What would happen if your business's Facebook or Instagram page was shut down today?

Would your customers know how to reach you?

Would you have a plan in place to still connect with your customers?

In this episode, I'm sharing 3 important tips that'll help you protect yourself and your business if social media happens to go sideways. Each of these tips are like insurance policies. They protect you from Murphy's Law – if anything can happen, it will.

Here's a breakdown of the podcast:

• Protect against hacking with two-factor authentication.

• Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Expand your social media platforms.

• Get your email list up and running (and without being spammy). Snag my free training on how to grow your email list here.

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And if you're looking for more tips and tricks on promoting your business on social media, follow Holly on Facebook and Instagram.

New social media platforms are always coming out, but that doesn't mean you need to be on it.

In this week's episode of The Scrappy Business Owner Podcast, I'm sharing 5 questions that will help you decide if you should create an account on a new platform or stick with what you're currently on.

Here are some questions you should ask yourself:

1. Are my customers going to be there?

• If you're not sure who your customers are and what platforms their on, download my Customer Demographic Worksheet and Training here:

2. Am I doing a good job with the platforms I'm already on?

3. Do I have the time to keep up with another platform?

4. Am I doing this because of FOMO or peer pressure?

5. If I add a platform, how long will I give myself to see if it works?

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And if you're looking for more tips and tricks on promoting your business on social media, follow Holly on Facebook and Instagram.

We've all experienced those random friend requests from people we know we're already friends with. And we also may have gotten a sketchy DM from a friend promoting bitcoin. Both of these are an example of both imposter accounts and a hacker.

In this episode of the podcast, I'm sharing some helpful sight into how to know the difference between the two and most importantly - how to prevent and handle them.

Here's a synopsis:

1. Imposter accounts

   • actually take your photos

   • tweak your name just a bit (add a space, character or extra letter in the name)

   • Send out friend requests

   • How to handle: Report & Block the account

2. Hacking

   • They know your password and have logged into your account.

   • They can send DMs, access your business accounts, ad accounts and groups.

   • It means, you did not set up security on your account.

   • How to handle

   1. Change your password

   2. Set up two-factor authentication immediately

   3. Contact the social media platforms (search for hacked accounts):

      • Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/help/

      • Instagram - https://help.instagram.com/

Business conferences and conventions are a great opportunity to connect with other business owners, get encouragement and help you take your business to the next level. But, oftentimes business owners try to talk themselves out of going. Whether it comes down to budgets or time, I'm sharing some practical insight into the importance of saying YES to the business conference…despite your budgets, times and even personal apprehensions, like being an introvert.

I'm not only giving you a couple of benefits you'll get from going to a conference, but I'm also sharing tips on how to prepare your business, so you can unplug and get what you need out of it.

Charging for your business can be hard. Especially if we started our business as a hobby. In this episode, I'm unpacking a few mindsets that may be keeping you stuck with charging or even increasing your pricing.

From the practical hangups to the psychological hangups, it's hard for business owners to get the confidence to make money. Just like you, I had to overcome these similar challenges and mindsets. So, this week I'm sharing how I faced these challenges and not only started charging, but have a plan for when to increase prices too.

It's easy for us to use the word small when it comes to describing our business. Sure, we're lumped in the general category of "small business," but there is nothing small about your business.

In fact, you and your business make a BIG impact in not only your personal life, but the lives around you.

In this episode, I'm sharing how you can remove the words like "small" or "little" from your vocabulary and discover the impacts that your business is actually making.

And don't forget to send me a DM on Instagram after you listen to the podcast and tell me how you're changing the words you use in describing your business.

One of the best (and scrappiest) ways to get customers is by word of mouth marketing. Nothing can positively impact your business more than having happy customers tell they friends about you.

Think about it. How many times have you gone to a restaurant that a friend recommended? Or think about the time you visited a new boutique or store because a co-worker was wearing a cute outfit one day.

In this week's episode, you'll learn about the importance of getting reviews, how to ask your customers for reviews, and even how to handle negative reviews.

And once you've listened to the episode, take some time this week to reach out to some customers for reviews on your page too! I promise that once a positive review hits your notifications, it'll make your day!

Social media is always changing and that means the algorithms are always changing too.

The very best way to show up on social media is not to beat the algorithm, BUT to help your customers by putting valuable information in the right spots on social media.

There are 3 components of social media that have different purposes and in this episode, Holly is giving simple insight into how to create value in each of these 3 areas:

1. Stories

2. Posts

3. Reels

And if you're looking for more tips and tricks on promoting your business on social media, follow me on Facebook and Instagram.

We are continuing on my series about the basics of creating a podcast and in this episode, I'm sharing 3 ways you can promote your podcast now that you have everything set up. And if you haven't finished setting up your podcast, that's OK. This episode will give you the ideas and direction you need once you do get it set up.

In this episode, I cover the following ways I promote my podcast that will help give you the direction you need:

1. Social Media (Facebook and Instagram) - a great place to start that's free and will get your podcast in front of your followers.

2. Website - the perfect spot to send people to listen to your podcast if they don't want to listen on a podcasting platform like Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

3. Email - sending a recap email of your podcast to your email subscribers is a perfect way to give them valuable content that isn't spammy. Plus, it's a great way to send your subscribers to your website.

I cover a lot in this podcast and if you ever have any questions as you set up your own podcast, you can always send me a DM on Facebook or Instagram as well as sending me an email: [email protected].

Starting a podcast is a process and takes quite a few steps to get set up and last week I shared the basic and practical things (including software and equipment) you need to start a podcast. This week, I'm expanding on what we learned and we'll be talking about the fun things like:

• Determining the length of your podcast.

• Coming up with a name.

• Designing the graphics for your show.

• Coming up with interesting content that people will want to listen to.

I cover a lot in this podcast and if you ever have any questions as you set up your own podcast, you can always send me a DM on Facebook or Instagram as well as sending me an email: [email protected].