategy; one example is our “Mission-Zoom”. In this campaign, we set up an exclusive zoom meeting with the CDA community. To have a link to the meeting, we required the subscriber to send an email to the company’s address. This way, we had their data to remarket. After participating in the zoom call, CDA?sent out an email requesting testimonials?of?how the channel impacted their lives. We successfully gathered over 400 stories, emotional.

Example Testimonials:

1) Example of how CDA impacted a woman's outlook on relationships ("Heartbreak Heather"

An additional bank of testimonials gathered: (over 400)

Why it worked

Becoming an Influencer

According to Robert Cialdini's novel,?Influence, someone who has influence leverages six elements: consensus, consistency,?scarcity, reciprocity, similarity, and authority.

Because Renata was able to bring all of these in how she communicates, she became an INFLUENCER.

Here is how she expressed each of these elements.??

Consensus

Bringing in the opinions of followers

During the content creation process, she found what resonated best with the?audience and came up with a consensus on the type of content and frequency she offered it in. When building a product line,?she used social listening to?discover what deck would be most successful. She continues to use consensus by gathering feedback to discover the next steps of the?company, potentially a course on how to become a tarot reader. The community felt like they played?a role in the process, and did.

Consistency

Showing up, Daily?

Renata appears on YouTube, daily. She also posts to additional platforms multiple times per week. Not only does this create a habit for the viewers to follow, but it also shows her commitment to providing value.

Scarcity

Not Having Enough for Everyone (low supply, high demand)

CDA demonstrated scarcity when offering the card deck. When creating the first offered product,?we stuck to 200 items. This created scarcity because we knew that the demand was much higher. Next time, we can increase the production number while still offering at a scarce rate.?

Scarcity also showed when creating the “Mission-Zoom”. The platform we used allowed a capacity to the room?where Renata was meeting,?it was first-come-first-serve.?This caused a surplus in the emails we gathered and there was a list of people rotating into the room to eventually get their turn in.

Reciprocity

Giving, First

CDA gives ‘free’ readings, daily. However, these readings are themed by Renata’s choice.?If the viewer would like to determine a topic, they feel content to pay for a one-on-one consultation.

Similarity

CEO Check-ins

Once Renata appeared in her “face-reveal”, we made sure that her personal brand correlated warmly and competently. She did not wear ‘professional’?clothes and stuck to the demographics?her channel?naturally attracted. (Go back and reference Heartbreak Heather?and?Spiritual Sally, ironically- they mimic Renata’s traits)

Authority

Channel Number/Unboxings

Through unboxings, answering customer questions,?and through the social?confirmation of the channel’s numbers,?Renata has gained authority in the area of her choosing.??

Conclusion

When creating a successful online presence, remaining authentic to your vision is most important. Shaping each daily decision to push toward the overarching goal of providing the greatest amount of value to surpass a mission is needed.

Once you creatively display your values through information sharing, success will soon come. By learning and being curious, you can learn about your customers. Skills build upon each other and by keeping the laws of influence in your mind, you can create a growth strategy that will generate a profitable return.?

In the case of CDA, the teamwork between Renata and I proved successful before our one-year deadline. We created a multi-platform presence that gave her the financial stability to care for her family while opening her freedom to travel and work where she pleases. She now works in an industry she is passionate about,?learns new skills daily,?and offers value to a community she cherishes. Now, she is spiritually fulfilled and can focus on the next steps of?growth- personally and professionally.

Both Renata and I believe in an abundant universe and the sharing of information, all information shared is consensual.