Turkey, traditions, and tablescapes… but, of course, we’re making it about your Instagram strategy!

In this episode, Chelsea and Kayla are getting cozy with their favorite Thanksgiving traditions and turning them into marketing insights, breaking down how the way you gather around the table IRL mirrors how you should be showing up online.

Your Instagram Is Like Hosting Thanksgiving Dinner

If you think of your Instagram account like your home during the holidays, some serious questions come up.

If someone walked into your Instagram right now, would they feel welcome and comfortable and excited to stay? Or would they feel like they accidentally walked into the wrong house because no one was there to greet them and all the lights were off?

Your feed is like your table — it’s the dishes you’re serving, it’s where everyone’s coming to gather. The lighting and the tablescape are your tone and your visual vibe.

And inviting people into your home to actually come sit at that table? That’s your brand!

The goal is simple: we want them to come, we want them to stay for a while, consume our content, click on our stories. We want them to feel like they connect with us, like they relate to us in some way. And maybe even bring a friend next time — tell their friend about our account, follow her, she always shares the best local spots or the funniest stories or the most helpful tips.

When you’re hosting your account with that energy, it becomes so much easier to know what your content should be. Because you’re not thinking, “What should my stories be? What should my feed be?” You’re thinking, “How do I make people feel welcome here?”

The Signature Dish Strategy (And How to Find Yours)

Kayla makes sweet potato casserole every single Thanksgiving. Chelsea brings the green bean casserole (even though her mother-in-law hates green beans). And when the family plans the meal, everyone knows exactly what to expect.

If you have something that you’ve done on repeat and that people have asked you about and asked you for, that’s it. That’s the signature content you need to lean into, your signature dish!

You could look at it and think, “Well, I could make something more complicated than sweet potato casserole. Not everybody likes that. Maybe I should switch it up.”

Or you can realize that when the family plans Thanksgiving, they say, “Kayla’s bringing the sweet potato casserole, right?” That’s what they’re expecting. That’s what they look forward to putting on their plate.

So look at what people already ask you about. Look at what people have already responded to and been interested in, and then just lean into that thing. It doesn’t mean you have to do it forever. There might come a day when you throw your followers way off and bring something different. But while it’s working, why not ride that high, give the people what they want, and be the hero for it?

And just like not everyone’s gonna like sweet potatoes, not everyone’s gonna like your signature dish, even if it’s the best thing you’ve ever made.

You can’t be worried about trying to please everyone. Because if you’re just trying to please everyone, you become what Zig Ziglar calls a “wandering generality.” And a wandering generality doesn’t stick in anyone’s brain. It goes right past them — in one ear, out the other.

He says you want to be a “meaningful specific” because specificity is memorable and specificity sticks.

Tablescapes, Tone, and Making People Feel Special

Kayla shared the sweetest story about her friend who teaches students who’ve been kicked out of school or come from really tough home situations. Every year, their friend group pitches in to make a Thanksgiving meal for these kids to experience in class. But this year, Kayla’s taking it up a notch — bringing candles, a tablecloth, fancy dishware, glassware, just things that make them feel special and loved.

You can have a delicious meal while sitting on the couch watching TV with no decor, no ambiance, and still think, “That was really good food.” But that’s not what it’s all about.

When you take the time to add a little bit of decor — whether it’s flowers or candles or a cute tablescape — it makes people feel special. And that matters.

That’s what the tablescape example is all about when it comes to branding. It’s not because we want you to look really cool on Instagram or we want people to be like, “Look at her, she’s so whatever.” It’s because if you feel like you belong somewhere and if something makes you feel special, that is something that’s hard to come by in this world. And the world needs more of it!

Your brand vibe, your tone, your visual are your ambiance. It’s like not wanting to drink wine out of a plastic cup. You want it out of a nice glass. It makes the experience better. It’s literally the same beverage inside of it, but the fact that you’re serving it in a real glass versus a plastic cup makes the experience different.

So what’s your tablescape? What’s your tone? And does it sound like and reflect who you really are?

Games, Community, and Why You’re Not Doing This Alone

The Petersons have their family football game where it’s the Turkeys versus the Nutcrackers. Chelsea has since retired to the sidelines (maybe she got kicked out for never scoring, she jokes). Kayla’s family plays Code Names, UNO, and apparently her brother taught all the kids how to play beer pong with apple juice.

Games build community and give people lots of opportunities to connect (just like your stories and emails should!) It’s not this formal dinner party where you’re all sitting around having one discussion.

Chelsea pointed out how gamifying your own goals makes showing up more fun. She follows a creator who writes down her goals every month — how many people do I want to reach, how many conversations do I want to have, how many local people do I want to follow me. And every time she writes them down, it happens. Not because she wrote it down, but because she then has this tangible thing in her head and she’s more intentional about what she’s sharing.

Instead of looking at sending an email as this daunting task, it’s like, “If I send this email, 500 more people are gonna hear this podcast this week and hopefully get a little spark of joy, a little golden nugget takeaway, something fun to listen to in the car.”

That’s gamifying. Making yourself more accountable to the things you want to do to keep your business moving forward, but making it feel fun and exciting at the same time.

But the biggest thing about games and community is that none of us were meant to go through any of this alone. It’s more fun to go through it with somebody and experience your wins together (like we do in Modern Agent Social Club). There’s nothing worse than hitting a goal and turning around and having no one there.

Kayla talked about going to the Colts stadium every Thanksgiving weekend for the Indiana state football finals. And what’s cool is sitting in the end zone thinking, “The person to the right and to my left knows exactly what I’m thinking and what I’m going through.”

That’s what community does. Whether it’s being a fan of the same team or working toward the same business goals, that camaraderie builds something powerful. It makes it more exciting, more fun, and way less lonely when you’re doing it together.

Small Business Saturday and Showing Up Local

Chelsea loves her German Christmas market tradition in Oconomowoc — the candied pecan truck, the mulled hot wine (which she doesn’t even like but drinks anyway because it’s part of the experience), the wooden houses, the German band, the whole cozy Hallmark vibe.

But she also saw a reel recently that hit her hard. A creator was talking about how so many businesses have closed in their town in the last few months. And she said, “I want to flip this around to the consumer and the locals. If your last five packages that got delivered were from Amazon, you are contributing to that problem.”

That’s an alarming thing to think about. Because how often are you hitting “add to cart, buy now, deliver tomorrow” on Amazon?

Chelsea said it made her think: Do I really need those little things from Amazon all the time? Or could I just wait and go get it somewhere local? Could I shop for my Christmas presents locally?

If you can be supportive of small businesses on social media and share your favorite spots, where to shop for Christmas, what you’re getting, where you love — that’s gonna resonate with your community. Share a reel about where your last five deliveries were from and challenge people to shop local going forward. That makes your community better.

Chelsea doesn’t even create content to reach her local community anymore since she runs an online business. But she still shares so much about her local area that she has a really big local following. Everywhere she goes, people know who she is. The boutique owners know her name. The coffee shop staff knows her son. And that’s because of how she shows up.

She’s not doing it to get anything. It doesn’t directly relate to her business right now. But she still always wants to support her local community and make it a better place.

And as an agent helping people move to your community, you should be doing that too. Because you’re basically leading people to their home. And their home isn’t just their house. It’s downtown. It’s the local events. It’s the local high school. It’s everything else happening in town.

You don’t have to go to these places and spend thousands of dollars. Just repeatedly share them on social media. That’s better for them probably than spending a thousand dollars and never saying a word about them.

What Does Home Really Mean?

Chelsea and Mark bought his family’s farm in 2021 (or maybe 2022, she can’t remember). It’s where his family hosted Thanksgiving his whole life. It’s where they play the family football game. It’s on Peterson Road. And when his grandma went into assisted living and his aunt in California was ready to let it go, they made sure it stayed in the family.

Now they’re the fifth generation to own it. Henry will be the sixth.

Chelsea laughed about how she never envisioned spending that much money on a farm property with a farmhouse on it and still not having a place to live. They still have to build the house. Pave the driveway. Do all the things.

But it became so meaningful. And it brings up the point: What does home mean?

It’s not always about the next best house or the next big investment. Chelsea’s had frustrating moments where she’s like, “If I didn’t buy that farm, I could have built my dream house two years ago.” But she has a bigger picture vision for her life.

A lot of people have that when it comes to real estate. And as an agent, how can we get more deep in how we talk about home than just interest rates or building wealth? It’s about building a legacy and a life.

Now Chelsea says buying that farm is the coolest thing she’s ever spent money on.

She’s currently in what they call a “stepping stone house.” And for a while, she didn’t do anything to it because she didn’t want to invest in something temporary. But it’s probably gonna be five years before they officially build and move into the house on the farm. So she’s starting to do little things — lighting, pillows, accents — to make it feel cozy.

She even wants to do a 12-month homeowner challenge next year where every month she does a little mini project. Painting the bathroom a fun color. Wallpapering one spot. Nothing dramatic. Just giving the house a little splash of personality while they’re there in simple, inexpensive ways.

Because she doesn’t want Henry to be 12 and still not living on the farm. But she also doesn’t want to rush into building just to say they built a house. She wants to design it based on their lifestyle, their family, and their vision.

And Kayla pointed out how there’s a lot of little things you can do to a house that are inexpensive but make a big impact. She texted her dad the other night asking how much a dimmer switch costs. Thirty bucks. And she’s like, “Why don’t I just buy some dimmer switches for the living room and dining room? That would make a huge difference for less than a hundred dollars.”

Little things. Not necessarily adding value to the house in a dollars-and-cents way. But adding that perceived value. Making the house feel warm and cozy.

Making it a home.

This episode was edited by Adrienne Cruz.