Posting Success: Maximising Your Social Media Impact with Milly Bellotti

In today's episode, Athena sits down with the esteemed queen of social media, Milly Bellotti, for an in-depth discussion on effective social media strategies for property investors.

Join Athena & Milly as they explore the psychology behind social media engagement, uncovering valuable tools and insights shared by Milly to maximize your online presence and, crucially, attract your ideal customer avatar.

As a seasoned property investor herself, Athena also catches up with Milly on her latest renovation ventures, including the fascinating project, Joeys Cottage. Get ready for some exclusive insights and actionable tips!

If you're eager to enhance your social media footprint and witness a tangible return on investment, this episode is an absolute must-listen!

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Transcript

0:00

Good morning everyone. Happy Monday and welcome to the Girls in Property podcast. Woo. Oh my goodness. Monday morning. What a week it's been and what a week we have. Two weeks now just before the Girls in Property retreat. So lots and lots going on, but great, great times. So as usual, I have somebody absolutely incredible with me today, which is Millie. Hi Millie. Posting Property. Hello, how are you? I'm very good. I'll be honest with you, I just bailed out there on your surname. How do you pronounce your surname? Baloti. To be honest, I don't use my surname very often because A, people find it hard and also it's just too many things to remember. Just Millie at posting property is easier than Millie Baloti and then they're like, oh my God, how many L's, how many T's, what is this? Love it. So let me start that again. We have Millie from posting property on, on the podcast. So amazing. There we go. Um, but do you know what Millie, we've obviously had you before on the podcast back in the day, of course, when I was doing this with Sophie and Julia and Sophie and Julia actually had the privilege of doing the podcast with you because I was unavailable that day. And today I get to have the privilege of actually having you on the revised girls and property to talk about one of my absolute favourite subject, which I'm so excited about. Yeah, I figured you'd be bummed about missing the last one because it's so your topic, isn't it? Social media marketing is your thing. So yeah, this was definitely due. I was literally so bummed. I'm like, are you joking? I have to sit through all the other property stuff and I can't talk about marketing. So yeah, and listeners will know I've been saying on the podcast for so long, I really want to get somebody on to talk to me about social media and marketing. And what I really wanted to do was I feel like sometimes I can say lots of things about it, but then there's only so many times that somebody can hear an opinion from one person. And what I would love is to almost have a conversation with about things as well and quite frankly to learn as well like you know there's always opportunity to learn in so many ways and I'm gonna sit here like a sponge and also learn from you as well so very exciting. So for this podcast what we usually do as you know because you've been on before is we usually start with something we are celebrating at the moment before we delve deep into who is Millie so what are you celebrating please at the moment? I am celebrating the fact that Joey's Cottage, which is my latest project, which is a service accommodation, is nearing completion. It is so close, I can taste it. It's almost there. And soon I'm gonna be setting it all up, getting all the furniture in there. Never had to do that before because I've got a portfolio of VR RRs. So this is my first venture into SA. So there's loads more things you have to think about that I've never had to do before, like cutlery and things like that. So I'm very excited to get started with that. Amazing. I love that. So this is your first service accommodation actual project that you're doing ever. Okay, how exciting. So you learning at the moment all about channel managers, linen, or management companies, how's it all going for you? I'm definitely going to be using a management company. I do not want calls from guests saying they don't know how to turn on the TV. I do not want to be listing it on Airbnb myself. I'm a very hands-off property investor and that is not the part I love doing. So I'm definitely going to be handing that stuff over. But I do have to do the whole setup of the property obviously still. Fair enough. Do you know what, sometimes that's the fun bit though. You get to see it and it's beauty and be like, ah, this, you know, cause I always think if you're gonna set up a property as an Airbnb or service accommodation, you set it up in the way that you would want to stay, wouldn't you? You look at it and go, oh, do you know what, I would love to stay here. Yeah, I've done like colour drenching with the walls, which is something I've been obsessed about over Instagram for ages looking at reels about, you know, I don't know if you've heard the concept before of colour drenching, it's when you take the colour but you go onto the ceiling and onto all the skirts and the arts as well, so that it's like a really sort of immersive colour in the room rather than just, you know, normally typically you just do the walls, you wouldn't do the ceiling and the... and the woodwork all in the same colour. So because of that, I've actually been inspired to do it in my home as well. So I've done some sort of courageous things in this one because it's a service accommodation, which I'm now translating into my own home. I love that because you've just moved recently as well, haven't you? Yeah, I actually have decorators upstairs right now, sorting out my house. And that's another thing I've learned from property is the value of outsourcing jobs that you are not that great at. Like I can paint, obviously everyone can decorate, but they can do it so much better than me. Also you get to come on a podcast with me so you know you could be painting or you could be podcasting I love that and just remind me when is that due to be completed then when is it ready? Well, the builder thinks he's gonna be finished mid-April, as we all know. That might not happen. But I'm hoping that by the end of April, it will all be finished and set up. Okay, in time for summer then. Wow, okay, fingers crossed for you. I can't wait to see the progress of it. I can't wait to see when it's all finished. You know, I always see it on, of course, social media and just think the transformation you're already doing is so fantastic. So I love that, really, really great. And then for me, something that I am celebrating, I'm actually going to break... break a rule, which is I usually only celebrate one thing, but because it's my podcast I'm going to allow myself to break a rule and I'm actually going to celebrate two things because one I really had planned, another one has only happened really recently, so I was like, do you know what? It's my podcast, I'm just going to do two celebrations. Yeah, go crazy, absolutely. Let's be wild. So the first celebration is this idea where I just got back from holiday, I've been in Croatia for a week, and I don't know if this is the It gives you time to really reflect and it gives you time to almost think when you're not Doing mundane day-to-day tasks and almost being in it and coming out of it And one of the realizations I've actually had is that I'm growing. I'm literally growing as a person and I'm growing in my businesses. And what has taken a very, very long time to do, I think I've now made, well, I have made the decision to actually do it, which is to start building a team within my businesses. And that's massive for me. I've been, I've been doing everything on my own for the longest time, like literally everything my to-do lists are insane. People send me these, these direct messages all these time with these people who've got like to-do lists coming out of their heads they're like oh I saw this and thought of you and I thought well that's not a good thing is it? And people have been saying to me for the longest time they're like you need to build a team you need to outsource you need to get some help and I'm naturally quite almost like a control freak and I think I can do it and I can hold on to it and when you're growing a business you've got to be really careful because also you think to yourself I don't want to spend money because I'm growing a business but Then you get to a point where you look at yourself and you go, do you know what you actually have got enough? Like you, you should now start to grow. And I think it took me going away from the business to realize my business is now cannot actually grow with just me. I think, I think I'm at the point now where I can't go any further. without employing a team. And that's a massive thing for me and in my development to realize it's time to grow. It's time to go to the next step. And we just said before coming on the podcast, I said, I'm starting a YouTube channel for girls and property, which is really exciting. I'm getting on TikTok. There's some more events that are gonna be happening. I can't do all of this on my own and do property management and run everything that I do and just be a person in the world. I just can't do it too much. So the first thing I'm celebrating growth and development and actually bringing in a team, which is going to be very exciting. So watch this space, we shall see what happens. And then the second thing I'm gonna celebrate and this literally happened this morning, just before I was heading out and gonna be doing the podcast, is I've been trying to sort everything for the retreat over the two weeks completely on my own. So I need to get like goody bags and cocktail toppers and banners and all sorts of things. It's wild, like it's mad at the moment. But whilst all of this is happening, I'm still doing my day to day property management, service, accommodation business. Everything is happening around that. So as I'm Googling cocktail toppers, I get this booking from Airbnb for like 64 nights and I'm like, oh, this looks fun. Let's pause cocktail toppers and let's look at this a second. And after many conversations around floor plans and square footage and lots and lots of questions around this client, the guests coming to stay, we eventually agreed to the 64 night booking which came in literally late last night slash this morning. So I'm celebrating also that in the way that, you know, had happened to me like a year ago and I saw this booking come in for 64 nights I would be like oh my god what do I do I'm not sure and how do I do it and now I'm just like yeah you just do this and this is how you do it and then it's quite nice and then you don't have to worry about it again and you almost become quite measured in thinking about it so I'm celebrating a 64 night booking as well for the service combination so it's really cool which hopefully you will you will get is your first one which would be great That would be a great first booking, wouldn't it? So, Millie, enough about me, this is all about you. So, I'm going to also give you, because I can, the title of Queen of Social Media. I give that title to you. Thank you. I will take it. I'll take the crown. So please could you explain a bit about you, who is Millie, what do you do within kind of helping your clients through social media and property and also I know that you invest in property yourself so what you do alongside and just a bit about you really. Yeah, so I started, so in 2019, I was the head of social media for an advertising agency in London. I was working on big brands. I've done the launch of the biggest cruise ship in the world. I got them trending on Twitter. I have worked for Walkers Christ, did all of their social media strategy and campaigns. I've done, sort of worked on big name brands. That was my job. And then I went to this property talk in 2019 with my late partner and we... fell in love with the whole idea, the whole concept. And so I very quickly quit my job, which most of my friends thought I was absolutely crazy to do and moved up to the Northeast, which is where he was from, and started a property portfolio. He stayed in the Navy, so we did have an income, it wasn't crazy. And I just started growing that portfolio. But I did sort of then join Instagram because it's quite lonely doing property on your own. He was away a lot with the Navy, so I just... wanted to be a part of a network of community. So I joined Instagram as a property investor this time and I saw a lot of people there, saw a lot of opportunities and a lot of missed opportunities as well in terms of how people are using Instagram or social media. And I thought, actually, there's a lot I know that I can apply from my previous job to help property investors grow on social media and grow their business, get angel investment, grow their credibility in their network, all of those things. So that is why I then started giving out sort of free tips on how to use social media for people, property investors who didn't necessarily know how to use it properly. And then it sort of grew from there and it's developed into sort of a paid program, which is now what I do where I teach property investors how to use social media over a week period, sort of covering strategy, which is my forte from the advertising agency days, and then also going into like sort of how do you do it? How do you create a real, et cetera. But for me, strategy is always key. And so that is what I started doing. And I do that alongside doing property investments. So running my portfolio, growing the portfolio. Love it. Perfect. Wonderful. And so with this sort of program that you have, how many clients do you have at the moment? Or can you have at any one time, for example? But because I want to still go out viewing, I still want to be able to manage the portfolio and do everything like that. I actually really restrict it. I never work with more than four people at one time. And because it's an eight week long period, that's actually, I guess you could say, two people in one month. So it's really very few people that I work with. So I'm quite selective with who I work with as well, because I want to make sure I'm working with great people. And I have worked with insanely lovely, lovely property investors. To be honest, I haven't met a property investor. who's horrible yet. I think we are an amazing bunch. And I absolutely, it brings me so much joy to go on these calls and to help them and to see the growth and what happens to them, how their career takes off from having grown their personal brand on social media. That brings me absolute huge amounts of joy. I love that. It's like you're, yeah, you get wins from their wins, which I really love seeing. And talk to me about a typical person, therefore, that would come to you to ask for your services. Are they traditionally starting out or could it be that actually they have quite a few followers and actually you need to help them grow? What's a typical person that would come? I think there is a variety though. So the only thing that's my stipulation is they have to be a property investor, that's it. But apart from that, they could be someone who's never been on social media before, literally never posted in their life. Or it could be someone who has 7,000 followers, one of my clients had 7,000 followers already, was posting daily, was already active, was known in the community, and yet you would assume, okay, why did she come on the program? What did she need? Actually, what was happening was she wasn't converting her audience. So she was putting out the wrong message for what she actually wanted to do. And so she wasn't actually converting anyone. She was like, what am I doing wrong? I'm posting all the time. I have all these followers, but yeah, I'm not achieving anything that I want to achieve. So we were actually working it backwards and sort of breaking it down and be like, okay, this is a message actually you wanna be putting out if this is the thing you want to achieve. So I have worked with people who do understand social media already. They're just maybe not getting the results or it's someone who. literally doesn't, I have a lot of people who come on the discovery course saying, I don't know anything about social media. That's not true. Most of the time, everyone does know a bit about social media. So yeah, there is a variety. The only thing is that you have to be property investors, have a property business, because I do still get sometimes brands and companies ask for my help, but I'm not interested in that anymore. I just want to help property investors because that is now my niche and I want to help other people who are in that niche. I love that and I love how sure of yourself you are in that you're not going to deviate. You're like, no, this is what I do. This is what I'm good at and I'm not going to be turned by something else, which is fantastic. I was just trying to think to myself there. Obviously I'm quite active on social media and I see a lot of other people who are quite active on social media, but you're right. It's all about this level of why, what's the reason you're posting? And I ask this people this question all the time and I don't know what your thoughts are about this in regards to what's the reason for the post and is there action. So with this client that you had, who had the 7,000 followers, I presume that she was posting great content and doing everything but there wasn't necessarily a call to action or the call to action wasn't quite done in the correct way, is that what you're saying? Yeah, so with her audience, it was actually, she was just talking to the wrong people. She was giving tips on, say for example, she was doing, because that's what everyone does on social media, you see other people do the thing and you're like, oh, that's what I should do. That's not necessarily right. So she was giving tips on how to view properties, how to spot damp, they were all really useful things, but it was entirely pointless for her audience because her audience was actually people who didn't have time to go do viewings, didn't have time to do any of that. They wanted to be completely hands-off investors. They wanted... to basically have a sourcer do all of that work for them because they were not in nine till fives, they were in seven till sevens. So they did not have the time to be going off and doing those things. So whilst it did show that she knew how to do those things, which is important, it wasn't quite the right message. She needed to be showing, I can go and do these things for you. I know what I'm talking about when it comes to doing these things. I can find you these deals whilst you get to focus on the job that you're doing because that's what you want to do. You just want property. as a sort of insurance. There are some people who, you know, some people want to do property like you who want to do it full time. There are others who are doing it because they're doing it for long-term wealth. They're doing it for their children. They're doing it for a pension. They're not necessarily looking to quit their job. And that was her audience, but she was talking to people as if it was the audience of people who wanted to quit their job tomorrow to do property full time. So that's where the disconnect was. That's so interesting. I find all of this like so fascinating because you're right, you could be posting because you're right with what you say. You see what other people do on social media and so you naturally think to yourself, oh, I should be doing that because that's what they're doing. But actually you could be targeting to completely different audiences for what it is that you need. Is it investors you're looking for? Is it that you're trying to find new projects? Are you just trying to start out and get some followers? And it's really interesting what you just said about, it's great that she was posting about these things that she was aware of, was posting the wrong things to attract and therefore see a return on investment through her course, whatever it is that she was trying to sell as it were. We even created, I always do like an avatar for everyone, like their target audience. We work on the avatar of who are they. And we, you know, we wrote down who they were, how much they earned even, where in the UK they were, all of those things. And she said, by week, I think it was week, I mean week six of the program, she said, really, there are people sending me DMs who are the exact target audience that we worked on. I'm like, yeah, but... Obviously, that's why we work on it. She was like, but literally to the team. It's that age and that amount of money in the bank and X, Y, and Z, it's because the message was so clear. She was so clearly speaking to them that they felt seen in that content and said, oh yeah, you're speaking to me. You're the person I need to be working with. That's why I give you the Queens, the Queens crown of social media. But that that's it. And you know, you just made a fantastic point there actually, which is social media, I believe should be used as a tool in your toolkit. It shouldn't be used for just consuming and sitting there and scrolling. It should be used as a producer. Like you, you should be using it the right way. And you just made an excellent point actually, which is reverting it back to marketing and marketing basics, which is actually deciding who your avatar is. To me. that might seem like a really, like we could sit there and I could think that's such a basic thing to think, to think who is your avatar. But to other people who maybe don't have the background in marketing and don't have that, just don't think in that way, they might not have even thought to themselves, do you know what, when I post on social media, who is it that I'm posting to? Who is it I'm trying to attract? And I think it'd be really good for the viewers to actually sit there and ask themselves that question. And then from there, then base it on, okay, this is my avatar and this is how I'm trying to attract. This is what I should be posting instead. So I think actually that's really interesting. And, um, I have so many questions I want to ask you. This whole idea around, for example, people believing that they need to post every single day, for example. And you see, you see some of these people who just are constantly posting every single day. I mean, what are your thoughts in regards to, you know, the level of that and things and how often people should be posting and the algorithm attached to it? Do you have any thoughts about that? I mean, I think it's a really good question. I do, I think it really depends on the stage you're at in your business. If you are in growth mode, say you've only got a couple of hundred followers and you're really looking to grow and you need people to see what you're doing, then yeah, in that instance I would probably say posting good quality content. Like there's no point posting every single day and it's boring things because you're never going to grow from that. But if it's good quality, if it's targeting a specific audience, if it's really useful, valuable content. and you're posting it every day, you will get seen more. So if you are at that low follower level and you are really on the growth trajectory that you need to get out there, then yeah, maybe posting every day would be the way to grow those followers quickly and get there. However, most people can't do that well. Most people don't have a lot of time to spend on social media because they're growing their property business as they should, and I don't want them to be spending hours and hours on social media. So actually in that instance, less is more. So do fewer, maybe do two or three a week, but make them really good. Make people know that when you're posting, it's gonna be something of value that they wanna see again and again. Because the second you get known for someone who's just posting for the sake of it, people aren't gonna be engaged. Instagram's not gonna show your post as much, so you could be posting every day and no one's seeing it. You want Instagram to know, I'm gonna be posting things of value, and when I put them out there, people are gonna be interested. They're gonna be. commenting, they're going to be engaging and they're going to be maybe watching the entire video rather than the first second. So you need to let Instagram know this is what I'm putting out there, I'm going to be consistent with it and it's going to be really good and then Instagram will show it to more people. That's how the algorithm works because at the end of the day people complain about their reach going down or whatever happening. It's in their interest to keep people on Instagram for longer. So they want your content to do well so that they're not you know they're not working against you. If it's not doing well there's a reason for that. Do you know it's so interesting talking to somebody else about this because for me I was in a growth stage of my of my business journey so I tried to post as frequently as I could but you're literally speaking my language now which is I just don't have time I literally don't have time to sit and make reels and post and to do things I'm out viewing I'm building an event I'm trying to onboard people like there's just so much going on and you're like oh I haven't posted so stories are really easy to do for example I post the story every day because it takes me about maximum of about 10 seconds but to actually physically create a reel or to create a post it's a bit more time consuming so what do you have any advice for people in regards to like what maybe when people are thinking about creating reels what really packs a punch within the property sector what are some really good quick tips you could give to be really eye-catching for a reel It's tricky. I think with that, it goes back to the personal branding route. The thing that people find the most interesting is other people and like actually seeing what that person's about and their values and, you know, maybe something funny about them, something distinctive and different. So if you're posting the same thing that everyone else is posting, it might be a video of a property. Maybe you're pointing at numbers. I know that's very popular. It's not necessarily going to do very well for you because you're just gonna blend in with everyone else. Whereas if you're showing your true self, if there's something maybe different about you, or you've got a unique selling point that the next person doesn't have, use that because that will be interesting. And then you'll be known for that person who always does this, or always says this, or always looks like this, and you will then stand out on the feed. So you wanna just basically have that consistency of like when someone sees your content, they think, oh, that's that person there, I love them. I love that. And do you know what? We have to address it as well. Dear old Bruce, your little dog Bruce, who is the cutest dog in the whole wide world. I'm obsessed with dogs, so I always talk about dogs. Whenever I see Bruce, I'm like, I don't even need to look at who's posted it on a story. I'm like, oh, that's Millie's post. That's Millie's story. my personal brand for sure. But it happened really naturally. Like in my old office, in my old house, there was a bed right behind me and he would sit on the bed and be like on my shoulder as I was doing calls and things. So he just became sort of, I was taking pictures or doing a video about how to do X and he was just sat on my shoulder and it just became part of my thing. And I was like, actually, he's pretty much my personal brand and he is also my business partner. He's with me in everything. I love it. He's seen the whole journey, hasn't he? Yeah, he's been to property networking events, he's been to retreats, he's been to everything. I absolutely love it. I absolutely love it. And like I said, like you use that as you say, and do you know what I'm really noticing at the moment is I'm noticing a lot of people who are starting out in property who don't necessarily have that many followers. Some of their content is so funny, like, oh, do you know what? I'm gonna find it on Instagram actually because I wanna do a shout out to them because I think their content is hilarious and I think they're doing so well. Here we go, I already found them. Honest property sisters. Honest Property Sisters, I think are absolutely hilarious on Instagram and they actually make me laugh out loud and I just think, do you know what, like they just bring a smile to my face and I think, go on girls, like, it's two sisters in Property Investing so I'm doing a shout out to you girls I think you're absolutely fabulous and keep making me laugh because why take life so seriously? So, there you go, you know, they got noticed They have tapped into the thing that makes them different. They can use humour. Maybe the next person can't, maybe you're more analytical, budgets-focused person. Use that instead. Like whatever it is that you have that's different, that you can make someone stop and laugh or think or whatever it might be. Like cause a reaction in someone and then they'll remember you. I love that. So let's now think about this other aspect, which is I sometimes get, and I don't know if you've ever experienced this, but I will get this, because I also mentor people as well. And I'll try and encourage them to get onto social media. And not always, but sometimes they'll say to me things such as, I don't have time for that. I'm not interested in doing that. I don't believe in it. I don't think it's worth it. I can't see the return on investment in doing it. I get all sorts of things that are brought my way, but people basically say that they don't think it's worth doing it for their business. Do you get that as well? I do get people say, I don't know how to. That's the main thing is I don't know how to. I don't get, often people say, I don't see the point in it because I think most people now understand the value of what social media can do. And I guess if someone's booking in a call with me, they can see the value of social media. But there is, you know, when I go and I do, I often do talks about social media to property investors. And there are some people who I can see or expect to get. So I then talk about, okay, well, what can social media actually do for you? Not that I'm trying to convince everyone to go on social media. If you're doing amazingly well in your business without social media, by all means, do not use it. Like if you have all of the angel investment you possibly need, all of the networking that you want, all of the power team, you don't need social media for anything, great, that's pretty brilliant. But most people, that's not the case. You know, maybe they are looking for angel investment. Maybe they are looking to grow their network. Maybe they're looking for opportunities to speak at events. And so one of my clients, Charlotte from Accidental Female Developer, she spoke at a parliamentary group about for women in development. Like that was born out of her presence on social media. It's got her to do amazing things, but she's spoken all over the country. She's part of that parliamentary group. She's grown several businesses off the back of the, you know, the brand she's built for herself. So there are so many amazing things that can come out of social media. So I think it tends to be quite old school people who don't see the benefit in it. I think mostly at the moment it's more, you know, I don't know how to use it. I'm really struggling. I get that it's important, but I don't get how to use it. Yeah, absolutely. And it's really tricky because of course, we never want to stereotype ever and everyone is very different in their own ways, as it were. But do you feel that there might be a potential generational difference or even a difference between men and women kind of within the social media aspect in terms of how they want to use it? Like for example, sometimes I can be at these property networking nights and they'll say to me, oh, I see you on social media and I say to like oh no I'd never I'd never do anything like that and I'm like why and they're like oh it's just not for me and usually they tend to be a certain male and you know female but usually male and of a certain age and you know and I'm thinking to myself is there is there a very clear divide in that or is it more just personality I think it's definitely personality, because I have worked with a lot of men, actually. A lot of people think I only work with women. They're like, I've had a few DLs from men be like, do you work with men? I'm like, yeah, of course. It just happened. Yeah. from men going do you also mentor men? I'm like yes absolutely And so I think it's really more of a personality thing. Also, I don't know if you know, the indie landlord, Suzanne on Instagram. And so she is obviously older and a woman and on Instagram. And so she is, you know, amazing, really active, really engaged with the idea of using social media and growing her business. So I don't think there's an age thing necessarily. I think it's more of a mindset thing. like getting over your own mindset, getting over your own blockers. you know what I really like that and I like the fact that you've corrected me in this as well because I think it's so important this is why I love this podcast it's to have these conversations to have real conversations about this as if we were just sitting down having a cup of tea and being like what do you think about this so I suppose what I would what I really want to try and help people do is overcome that mindset because social media has done wonders for me like literally transformed my business and I just really want to encourage other people to say you can do that too And sometimes I think you're right, it's about knowledge even to that level, isn't it? And potentially if you wanted help to learn how to grow and to create your avatar and everything, then of course they could partner with you and come and work with you and learn as it were. But... It's an amazing tool. One of the things that I always find, and I've said this before on social media, is I don't really have a problem when people say to me things such as, oh no, it's not for me, I'm not gonna get on social media. But then they say things to me such as, oh, but I now need to find investors. I now need to start expanding. And I'm like. But then that doesn't make sense to me because you're gonna limit yourself, aren't you, geographically, just to your area, whereas I don't know if this has happened for you, but for me, I now speak to people from all over the UK, some international, but mainly all over the UK. And if social media wasn't there, I would never have met these people. So I think it's an amazing tool. There's also the idea, you know, if they're looking for angel investment, I don't even think necessarily you'd be on social media to find new people. Sometimes you can use social media to reach the people you already know. So a lot of angel, a lot of, um, investors I work with who want angel investors, I always say who's your lowest hanging fruit. who is the person who is the most likely to invest. It's not gonna be a stranger who has just started following you on social media. The most likely person is someone, an acquaintance, a family member, a friend, who is actually following you on social media, seeing what you're up to. They're watching all your progress updates. They're looking at you, you know, navigate the hurdles and the ups and downs of property, maybe with a bit of humor and... they're loving what they see and they think, you know what, I do have money in the bank that's sad they're doing nothing and I can see that you know what you're doing and that you are willing to put in all of the work and I can do this for absolutely nothing. I can get 8% return or whatever it is for doing no work while you take on all the slog and everything for me. So those are actually the main people you're likely to reach when you're looking for angel investment. Of course you can get strangers invest in your business. I have had complete strangers invest in my business. You follow me from social media. that is definitely the case, that can happen. However, the lowest hanging fruit, people you already know. So actually, getting on social media is actually also to talk to them, because they need to see proof in the pudding. You could tell them every time you're at a dinner party that you do your property, but they can't see it. Whereas if on social media, you're posting it, you're actually showing it, they're actually seeing it before their eyes, and that is really, really powerful. I think that's amazing. And funny enough, I was speaking to somebody the other day about this. And I agree with you all the way with what you said in regards to lowest hanging fruit and finding the investors closest to you and speaking to them. Absolutely. And it ties in with what I said, what somebody said to me the other day, which is they admitted to me the fact, and I've used this word before, and I don't know what you think about this word that I've used before for social media is you get people who actively engage in social media, they're actively commenting, they're actively liking, they're actively. aging and then you have people who I referred to as lurkers people who lurk and they Yeah, so lurk so I'm like there they are lurking anyway So this person, because I said this on the podcast before, this person blessed and DM'd me the other day and she goes to me Athena I admit this to you. I'm a lurker Yeah. And she's like, I'm just gonna sit there and I just lurk at people. And I'm like, okay. And I'm thinking to myself from an investment point of view, I'm like, well, that person might lurk and be watching you and watching you never engaged with you before, but then wants to then initiate a conversation as well. So never always never think that just because you're not getting likes or you're not getting comments or you're not getting the engagement that you think it doesn't mean that people aren't watching you. I think people are definitely watching you. specifically angels I find, they are the biggest lurker audience that's ever existed. They are the biggest lurkers because they pretend like they're not interested in that they don't actively support you. Of your audience, it's much more likely that another property investor is going to congratulate you on your latest project or say, well done on that, or I agree with you on this. So they're going to be the ones who maybe engage the most, but actually the ones who are going to give you the money, it's unlikely to be another property investor because they're off active buying properties themselves. it's gonna be those lurkers who are watching and watching but aren't saying anything until the point at which you've put your latest post and that was just the catalyst. I actually got a message today from one of my clients saying, it's finally happened, one of these lurkers has finally tipped over and it was from a video of my children being involved in the project. That was what tipped them over the edge and I thought that was lovely. Do you know what? Absolutely. And I said this, this was not recent. I said this about, I don't know, six months ago to one of my mentees, actually, because he was, he was trying to do social media. And I was trying to help him the best way I could teach him the things put out on social media. And he was doing his best and ever and personalities and things. But then I said to him, you need to start getting your personality involved in this. It can't just all be about facts and it can't all be about just property, property. You've got to get you out there. You really do. And I said, family why don't you start talking about who you are and things and he says oh but people aren't interested in that and I'm like of course they're interested in that because then you're relatable and so he started to put his daughter in it he started to put his family out there and instantly he started to get more engagement a bit more attraction as it were and I know I know not everybody is comfortable doing that because they have family circumstances and things but I just think as you say personality people buy from people that they like, don't they? It doesn't have to be your children, it could be you, it could be your dog, it could be a number of things. You don't have to use your family if you don't want to use your family. But absolutely that is the thing that makes the difference, is showing your real self. Because if you think about it, there's an interesting exercise I do on my program where I get someone to go into their insights on Instagram, which is really helpful. There's a little insights section you can look at. You can sort your posts from the most engaged to the least engaged. from the most saved to the least saved. There's a really interesting metric as well that everyone should check out. It's profile visits. I find that to be a fascinating metric. It's called profile visits. So you can look at your content. You can look at, you know, say the posts that you've done in the last three months and you can sort it by the amount of profile visits that you've had per your posts. So for example, what that means is that someone has been scrolling on Instagram, your post has come up. it's been so intriguing, something about that post has really got them thinking or wanting to know more about you, so they've then clicked and gone to your profile to check you out a bit more. Now from there they might have then gone on to binge all of your highlights to learn more about you, they might have gone on your website and booked a call, they might have done any number of things that are like really high value actions, right? So I find that a really important metric, so it's such an interesting one and weirdly Instagram... automatically will rank it by reach. It'll say highest reach to lowest reach. Reach is such an unimportant metric really, because I don't care how many people saw this. I wanna know how many people did something about it after having seen it. That to me is way more interesting. Like how many people saved it because it was so interesting that they wanted to come back to it another time. How many people then landed on my profile and booked in a call with me? Like those are actual valuable metrics, not fluffy metrics like likes or reach. You know, it's actual action off the back of it. I don't remember why I got into this, but, um, oh yes, that's great. Because, yeah, but I did it with my client yesterday and, um, the lowest engagement, so not reach, just engagement was, um, pictures of floor plans and his most engaged, most profile visits was a picture of him outside of one of his properties. I was like, well, obviously is this now making sense to you about using yourself more? Cause he was really camera shy. Doesn't the beat, doesn't want to show himself much. And when he saw the numbers stuck there, he was like, okay, fine, I'll do more posts with myself. I see it now. that's all they need they actually need to see the metrics some people don't they so that's called profile i've never heard of it before profile visits and that's actually on instagram itself is it Yeah, it's just in the insight section. When you go in the insights, you can have a look at, I mean, I know, I don't, this is something I say to my clients as well. I'm like, don't get obsessed with looking at the, how each post has done. Cause to me it's like, sometimes it's a fluke. Like sometimes you'll put something out and maybe it was a bad day. Maybe it was their bank holiday and everyone was out and they weren't on their phone. So that's why it flopped, you know? Don't look at each individual post and think, oh, why did I do so badly on this one? But, you know, and just overthink everything. Don't do that. However, as a- quarterly task, I quite like going into insights with my clients and say, okay, let's look at the general trends, like what's generally working, what's generally not working so well, and let's use that data to improve, but let's not get obsessed on a post by post basis on what's working or what's not because You've told a person such as me what to start looking at and told me not to obsess over it and I have a very obsessive Personality, so now I'm just gonna be like, okay, let's look at this. But no I'll take your advice But you know what that was there you go That was a gem of what you can experience by working with you just that bit of information Was fantastic and I didn't know about that. I didn't even know that you could do that two minutes in eight hours. Yeah, yeah, amazing. Well, there you go. There you go. Fantastic. And then the other question I was going to ask you, which actually you sort of touched on there was this whole dear about actually vanity metrics, the actual call to action, real hardcore return on investment metrics. And I always talk about this as well. It's so interesting. I always see so many people and they all concentrate on how many followers has that person got? You know, how many followers? And it's like, well, actually it's kind of irrelevant and how many likes that person has. I'm like, that's also kind of irrelevant. You wanna be seeing actually how many people are engaging in the post itself, how many people are commenting, how many people are saving it, like you said. So what do you find when people say, likes, sorry 20,000 followers and this person's got 30,000 followers but then you look at them and you're like well actually look this is actually not a very healthy page because they only have 30 likes or something. What's your thoughts about that? people ask me that, I literally go, okay, let's go check them out. And then I show them how many posts they've put out, how many followers they have, and what their average engagement rate is. And I say, this person has 100% bought followers, 100%. So a lot of people, a lot of property investors, unfortunately, are doing this, where they buy followers, because they think it makes them look good. Most people now understand that follow, and I hope that follower number means absolutely nothing, because people buy followers all the time, and it's a totally embarrassing thing. of a metric and they're only shooting themselves in the foot because yes there might be some people being like oh yeah they've got 10,000 followers that must be in there a big deal but is does that mean anything them thinking oh that's that person's big deal because they've got 10,000 followers actually no because what's gonna convert them into wanting to work with them is seeing the results of what they're doing is seeing all the other things would I like to work with this person who are they let's look at previous deals and none of that is gonna come just from the number of followers So a lot of the time, if you're looking at inflated, if you see someone who's only posted, say, 20 times, and they've got 10,000 followers, and their average number of likes is like five per post, massive red flag. They are 100% have fake followers in there. I just don't understand it if I'm completely honest with you. I'm just trying to picture someone who goes from having 1,000 followers overnight to say 10,000 or even 5,000. I'm like, do you think that people don't see that? Like I just don't and also like I almost just for me. I just don't understand it I think why like I think it's a vanity thing. Don't they think oh it will make me feel It would make me feel good by having these followers as it were whereas, you know I see people who are doing absolutely incredible, incredible things and putting on amazing things. Do you know what, even quite frankly, like Girls and Property podcast, right? If we just talk about Girls and Property Instagram group, I've got what, 1700 followers? Like that's 17, less than 2000 on the Girls and Property one because literally that is just organic growth. I don't go out and try and get followers or find followers. It's purely organic. Whether I decide to change that, we'll see. But then from there, retreat for over 80 women in property with only 1700 followers and I'm like it just shows you it doesn't matter it really doesn't it's just pure it's pure vanity and I myself can also get obsessed and I'll admit this firsthand overthinking oh that post only got 20 likes and oh that post got 60 likes and it's it does kind of like can affect you almost within your heart and I think that It doesn't, it shouldn't really do that, but I suppose just use it from what you're saying as advice is use that as a tool to look at insights, to see, well, why maybe did that post hit better than the other one and therefore learn from it for the next one? Yeah. trends rather than post by post because maybe it's a format that you're using that's not working. Maybe there's like an intro, maybe there's like a 10 second intro and people are dropping out at that point because people's attention spans are like goldfish so you need to get to the point quicker, maybe that's the thing. But you won't know that unless you're looking at it over time and you're looking at several posts rather than just one because there could be any number of reasons why that particular one didn't do well. that are nothing to do with the actual post itself and maybe more to do with the day you posted it or the time you posted it, or that specific day being a sunny day, so everyone was out. Like literally, there are so many reasons it could be nothing to do with your content, which is why it's better to do an overview analysis rather than just about single posts. That's fantastic advice. That is, I'm, do you know, I'm really gonna take that away with me from this podcast, is to look at things as like an overall barometer, as opposed to just looking at individual ones. And then a quick question for you, what is your opinion about this? Because I have, in the wonderful world of life and property and social media and everything, everybody has an opinion about everything. People tell me all the time, they're like, yeah, but this person has this opinion and this person. I'm like, yeah, everyone has an opinion every day, every night. got recently and I would love to hear your thoughts about this was two things number one was they said to go and investigate and start learning the insights as to what time of day to post and also to learn about what day of the week to post so that's my first thing that I had a conversation about do you have an opinion about days and times or is this like your secret weapon that you keep back There's a section I do on this and it'll make you laugh because it's so the opposite of what you've just been told. But you can actually find out. You can go again in your insights and you can look at what Instagram tells you is the most active time of your followers and the most active day of your followers. I don't know if you've ever done that exercise, but when you go it says they are most active Monday through to Sunday at exactly the same level. Thank you Instagram, that's so helpful. So people are online every single day. And then you look at the most active time. they're available, but they're online, and it's from 9am till 9pm. Well, who knew? So it's actually incredibly unhelpful, thank you Instagram, but I use that to show people there is no perfect day, there is no perfect time to post. The best time is when you have the time to actively be on the channel, engaging. Being an active community member is a big tick in Instagram's works, so if you post and run So it's say 7 p.m. on a Wednesday and you are cooking dinner for your kids, so you're busy, but you know you have to post and somewhere you read that was the best time to post, so you're gonna post, but then you're just gonna leave it and you're gonna go make your dinner. That is a bad idea. The best thing to do is to be like, okay, when in my day do I actually have time to when I post, engage with others, respond to comments, be what Instagram would call an active community member. When you have the time to do those things, that is the best time to post. It could be 11 a.m., it could be 3 p.m., it could be whatever time. It's all about when you have the time to do it. Because if you think about the average person and how they're online, it's different for everyone, isn't it? So like today, you're recording a podcast right now, so you're not on Instagram, but tomorrow at this time, you won't be, so maybe you are on Instagram. So everyone's different depending on their schedule. No one has the exact same schedule every day. No one's a robot being like, right, at 8 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I go on Instagram. Everyone goes on social media different times every day, so there is no perfect time to post. Perfect time is when you have time. brilliant I love that I've absolutely loved that and then my final one question because this is related to the other one was they also said to me don't ever cross share across platforms because it messes your algorithm up so they're like if you cross share across Facebook and Instagram they don't like that because then you're not actively actually posting in Facebook posting in Instagram so what I stopped doing because this person said to me to stop doing it was I stopped cross posting so I now when I post I now post in Instagram, I then pull it out, I then take it and put it in Facebook, I pull it out, I then put it in LinkedIn and it's so time-consuming to be honest with you doing that. Is it still worth doing that because it will help the algorithm or not? I don't know who this person is who gave you all this advice, but I really disavowed all of it to be honest. I would say to me property investors we're busy, right? We've got stuff to do. We're not influencers who want a hundred million followers and views, like that's not what we're after, right? We're after specific goals which are related to our business. So for me it's all about how can we use social media to help us achieve those goals without sucking up our entire time and life. I would much rather my clients did a reel that was engaging, a good that wasn't perfect, that they didn't sit there for hours editing it and making it perfect. Yes, if you have millions and millions of followers, maybe you have to sit there in the editing app and making it perfect, because that is your job as a content creator. You literally make money from creating that reel. But as a property investor, you're not making money from creating that reel. You're making money from the things that come out of it. which is why it's so unimportant to me to make these tiny, tiny tweaks that take hours and hours, like individually posting on each channel when there's a simple button that will let you let it go live at the same time for both. Why would you make your life harder? Like to me, that's such a small incremental gain. Like maybe, maybe it's true that you might get a couple of extra likes if you did it a few hours later on Facebook, but is it worth it for the time? No, you're busy, I don't know what you've got to do. I can tell you the answer is no. And do you know what? I'm so glad I've had this chat with you. You've been a breath of fresh air for me because I do feel that sometimes I can get so into this world of social media and I can just sit there for hours and the person you just described saying are you gonna sit there and edit it and try and make it perfect in this and what's really funny about me is and in some aspects of my life I'm more of a done is better than perfect. For example, my podcast little setup here. Oh my god. goodness like five star luxury over here do you know what I mean and a lot of people message me and they're like do you know I've had messages from people that they mean the best like it's with the best intentions there's no malice but they always say to me they're like you need to get a better product podcast set up and I'm like thanks guys like I didn't think about that at all but at the same but obviously podcasts don't make money so you need to just do it one step at a time and then when you can actually do it you can grow But then when it comes to other things like making a reel, I can obsess about that to try and make it the best that it can be for over an hour, which is why it's put me off actually posting because I think in order to create one, it's gonna take me an hour to do and I don't have an hour spare. So maybe what I have to take away from this podcast, from you and learning is, do you know what, Athena, spend maximum 20 minutes on it, give out really good content, give out gold, and if it's not perfect, it doesn't matter. And that might be a really good shift for me. because if you think about it, like that thinking of it's going to take me forever so I'm not going to do it is hurting you so much more than that post going out and not being 100% perfectly edited. Like wouldn't you get more results from having posted it and getting feedback? Maybe you've got an angel off the back of it, maybe you've got an opportunity to speak at another event because of that post, but you didn't do that post because you're worried it wasn't going to be perfect. Such good advice. Thank you for that. I honestly, like, thank you. I'm going to be taking a different approach going forward. So I really appreciate that. And then my final question, this is before I go on to the wonderful, infamous property disasters. My last question is in regards to this idea of a blue tick, which I know that you love to talk about. Ha ha. So what is your opinion about people who have the blue ticks, have bought the blue ticks? What are your overall thoughts about it? Because I've not got a blue tick and people are saying, do you think you should get one? So I'm curious to know. you ask. That's another vanity metric thing in my opinion. So previously the blue tick exists for celebrities, people who could get their account, you know, have a fake account pretending to be them because they're famous, right? That's why it existed in the first instance. Then obviously the rise of the influencer happened, so then influencers had to have that, you know, protection as well to stop people pretending to be them. That is why it existed. Then it became this sort of, oh, I wanna get that blue tick because it makes me look like this important VIP person who might otherwise be copied. So that's why everyone wants one. Then Instagram decides to release a blue tick that you can now pay for, which obviously annoyed a lot of people who'd got it organically because they were like, what, you can now pay for it? I earned mine. So now you can pay 12 pounds a month to get a blue tick. Is it worth doing? Absolutely not. It does not increase your reach. It does not increase your engagement. and it's just a vanity metric. Everyone knows now that you can pay for it, so it doesn't make you look like a VIP having a blue tick. So the only reason I think it's acceptable to have a blue tick, unless you've just got it organically, is if you have clone accounts. So clone accounts are people who pretend to be you, so that they can defraud people out of money. So a lot of my clients, the more sort of high profile ones, have clone accounts pretending to be them, so that they can message people saying, invest in Bitcoin and pretend to be my client. I've had a clone account before. Everyone I followed kept messaging me, be like, I've reported them, I've reported them, but they're still there. So in the end, I got the blue tick to see, is Instagram gonna get rid of it? Now I'm paying, now I'm a paying customer. They got rid of it in five minutes, Athena, five minutes. I had been recording, reporting this clone account for months, months. Within five minutes of paying them 12 pounds, they removed it like that. And then I thought, okay, that's interesting. Let's take this test further. I'm gonna stop paying for the blue tick and see if it comes back. So it actually took four months for a new clone account to start to pretend to be me again. So I got four months of not paying for the blue tick before it popped up again. Popped up again, everyone reported it, nothing happened, got the blue tick, within five minutes, taken down again. So I do actually currently have a blue tick because I was just getting rid of that clone, but obviously you have to pay for the month anyway, so I'm letting the month run out, but I'm gonna be stopping paying at that point. And I'm sure a new clone will pop up again, I will buy the blue tick, get rid of it, and get rid of it again. So if you get a clone account, get a blue tick, because it will get rid of it immediately. Other than that, completely pointless to have it. I love that and I've loved this podcast. I said it before, I just think you're a breath of fresh air when it comes to really looking at this from a really, just a really real point of view as well saying, do you know what guys, this is this bit here over here is vanity and this is some tips to actually see your engagement and your reach. I just think it's great. I really do. And I can talk to you about social media, like for ages. I love it. I really enjoy it. And I want to try and encourage people to see it in a really positive way and actually not get obsessed about it. because if you use it in a healthy way to produce as opposed to consume, I think it's a really good thing. If you use it to start comparing and you use it to start thinking, oh look at all these... Like for example, I actually just want to find a thing to say about this particular topic is I get a lot of people sometimes who come to me and say, oh but look at all what these people are achieving. Look what they've done. Like it makes me feel rubbish. And I'm like, but then you're using it in completely the wrong way. You're going to, you're going to devastate yourself. And you hear these people that say, oh, I'm, I'm having a social media, uh, holiday or a, or a detox from social media. And I'm like, if you need to do that, I think you're consuming it in completely the wrong way personally about that. So yeah. I think a lot of people are using it really unhealthily. They're there to binge, and what happens is they go online and they get sucked into the vortex of Instagram, and three hours later they're like, wait, where am I? What year is it? And because they're using it really unhealthily, and what they're doing from that is they're looking at other people, they're comparing themselves, they're feeling terrible about themselves, and they're not using it from a business perspective. But if you go in knowing, right, this is a business tool that's gonna help me achieve all these amazing things, I'm gonna meet all these fantastic people, great. then you can even set yourself a limit. So I would say turn off notifications on all of your social media platforms. Only go into it when you're actively choosing to go in and to be a member of the community, not a lurker. So if you get a notification, obviously it's so tempting to go, oh, did someone comment on something? Let me just check that. I don't have any notifications set up because I just think it's really unhealthy. I like to use it as a business tool. Get in, get out and use it positively. And so I'm glad you said that because a lot of people don't understand that concept. Absolutely and then the final thing I'll say just because I think it's hilarious and I just thought about it was you know in your home feed that you can see like trending things of what you look at the most on your home feed mine is full of dog videos just funny dog videos that that's it that's all I get so I just I that's my vortex my vortex is getting lost in dogs making me laugh I have a separate account for that. I've trained the algorithm just to give me funny dog reels. That is literally what one, like my old account, I just used back, cause I didn't want to mess up the algorithm on my property one, cause I wanted to see what my clients are doing, what other property investors are doing, et cetera. So I've got one that I've trained the algorithm to give me property, and I've got another that I've trained to give me just dog content to bring me joy. I should do that. On my, I've only really got one for me and it's just dogs. I don't really see any property stuff, it's just dogs. Amazing. And then just to finish off in style then, so for a property mishap or property disaster, I know you said you mentioned one last time that you were on the podcast, but I'm sure you've had so, well, no, I don't mean that. I mean, like you're just doing so many amazing things that there might have been something that came up that could be a mishap. That sounded awful. Yeah, no, I have had so many. I think I've had like one property in particular that I feel like it's cursed. It's thrown everything at me. But more recent one is, yeah, Joey's cottage, which, you know, is going great, but it has had some issues. There's an unexplained leak, and as usual, every trade blames the next trade, so. The roofer says it's because the stonemason didn't repoint a specific area. The stonemason says actually the roofer hasn't fitted this one thing that's really important to do. So it's just one of those annoying things where water is literally pouring into the house and no one can really tell why that's happening. So I'm having to like get every expert in to tick and cross what it could be and what it couldn't be Which is really annoying because it's stopping the decoration from being finished. It's not really a disaster It's just one of those things in property, you know unexpected things happen There's been quite a few sort of unexpected costs and you know, everyone says to have a contingency But sometimes the contingency gets blown you like the staircases when you when I took away the carpet they needed all fixing the repointing that I thought only needed to be done in one spot, the entire house needed repointing, that is a very expensive job because it's a stone house, so you need a specialist for that. So there's things like that happen all the time in property. I wouldn't call them disasters, I'd call them life and property. Yeah, do you know what? You're so right, life and property, because they're not disasters, they're just what happens as it were, but shows and now you know how to do all of those things, you know all about the trades and everything like that, so well done. And I can't wait to see all the finished projects, you know, especially Jo's cottage, like it's just going to look beautiful. I can already see it coming to life. I'm really, really excited. love to have you come and speak for the girls in property at some point when we do a talk or retreat something like that I think you're incredible and I think that people would love to meet you so I'm gonna put that out just as a would love to get you yeah you doing it at some point fabulous but Millie thank you so much for coming on I could literally do this podcast for like three hours and just ask you a million questions this stuff. Well, it's just fun. It's just fun. And I just love the realness of the conversation. But if people wanted to get further advice from you and further conversations and to actually work with you, what's the best place to find you? Instagram at posting property. That is the best way. Send me a DM. There is a link to my website there, but honestly, I think the best way is Instagram. I like a DM. Lovely, amazing. And I'm Athena Dobson underscore official, and we are girls in a property on Instagram and girls and property pod at gmail.com on email. If you want to come on the podcast or if you want to send an email. So Millie, thank you so much again. I hope everyone's enjoyed this on their Monday morning. And yeah, feel free to get in touch with either of us if you need any more tips about social media, but thank you so much. Have a great day guys, bye.