Welcome to Rachel Traxler's Blog

serving you a warm + joyful experience

How to Explode your Business with Reels

Video marketing is huge in today’s climate, but it can be intimidating. But here’s how to explode your business with Reels!

Instagram Reels and video marketing can be overwhelming, especially because it’s fairly new within the last couple of years. Everyone is trying to make that transition and adjust to it.  Have you been watching people make reels and wonder where to begin? 

With Nathan Chanski, we are going to break it down and talk all about his perspective and how to grow your audience by using reels, TikTok, and video marketing. And how you can do it well!

Here’s what you need to know on how to explode your business with Reels!

About Nathan Chanski

Nathan Chanski started as a wedding photographer three years ago when he started his business but has been shooting for over a decade now. He started shooting with couples and noticed that was something he loved. Then he went more into the photography industry and turned it into a career!

He went through a lot of learning experiences, a lot of trials and errors, mistakes, etc. 2020 was a renaissance moment for him. Nathan felt like his entire business shifted then! He got married that year and this felt very transformative for him to be a husband for the first time. 

He started sharing his knowledge casually in 2021 and just seeing where that would go and that has brought him to the position he is in currently as a photographer and photography educator. 

Changes to implement for growth

The most important thing is the mindset. In 2020, Nathan was in a place where he felt his mindset was ingrained in different things. So many people around him thought that photography was a hobby for him. 

They felt that photography wouldn’t work as a husband or dad, as they felt it wasn’t something sustainable and he would burn out. They projected these beliefs and he started to believe these things. He was like, “I am going to burn out, I need a plan B.” That created in him a lack of clarity, despite being a very multi-passionate person.

 The second thing after mindset is gaining clarity of purpose. Once you get clarity of calling, that helps launch you into something and that heals your mindset. Mindset is important because once your mindset has the correct ways of thinking, it permeates into everything that you do and that did it for Nathan.

Mindset and video marketing

Video marketing is a massive vehicle. It was an outpouring of what was going on in Nathan’s mindset and what was going on in his heart and life. It was the energy and clarity needed to put towards something powerful. 

Being on camera is different from being in a video. You relate with people better in the video. It went from stale to uninteresting to video marketing becoming personal. It became a personal brand because it had the connection Nathan was missing before. 

That connection piece is important and it doesn’t matter if you’re an introvert or extrovert, you have to show up. No matter what type of person you are, people are going to relate and connect with you. You have to understand that there are people out there willing to connect with you for who you are and they’re going to be your people. That’s why you have to show up exactly as yourself or just like yourself with a little bit of spice.

Steps for beginners in reels creation

There are two important steps to creating Reels, the first is more about a holistic mindset and the second is more of a tactical step. From a mindset level perspective, it’s what everyone needs to do. It’s important you have clarity on what you’re called to do. For Nathan, he believed that was what God wanted him to do. So even if you don’t share his faith it doesn’t matter. You can still have clarity on what your calling is. 

Once you get that, it becomes simple. You don’t let fear stand in the way of building a thriving life. Get clear on what your goals are and set them tangibly. 

Make sure you keep your goals at the forefront because there are going to be many times when you are trying to figure out if you should make that piece of content or show up. And you have to default back to what your goals are.

Quantity over quality

Then the second is when you first start, it’s video quantity over quality. If you have an audience and you have a lot of reels or videos, you already know then you’re kind of beyond the starting stage. But when you’re just starting, you have to put in the work. It’s important that you test and experiment because video making is new to you.

You have no idea what your audience likes yet, so you can’t calculate what you put out just yet, as you don’t have enough data. When starting, post every day, and be willing to show up scrappy and just see what people connect with. 

You could post a voiceover on Monday, an educational on Tuesday, a portfolio video Wednesday and you know keep planning down what days you’re posting what. Do that for 30 days. Then look back at your stats and see the data and figure out what people are connecting with you on. Then move forward from there!

The next month you start pressing a bit more into the stuff the audience likes. Don’t stop all other things but view it as taking the data you have, analyzing it, and then making some changes afterward. 

Nobody is watching you as close to watching yourself by a mile. Not even close! When you post a video and it flops and it gets like a three-digit count view, nobody cares. Nobody even knows, no one is going to your profile to check or monitor you. 

Always remember that it’s a total experiment and you’re just figuring it out as you go. There isn’t a preset for what is wrong or right with a thing like social media because it is personal. So quantity over quality when you first start!

Finding a balance in creating a lot

Create more than you consume. Develop the habit of being the creator, because being a creator is something that makes social media more fun and healthy for you. When people talk about the gross feeling of being on social media for long, it’s probably because they are consuming more than they are creating. 

If you are so hyper-focused on what everyone else is doing, it suppresses your originality and distracts you. You have to specifically put parameters on your social media, you have to say “Hey I’m going to lock myself out of social media for a while.” Put a little downtime setting on your phone. 

You need a little inspiration, so give it a little time. Just make sure you set a time for yourself so you’re not just aimlessly scrolling forever. 

Systems or workflows that help with content

Systems are ever-evolving, but the majority of this is the workflow. Create all in one day and just set aside half a day to create. Nathan creates his content for the most part, or as much as he can get done for the following week. 

He usually does that on Fridays because he found that the majority of his important work for the week is done. So he takes part of Friday to make content for the next week. You have to find what day works for you and work with you, just like your creative process. 

Another important thing is don’t force your creativity. You are more likely to get creative ideas when you’re just living life, going out, and doing whatever you need to do. There’s a lot of power and opportunity in this push toward video marketing if you’re willing to jump into it. If you’re willing to experiment with it and put yourself out there. 

Create a template of what’s being posted on Monday, what’s being posted Tuesday, etc. Make sure you write down your ideas when they come to you. So that when it comes to creation day, it’s just there. When ideas inspire you, write them down. 

You don’t always have incredible ideas every week, and that’s okay. It’s good to premeditate and just have some content pieces in your back pocket at all times, if you want to stay consistent. 

Creating despite feeling overwhelmed

You have to think of what your voice is. What do you have to share with the world? What do you have to say? And don’t be hard on yourself. Don’t think anything you have to share is cringe-worthy. 

No matter what anybody thinks, no matter the external factors ask yourself, what’s your voice? What’s your story? What’s going on in your life? Why did you get into what you’re doing? Why are you here? Why are you showing up? All these questions matter, because once you think about these things you can narrate your own story easily at any time. 

Many people out there are waiting to connect with you on the story you have to tell. There are many ways people can share and market what they have going on and you just have to hone in on what those things are and that becomes a great place to start.

A little tweak that helps with video marketing

People showing up in front of the camera can sometimes be tricky. One can tell from just looking at your video that you’re trying to be someone you’re not or just being yourself. People can see if you want to be there or not.  With video, you can’t hide behind it. You can’t hide your energy, we can hide behind our posts for so long but with videos, you can’t do that. 

It’s important to show up in a way that feels true to you, and in a way where you’re loving what you do because if you don’t, people will notice it. You can begin from your Instagram stories if it’s too scary to post a reel and just start there. 

When you decide to show up in a new way, do it with your mind present. People want to see something different so when you do things differently do it well with all your heart. Share things that are a part of your life, moments of your life that can bring people into your space. 

This brings people closer to you and Instagram stories are a great place where you can nurture that audience and reels put you into the spotlight. You can market to cold audience members. Because most times these people have never heard of you before.

On Instagram stories, you can take it a step further in the DMs and respond personally to people. There’s a synergy of all these different things. Showcasing your personality letting people in on the back end just your day, your life, and your business develops a connection that wasn’t there before with your audience.

Final thoughts

There are so many people right now that think that kind of doomsday stuff about how Reels or the shift to video is the death of the photography industry, because photography is static image based. But, photography is not video.

Now we market ourselves on video as all these apps are primarily focusing on pushing out the video. If Nathan could just change the narrative in whoever reads this, it’s just to think of this as an opportunity that we’ve never had before. That instead of just sharing your portfolio and just sharing gorgeous photos, you can also show up for people wanting to book you for just you. 

This is the first time in a long time that we’ve had something like this, having the chance to be personal with your marketing. Discovering a personal form of marketing, that side of you that shows up in person that is what transforms businesses and it transformed Nathan’s business. That’s what’s taken his packages and pricing from one thing to double to triple. That scaled his business beyond whatever he thought would be possible in a year.

There are many ways you can harness video to do the same thing for whatever your goals are because it’s such a personal form of marketing. 

You can find Nathan on Instagram and Tiktok that’s where he posts mostly. His handles are both @nathanchanski, and his website is https://www.nathanchanski.co/.

He also provides some education as well. He also has a podcast called Passion With Purpose and it’s for photographers, so you can find that anywhere you stream podcasts!

Be sure to check out more Gold Biz podcast episodes here!

explode your business with reels

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

listen here

A podcast for creative entrepreneurs

take action in your business today by listening to the Gold Biz Podcast

time to shine!