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We are talking about a very common question I get about Facebook groups versus Slack channels. Specifically, we're going to talk about them in the scope of a community for a membership, or a free community that you're having as part of your opt in, or as a bonus add-on for maybe a group program you're doing.

Facebook group versus Slack channels. First, let's talk about what each of these things are because you might not know what Slack channels are. First, Facebook groups. These are the groups that you can set at 3 privacy levels: closed, open or secret. Closed means that the group is searchable, you can see who is a member but you have to be a member to be able to post or see any of the content inside the group. Public means everything is searchable. We can see everything that is going on in the group without being a member. Secret means the group is not searchable. The member list is not available publicly and all of the content in the group is members eyes only. Those are your 3 options when it comes to Facebook groups.

Facebook groups are 100% free. You do need a profile to run it. You can't create, use or access groups as a page you can only do it using your profile. They are a really really popular option for a lot of things keeping in touch with friends, mastermind groups, free groups to help build your email list, as a program add on, as a membership community piece. Most people kind of understand them. Nobody has to go to any additional place to get access to the forum. It is a really good option for a lot of people.

Number 2 is Slack channels. Slack is a relatively new communication tool, in comparison to Facebook group anyways. You can create it, it's totally private to the people who have access. When you create a group you get a special URL. You can access it through an app on your phone, you can access it through desktop. I have a Slack app on my iMac even so that I don't have to go through the desktop, I can keep it open almost like a group chat or a messenger. It is a separate thing. I don't have to worry about having a tab open for it on the desktop, which is also really nice if you're somebody who has multiple Slack channels by the way.

It is a really great tool for keep your team in communication, for groups, for meet ups. Basically, just anything to share what is happening with everybody. I really like both tools. I don't think that one tool is necessarily better than other just overall.

I do think though that these tools have different uses.  They have different places and again it's going to come back to that question, and you hear me say this all the time. It's going to depend on who your clients are. Let's kind of break down the either or's on this on a case by case basis, and then I will kind of talk about why one or the other is better for each of these options.

First, let's talk about for a free group as part of your email opt. Maybe you're running a free challenge or as a webinar you offer a bonus into Facebook group, it's something I did for a long time. Basically, you're using it to build your list. It is 100% free to be a part of. It is not an addition to any program it is just a free group. For those, I really like Facebook groups because they are easy to be found via search, they are easy to share with friends, they are easy to navigate, they are easy to use, and they are easy to get people comfortable in and keep people active in.

What happens is when you have something like a free group there is no financial accountability to being a part of the community. Having it someplace that is really easily accessible,

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Let's talk Twitter ads, because we talk a lot about Facebook ads. We talk a lot about Pinterest ads, but the reality is there are a lot of ways to invest in your marketing. There's a lot of ways to invest just in your social media marketing. Twitter ads is definitely one of them. As we go into the end of the year, especially when it comes around to the holidays, and we start thinking about ... Facebook ads are getting really really crowded. It's really good to look for other alternatives. It's really good to look for some options that are going to allow you to get in front of your audience, connect with the people you want to, but maybe connect with them in a way that's more aligned with what they're looking for when they're on that network.

Twitter is definitely a really good example of that because going to look at what are they looking for when they're here? What are they thinking about when they're here? What are they focused on when they're here? A lot time that comes down to getting the right content in front of them and that might be better to do on Twitter than it is Facebook any time of year, but especially going into the holidays. I know for me, during the holiday time starting in October, I don't run a lot of Facebook ads. In fact, November and December I don't generally run any Facebook ads, but I do take that budget and I put it over in Twitter. I put it in LinkedIn. I don't generally put it on Pinterest because you're going to run into the same distribution problems you're running into on Facebook. For me, Twitter and LinkedIn, I can maximize my budget in a big big way and drive a lot of relevant traffic to what I want to be driving them to. Whereas, it's just more difficult to do on Facebook.

In the spirit of getting ready for that now, and not later which we'll talk about in the next couple of episodes, I want to share a little bit about what you need to know about when it comes to Twitter ads. I love this stuff if you're somebody who's thinking, "I have zero Twitter ads. I don't need to listen to this episode." A lot of the things we're going to talk about today are relevant for any kind of ads you're creating. Really if you look at it big-picture, these same lessons apply to any piece of marketing you're doing. If you don't know these things, you're going to run into less than satisfactory results, we'll put it that way.

Let's jump in and talk about what these 3 things are.

#1: know your goals.

If you don't know what result you want to see from a piece of marketing, you're going to fail right from the start. Here's why, not just because you're not going to be able to get any sort of good measure of whether it was successful or not, which you're not. Not because you're going to feel like you're spending money an nothing's happening, which you will. Mostly because you can't give your audience a clear path, you can't give the consumer of the ad, or consumer of the marketing, a next step and a call-to-action if you don't know where you want them to go, what result you want from it. That really is a really critical step 1. Know your goal.

When you look at Twitter ads you can have a lot of goals. You can talk about trying to drive traffic to an opt-in. You can talk about trying to drive traffic to a sales page. You can talk about trying to increase engagement and replies. You can talk about trying to increase your following and actually grow the audience size that you have there. Those are direct goals for the ad. You want to that, but that direct goal for the ad is actually going to be based on a larger goal. Let's think about this from an example we'll used throughout the show. I like to have some sense of consistency wit

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Guess what, guys? Facebook's making some changes. I know. Try and contain your excitement. Don't worry. I'm breaking down the three big things I want you to know about today on this episode of Hit the Mic with The Stacey Harris. These are changes that I think are going to actually be really amazing changes. The first one we're going to talk about is all about ads. The second one we're going to talk about is all about your page as a whole, and the third one we're going to talk about are some new video metrics that are beginning to be coming out. Good, good stuff. You ready to jump in? Let's do this.

First thing's first, some ads changes are coming, and really mostly from a how users experience ads kind of place, how we interact with ads, with other people's ads, but I want to talk about how it's going to impact you as somebody who runs ads, okay? By the way, in the show notes for this episode over at thestaceyharris.com/episode290, you will find links to all three articles about these changes right from Facebook, if you want to check those out as well. I'm going to be giving you some of the information, and then we're going to talk about how it impacts you as a business owner, but if you want to read the whole thing straight from Facebook, head over to the show notes. There are links to all three articles. Okay? Let's jump in on this.

We're talking about how we can control our ads. As somebody who uses Facebook, and has ads in the timeline and on the right-hand bar all the time, I get why a lot of people turn their ads off. However, Facebook has created a way to not have that happen, so now your ad blocking software that you're using with Chrome or Firefox, maybe Ad Block Plus, or there's another ad blocker. There's a ton of them. They might not be working. You might see your Facebook ads popping back up, and as somebody who runs Facebook ads, I'm not entirely against that, because that's going to mean my cost will go down, because there's going to be more people who ads are being delivered to.

However, with doing this, Facebook is also giving users the ability to control the kind of ads they see. When we create Facebook ads, we often target interests. Those interests are created from our user side by based on what we've clicked on, or read, or watched, and sometimes those aren't entirely accurate when it comes to what our actual interests are. It may be that you were Christmas shopping for your friend, a new, I don't know barbecue set. I'm making things up now, and so now it's attached to your profile that you have an interest in barbecuing. You may be a vegetarian who lives in a studio apartment, and has never once in your life touched a barbecue.

You can see how these interests might not be always accurate. Here's the deal, though. Facebook now is going to let us go in and edit those interests, meaning we can stop getting the ads that are targeted based on gifts we've purchased in the past. Also, maybe you've had your profile for a really long time, and your interests aren't the same as they were always before, and so there's some stuff in there that's older. That's going to allow us to do that. Here's the thing, though. I know what you're thinking. At least one of you listening to this show is thinking, "Awesome. I will just go in there, and I will delete all of the interests, and then no ads will target me."

Here's why that's a terrible idea. What's going to happen is you're still going to get ads. You're just going to get really poorly targeted ones. It's worth going in, and cleaning up this list, and making sure your ads are relevant for you, because I will be honest, I have purchased things based on ads because I have found out about something I didn't know about

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It's Friday which means today we're going into our three things you must know, and we're going to be talking about direct marketing stuff. Whenever you're buying into sort of those larger companies and you're selling products for them, like in the old days it was like Tupperware, Avon and Mary Kay and now there are a gazillion of them for like fitness, weight loss, makeup, nails, lashes, all the things, all the things.

We're going to talk about three things you need to know if you're in that space because 1) I see a lot of people doing it really, really poorly. 2) I don't think the training that you get from them directly is as solid as it could be. 3) There is a fair amount of you who are leaving a lot of money on the table by doing it in a way that is actively repelling customers instead of bringing them in which is the goal.

If you are not in the direct marketing space, if you're not somebody who does this. If you're a solopreneur who has your own products and services, this is still going to be worthwhile to listen to because we're going to cover some of the sort of basic rules of social media and the things you need to know when it comes to selling via social. Pay attention either way, but this really is for those folks in the direct marketing space because I think some of the advice that some of you are getting is, well, wrong. That's what we're going to talk about today, three things that you must know as a direct marketer to sell on social media.

Number one thing you need to know.

You're still a business. I see this a lot where you're selling from your profile, you're making friends with people, you're auto-adding people into a group, which is not a good idea. Basically, you're treating this business as sort of a hobby and something you do on the side, which is fine. It's legit, just something you do on the side and not a major revenue source. That's fine, but it doesn't make it any less business, so it needs to be treated like a business. That means it needs to have a business page.

It's actually against Facebook's terms and conditions to use your Facebook profile, the thing you started initially when you opened your account, primarily for commercial purposes is the language in the terms and conditions. That means if you're mostly or at all really using Facebook profiles to make friends and message people and add them to groups and auto-invite them to events and whatever, you're doing it wrong. What's happening is you're actively pushing back your customer base because who you're speaking to are not your customers. Where you need to be doing that is a business page. If you want to run a group, great, but find a way to funnel people into that group where they choose to be in that group, not you automatically adding them to the group. That's really the difference.

Treat this like a business. Facebook page needs to be a business page, not a Facebook profile. Don't be auto-adding people to groups. Don't be auto-adding people to events for virtual parties where you're going to sell and things like that. You need to structure this in the same way that it's a business. That speaks on a larger scale to knowing who your customers are. Yes, you have the customers of the company who you're selling on behalf of speaks to you, but find a set within there of the people who you speak to. The times I see this executed the best is in some of the weight loss and essential oil spaces where ... Essential oils work for a mass amount of people. These weight loss products work for a mass amount of people. Who in that mass do you connect with? Who can you provide value to?

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Welcome to Episode 288, "Hit the Mic with Stacey Harris". Alright guys, a lot of talk right now about Instagram stories. Yes, I mentioned it on Friday's episode and the 3 Things You Must Know About Social Media August 2016. Today I want to talk about it but less so about Instagram stories and more so about this conversation that is happening now about, "Do you choose Snapchat or do you choose Instagram stories? "

I think that this same conversation can be had in a lot of places because more and more the networks are directly competing against each other for your time and your attention by utilizing a lot of the same technology and offerings. Meaning, do you do Periscope or do you do Facebook Live? Do you do Instagram stories or do you do Snapchat? That's what I want to talk about today, is this idea of how do you choose which tool to use when you're talking about similar features or the same exact feature, in some cases. That's what we're going to talk about.

Here's why this conversation is relevant. If you've ever listened to me say anything before you know I'm a big proponent of being in the right places in the right time, not trying to be all of the places all of the time. I really encourage you to find the right space for your audience and we're going to dig through the three things you need to consider when you're choosing these. Remember it's more about where your audience is, where you can connect with people, where you can engage with people, and less about, "Oh, I really want to use," or, "Oh, this is super cool."  Make sure that you're making that differentiation when you are making these decisions because it's critical.

Here's why this conversation is relevant. If you've ever listened to me say anything before you know I'm a big proponent of being in the right places in the right time, not trying to be all of the places all of the time. I really encourage you to find the right space for your audience and we're going to dig through the three things you need to consider when you're choosing these. Remember it's more about where your audience is, where you can connect with people, where you can engage with people, and less about, "Oh, I really want to use," or, "Oh, this is super cool."  Make sure that you're making that differentiation when you are making these decisions because it's critical.

Ready? First things first, where's your audience, where are your people? For me, that's always, always, always going to be the first thing to consider and here's why. You're already trying to sell them on you, you're already trying to sell them on your message, your value, the change you can make for them. Whether that's from a business perspective or a personal perspective, a health perspective, through a service or a product or information. However it looks you're selling them on your brand. You don't also want to sell them on a new network. "Hey, I really want to provide you this value but you also have to come to this place that you're not usually spending time to get it." No, not going to happen, you need to go to where they already are.

If they're already on Instagram then, yes, Instagram Stories is the way to go. Here's the thing. For a lot of you, a ton of you who, in the last couple of days have sent me messages asking this question and that's why this episode is up today, a lot of it is, you already have an audience built on Instagram. You've already got 100, 500, 1,000, 5,000, 10,000 followers on Instagram and you've got a couple of people following you on Snapchat. On a good day you're getting 2

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All right, guys. 287. In this episode we're going to talk about the 3 things you need to know about social media in August of 2016 because today is August 5th, 2016, the very first Friday in August. There are some things happening.

I know that social media is one of those things that can feel incredibly difficult to keep up with. It can feel like it's changing all the time and there's new services and there's new opportunities from old services and there's new networks and there's new things on old networks. It can be really overwhelming, but not if you have a go to resource and that's why I built this show and that's why I built Hit the Mic Backstage, the membership community. It's so that you could have a resource.

In the spirit of that, we're going to be that resource today. We're going to talk about the 3 things I really want you to be paying attention to in August. Not all the things, just the 3 things that I'd like to see you paying attention to right now.

Let's get started with the biggest news right now that you're probably hearing about in all the places, Instagram stories.

There are a few schools of thought when it comes to Instagram stories. Some Snapchat lovers are quite angry about Instagram stories, saying that it's a total rip off. Some are saying, "I didn't really want to do Snapchat, but now I can get that same purpose happening in a network I'm already using." Then there's people like me who are like, "Awesome. Look how Snapchat is being taken seriously as a competitor and they're seeing that this is really working and so there's making other option to do it. That's really cool." I fall in that camp.

I think Instagram stories are very cool. I am still absolutely using Snapchat, of course it's only be a couple days. I don't see myself stopping using Snapchat because I do have different connections on Snapchat than I do on Instagram. However, much like we saw with something like a Meerkat and a Periscope, where Meerkat we had to build a new audience and that took a lot of effort, and where Periscope we already had our Twitter audience built in, or with Facebook Live where we already see we have our Facebook audience built in.

I think that Instagram is going to be a great option for those people who were not feeling Snapchat, were not wanting to go over there, were not wanting to build an audience some place else. I will absolutely still be using Snapchat because, again, I have an audience there, but for a lot of my clients that I've talked to already about this who are just starting to get into the idea of maybe doing Snapchat or who have started Snapchat very loosely in the last couple of days and they have really sold Instagram audiences already, I'm saying, "Hey. Let's use Instagram stories."

Again, I don't think that Instagram is going to be a Snapchat killer. I think that we've seen a lot of innovation coming out of Snapchat in the last honestly 8 months to a year. We've seen them make massive, massive changes to the user interface. We've seen them make massive, massive changes to things like how the service works, like introducing memories. I think we're going to see more of that innovation come as a response to this. We're seeing them partner with Bitmoji. I was thinking about it earlier, that's the one thing that I really miss in Instagram stories is I loved Bitmjoi integration. It's a really fun way to personalize a story with some fun graphics.

I don't think this is going to be the killer that maybe people are thinking it is right now. I think we're going to see Snapchat hammer back in a really cool way,

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I'm ALL about community, and it's for totally selfish reasons. Communities grow brands, it's just the way it is. 

It can be tough though to get a community going when you aren't getting any engagement, and that's what this episode is all about. I'm sharing 3 ways you can get your community moving and more engaged.

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3 Things You Must Know About Repurposing Facebook Live Content

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It's easy to think that social media is a broadcast medium. It's a tool that helps you get a message out to your own personal masses. 

Community comes through conversation though, and that means listening. So let's talk about how you can use tools and scheduling to make it easier to listen. Oh and even how to make this work if you want to outsource your social media.

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For a long time I was guilty of planning once a year, and by planning I mean I looked at the calendar and said I'll do this. In recent years though I made a major change, and now I'm sharing it with you. 

I'm getting super clear and honest about what I'm doing now to make my business better in the last half of this year, and start 2017 off even stronger. 

It may feel like it's too early to start talking about planning, but listen in and find out why now is the EXACT right time to start planning.

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Ready to see what Facebook Live content sounds like as a podcast... here's your show. 

In an effort to really walk my talk, this episode was recorded LIVE on Facebook and then repurposed for you here today.

You can do the same, you can do it with blog posts, podcasts, and even video work. It's all about creating value and then delivering it in as many ways as possible.

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