Your Dream Business

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• Whilst Pinterest may not give you instant gratification, it’s a great platform for getting results over a long period of time.
• Pinterest is not only a great tool for sharing your own posts, but a great place to search for information too! Whether you like searching for fashion ideas, travelling goals or recipes – Pinterest is a great place to see all the information you need presented to you visually.
• When you create a new piece of content you should pin it straight away to your most relevant board, that way, Pinterest will know that it’s your content.
• If you repin something you have already pinned, try changing the description to increase your chances of it being seen. You can do this manually or using Tailwind interval pinning (a scheduling tool for Pinterest).
• Pin every single day and not in a flurry – using a scheduling tool will help with this. Tailwind will be able to suggest the best times for you to pin, based on when your followers are online.
• The ideal size for a Pinterest image is 600 x 900. Don’t give too much away in your infographic or image, otherwise people won’t click through. Ensure it’s a clear, high quality image.
• When it comes to Pinterest, the best kind of engagement you can have is someone saving your pin.
• Promoted Pins on Pinterest are a lot more simple than Facebook Ads and when people save your promoted pin, it can lead to further repins and traffic to your site.
• If you have never used Pinterest for business before, you may need to start a new account if you want your engagement rate from the start.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…There is very little negativity on Pinterest, so it’s a great place to find motivation and Inspiration. Above all else, that’s what people enjoy most about using the app.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Introducing Alisa – 06:15
• The Beauty of Pinterest – 11:10
• What is Pinterest and Why Should You Use It? - 14:10
• Using Keywords on Pinterest - 18:30
• How To Use Pinterest As a Business - 23:15
• The Importance of a Pinterest Image - 29:40
• Engagement and Pinterest: How Do You Do It? – 35:20
• Using Promoted Pins On Pinterest - 43:40

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE

• Tailwind
• Alisa Meredith
• Alisa Meredith Pinterest
• Alisa Meredith Instagram

Transcript below

 

Hello and welcome back to the podcast. How has your week been? I hope your January's going well. Is it still January? Let me think. Sorry, I had to look at my calendar then to see if whether we were still in January. I know that sounds completely crazy, but obviously I record the podcast early as in I batch content. So it's actually only the 11th of January when I'm recording this. So I hope you're having a wonderful rest of your January and I hope you've got it off to a great start.

For me, January is all about taking action. Setting me ready for the rest of the year and making sure that those things that I want to achieve this year, I am working on every single day. And actually, even though this podcast isn't about this, I just want to touch on that a minute. Because I never used to do that. I used to have these things written down and be like, "Okay I want to achieve this this year." And I did that last year. So imagine going back to January 2018. I sat there and went, "Right, this year I'm going to do this and this and this." And do you know what? I didn't do them. And I didn't even work towards doing them.

So now what I do is ... because what I'd do is I'd wait for the most ideal time or I'd be thinking, well let me get all that done and then I'll work on that. Or let me take a week off and then I'll work on that on the week off. And, of course, those times never come. You never get to take time off to chunk out a section of time to work on something that's on the business not in the business. You often sit there and think, I'll do this later on today or later on in the week. And of course, your time just zips by. Something happens, something comes in and those things don't get done.

So throughout last year I did a lot of work on myself, I did a lot of work on the business, I did a lot of coaching and going to experts and getting great things. And this year this is one thing I have noticed. And I did start it at the end of last year as well, but every single day I write down the three main things that I'm trying to move forward. And even if I just do one little thing of that process, at least I've moved forward every single day. Even if it's just one hour of my day or half hour of my day or ten minutes. As long as it's something and I somehow move forward that day, even though it can seem incredibly slow progress, at least I'm moving forward. At least every day I'm inching closer and closer to those things that I'm trying to achieve.

So for me, January is all about doing those things, getting started on those things and making sure I got my year off to a great start. And it has gone really well, and I know it's only the 11th even though you're listening to this later on in the month, but it has gone really, really well. So I really hope you've achieved the same.

Anyway, on to today's episode. And you know what? I've just re-listened to this because I think we recorded it before Christmas and, oh wow, it's so funny and it's such a good episode and as I've sat here listening to it, this sounds really sad, I was actually sat smiling to myself thinking, "Oh, this is really cool. I loved doing that." I had great memories from it, we had a great laugh. And also, it's really funny 'cause I listen back to myself and I'm literally, like, totally the student. Sucking in every bit of information, asking all the stupid questions. And James Wedmore says there's never a stupid question, so you always ask the questions. But I really feel that on this episode I'm learning as much as, perhaps, my listeners do on the other episodes. So I'm loving this.

Anyway, I've wittered on and I haven't even told you who I've interviewed. So this week I have interviewed the very lovely Alisa Meredith. Now she is the content marketing manager for Tailwind which is a Pinterest and Instagram scheduler and analytics platform. She is a sought after speaker and teacher on Pinterest and promoted pins. And in particular has spoke at places like Social Media Marketing World, Agents of Change and has appeared on places like the Art of Paid Traffic podcast and Social Pros podcast. Alisa will be the first to admit that she's spent a huge amount of time crafting her expertise in this area, and realises that this is an ongoing process and that the learning never ends. And as I've already mentioned, she was a pleasure to interview. Now, like I said, I really do go to town on her in this interview, in terms of picking her brains, because even though I'm a user of Pinterest and I love it and I pin things that are personal things or things that are to do with recipes or cooking or clothes or whatever it might be. So I'm a personal user, but I don't use it for the business and I really should be.

So she talks about the fact that Pinterest is a virtual pin-board where you can store ideas and images and articles. And it's more of a search engine. She also discusses the fact that businesses perhaps aren't using it because they feel that Pinterest really is for females who are getting married or want to decorate their home or whatever it is, and actually she completely de-bunks that in the sense that obviously there are people like that on Pinterest, but actually there is a way in which pretty much any business can use it. And she honestly blows my mind with some of the stats that she gives me. Some of the results that she and her clients have got on Pinterest. And she also makes me aware that Pinterest is unlike any other social media platform. In fact it's not even really a social media platform, it just happens to be lumped in there with everything else.

So this is such a brilliant episode and I don't want to tell you any more about it because I want her to ... well I don't want to ruin the surprise. So I want you to listen to it and hear the stuff she's got to say because I literally came off the end of this interview and my head felt like it had just blown up. Because it was such good stuff. So Pinterest is firmly on my board of things to do and I really hope it will be after this episode. Enjoy.

 

Introducing Alisa

 

So I am so excited to welcome to the podcast, Alisa Meredith. Welcome.

Hey, thanks for having me Teresa. This is going to be fun.

No worries. It is going to be fun. We've already been laughing before it started so hopefully this is going to be awesome. Always a good sign. I like podcasts that I laugh my way through, they tend to be the best ones. I'm not sure that the listeners might agree 'cause they're literally hearing me howl down their headphones. But, you know, I think it's good fun. So I am so excited to have you on today and we were just talking about before we came on, and I've mentioned in the intro, that you are here to talk all about Pinterest. And I am so pleased about it. And I'm pleased for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I love Pinterest and it's something that personally I use all the time and I really enjoy and it's one of those social medias that personally I can get lost in. But also I have been so aware that it keeps coming up from a business point of view and I feel like we're about to expose a hidden gem that loads of businesses don't know that actually it is way more powerful than they can even start to imagine. So I'm really excited to enlighten my audience and for them to hear all about Pinterest.

But before we start, let's just give people a quick idea of who you are and how you got to be doing what you're doing now.

Who am I? So I started off with social media, really. Well website design before that but that was ... I don't even want to think about that, I was so bad at that. And then content marketing. And then when this thing Pinterest appeared I thought, well what is that? And I started using it myself, like you said, as a user to kind of bookmark things I wanted to come back to later. I liked it for organising things I wanted to do later. But I wanted to know what it could do for business. So I dug right into it and I wrote a little book about it, just online, and I started getting questions. Well how do you do this? And can you walk me through that? And eventually it was, can I just hire you to do this? And I thought, well there's an idea.

Yeah.

So I started pinning for people's businesses. And it was amazing to me how much traffic Pinterest could drive. So for this first client of mine on Pinterest, and anyone who's heard me talk about Pinterest is tired of this story, but he gets more traffic from Pinterest than from every other source combined.

No.

Yes, yes.

So if you added up all of his, I don't know, let's say Facebook, Twitter-

Google.

... and Pinterest is bigger?

Pinterest is bigger than all social plus search engine traffic for him.

That is crazy.

Yeah, let me tell you the crazier part about it is that I still have access to his Google analytics even though I haven't pinned for him in maybe three years. And he hasn't pinned anything since then either, and that is still the case. He gets more traffic from Pinterest than everything else combined. And if that doesn't illustrate the power of Pinterest, I don't know what does.

That is amazing, isn't it?

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

So what was it initially that made you then go ... Like you said, you obviously liked Pinterest like me, but what made you kind of go, there is something really big going on here in terms of businesses for you to even start at the very beginning, you know? Even to pull that out to decide to write a book or anything like that on.

Curiosity really. And then I thought, surely there is a way to use it. But I couldn't really picture it in my head. But then you start to see how you act as a user. Okay, basically I'm saving ideas and the reason you're saving the ideas is to act on them later. So I kind of liked the idea of it being a slow return. So Instagram and Twitter, you really are counting on getting your reward right then, right? It's going to be kind of instant gratification. And I liked the idea of the investment on Pinterest today paying off for months and years to come. And you can't illustrate that any better than with that first client who hasn't in years and still that investment that he made is paying off today.

And do you know what? That is such good foresight isn't it? Because, like you said, we live in a world now where everything is about instant gratification. We put a post up, we want to see people liking it. We want comments on it, we want to see it immediately. And we want things immediately. I am the queen of Amazon Prime.

It feels good, you know?

 

The Beauty of Pinterest

 

It's like literally if I can't get it first thing tomorrow morning and I order it now, don't bother, do you know what I mean? We live in this world where we constantly want that, so like you said, it's kind of a lovely idea of it's a platform where you're nurturing it and you're doing stuff that not only is going to help to some degree fairly quickly but also long term. And what other platform could you possibly say that about? 'Cause I can't think of any off the top of my head.

It's closer really to Google than anything else, right? So when you build a website you're building it for the future. You know Google's not going to pick you up immediately usually. But the other thing is it's kind of a personality thing. So I have tried with Instagram to have a beautiful feed and to create flat lays. And boy, that's just not me. You know, it's just not me. I'm an introvert and as much as I like people, I do not want to feel like I'm on display all the time. It's just not appealing to me. Pinterest, on the other hand, is what I like to think of as the introverts network.

Oh okay.

So really it's about me, it's about making my life better, it's about projects I want to try. And then, to expand a little on that, it's also about me and a very small group of friends. So like we were talking about before, my house was very badly damaged in a hurricane. So I created a secret group board on Pinterest all about my new house and what it was going to look like and it has all the sections in it. And I invited my very close friends to help me collect ideas that will help me to build the house that I want. So I mean that's social-ish, but it's kind of on my terms, right? And I'm not doing it to impress anybody or to make a certain image of myself. It's really about what I want for my future.

And also do you think that because you're sharing someone, or you're collecting is probably the better way of putting-

That is a great word for it.

... other people's images, therefore it's not like ... whereas, and I will happily admit this on my Instagram, I show you the best parts of my life, obviously.

Oh sure, everyone does.

I'm not going to show you where I look dreadful or I'm having a terrible day or whatever. So, for me, when you're showing the best part it can feel a little bit egotistical, it can feel a little bit showy-offy, a little bit like, "Look at me." Or, again, if you're putting pictures of a house going, "Oh, look at my house. Isn't it beautiful?" But actually by you collecting other people's stuff it doesn't say that at all about you, does it? Because they're not your images. That's just you kind of showing, this is what I like, this is the type of place that I want. But everybody ... instead of people looking at it going, "Alright, stop showing off." Which they might do in the UK, I don't know that you do it so much over in the States.

I suppose [inaudible 00:13:57] actually .

 

What is Pinterest and Why Should You Use It?

 

But instead of people thinking that they think, "Oh, how lovely." Because it's someone else's images and you're just pulling it together going, "I love how this style looks or this style looks." So I tell you what, let's backtrack a tiny bit. If someone's listening and thinks, do you know what? I don't even have a Pinterest. What is Pinterest and why should I even start to imagine how I can use it for my business. Can you just explain? 'Cause it is very different from every other platform.

Oh yes it is. So what it really is is a virtual pin-board. So if you can imagine that you have 40 cork boards on your wall and you have a different topic for each one and you're actually tacking up articles that you want to look at or reference later or things you want to buy or try later and you have them organised by topic. That's what you're doing on Pinterest. So for me, it really replaced the browser bookmarks. If there's a few things I wanted to do or try or read later I would put them there but ... you can sort of organise them, but I would much rather look at a visual representation of that idea than try to remember what the link was called.

Yeah, yeah.

So a place to collect your ideas so you can easily reference them later. It's also a great place to search for ideas as well. I think most of my searches on Pinterest probably are recipes and home design. Because you can just find so many great things to do.

And I think that's a fair point actually in the sense of ... and this is maybe why businesses don't necessarily look at Pinterest because they think how would they use it, or how do I use it, you know? And obviously my Pinterest is open, people can go and have a look, and basically it's got things like clothes that I like or places I want to go, places I've been, kids bedrooms, oh, dinner parties. When I didn't have my own business I loved a dinner party. I can tell you I have not done a proper dinner party for years because I haven't got time for that anymore. But it's all those kind of nice things, also quite feminine things. So me, for instance, as a social media person or another business, how are they going to use Pinterest for them? Why would we go on and use it?

Okay, well I think it helps to start off as a user so you can kind of get a feel for how people use it and then kind of imagine how your product or service would become appealing in that setting. So the thing you want to keep in mind with your Pinterest images is to keep it inspirational, keep it useful. Whereas on Facebook you might be able to write a blog post and share an image that's like the five reasons you've failed on your diet this year. That could work on Facebook. On Pinterest you'd be better off to turn it to a positive. So the five reasons you're going to succeed with your diet this year.

Okay.

So it's the same content, right? Same content, but you flip it so that it's more inspiring really is the goal on Pinterest.

Okay, so it would be a case of then when you pin that image, you're using keywords. Is that right? So you do you hashtag like you would in every other social, or other social medias, or is it in the comment? Or how do you get people to find that pin?

Well I think that's actually a...

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• YouTube is an incredible ROI on your time and investment, however, when it comes to video it’s much more of a long-game than going live on Facebook and Instagram. When you do manage breakthrough though, the results are incredible.
• Try not to worry about equipment to begin with, the value you give is more important than spending thousands on expensive tool as you’re setting up.
• If you want to have incredible guests on your show, get started right now. Relationships are built over years so there is no time like the present.
• A great way to get lots of interviews is to go to industry events and shoot interviews between sessions.
• When your using YouTube you’re building a relationship, so it’s important to be consistent. The more you seem people, the more consistent your connection is, the better your relationship is likely to be.
• To help you keep up consistency within your channel, embrace batching and create a framework you’ll work to. This could include your intro, outro and the way each episode runs.
• Information alone is not enough, you need to create connections by being yourself. Think about the emotions you want people to have when they’re watching your videos.
• Consider YouTube as a search engine. Someone is searching something every single second on YouTube, so if you can be the person that adds value to someone else’s search then game over.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…The value you give to your content is the most important thing when it comes to starting a YouTube channel, everything else should come afterwards.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Introducing Sean and Benji 04:48
• The Benefits of Breaking into YouTube As a Business 09:40
• How Do You Overcome Barriers When Getting Started On YouTube 13:15
• The Secret To Getting Incredible Guests On Your Channel 16:52
• How Important Is Consistency In YouTube 26:20
• The Book: YouTube Secrets 35:30
• Sean And Benji’s Top Tip for Getting Started on YouTube 47:15

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE

• YouTube Secrets the Book
• Video Influencers YouTube Channel
• Story Brand

Transcript below

 

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Social Media Marketing Made Simple Podcast and I am you host, as always, Teresa Heath-Wareing. I hope you've had a wonderful week and that you really enjoyed last week's episode with James Wedmore. If you haven't listened to it, then I urge you to head back and take a listen, because I loved doing that episode. So much good stuff. And also so much stuff that I use in my business, and I use daily personally. So I loved it, I thought it was brilliant. I hope you did too. If you haven't let me know, then by all means come and let me know.

But as I said last week, I have another interview for you this week because I've got so many good ones lined up with so many subjects where ... Do you know what? I'm not the expert on. So today's subject of YouTube, I've got Pinterest stuff coming up, and I've brought in people, which is the aim of my life to be honest, that I bring in people who are better than me at certain things. So my team, every time I brought someone on, I want them to be better than me at the thing I'm bringing them in to do. So it's exactly the same with a podcast, I wanna bring you the best of the best people so that you get the best advice.

So this week I have the lovely Sean and Benji on. Now, they are full time YouTubers and have over 20 years experience in video and online marketing. They have a YouTube channel, which I urge you to go and check out, called Video Influencers, with over 400 thousand subscribers. And they've just released their book called, YouTube secrets. Now I have just got my copy of this book and I have it in my hand, just started reading it and I have to say it's looking really really good. So I'm excited to find out how the rest of the book is but I know that they're giving away some great ideas and tips and strategies. So do check them out. It's on Amazon if you want to go and get it. I'll link it in the show notes.

So they have interviewed some of the most amazing people and I'm not even kidding you. So in the online marketing space, these people are really at the top of their game. So they have interviewed people like Gary V, Chalene Johnson, Lewis Howes, Pat Flynn, Jasmine Star, James Wedmore, literally loads of them. So these guys have really again, gone to the best people to find out the best advice and they've interviewed some fantastic people.

Now, in today's episode, we talk all about YouTube as a search engine, which is such a good point, because actually that's exactly what it is. If I need to know something, if my husband wants to fix something, we YouTube it. If my daughter wants to learn her spellings, we YouTube it. We literally search for things on YouTube, so we have to think of it as a search engine rather than as perhaps a social media.

So they talk a bit about that, which is really, really helpful, and they also talk about how the algorithm works and how you can maximise your YouTube account to ensure that you're working with the algorithm. They also talk about how to get started and what the kind of personal barriers are. So how you feel when you first start a YouTube account and how to get over some of those things. And then they give some great tips in terms of getting personal, and building up those relationships, using something like YouTube.

Now, I have happily admitted that YouTube is an area that A, I don't do but B, I really wanna do. But I am one of these people who's totally "all or nothing". So if I'm gonna start something, I'm gonna do it with gusto, and I'm gonna do it every single week like with the podcast and I'm going to do my best aim to get the best version of that I can out there. So this was a really interesting episode for me, really interesting to hear what these guys were saying. They're really entertaining.

And actually I'm looking forward to meeting them later in the year when Sean is going to be speaking at Impact which is going on in Irvine in California at the beginning of April. I'm just looking up at my calender trying to remember when it it, and I've literally just bought the ticket. But he's gonna be speaking there and I'm heading to that conference so I'm really excited about that one too.

Anyway, enough of me going on, take a listen to these guys and let us know what you think. We would love to know.

 

Introducing Sean and Benji

 

I'm so excited today to introduce to you, Benji and Sean, welcome to the podcast.

Hi.

We are so excited to be here today. Thanks for having us.

Oh, my absolute pleasure. I've been doing some digging around, I've been looking at you guys, I've been watching all your stuff, I've been like binge watching YouTube videos and I was just getting so excited today thinking that we were gonna do this interview. Not only because you guys are fascinating and have done some amazing stuff, but also because my audience, YouTube isn't something we've talked a whole lot about and for my audience and myself personally, it's an area that I want to explore, and I haven't quite got there. I haven't quite worked out how I'm gonna do it so I'm just gonna be picking at your brains.

But what would be amazing to start with, if my audience haven't heard of you, it'd be great if you could just give us a quick run down of who you guys are and how you got to be doing the amazing stuff that you're doing today.

Absolutely. Yeah. We are Sean and Benji, co-founders of Video Influencers and we've come together on that project to help people that are like your community, that want to build their influence and learn how to use social media to make a greater impact. And for us, we help people with online video and that also is both of our backgrounds. So we converged on this project and on this book but Benji's got an entire business and multiple YouTube channels and I do as well. Benji's based up in Seattle, I'm based in Vegas. And I have a tech channel, he's got a cooking channel, him and his wife vlog. And so both of us together have over two decades of experience on YouTube.

We're also both college drop outs, we come from the same small town in the Northwest of the United States in the Seattle area. And we've both personally seen the power of YouTube transform our lives, our families, businesses we've bene involved in, Benji's been a real estate agent and was able to just Ten-X his real estate business using YouTube, even with a relatively small channel.

So really, both of our backgrounds, and Benji can fill in some details, but we've just been doing this online video thing for years, we've achieved a lot of success in different niches and helped other do that. And so in the last few years we thought, we gotta get this message out, we're living in an era of such incredible opportunity, and YouTube is one of those platforms. And I love that you mentioned you haven't covered it much, because actually it kind of is almost not mentioned in the social media conversation.

Yeah, you're right.

Because it's a little bit different, and I think that there's reasons for that but I do think that there's some opportunity for your audience to really take some digital territory to build their brands and make a greater impact by embracing YouTube.

Absolutely.

Yeah, and if I was to add a little bit to that, what makes Sean and I unique in the sense of YouTube is the fact that not only are him and I creators, of course I call myself a YouTuber Vlogger, Sean is obviously a YouTube Expert. Our decade of experience each was not just for ourselves, but to support other people. So my wife, Judy of itsjudytime, she hit over three million followers on YouTube in the-

Oh, my God.

Last few years. And I was always behind the scenes helping her as well as Sean helping other people build their personal brands. We've both helped businesses grow and I think that's what's unique and that's where our passion comes from in terms of what video influencers is all about, the book that we're gonna be talking about. And we saw the power not only for ourselves, but for so many other people in so many different industries, no matter what your business is, no matter what your passion is.

And that's why we're so excited about YouTube because like Sean said, it's really not spoken about a lot, yet. And you talk to this younger generation and you even talk to successful business people, they all want YouTube exposure, they wanna build a channel and they wanna make money doing it. So that's what our passion's all about, helping other creators build their influencing from an impact with online video.

And I think it's such a good point what you've said in the sense that people don't talk about YouTube a lot. I do lots of social media conferences, my background's marketing, and YouTube seems to be one of those things that it's either in YouTube or you're not in YouTube. It's not attached as a tool. So if I go into a business and we talk to business and we sort of say, "What marketing tools are you using?" We talk about video but we don't always talk about YouTube as a strategy, which is interesting.

 

The Benefits of Breaking into YouTube As a Business

 

And then like you said, you've got this other side of the world where like I have a stepson who's 15 and I can promise you all he does is watch YouTube. And I told him that I was interviewing you guys and he's like, "Who are they? Let me see them." And he wanted to see who you've spoken to and things. So I think sometimes it feels like from a business perspective, like we never quite get to use YouTube the way that it can be used and maybe it feels a little bit far away from us. Like how on earth do we break into this kind of world that seems a very enclosed world? Like you have your YouTubers like, how do you even start to get into that world if you're not even in it?

Yeah, that's a great question. And I think one of the reasons for that is, YouTube is I believe and we both believe is an incredible high ROI, a return on investment of your time and energy. However, a couple things about YouTube that make it different than other social networks is, YouTube is much more of a long game than say, going live on Facebook or maybe some of the results you can get on Instagram.

So the allure of some of the other platforms is like, "Wow, even if I'm just starting I can get some momentum," by maybe my friend sharing this on Facebook by kinda tapping into hashtags and the Instagram algorithm. And I'm getting, even if I'm just starting, maybe 100 views on a video or 50 likes on a post or a couple thousand or whatever. And sometimes YouTube you start and it feels like such a ghost town, and it feels like your results are not paying off up front.

And YouTube is kinda flipped, it's like you invest though, it's a heavier investment on the front end, but if you break through, when you break through, the dividends are massive. And the reason for that is because YouTube is a search engine and it also has the most generous kind of suggested videos algorithm. Once you get sucked into that algorithm you have a bit of content out there, and your videos are being found in "search" but also they're being recommended.

Yeah.

Right now I looked at Think Media and we get something like ... Which is my personal channel. We get something like 20 million impressions, just impressions a month. Just like on your Facebook feed it says, reach. That's just how many people like saw it, they didn't necessarily engage. You get like 20 million impressions, well it said this, that in my YouTube studio beta, my backend, 50% of those are from YouTube recommending my content."

Why?

Not paid traffic, no other reason, YouTube ... And then recommending it is not also search either, it's someone literally seeing a suggested video, it's hitting their homepage, so if you put out quality content and it gets sucked up into the algorithm, 10 million people last month, YouTube for free ... It was like little robots went up holding up signs and said, "Hey, you wanna go check out this guy's videos? Do you wanna go look at these guys videos?"

That's amazing.

That is absolutely stunning. Now the problem is, is that there is a level of grit, a level of investment, and we don't wanna overstate that. Again, you can get started, just grab your smartphone and start uploading content. But I think that's what daunting, you gotta upload a video, you gotta do a description, you gotta make a thumbnail versus shooting a quick Instagram story, you can get quicker short term results, that Instagram story's gone in 24 hours meanwhile Benji and I have videos that are four years old that still get videos today.

So YouTube's almost like an investment in a bank, it accrues great interest over time and creates a snowball of momentum for your business, you profits, your influence, but definitely gotta do some heavy lifting upfront.

Yeah. And I think that is probably one of the big things isn't it? And so like you said, it's super easy to get your phone, go on InstaStory, you know that people are going to expect it to be rough and ready. And then we go on and one of the guys I'm gonna talk about, it's one of the people you've interviewed, which are phenomenal.

 

How Do You Overcome Barriers When Getting Started On YouTube

 

But one of the guys that we have in common is Pat Flynn, and I went to Pat's studio and it's amazing, and the camera's are amazing and the lights and sound, and the ... And you just look at that and think, "Oh, my word. How am I ever gonna get to that? How am I ..." And the problem is I think we look at ... There's this great saying, "You can pay your day one, with someone else's day 500." But like you look at that and think, "Well if it's YouTube, it's gotta be proper, it's gotta be good. The quality's gotta be good." And therefore that almost entry, the barrier to entry seems a little bit harder than maybe just going live on Facebook or something.

Yeah. I will love to answer this because I think this is one of the number on barriers for people to get into YouTube, this perception that it's gotta be perfect or there's gotta be a lot of production, I've gotta buy all this gear. So Sean and I, we've been in this for a very long time, and even when we started Video Influencer as a channel that him and I co-founded, we had the ability to use some of the best cameras, the best equipment, we already were set up from our other channels. He had a few channels, I had a few channels, but literally our first videos were done on a webcam. Literally a webcam. Right?

Yeah.

No professional audio, it was just what was onboard my laptop's monitor. And even this right here, I've got a professional studio at home, when I say professional it's just like in my office in my backyard, but here, I'm on my phone right? I'm using a microphone that's attached to it, I'm just monitoring audio with some free earphones from my phone purchase.

Yeah.

So I'd say, everyone looks at how people end up, they forget about how they started.

Yeah. Yeah.

So just remember ... And this is another thing too, on the flip side of that, Sean talks about how many people have been exposed to his videos, what's gonna be mind blowing is how many other videos there are out there that people are being exposed to that have no production quality [crosstalk 00:15:14]-

Yeah, yeah.

Or very casual, still adding tonnes of value and if you kind of understand that, I'm sure a lot of people watching this can related to this, [crosstalk 00:15:25]-

Yeah.

Watch a YouTube video that didn't necessarily have the best lighting, maybe it wasn't even edited, but it still solved the problem. Right? Maybe-

Yeah.

[crosstalk 00:15:33] the question for them. And the point is, the value is what's most important. I'd say like if you're just starting out, the one tip I'd give quickly, just is the value you give to your content is the most important thing, everything else comes after that. So if you've got a great personality and you're passionate about something, if you know what you're talking about and you can answer people's questions or help them out, or you're just genuinely wanting to give to whoever's watching, that is what's most important to focus on, and then it'll help you get over that barrier of not having equipment or set up.

Yeah. And I think probably we are in a much better position now than perhaps we've ever been aren't we? Because we do have these phenomenal phones and we can ... I'm addicted to Amazon Prime, I'm ordering stuff on there all the time. But you can pick up a mic and a lapel mic for like seven pounds or you can get these things, the ring lights and that sort of stuff, for not a huge amount of money. I just think, like you said, sometimes people look at it and think, "oh, it's gotta be a good set up. It's gotta have all this equipment. And especially the camera quality I guess, that's what people...

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• Think about the thing that scares you most, and the thing that you have put off doing in your business because of fear. Once you’ve identified it, choose not to ‘feed the fear’ and you’ll be able to grow more than you can ever imagine.
• Most people think that the reason their business isn’t growing is because they have a lack knowledge. In some cases, this may be the case, however, it comes down to having the mindset to be able to apply it to your business.
• Whilst hustling is important, you DON’T have to hustle to be successful. At the end of the day, it’s how you see business that determines what is possible for you. You are so much more than just your work ethic.
• Feeling guilty for taking time off from your business is a form of fear getting in the way. It’s so hard to ‘stop’ working as an entrepreneur, but this can be incredibly detrimental for your business.
• The reason you can’t afford to hire someone and outsource is because you haven’t been outsourcing. Outsourcing tasks that you find you have to do more than once can free up time for you to focus on the things that are important.
• You don’t necessarily need to know how you are going to reach your goals in order to set them. Be okay with not knowing how.
• Learning about your relationship with money and how to live in abundance can drastically improve your life (and others).

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…You are the author of your own life and you write the story anyway you like. The story you tell is the story you experience, starting from that very first blank page. If you’re struggling in business it becomes part of your story, just an obstacle you had to overcome.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Introducing James Wedmore – 06:30
• What It Means To Be An Entrepreneur (And Getting Over The Fear) 11:30
• How To Keep Yourself Driven And Motivated In Business 19:30
• Debugging Common ‘Entrepreneur Myths’ 32:16
• Stop Feeling Guilty About Taking Time Away From Your Business 43:32
• Being Responsible For Your Own Business And Forgetting The How 54:00
• Creating Your Story 01:02:48
• Living In Abundance 01:09:09

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE

• James Wedmore Website
• Mind Your Business Podcast
• James on Instagram
• James on Facebook
• James on YouTube

Transcript below

 

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. As you can hear, I still have a slightly strange voice from my cough and cold, and that because I am trying to get ahead and therefore, I'm batching intros and outros, so you're going to hear this voice, I'm afraid, today as well as last week. Then hopefully, by the next time I come to do more recording, I will be better and my voice will be back to normal, which would be lovely because I'm personally getting a little bit sick of it now, but nevermind.

Anyway, onto today's podcast episode, which I am so excited about because as you know, if you've listened to my podcast, I am a huge fan of James Wedmore. Now, I discovered James' podcast I think at least a year ago now, maybe a bit longer. I can't remember. I have to say, the podcast and him and the work I've done with him since has honestly changed my business, me, and my life.

Now, I know that sounds really dramatic, and really amazing, but I promise you, he has. The things he says, the stuff he's woken me up to, the concepts he's got me to understand have honestly been amazing. In total honesty, a lot of that has come from his podcasts, his free content that he's putting out every single week. In fact, several times a week, he is giving you such good advice.

So, the reason I say these things about James is because as I've talked about lots of times before, I've worked in marketing a long time. Therefore, for me, the tools and tactics and strategies have never really been a problem. Also, I am very keen to keep learning. So, just because I did a degree, in fact, I bet hardly any of my degree I use now because it's changed so much, but I learn all the time. I do courses all the time. I read a lot. I listen to a lot of books. I listen to a lot of podcasts. So, I was always updating myself with the changes because the digital marketing landscape is a forever changing thing. So, I'm always trying to keep on top of that.

So, I felt very confident that I have the tools and tactics that enabled me to do these amazing things in marketing. I knew this as well because I was doing it for clients. I was helping clients create online marketing and build their email list, and create memberships, and successfully launch products. So, I knew I knew that bit, and I felt fairly confident in that. Yet, I have these amazing dreams to build my own business in a different way, which I had already built it.

So, obviously, I have an agency, but I wanted to focus more on the Teresa side of the business. I always talk about myself like, "I'm a therapist," but the Teresa side of the business is things like this. It's the podcast. It's doing more speaking. It's selling courses that help you. It's providing you the membership that can support you. I really wanted to grow this side of the business, but I wasn't doing it. Literally, didn't do anything. It wasn't through lack of knowledge because I knew how to do it, and I couldn't work out what the problem was.

Anyway, I started to listen to James, and I started to just be a bit more open to I guess a more spiritual mindset side. Please don't let the word spiritual turn you off if you're not spiritual because actually, there's some amazing things coming up in this episode, but I started to open my mind a bit more to those things. I have to say, the stuff he taught me and the stuff I learnt has made a huge difference to me and my business, and things like not being scared to do something because I let fear hold me back a lot, and I think, in fact, this is probably one of the main reasons I haven't, at this point, launched the stuff I want to launch. It's nearly there, and it's probably days away by this point, but that's possibly one of the reasons I didn't do it because I was scared, and I let that fear stop me.

So, James has been amazing. He has really helped me understand this side, really helped me focus on me as a person. Another thing that we talk about on the podcast that's one of the reasons I really like him is because I was an employee. I was employed for years. I didn't know how to be an entrepreneur. I didn't think I was an entrepreneur. I knew how to do marketing. I knew how to help clients better market their business, and I thought that's all it took, and of course, it isn't all it takes. It's about how to keep yourself motivated, how to keep yourself on track, how do you run your business. Actually, again, he talked about all of that side.

So, anyway, I'm going on way too much, but you are going to love this episode. Like I said, he is a hero of mine. So, before we jump in, let me just quickly go over his bio. So, for 10 years, James has taught entrepreneurs and online business owners how to leverage the power of online video and YouTube marketing to reach more people, share their message, and convert to customers. In 2016, James made a massive shift to focus on a gap that he felt was missing from this marketplace, the mindset needed for entrepreneurship.

So, he launched, he totally woo-woo, his words, not mine, podcast, although I do like it, called The Mind Your Business Podcast. I will link that in the show notes. I listen to it every week. He also then created his signature programme, Business By Design. Today, he helps coaches, experts, content creators and authors not only to craft better marketing messages, but also how to ditch the hustle mentally and create success from the inside out. I promise you, you're going to love this one. So, without further ado, here is James.

 

Introducing James Wedmore

 

Okay. I am so excited and so very honoured to welcome today's guest of the podcast. Welcome, James Wedmore.

Hey, Teresa. Thanks so much for having me.

Oh, no. Honestly, the pleasure is all mine. James, you've been on my list for a long time, and having been a huge fan of your podcast, to have you on mine, and that we get to have a conversation is a bit of a business dream come true. So, thank you so much for that.

Wow! Well, thanks for listening to the show. I really appreciate that.

Oh, no. I love it. In fact, it was probably one of the first I really got into, and the main one I listen to all the time now, and it's one that I recommend to anybody that listens. So, I know my audience are going to know who you are because I talk about you a lot, but just in case they've missed it somehow, it will be great if you could just tell us a little bit about who you are and how you got to do what you're doing now.

Sure. So, 11 years ago, I got an idea to start a business on the internet, but I had no idea what I was in for, what I was doing. Fast forward to several years later, through a lot of trials and tribulations, a lot of ups and downs, a lot of struggles, frustrations, long nights, a lot of just pounding the keyboard, I managed to build a rather successful seven-figure digital business around my content expertise, and I became known as the go-to YouTube and marketing guy in the industry.

So, that was really amazing. That was a big dream of mine was just getting paid. That was my little vision for myself was I wanted to get paid to make videos because doing videos, creating videos, writing, scripting, editing, all that stuff was something I really love. I still love it. So, that was a driving question for me was, "How do I get paid to do this? How do I get paid to do this thing that I love?" I managed to do that.

That was the original objective. That's what I set out to do. There's the difference between what you think you want versus, well, what you really get. What I got was a crash course in life, business, and entrepreneurship. I think there was a point in time where I was teaching people how to make videos and stuff, and Teresa, if you're a student, your win, your transformation would be like, "James, I made a video." There came a point in time for me that I was just like, "I think I want to do more. I think I want to help people with more than that."

So, I really looked back at my journey and realised that what really got me to that place was so much more about what was in between my ears, and how I was thinking, how I was feeling, and really, how I had to shift everything from the inside out. I said, "If I'm not ..." There was just a moment where I was like, "If I'm not talking about this, if I'm not teaching this or sharing this, and I just tell people the only reason I'm successful is because I made a bunch of videos, it's like I'm just scratching the surface, and I'm doing such a disservice."

So, about three years ago now, I came up with the idea to start a podcast, and the podcast is called Mind Your Business, and it was basically everything else that to me was so critically relevant to the entrepreneurial journey, which is really a conversation of instead of looking externally to what funnel do I need, what launch should I do, what's the strategy, how do I create a landing page, and all these things that are such surface level, you can learn all the tech, you can learn all the landing pages and all the funnels and still be broke and not help anybody.

It's not until we start looking within and saying, "Who am I being? How am I showing up? What behaviours, thoughts, beliefs, actions am I taking, and how am I showing up in the face of adversity, in the face of a problem or a breakdown? Am I going to let that stop me? Am I going to let the slightest criticism, the slightest breakdown be my demise?" I realised I just had to learn so much of that internal world and really change the way I think and feel, and that was ultimately what I credit to my success.

So, that's spawned an entirely new direction for me of really showing people what it takes to step into that role of being a digital CEO, the mindset that goes along with it, and the right habits and behaviours. So, that was a long-winded answer. Boy, I hope that-

 

What It Means To Be An Entrepreneur (And Getting Over The Fear)

 

No, no, no. It's cool. Yeah, that was awesome. So, there's a couple of things I wanted to bring up with you. So, first one was, obviously, the fact that you realised that there was so much more to being an entrepreneur than just the fact of physically doing the thing you were doing. So, just the fact of putting those videos out there. Was there ever a time where, and I guess I say this because I initially come from corporate world. I spent 10 years in corporate world where to talk anything around mindset, perhaps now is different, but certainly when I was there, it would have been a big no-no. Also, please don't take this in the wrong way, but for a male to talk about it would have been definitely a no-no. So, was there ever a point where you were nervous to go, "I want to bring more of this to the forefront. I want to talk more about this, and how it can help people"?

Well, I actually did an episode on this, and me releasing the podcast was the scariest thing I had ever done in my business. The biggest leap, the biggest "Oh, crap," because what people don't realise is that when you build up a business, you have now something to lose. The grass is always greener, right? When I look back to those younger days when you're just trying to scrap anything together, you're just throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks, there's nothing to lose. You don't have a reputation at stake. You don't have an audience and customers that you're going to disappoint or upset or offend. So, there's a lot of freedom in that.

I built up this 150,000-200,000 person email list, millions of views, all this audience waiting for me, and they wanted James, the video tech guy. All of a sudden I'm like, "Hey. So, I've just released a podcast and it has nothing to do with video, it has nothing to do with tech, it has nothing to do with marketing. It actually has lots to do with how I'm incorporating a lot of spirituality and mindset into my life and my business."

You must be so scared.

Well, yeah, I was really scared. Of course, people were like, "Hey, not my cup of tea. That's not what I signed up for," and that's fine, and a massive cleansing, but I knew that that's what I wanted to be sharing. So, you're always going to have fear. You're always going to have those things that scare you. One thing is to train ourselves to lean into that fear, to realise that that's what we came here to do is to do the things that are outside our comfort zone, and that's why there's a little fear there is because it's new, it's in the unknown, it's uncertain, and that makes it exciting. It makes it exhilarating, really.

So, what's funny is that when I did that episode talking about this fear, I had just this interesting realisation that for most people, and myself included at the time, that fear was like a stoplight. We feel the fear and then we go, "Oh, so I shouldn't. I'm afraid, therefore, I won't." That's such an interesting concept. It's such an interesting thing. We've just started to adopt this belief that when you're afraid, it means you shouldn't do it.

I really got present to that, and I was like, "Wait a second. Here was this thing that was one of the most successful things I did. Just launching that podcast was such a huge win, but it was also the thing that I was most afraid of." I was like, "What's going on there? If that fear was really, normally, when you have a fear of a mountain lion, it's like, "Okay. Don't walk towards it." You listen to that fear, but what was I really afraid, I was afraid of what people would think of me, and what they'd say, and if it didn't go well, and if it imploded my business, all these irrational things that don't exist.

Today, I've just learned, and I think that's why we continue to grow and our students continue to grow is the fear is really an indicator that you're on the right path, and you want to lean into that fear. So, we did thing inside one of our coaching programmes called The F of Fear Challenge. We've seen more breakthroughs, more ahas, realisations, and business growth from our students in the past 30 days than for some in entire year because we started with, "What is the thing that scares you the most that you know would grow your business, but you've been putting it off because you're choosing fear over your commitment to what you're up to? Are you committed to your fear or are you committed to the outcome?"

In these 30 days, people chose the outcome, they chose their vision, they chose the dream life, the dream business. They chose why they're doing this, whether it's for their family or for themselves or for the impact. They chose that, and they chose not to feed the fear. That's where they had the biggest growth. So, that was massive for me, so massive that now I listen for the fear, I watch for the fear, I observe it, "Okay. That means that's where we need to go," because that's where you grow.

It's such a big thing because actually, like you said, most people would just steer away from it. They would think all the fear would stop them. Actually, when you look at the people who are the most successful, they obviously had those fears, too. You had those fears, but you went ahead and did it, anyway. You went ahead and just thought, "You know what? I'm not going to let this stop me." Maybe when you look at the success of some entrepreneurs over to others and why some people are wildly successful, they just went, "You know what? I'm not going to let that stop me, and I'm just going to keep going."

Absolutely. To speak more like what your first mention in your question of the difference between the corporate world and entrepreneurship, this is your words exactly. There's so much more to being an entrepreneur. I don't have a corporate background, but I did have plenty of jobs including being a bartender. One of the first things I ... My thoughts on being an employee, and again, nothing wrong with it. What is wrong, and this where people think I'm judging. It's always, "Everyone should be entrepreneurs," no, not at all.

My gride is, is that if you take everything you've learned, which society has taught us to be really good, hard working, permission-seeking employees, and you take that same way of being, that same thinking, that same strategy into business, your own business, you're going to fail. That's what I see really at the core level of what's going on with so many people.

As an employee, we are taught what to think. That's what's going on. That's why mindset is a big thing because when we bring this conversation ... and I don't even love the word mindset, but it fits. So, I think part of why the mindset conversation for an entrepreneur is so important is because it's an opportunity to learn how to think.

When we coach our clients, a lot of times they come with us with these expectations of like, "James is going to be my

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• Make sure you understand what your audience want so you can personalise your marketing more effectively.
• Use Alexa Flash Briefings to help cater for those that are using voice search to search online.
• Consider using Micro Influencers in your marketing strategy as we move in 2019 they’re going to become a much better investment than using larger, well-known influencers.
• Consider whether a chat bot is a great use for your business, it may be that you don’t need one.
• If your business relies on a location (a store, a salon etc) then you should consider looking experience marketing. How do people feel when they visit your business? How can you create more of an experience? Can you focus on the senses?
• How do you build a community around your business? 2019 will be the year of the community, so consider how you can build and nurture yours – no matter the size.
• User generated content is going to be a key way to create content in 2019. It’s more affordable and gives you a chance to share incredible and unique content, especially with Instagram.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…Marketers in 2019 will be come more open and honest, making the digital world a more transparent place. Businesses that show this honest will become favourable among consumers. With that in mind, consider how you can become more vulnerable with your followers in 2019.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Prediction #1 More Personalisation – 04:25
• Prediction #2 Voice Search – 06:40
• Prediction #3 Data Privacy – 07:55
• Prediction #4 Influencer Marketing – 09:08
• Prediction #5 Transparency – 11:39
• Prediction #6 Chat Bots – 13:50
• Prediction #7 Marketing and PR Overlap – 15:11
• Prediction #8 Experience Marketing – 16:48
• Prediction #9 Community – 18:41
• Prediction #10 Content – 21:50

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE

• Episode 44 with Bella Vasta
• Facebook Transparency
• How To Make An Alexa Flash Briefing

Transcript below

 

Hello and Happy New Year. This is the first podcast I’m doing of 2019 and I’m actually recording it on New Year’s Day because I was hoping to get more organized and do it over Christmas. However, you might be up to hear from my voice that it’s a little bit different because I’ve had a terrible cough and cold. If you’re like me what tends to happen is the minute I stop or slow down my body I don’t know what it does but basically it just goes “oh no I will make you ill” and it makes me then take time off. So my Christmas and my New Year were lovely but just a little bit under the weather which wasn’t so great but it did mean that I did stuff that I never do like I actually watched both seasons of The Handmaid’s Tale in about two days. I’m not kidding you literally back to back sat there all day all night for about two days and just watch that and it was amazing by the way if you are looking at something to watch. But I don’t normally do that because one of the things that I feel and get frustrated about is that I don’t have time for stuff like that. And what happens is I start watching it and I want to watch the next episode and the next episode and then I’m completely hooked and completely taken in by it.

So for me I tend not to start even watching stuff like that or otherwise HOURS OF MY LIFE JUST GET ZAPPED up when I could be doing much more productive things. So anyway I’ve put this podcast off for as long as I could possibly leave it to try and get my voice back to some normality and it’s getting there slowly. Anyway, let’s get on with today’s podcast and it’s gonna be a good one because I’ve chosen the new year and obviously all the good stuff that kind of happens at the beginning of a new year to talk about predictions for 2019. So I’ve got my crystal ball out with the help of Google and some experts and I’ve gone and found out what’s going to be happening in 2019 or what we can expect from not just the social media point of view but also from a digital marketing and a marketing point of view. So if you are a marketer in business an entrepreneur a social media person this is going to be a great episode for you because we’re going to cover all those good things off. But before I get started I just want to quickly talk about the fact that we’ve got some amazing guests coming up in fact next week’s guest is gonna be a really good one. Next week I have the pleasure of bringing you James Wetmore and he did not disappoint. You know I’m a huge fan of James. I love his stuff. I think he’s great for business people, entrepreneurs, marketers. He has some amazing things to say and we had such a good conversation. It was so so good.

And I can’t wait for you to hear that one later. Make sure you don’t miss it. Don’t forget to go and subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already. So you can head over to iTunes or Stitcher however you listen and hit that subscribe button to make sure you are notified every time there is a new episode. Or you can also come and find me on social media if you haven’t already. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. I’m most active on Twitter and Instagram. And again I always post when I’m doing a new episode so you’ll see that as well. But they come out every Monday as hopefully you know by now. Anyway let’s get on to today’s episode. We’re going to be talking about the 10 predictions that I’ve got for 2019. Things I think you should focus on or think about or if you’re not doing these things that may be just look into it and just see if it’s something that will fit with your business. Because not everything is going to work for everyone. But I’m going to tell you what I think is the kind of key areas that you want to be focusing on in 2019. Okay, so these in no particular order just 10 things that I thought of that we need to focus on. So the first thing I want you to think about is I feel like there’s going to be more personalization. Like this has been happening steadily over last year. But I think this is just going to get more important and we’re going to see much more of this.

 

We now have the tools and technology to personalize things to make our messages very succinct and direct to the people that we’re talking to. So I think we’re going to see less a mass marketing campaigns and many more very individual, small, specific marketing campaigns. For me one of the ways in which I will do this is I will use technology such as infusion soft where I can track what people are doing. You can also use things like click funnels and drip but I’m going to use these technologies so that I can see where people are downloading things where they’ve interacted with stuff, if they’ve opened emails closed emails. I’m also going to be using a survey tool soon and the first part of my 2019 is going to be aimed at trying to understand my audience better. So it’s great that I’ve built this audience up through lead magnets and building my email list but now I want to really understand who you are and what you need from me because ultimately I want to be able to serve you better and provide you with the things that you want. And I would like you to think about this for your customers. Do you know them? Don’t presume you know them because as we’ve talked about before this is so crucial. Speak to them. Survey them. Ask them questions. Get to know them better and then split that data up. Make sure that you have a way of dividing that data so you can market people with the things that they’re interested in. Now I feel like we get less tolerant.

We have less time we’re busier and therefore we haven’t got time to waste on marketing messages that aren’t serving us or aren’t talking to us in the way we want to be spoken to. So the personalization is really going to help. So it’s really about dividing that data splitting it up and focusing on those small groups rather than mass marketing. The next thing that I feel is going to get even bigger in 2019 is voice search again. This has been getting more increasingly popular in terms of how we’re using technology. We all have a Lexi’s in our house. We have series on our phones and we are using voice search more and more. It was actually predicted I read somewhere that 30 percent of all web searches in 2020 are predicted to be voice activated searches. So using things like Alexa briefings is another way in which you can sort of get into this market. Now I’m going to put in the show notes. There’s a lovely lady that I follow on social media called Chelsea Heights and she has put together a YouTube video on how you can create your own Alexa flash briefings. So I’m actually going to put that in the show notes are linked to that so that you can have a look at that. If this is an area that you think want to work on but it’s just another different way in which we can market to our audiences and depending on the type of thing that you want to do or the type of business you’re in a flash briefing might be a great way for you to get your message out there. Okay. Prediction number three is less of a prediction and more of a certainty.

So if you are in the US or marketing to the US they are going to be bringing in their data privacy bill in 2019 which is going to be very similar to what we did here in the UK and in the EU in terms of GDP. So obviously data is still really important. It’s still a huge focus on data how we’re looking after it. What we’re doing with it because of obviously a lot of stuff that’s been in the press last year obviously Facebook came under fire a huge amount and what they’re doing is obviously the US are just bringing themselves to the level that the EU act as well. So if you are in the US do look out for that now. I am not an expert. I am obviously not in a position where I can give you legal advice and in fact I have not done any research on it yet. I just know it’s coming however because it’s so similar to GDP. I’m hoping personally because I do obviously market to the US. I’m hoping that the efforts that I’ve gone to to be GDP compliant will actually still be covered and will tick the box as it were for this new US data policy that they’re bringing in. So keep an eye out for that on in 2019. Prediction number four: This one I think we’ve seen grow huge amounts and is going to keep getting bigger and its influencer marketing. But I’m going to stick my neck out and I’m going to say that I feel micro influencers are going to be even more powerful and become more prevalent than they ever have been influencer marketing.

 

If you don’t know what it is I’m sure you do and we’ve talked about it for but it’s basically where you get someone who’s got a good following on social media and has a presence to have your product or your service and talk about it and put it on their social media and therefore their followers will come along and go wow that looks great. And they might use it as well. So for instance a good example is Weller. A few years ago she teamed up with W H Smiths to do a book club and some of the books that she mentioned reported increases in profit by up to 11,000%. Insane. So although that’s wonderful and amazing and so obviously is doing amazingly well. She’s really expensive. She is not an influencer that most businesses can go to unless you’ve got massive budgets however for Zoella there must be millions of micro influences that have really decent reaches that have an influence over their audience but don’t cost the earth and don’t cost a lot. Zola costs so I really think that the micro influence market is going to grow. So basically these obviously just smaller people, smaller profiles but you’re not paying huge amounts of money to get your product featured with them. And I also think that and I think this is needed not just a prediction that obviously the rules around influencer marketing are going to get a bit stricter. And also I think that businesses and consumers are going to become more savvy to influencer marketing. I definitely think they are going to be thinking more about are these people genuine? Are they real? Can we trust their figures?

 

I know and I’ve talked about it before I’m sure that you can buy followers really easily. So when I see a really large following on a social media profile thing I go and look at is the engagement. Are they getting real engagement that I would expect to see for that number of followers. So I do think that obviously we’re going to see an increase in the use of micro influencers but businesses are going to become way more savvy in terms of making sure they’re picking the right influences. No. What are we on one two three four five. Number five on my predictions I should a number of them. This next one follows on really nicely from the one we’ve just talked about and this one is all about transparency. It’s about basically being more open and more honest. As marketers as advertisers as business says it’s about showing people basically what it is you’re doing and how you’re behaving and the way in which your marketing. I think we can all agree that we’re the things that happened last year in the year before in terms of advertising and Facebook and the elections and all that kind of thing that people are starting to not trust things as much as they did. And also there are some businesses out there and some people out there who aren’t as ethical as they probably should be. So I feel like they’re definitely going to really embrace businesses consumers are going to embrace businesses that show that transparency that show that honesty and at the end of the day there’s nothing wrong with trying to sell to someone. If your products and service aid does what you say it does and B helps them.

 

No one is going to mind the fact that you’re trying to say hey I’ve got this course coming, I’m selling this product, I’m doing this service and it can help you in these ways. So no one is going to mind you selling to them and therefore I don’t see it being a problem that we need to be more transparent. Now one of the ways that transparency has already started is Facebook are introducing add transparency on pages so if you have a Facebook page and you advertise on that page or using that page then as a consumer or a viewer I’m going to be able to come onto the page and view what ads you’re currently running. So that’s going to be a really interesting one. Now how many people will use it. I don’t know. But maybe if someone was being unethical this might make them think twice about it. So this is rolling out now. I haven’t seen it in situ yet but obviously I’ve read a report about it and I’ll link up to that in the show notes as well. Okay. Number six. Again it’s something that’s around currently but I think it’s going to get stronger and that’s chatterbox. Now I haven’t got a chat bot and I really feel like I should. I’ve dabbled in looking at it and I’ve gone in too many chart and I’ve worked out how to use many charts that I can help other people but I’ve not actually done it for me yet. So that’s definitely an area that I think I need to think by.

 

But again you’ve got to think about how is a chat bot going to serve you what is it going to do. Now one of the ways in which I’ve seen a really good use of a chat bot is for an event and obviously people do tend to ask the same questions at an event or there is certainly a large number of questions that overlap. So is there parking is that disabled access is there Wi-Fi whatever it might be. So actually if you’ve got a good chat bot that can answer those questions for you then you can save yourself a lot of time. So it’s not just about marketing it could be about service as well but chat bots I feel are definitely going to grow and we’re going to see more of it. But again it’s got to be good. This isn’t going to replace people. This isn’t going to replace customer services. It’s just going to help speed up some of those processes that you repeat all the time that may be a chat bot might be able to take over for you. So again just have a quick think about the 2019 prediction number seven. Now this one is a bit more of a woolly one I guess it’s not a specific as the others but I’ve been reading a lot about this and I agree with what people have been writing that they feel that marketing and PR are going to become even more overlapped than they have been. Now back in the day when I started marketing marketing and PR were two very separate things two different skill sets two different parts the business and actually unless you were in either marketing or PR people often got them confused.

 

And I have had clients in the past who will refer to me as a PR person and I know I have not come from PR background. My background is solidly marketing. However with the introduction of things like influencer marketing and working more with consumers and understanding consumers more, I do feel like there is more of an overlap in terms of PR and marketing and I feel like these are going to continue to get closer and especially when it comes to things like social media because actually I’ve seen this with some people that I’ve worked with and and people I’ve consulted for that sometimes they’ve had PR people do their social media and it’s kind of a sticky point in terms of where that sets. Now don’t get me wrong there are definitely an element of PR that is great on social media. However, there’s also a huge element of marketing. So for me having those two merge a bit more is definitely going to help. Platforms such as social media so until number eight and this one might be a bit of a surprise because I’m talking about bricks and mortar companies so businesses that have a physical location where someone goes to visit them or shop or eat or drink or whatever it might be. And I feel like if you are bricks and mortar one of the things that you should be focusing on is experience your marketing is the experience because even though digitally we can do so much. There is something that we can’t physically do we can’t physically walk in and touch and feel the material on some clothes.

 

We can’t physically have a face to face contact with someone or talk to someone face to face, we can’t smell things and touch things and taste things online whereas we can when we go in somewhere. So for me if you are bricks and mortar one of the things I would be focusing on is how can you create more of an experience for people attending your location. How can you bring in those different senses like is it the smell and the touch and the listen and the taste and hey can you make more of it and bring in some emotions around those experiences? Now I read a report ages ago I can’t remember who it was or where it’s from so it’s going to sound like I’m just making this up I apologize. But basically they talked about consumers in their 30s I think it was would much rather spend money on an experience than an actual thing. So if you can create these experience says then that’s a way that you can bring people in. And I do feel that loyalty will be paid off here. So if you are looking after those people coming to shop you’re giving them that experience then I feel that you will still get a loyal customer base that will keep coming back to you even if...

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• Starting your own business is both down to tactics and your mindset.
• Make sure you understand what you’re doing when it comes to taxes, or if you’re hiring someone make sure you hire the right person for the job.
• You don’t to have an MBA or come from a family of business owners to be able to go it alone. You do, however, must have confidence and be able to network.
• You will experience naysayers along your route into working for yourself. They may not understand, but they will soon become your biggest supporters.
• It’s important to remember not to listen to everyone else. Do things for you.
• Find yourself a cheerleader that will help support your decision, offer you advice and that will cheer you on when you doubt yourself.
• If you’re going to be using a coach, find one that is the right fit for you.
• The first thing you need to do when you start your own business is think about what it is that you’re selling. Articulate what it is you want to do, so other people can easily understand.
• Next you need to define who it is your want to be your ideal customer, making it as specific as you can.
• Finally, you need to define what your why is. This will be the one thing that you keep going back to when you lose your way.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…If you take anything else from this podcast, it should be that it’s important to listen to your gut. If you know something isn’t going to be right, don’t do it – especially when it comes to working with clients. You have the freedom to choose who you work with, so use it.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Introducing Holly Knoll – 03:40
• What are The Most Common Mistakes People Make When Setting Up Their Business? – 13:34
• Who Can Run Their Own Business and Why are People Doing It? 17:24
• Finding Yourself A Cheerleader – 25:40
• 3 Things You Should Work Through When Starting Your Own Business – 30:20
• Loving Being Your Own Boss 42:25

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE

• Episode 34
• Hollyknoll.com
• Holly Knoll Instagram
• Start with Why by Simon Sinek

Want the Transcript - click here!

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• If your business depends on you being IN your business for it to run, you may want to consider the way in which your business runs. You must be able to take time off, whether it’s for a vacation or to spend time with a loved one, your business needs to be able to run without you.
• Facebook groups can be used as a sales funnel as often you’ll be able to buy a product that has a free membership to a broad group as a part of its benefits. From there, people may end up purchasing membership to your more exclusive and knowledgeable group.
• Guidelines are important, but don’t dictate as you may end up with a bad reputation.
• Before you start a group for your business, you need to understand your why.
• Planning your content and scheduling it in advance is essential to running a successful group.
• Use your free group to encourage members into joining you paid membership. Mention the topics you’ve covered, talk about them in the free group and show people that your paid membership is worth it.
• You’ll be putting more effort into this group, so showing people it’s worth their money is essential.
• Your Facebook icons on your website should go directly to your free Facebook group, not your Facebook page.
• Don’t oversell in your group. Although monetising is important, low hanging fruit is key.
• Consider using ‘pop-up groups’ for products and courses. These can be closed after they’ve been used and can encourage people to join your membership.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…When you run a group, whether it’s free or paid for, you need to focus on providing valuable information. If end up just talking to your members or trying to sell to them, they’ll go elsewhere for their information. Monetising can’t be the only thing you use your group for.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Introducing Bella Vasta – 04:00
• Running Your Business Without Being IN Your Business – 08:30
• Starting A Facebook Group (And The Mistakes Bella Made) - 14:30
• How Active Do You Need Be on Your Facebook Group? – 19:31
• Going from A Free Facebook Group to A Paid Membership - 23:50
• Getting People to Join Your Free Group – 28:36
• Using Memberships as a Community - 38:46
• Should A Free Facebook Group be Part of Your Strategy? – 42:50
• Monetising Your Facebook Group – 45:50

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE

• Jump Consulting
• Bella’s Twitter
• Jump Consulting Facebook Group
• The E-myth Revisited
• Automatic Approval Software for Facebook Groups
• Social Media Marketing World

Transcript below

 

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Social Media Marketing Made Simple Podcast and I am your host Teresa Heath-Wareing. It's so good to be here with me today and as always, I really appreciate you listening. I feel like the podcast is going from strength to strength, and that can only be thanks to you, my listeners. So thank you very much and please keep sharing if you think that it's something your friends, or family, or neighbours, or anybody randomly that you've met might like. I would love it if you'd share the podcast. It would be a great help to me. Also, as it stands, this episode is going out on Christmas Eve, so I hope you're all ready for Christmas and ready to take a well deserved break. But also, I hope you've been thinking forward to the next year, and what you've got planned, and what might come up because I know I always like to spend quite a bit of time doing this and thinking about what goals I would like to achieve the following year. Anyway, on with today's podcast episode, which is an interview with the super lovely Bella Vasta.

Now, I really look forward to doing this interview because Bella and I talk about Facebook groups, and I don't know enough about Facebook groups. I feel a little bit ashamed saying that as what I do for a business is social media. However, there are so many elements to social media that it's natural that some I'm going to be more confident in, and others that I don't use very often, I'm going to need a bit of help. So Facebook groups is definitely one of those areas. My first off, let me tell you about Bella. Bella Vasta is the dynamic personality behind the, One-woman Coaching Company, Jump Consulting. And since 2002, Bella has been a trailblazer in the pet sitting industry consulting with multimillion dollar companies all the way to dealing with hundreds of small businesses. She is an author, a podcast host, a blogger, and has been featured on NBC, CBS, Fox, Entrepreneur Magazine, and Huffington Post. Following the birth of her daughter, Bella sold her pet sitting business and now lives out her passion to inspire, motivate, and challenge business owners through her speaking, coaching and consulting.

So Bella was a great guest to have on. She has a really interesting story that started with the birth of her very premature daughter, and how she managed to keep her business running even though she wasn't in it. Which I think is an area that we can all take something from because actually so often we are our businesses. And if something was to happen, would your business carry on if you couldn't be in it day to day? So Bella looks at that question and tells us how she managed it, how she managed to continue this very successful business. She also then takes us through Facebook groups, which like I said, I was completely fascinated by because it's an area that I need to work on, and also an area that I'm going to be introducing later on down the line. So she told us the difference in the different Facebook groups. I.e if you're going to have one for free, if you're going to have one that's closed, or one that is in conjunction with some paid product.

She also talked about how to get people from one into the other through the use of as a funnel. Now, she also talked about when you should post, how you should Post, if you're going to go live, how you grow your group, and how you monetize the group with I being too salesy. She really is an expert in this field and is super passionate about it. So I don't want to take up any more of her time and I just want to hand you over to the lovely Bella Vasta.

 

Introducing Bella Vasta

 

So I am so super excited for today's podcast interview with the lovely Bella Vasta. Thank you so much for saying you'll be a guest today.

Thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here.

No problem at all. Now, we were introduced through the lovely Chris [inaudible 00:04:25] who was on quite a few weeks ago now, and he very kindly said that he knew you, you were friends and that I must have you on the show. I love getting recommendations, and I love meeting new People and I'm really excited about today's episode. It's going to be a good one. So the other reason I'm really excited because today we're going to look at Facebook groups, and why you should do them for your business, and how they can help your business. And this is an area I was just thinking about that I don't do a whole lot on and I don't know as much as I should, or as I want to know about it.

So I'm personally, very excited about this one and I know looking at balance stuff, she's going to give us some great content, so there should be a great one. But Bella, before we get started, I have obviously been doing a bit of research, and the general social media stalking that people do, and I'd been looking around on you and I would love you to tell my audience a little bit about who you are, and how you got to what you're doing now, because you didn't necessarily start off doing this thing you're doing now. So it'd be great if you could share that with my audience.

Right. Well, I think the most obvious one is that I'm across the pond, as they say. I'm in Phoenix, Arizona, which is the southwestern portion of the United States. I actually grew up on the east coast in Boston and moved to Arizona about 20 years ago, when I was in the middle of high school. And because of that, I didn't have too many friends out here when I came. I stayed at my parents house when I went into college. And they wanted to put a curfew on me, and I didn't want that because, who wants to be in college with a curfew? So when I got the opportunity to get paid to sleep over at my neighbours house to watch their dog, which was totally bizarre to me at the time, I jumped on that chance. And you know that I grew into a six figure business with multiple employees, and nationally and locally award-winning.

Although, in my about fifth year of doing that, Teresa, I realised that what I really loved doing was pouring into people. People would start calling me and saying, how can I do what you do? I saw you got this award, what is this about? And I started pouring into people and realising that this coaching thing is actually a pretty cool gig. And I have developed it and it's morphed into a lot of different things. So fast forward to about 2012, I started my own couple of Facebook groups by myself. And it was really a means to an end. I saw what was out there in our industry and it wasn't really happy with the calibre of advice, or the tone, or the leadership. So I said, I'm going to start my own, which is a habitual theme throughout my own life.

So I started this group and have had them since 2012. They've morphed, they've gotten bigger and bigger and more nichier. And then, in 2014 I my husband found me, actually 2013, my husband found me on match.com. We got married here in Macedonia in the same week and we went to Rome for our honeymoon, came home pregnant. And six months later, [inaudible 00:07:33] world's smallest surviving female babies that only 12 ounces. So my life should be really a movie I think, because it's quite interesting. We were in [inaudible 00:07:45] with her for six months, she defied all odds. Everyone said that she would not survive. But during that, as a businessperson, I also had my coaching company and my pet sitting company at the time that I was trying to run. I hope that no one knows what NICU is like, that is listening right now, but it's ICU and so you can't be like wheeling and dealing, and on your laptop, and on your cell phone, and I was there for 10 to 12 hours a day for six weeks.

 

Running Your Business Without Being IN Your Business

 

So Facebook groups were really big part of how I was still able to stay connected to my coaching community, and still stay on the scene, if you will. In 2016, I sold that pet sitting company for six figures and went full force with my consulting. So right now I'm a consultant, I'm a podcast host, I'm an author and a professional speaker as well, going around the country talking about leadership and marketing and Facebook groups.

Awesome. [crosstalk 00:08:43]

[crosstalk 00:08:43].

That is a whirlwind story, isn't it? [crosstalk 00:08:48] there to spot that opportunity straight away, to do that thing and build that business, but not just build it but grow into something hugely successful. The interesting point of something dreadful, amazing but dreadful happens all at once to you. And the big thing is, and in our industry, and in industries where you're building yourself as a personal brand, what happens? Because you know yourself, like if I'm at a conference for three days, or refined speaking and I might have the office, or if I'm travelling, it's like trying to maintain running a business is hard.

So to go through something as huge as that and in such a position where your time is being taken up and to carry on. I've watched some of your stuff and you talked about the fact that you had systems in place and boy, what a good job? Because I would [inaudible 00:09:44] what if carried on?

If you get anything listening to this podcast right now everyone, I want you just to really consider, if I had to leave my company, or my business for any reason, whether you want just simply go on a vacation without your being connected, or God forbid, something happened to you or someone you love, will your business still be there? Will you be able to go be with that person that you love and help them through a tough time or yourself?

I know a lot of entrepreneurs that can't, and it makes me sad and it's become a personal mission of mine to really think about what things do you have established, and we will talk about the Facebook groups and how that helps it, but what do you have established? Because I'm pretty sure that you have been throwing your blood, sweat and tears into building your business, and if it is dependent upon you being in it, then I just want to encourage you to think about that. Think about it because I would hate for you to throw away all those years of investment because if you are a successful business, Teresa, in three, five, 15, 20 years, somewhere in that time span, something will happen to you, or someone you love. You're going to have to take a holiday as you might call it, or a hiatus and step away. And I just really want people to think about that because I think we forget about it, when our noses in the grind every day and we're working on all this to do list that never ends.

And we don't stop and think about, why am I creating my own thing? It was for freedom, financial, time, experiences, family, freedom.

And that rarely comes, isn't it? It's hilarious actually, because you start your own business so you can manage your own time, and then [crosstalk 00:11:32] more hours than you've ever worked in your entire life. And you-

And you rationalise it by saying, it's okay. I love it. Right?

Yeah. Totally.

[crosstalk 00:11:39] you alive.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it was funny and interesting you said this now, is that I had Tyler J. McCall on a couple of weeks ago, and he talked about by the fact that his story is that, his dad got ill and died and his last time with his dad, he sat on his laptop in the hospital because he couldn't step away, because his business relies on him being there. And it's the saddest thing in the world, isn't it? And to think that actually that's the case and that time when he should have been focused because of his business, and because it was a necessity and he had to, he ended up having to then do both and not spending that time with his dad. I think again, when people start their businesses, and especially if they're doing the thing that they've always done. So my background is marketing. I was employed as a marketier, and then I started my own marketing business.

So you aren't doing your job, you are your business. So we rarely think about, how do I extract myself from the business? And actually, it is so important for things like what you went through to still have money coming in, but also to have a holiday, and to have a break and to be able to step away without thinking the place is going to fall apart. So I think it's such a good point and one that so many people don't think about. And I'm interested, did you ever read the E-Myth Revisited?

Oh, I did. Michael Gerber's words about, are you a technician, or if you just have a job. Yeah. All of that really range true. I think it was actually one of the very first business books I did read. I don't think audible was around back then. It was probably like [inaudible 00:13:25], you know that? I'm sorry, that wasn't Michael Gerber. Michael Gerber is the no BS series. That was another one that I [crosstalk 00:13:33]. But yeah, yeah. I believe very much in always feeding your brain. I was listening to audible actually getting ready for this interview this morning because I just [crosstalk 00:13:43] airwaves. Honestly, I inhale all the [inaudible 00:13:47] podcasts. Because I've learnt so much good stuff and it's amazing. And I listened to the E-Myth revisited and it was amazing, and suddenly made me think entirely different about my business. It takes time and I'm still working on it, and it's still a constant juggle, but at least I'm starting to put those steps in so that I could start stepping back, which is great.

Great story. So how come Facebook groups, what happened there? Why did you choose that as a medium to help grow that side of the business?

 

Starting A Facebook Group (And The Mistakes Bella Made)

 

So Teresa, I think one of the things that's been constant in my life is that, everything has been pretty organic. So I would love to say that I sat down one day and saw something, and planned it out and said, this I'm going to do. But my company is called Jump Consulting, because I really believe in just jumping and figuring out how to steal the parachute on the way down. That's what I did. So it was very reactionary as I told you originally, in the very beginning. It was, I to have a group and then I made a lot of mistakes. I said things like, you can't coast on Sundays because we need a day off. I don't want to manage this group on Sundays. I'm deleting it if you post on Sunday. I actually did that. I also would delete people if I did not see that they were participating.

I'd be like, you're not allowed in this group if you're not saying anything. And I just delete people. I was a dictator. It was terrible. Well, it kept the group pretty small, it also gave me a bad rap, all this way or the highway, which I was okay and with a little bit. But on the other hand I was like, guys, listen, there's so many other groups in our industry that have thousands of people in there. And there's only like four people talking. And I didn't want that, my intentions were really good, but I found that didn't really work and it was a lot of police.

It wasn't until about two years ago that I said, wow, well, first of all, I had this group, I own a pet sitting company with staff because it's not just the pet industry is the dog walking and pet sitters. And then, it wasn't just the dog walking and pet sitters, it was the ones that had staff. So we was like-

Really specific.

Niches you could get. And a lot of people that, they were just getting into the business or a lot of apps have started recently. I don't know if you have them over there, but we have rover and wag here where you could open up an APP and have a dog walk at your door. And there's all kinds of craziness around it. But my point is, is that with technology, so many people are starting their own pets sitting in companies. So there was this huge influx in our industry and people starting businesses. And so, I opened up another group called Jumpstart, and it was for anyone who had a pet business who wanted to be in there. So what I did over time organically, was I started off very nichey, then I did one that was really big and broad, and then I started a mastermind the beginning of this year and that was a paid group.

So I've used Facebook groups as a funnel, and I've noticed that a lot of people have done that as well, knowing or not knowing it. So if I can keep going?

Yeah. Of course.

What I [inaudible 00:17:05] that is, sometimes you buy a product and one of the benefits is you get to be in a Facebook group. And it's cool as the user because now you're around a bunch...

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• Marketing is changing all the time so it’s important to keep up. Attending industry events and networking opportunities is a great way to ensure you’re always up to date.
• It’s so important to be continuously learning. Whether it’s an online course, attending events or by following people who you feel you can learn from every day.
• People attend events for several different reasons. Whether it’s to learn something new, to make new connects or to network – there’s always someone who you’ll have something in common with.
• If you attend an event with a speaker that you want to learn more from, make the time to speak to them during the event. Even if you want to challenge something they’ve said, it’s important to have your say.
• Before an event, find out who the speakers are and connect with them on social media. Edit your profile before an event to include the event hashtag in your bio. That way, people can easily find you when they’re looking to see is attending!
• Try to attend all of the social events surrounding the events you are attending as it’s where people are more relaxed, and you can make the best connections.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…Networking at events as a business or entrepreneur is vital to your business’ growth. It’s important to continue learning every day and learning from industry leaders is one of the best ways to do this.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Introducing Paul – 05:06
• The Importance Of Attending Industry Events 13:00
• Why Do People Attend Events? 15:56
• How To Maximise An Event As An Attendee 28:16
• MarketEdLive 2019 37:00

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE

• BizPaul Twitter
• bizpaul.com
• MarketEdLive Tickets

Transcript below

 

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Social Media Marketing Made Simple Podcast. I am your host, Teresa Heath-Wareing. How are you on this fine day? I hope things are going well for you and you're having a good day. This week I have been batch recording, and like I said to you before, I'm trying to do this more often so that I can get ahead and make sure that all the podcasts are recording in time, that I've done the interviews, that the team have been able to do all the stuff that they do, because as I've mentioned to you before, recording and producing a podcast is hard work. There's a lot of work that we need to do for it. So I want to make sure that I get ahead and get these episodes recorded for you.

I just have to say, I can't actually believe we're on episode 43. It seems to have gone so fast, and bearing in mind we've been doing it weekly, I can't believe we've been doing it for almost an entire year. I am loving the feedback. Thank you so much if you're listening, thank you so much for the people who reach out to me, I love hearing what you think, I love getting your responses, I love seeing you tag me in Insta Stories, and I love sharing those as well. So, if you are listening, then please do reach out and let me know. Let me share your posts on social media, because I love hearing from you, so thank you very much.

This week I've had the absolute pleasure to interview and present to you not only an amazing marketeer, but also a very good friend. This week I am interviewing the super lovely Paul Ince, otherwise known on social media as BizPaul. If you're in the UK and you follow football, you might know that there was a footballer called Paul Ince, and therefore, when he first started on social media he actually ended up having lots of people follow him or try and communicate with him because they thought he was the Paul Ince that they were looking for, hence why I think he changed it all to BizPaul.

Anyway, I met Paul quite a few years ago at a marketing event, it was actually Social Day, and it was a conference that we both attended, we both sat next to each other on the same table, and since then have developed this lovely relationship and become first friends. You know what? One of the things I love about having friends with people that are in my industry or people that are doing the same sort of thing as I'm doing, is the fact that they know what you're going through. They know what troubles, and trials, and tribulations that you might have in your business. So just the other day, something was bothering me, I was letting something get to me, I was having a bit of a problem with something, and I had a call with Paul and we were able to talk it through because he understood exactly what I was talking about. Having that kind of relationship, having someone that you can do that with is great.

One of the things that actually Paul and I discussed before we started the podcast was that in America, when I go out there, everyone seems to be willing to share everything with you. There's no worry about a competitor. I think everybody has confidence in their own stuff, that they're not sat there thinking, "Well I can't possibly show this to this person, I can't possibly let them see what I'm doing or how I'm doing it, because they might steal it." There's not that at all, and actually it's such a lovely way to be.

Recently I was on a Zoom call with a lovely lady called Jen from America who does something very similar to what I do and she was sharing with me lots of her ideas, and thoughts, and processes, and it was brilliant. You know what? Neither one of us sat there thinking, "We can't tell you this because you're going to steal it." It was a really open and honest conversation which actually benefited us both. Which leads me nicely into the kind of premise of where today's interview's coming from.

Now, Paul and I talk lots about the event he does called MarketEd Live, and we talk lots about why, if you're in any business, in any industry, you should be attending or trying to attend events, why you should sit with like-minded people, why you should network with people in your industry. So that's what we talk about today, it was great fun to interview him. Also, at the end of the interview, there's an announcement which is a world exclusive ... Okay, I'm egging it up a little bit, granted, but it's not been put out here before, so I'm really excited to announce this on the podcast today. Make sure you listen to the end to hear what that is.

So, without further ado, here's the interview.

 

Introducing Paul

 

It gives me the greatest pleasure to welcome not only an amazing marketeer, but also my lovely friend, Paul Ince, to the podcast. Hello Paul.

Hello. Hello everyone.

That was a very excitable hello from me. How are you, Paul?

I'm really good thanks, Teresa. It's so wonderful to be on this great podcast which I've listened to right from the beginning and love listening to every week.

Aw, thank you. I said pretty much from the beginning, whether I said it to you I'm not entirely sure, but I did say to myself, if it wasn't to you, that I'm having you on. So it's so lovely to finally have you on. I was on your podcast for when you had that, because you did a season of it running up to your event, which we'll talk about. That was good fun. We were just laughing because when I went on Paul's podcast, he records his podcast and actually puts the video out there as well as audio recording. We recorded it and something happened, and the recording didn't happen. So we did an entire podcast and we had to do it again. We were real professionals and just literally, the minute we finished started again and did it again. It was hilarious. I've joked he's got to do this twice to get him back.

It was a great podcast. It was. It was. The fact that we did it all the way through when it wasn't recording ... it was my fault, it was a storage issue. You know, one of these things that you learn in doing a [crosstalk 00:06:38]

Yeah. You'll never do it again.

... storage. It was fine the second time around, it was better.

Yeah, it was. Actually you said that I had said some things in the second time that I hadn't said in the first. So yeah, it was meant to be, obviously someone in the universe somewhere went, "That isn't good enough, I know you can do better than that, I'm not going to record this." Anyway, that was just a bit of a giggle we were having.

I wanted to bring Paul on today because like I said, not only is he an awesome marketeer and social media person, he has also got this amazing event, which I just want to say to him and the world, if you have ever run an event or worked in events ... Now, I used to do work for Land Rover, and one of the things we did was loads of events, big events, it is one of the hardest things to do ever. Well, in marketing words, obviously there's jobs that are much harder than that. But in the marketing world it is super difficult to run and organise an event, and then on top of that, to actually sell tickets for that event, that's almost like another added pressure. So my hat goes off to anybody who runs an event, and manages an event, and makes these things happen. They're amazing when you go to them, but I don't know if you've ever been part of it, that you realise how much hard work goes into it.

So I'm so excited to have Paul on to talk about the event, but Paul first, in case my audience haven't heard of you, it'd be really great if you could just give us a bit of a backstory about who you are and how you got to do what you're doing.

Well, I'm Paul, but to be honest you might as well forget that because everybody calls me BizPaul. That's my Twitter username, that's where I am everywhere if you want to find me. Even my kids call me BizPaul.

Brilliant.

We're totally on brand in my house.

Love it.

So birthday cards, Christmas cards, just generally shouting at me from upstairs, "Hey BizPaul, where's my breakfast?" All of that happens. So I'm BizPaul, you can find me everywhere there. I run, as you said Teresa, MarketEd Live, which is our annual marketing event in Nottingham every Autumn. My business is called LikeMind Media, we're essentially a digital marketing agency, although I'm not a huge fan of that term, because really we just work closely with clients and help them meet their business objectives, and we just take their marketing tasks and do what needs to be done. I have been running that for nearly four years. Before that I had a big background in tech, so we do a lot of tech marketing actually.

I think that's an area where marketing, from what it was to what it is now, has changed phenomenally. Have I just said that right?

That's it, we'll go with it.

Yeah, who cares?

A lot.

Yeah, it's changed a lot. It's changed so much. Back in the day, well one, there wasn't even tech when I started marketing because people still hadn't jumped on the whole website thing, but I think now as marketeers we've had to change, we've had to become more technical, and actually a couple of weeks ago I had Brian Fanzo on who came from a tech background and therefore has now come into marketing. So it's interesting that people are coming in from that direction.

What I really want to know, I'm fascinated by, because obviously having the agency ... I do get what you mean, digital agency and kind of the connotations around that, but having the agency, what then made you think, "I know, I'm going to put on an event"? You're now wondering what made you think that, aren't you? You're like, "Why did I do that?"

Well sometimes yes. Sort of around the beginning of summer when there's a lull because people go on holiday, in terms of ticket sales. That's the moment when I always think, "Why am I doing this?" Happens every year. Essentially, I was having a drink with my good friend, Tim Elliott in a pub and we were just talking about-

Always the best decisions are made when you've had a drink.

Aren't they? Aren't they?

That's what I find.

So we'd had a couple of pints and we were talking about events that we go to, because we go to events, I go to a lot of events, I really feel passionately about education and getting as much education and keeping on top of all the changes, as you said, marketing changes a lot and very quickly, and if you don't keep up, you're in trouble really. We were talking about how we were having to travel. The area that we live in, the east Midlands of England, not a huge amount of stuff goes on. They have some great cities, but you have to travel. So Edinburgh, London, there's a lot of stuff that goes on in London. But London's expensive, and do you know what, we said there are lots of businesses in our region that all employ marketing people. There are lots of freelancers, lots of people like us. Why do we have to travel? Where is the gap? It's here, why don't we put on an event?

All that we really had to do we thought, was we had to convince speakers who have never heard of us to come to an event that they've never heard of that doesn't really exist at this point, and then convince people to travel to an area where they've never been, to also come and hear people who maybe they've never heard of or maybe they have heard of, where we've not even booked them as yet. I mean, how hard can it be? At the time after a couple of pints, think, you know, it's easy. That was the reason why we did it, because we just thought there's a gap there. We wanted to create something that was very specific towards marketing education. The whole purpose is to get people taking something away, where they feel they've learnt something and can actually apply it when they get back to the office the following day. So inspiration is good, but practicalities are important as well.

 

The Importance Of Attending Industry Events

 

I love that, and I think I've said before on the podcast, people know that my background's marketing and my degree's in marketing, but I will happily and honestly sit here and tell you that the stuff I learnt then, although I learnt some great foundational stuff, is not what I'm doing today. For me to be at the level I am today is down to the fact that I continuously learn. I'm always doing an online course, or an online programme. I'm going to events all the time. I'm following other people who do what we do, who write podcasts, and blogs, and whatever it might be, do videos. For me, that's how I feel, and I know you're the same, how I feel I can be at the level I am right now, because I do that continuously ongoing training and learning. I think to come at it from that point of view is such a great way, because actually the marketers in our industry, and social media, and the world how it is now and how technology is changing how we're marketing, we've got to keep up to date.

I know you and I, last year we were in San Diego together and we went to Social Media Marketing World, which was cool. It was the first time you'd been, wasn't it?

Yeah. [crosstalk 00:14:09]

It's an amazing event. So that's held in San Diego in March. We're both going again this year. I am still holding out that maybe they might ask me to speak, I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Come on Social Media Examiner, do it.

[crosstalk 00:14:25]

Let's get Teresa on the stage.

Either way, I'm going to be there because it's an amazing event. We see the importance of going to those events and sitting and listening to different people. Often though, sometimes you think to yourself, "Oh, I do know a lot about that." But inevitably, no matter what event I go to, even if it's one or two things in an entire talk, I think, "That was worth coming for." They always give you something that you think, "Ah, I didn't think to do it that way," or that's a different angle, or just gives you a different take.

Obviously we were at MarketEd Live this year, back in September. God, is it September it was in, yeah?

Yes, yeah. It was September.

[crosstalk 00:15:07] I lose track of time. It was a great day, we had great fun. For you, tell people the structure, how the day went, and some of the speakers that you had there and some of the key takeaways.

Well I just want to pick up on just something that you said about Social Media Marketing World actually, and you're right, it was my first time and it was great to be there, it was great to see you. I remember that we sat next to each other in one of the keynotes. We were just saying how good is it to be here, and what an investment it is, particularly when you're halfway around the world, [crosstalk 00:15:44]

Financial and time.

 

Why Do People Attend Events?

 

... and to actually go out there, it costs a lot of money. It's important for us, we were saying, to talk to our clients about the investment that we're making in our education by going to something like that. But there's a couple of reasons I think that people go to events, or certainly why I go to an event anyway. One is the actual learning, so what is it that people are talking about, what can I learn there? When I was at Social Media Marketing World, I picked all the tracks and all the sessions where I felt I was going to learn something new, where the gaps in my knowledge was. The thing that has always surprised me about events is the community around the event. So the people that are there, the connections that you make. My primary purpose to be honest was about networking. That's actually part of the story of MarketEd Live and how we set that up and how we choose who to speak, and what they should be talking about.

The sort of structured of MarketEd Live is that, it's fairly straightforward. We have sessions, we only have one room, but the one room thing is really important to us because we want everybody, including the speakers, to be together.

I think so, I like that.

[crosstalk 00:16:57] have a green room or a separate area for speakers. I don't want them coming in, doing their thing, and then going away, because yes, people there will learn from their sessions, but they will also learn a massive amount by going and talking to them and challenging them. I think one of the emails that we sent out to our attendees said, make sure you challenge the speakers after you've heard what they have to say. Because you might not have that experience or you might have done something differently, and I think we should always challenge each other because that's how you share experiences and how you get better at what it is you do.

Sessions, we choose a different series of topics. We try and cover lots of different marketing disciplines. So email marketing, or chat box, or websites, community, content, social media, there's lots in marketing to talk about. There's actually too much to talk about in one day, so we have to be picky.

Totally, yeah.

So we didn't cover everything this year, and we didn't cover everything last year, and we won't cover everything in 2019, but we'll try and find out what people want and factor that into the agenda.

You had some great speakers this year, and for me, one of the speakers that I actually have reused what he said so many times since then, was Chris Marr. He did a great talk on how to be, or how you should be the Wikipedia of your industry.

Love that.

I loved that, because basically what he was saying, it was such a great case study he gave, and it was...

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• Think about everything that went well in the year, and how they made you feel. If you need to, scroll back through emails and social media and make a note of everything good that happened. At the same time, make a note of the things that didn’t go so well.
• It’s also important to make a note of the things I loved in the previous year. These may be completely different to the things that went well, but it will give you a chance to see what you want to do more of in the year ahead.
• When analysing your metrics, think about money. What did your business earn? Did you achieve your goal? What services made you the most money? How many customers have you sold to?
• It’s also important to think about your social media numbers. How many followers have you gained? Has your engagement rate increased? How big is your email list?
• When thinking about next year, think about what you want to be reviewing at the end of the year. How do you want your business to look? What do you want your personal life to be like? What would you like to achieve? Remember to dream big as nothing is out of reach!
• Once you have thought of your goals, who do you need to be in order to make this happen?
• It’s also worth thinking about what you need help with in order to achieve your goals.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…No matter where you are in your business, the New Year is a great time to review everything you’ve done and set goals for the year to come. Think about monetary goals, social media goals and even personal goals that you want to look back on at the end of 2019.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Reviewing The Year You’ve Had – 03:46
• Metrics, Numbers and Stats – 08:15
• Planning for Next Year – 12:57
• Achieving Your Goals – 20:00

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE

• Link to Worksheet

Transcript below

 

Hello and a really warm welcome to Episode 42 of the social media marketing Made Simple podcast. And I am your host Teresa Heath-Wareing. Wow I can’t believe we’re in December already and I feel like everything is starting to slow down. No one wants to do anywhere. Everybody just wants to get on with the amazing Christmas cheer and you know what happens in my business in December is because there’s a huge part of the business that deals with clients. Often the clients start to naturally want to wind down as well. Anything new. We don’t do until the following year or we don’t have any particular meetings coming up in December. So for my business typically December has been a quiet month which is no problem to me whatsoever because as you can imagine with the family and Christmas and my daughter breaking up it’s hard work trying to do of things so I am very grateful for the fact that December’s a little bit quieter. The other reason I’m super grateful is because in December I obviously like to review where this year has taken us what we’ve achieved and then look to next year and focus on where I want to go what dreams and aspirations I’ve got. So today I wanted to do a podcast episode that focused around this.

 

I’m wondering have you already done this yet in your business or do you normally do this. Do you take time at the end of the year to really look at where you’ve come from what you’ve achieved and then make those amazing goals for next year. If you haven’t I highly recommend that you do. Because sometimes we forget what we’ve done and we always focus on like the last thing and if the last thing was particularly great or you know wasn’t as good as you would hope. Then maybe you’ll be feeling like you know what

this year hasn’t been what I wanted it to be. But actually you know I can’t remember what happened two weeks ago let alone back in March or June or whatever. So it’s really good to review where you’ve come from and then let’s look forward. As you know I am a big fan of making goals and plans and dreams and having a real focus of where I want to take my business because at least then if you’ve made that intentional you’ve made that focus then at least you’re looking towards it. If you don’t have a clue where you’re going in your

business or what you want for it then you’re kind of just walking a path of.

It’s like trying to get somewhere without that map but you don’t even know where you’re actually trying to get to. So today I’m going to talk you through the kind of process that I go through and to help you as well because I’m going to be covering quite a bit. I’ve actually put together a worksheet that you can work through at your own leisure and fill in all these bits that I’m going to explain to you how I use that obviously on this podcast and you can go and get that in the show notes. So if you head over to www.teresaheathwareing.com/42 as in the numbers then on there you’re going to find an option to download this kind of worksheet so you can work through and it has a few extra bits on there as well. Okay let’s get started. So either grab a pen and a piece paper to be Jotting things down or if you’re busy doing something like I normally am with a podcast like said you can head over and get the show notes later. So the first thing I do is I review the year we’ve had because it’s really hard to think about where you want to go if you don’t know where you’ve been and you don’t know what position you’re in right now. So what I first start with is a bit more of a qualitative I guess research on myself. And these are kind of questions that I just write answers to. So I think about what went well in the business and I try and highlight all the various things that happened in the year and you might have to go back and look at your calendar or emails or you know just one thing I do I go back and look at my social media feed which actually is really helpful to remind myself what happened this year because like I said come back to March or whatever. I can’t remember a single thing. So I think about what went well this year what events that I attend that I liked what things that I achieve where did I speak. What podcast interviews might have had all those kinds of things. I think that was brilliant. I loved that. Then on the flip side I think about what didn’t go so well.

 

What happened in the business that I thought wow that’s a shame that wasn’t what I thought was going to happen or that was something that I didn’t like or that didn’t go so well or the launch didn’t go so well or whatever it might be.

 

So have a think and it is important to review the things that didn’t go so well. We do want to dwell on them. We don’t just sit there and think gosh what a terrible failure I am because this thing went wrong. But you do just want to recognize the fact of that didn’t go so well because nothing is ever that awful as long as we’ve learned from it. If we’ve learned from that thing that went bad then that had its purpose and it’s definitely worth making sure that we look at those things and acknowledge them. The next thing I write down is what did I like doing the most. Now there’s a big difference between what went wow and what did I like. Because something could have gone really well. But actually to know what that isn’t that fun or I didn’t enjoy it very much. So I write down what did I love. What was brilliant about the business. What parts of the business did I enjoy the most. What sort of things really made me happy and made my heart sing. And I write those down because you know what when I’m planning next year I want more of those things.

 

The other thing I write down is what did I set out to achieve last year that I didn’t achieve because actually when I think about back to my assistant I had a planning meeting at the end of 2017 to talk about 2018 and there were definitely things on that list that we just didn’t do this year we just haven’t got round to all things changed and no longer was that thing that we put on the list to do appropriate or correct or whatever the reasons were. But it’s always good to sort of go What did I think I was going to achieve and what didn’t happen. And again you might write those things down and go but actually it was the right reason they didn’t happen. Or you might write those things down and go I need to make sure they happen on 2019 also put down the reasons why you didn’t think may happen. So was it you. Were you holding yourself back. Was there a logistics thing. Was it. You didn’t have the right person. What were the problems that made those things not happen. Because again if you’re going to put back on your list for next year we really need to have a think about how we can solve those problems and how we can make sure that next year you don’t have the same problem. And then the last sort of questions I asked myself in this section is how did I feel about last year. What sort of feelings came up in the year when was I feeling particularly happy or when was I feeling particularly motivated and energized. And then I think about what fears came up for me. What fears held me back. What fears stop me from doing things or affected my business or made me not achieve something. So I try and have a think about the kind of emotions both positive and negative and think about how they might have affected my business because if you’re anything like me then they will affect your business. My emotions really do affect a how much work I do what I achieve what I attend and go to what I put myself forward for. So for me this is a key area to think back. We’re still reviewing this year and now we’re going to move on to the metrics and the numbers and the kind of stats and facts and things. I know there can be a little bit boring and you do have to do a bit of work to dig them out but I promise you they are essential. So again to give you some of the ideas that I do when I’m reviewing my metrics for the year I obviously look at things like money. So what has my business made. What did it make each month. How much do I spend. Have I achieved my goal. What sort of things made me money. Was it products or services. And I look at things like how much of I sold of what. So for instance if I have different services or different products. What was the best seller. What did most people want. I also try and think about how many customers of I sold to. So this is especially good if you’ve got a product you know and you can literally go. I’ve had 20 customers buy 50 products or whatever it is it just helps you kind of understand how that’s made up because actually you could have sold more in a magnet but actually to less people. So you just need to be aware of these different things. I also look at what makes me the most money and when I’m doing that I look at things like obviously I have a team and I have to pay out for the team so well though I might bring a client in that looks very profitable because it’s a large amount of money actually. If I’m having to use some of the more expensive team members or it’s a lot of work for the team members to do. Did that make me money. Was that worth my while and was it worth doing. Sometimes I think we get really kind of blindsided by the fact of how much something is and you’re looking at thinking why this client’s bringing in this money but actually a few years ago I hate saying this but I’ve sacked a client. Sounds awful and I had never done it before and I don’t. Well I don’t intend on doing it again but one of the considerations about that client was even though at the time I think they were probably the highest paying client the amount of work we did for them that went above and beyond what we should have done for them actually made them the least profitable client. So initially you could look at them and think oh yeah they. That’s where I get a lot of money from. But actually it cost me lots of money in terms of trying to manage them both time and money on the team. So I try and have a look at that. I try and break down those things. The other key metrics that I try and record at this point and not only is it good to see where you are now but obviously you’re going to want to record them for when you’re doing this next year if you want to look at things like your marketing metrics how many Web site visits am I getting a month. How many social engagements Am I getting. What am I actually achieving in terms of page likes or likes on my Instagram or whatever. So make sure you write those follower numbers down. Think about things like how big is my email list but also go into a bit more detail of what rough percentage. Am I getting for my open rate or my click through rate. So I really want you to kind of dig down on any of those key type metrics that you complete from your business. And of course they’re all going to be different so some of the metrics I look at are podcast downloads for instance you might look at YouTube views or video views on Facebook so have a think about your own business and what key numbers can you write down. Because again it’s really going to help you review where you’ve come because actually the podcast for instance by look at where I started. Obviously the beginning year I didn’t have the podcast and now look at how many people are downloading it. It’s you know it’s fantastic it’s awesome so I’m really kind of keen to make sure that we get these numbers down but also then I can see where I am that I can measure going forward.

 

Okay so once you’ve got all that down hopefully you’ve kind of really thought about this year you thought about what went well what didn’t go well where you’ve made money what your marketing has looked like obviously think about you know generally the whole year if there’s anything else that we’ve missed. Make sure you write that down like that every business is different you’re possibly going to have some of your own things. I also look at things just quickly when I think about it. I also look at things like what events did I go to. How much money did I spend on them. And is it worth doing it again. I think it’s really important to think of things like that as well. We’ve done our review and spent some time seeing what we thought of this year. Now let’s think about next year. So next section of this worksheet or writing down these notes. The first thing I want you to think about is you are sat back and it’s December 2019 and you’re reviewing the year that’s just gone by. If I could wave a magic wand what would you be reviewing. What would you be writing down about what went well and what you achieved and when I ask you to think about this and think about okay the years just gone. Wouldn’t it be amazing if I could sit there and say this happened that happened. I achieved this I achieved that.

 

And you know what I want you to dream big huge massive because I don’t want you to limit yourself in any way.

Now I did this last year I made some wild dreams about podcast downloads are by income and you know what. I haven’t met some of those achievements I haven’t achieved those things I set out and I’m not the slightest bit disappointed. I am positive that if I had set myself a more reasonable goal that I probably wouldn’t have even got what I’ve got now because the fact that I was pushing so hard for the bigger goal made me do probably better than I would have done if I hadn’t have set that goal. So for me why not dream massive why not dream big but those big goals down there and let your imagination run riot. Think about all the things you want in your business think about whether you want a new team whether you want a certain income whether you wanted to start a YouTube channel or create some new content. For me speaking is huge for next year. That is very much on my board very much on my plan. I obviously do a lot speaking anyway but I want to do loads of speaking and I want people to know that they can ask me to come and speak anywhere. Sometimes I fear that people think ah you know maybe not. She won’t do it but for me speaking is my goal. So you know what if there is someone out there puting on an event and you think I would be a good speaker then by all means get in touch. I would love to hear from you. Side note sorry. Let’s get back to it. So you know think about all those things that you want to do and write them all down. And I want you to spend some time on this because the slightly woo woo side of me that loves the whole manifestation and the universe and you know those vision boards and those goals going forward if you know that’s what you want then subconsciously our mind looks like for things that are going to help us get those things they’re going to look for opportunities that maybe we might have been closed down to previously. And I don’t want to worry about how this is going to happen. I don’t want to sit there and think well I don’t. How on earth I could make that amount of money or I don’t know how on earth I’d get an office or how I’d get a team speak on the stage it’s such an such event. I don’t want to think about that at this point in time. All I want you to think about is in my wildest dreams this time next year how do I want my business to look. What do I wanted to have achieved. What personal goals did I want to achieve.

 

I want you to go wild and write them all down and as you’re writing them down I want you to think about how is this making you feel. Now I’m going to be so completely honest with you at this point. I was at James Wedmore’s events and I was talking to one of his coaches and she was asking me basically what what is my biggest dream.

 

What what does that look like or what is one of my dreams. And I was talking about the fact that I got I can’t believe I’m going to tell you this but let’s go anyway.

 

So I was talking about the fact of I’ve been social media marketing world a few times now and after someone spoke someone like Amy Porterfield or Jasmine Star some of the big guys you know they’re really kind of pinnacle people in our business when they’ve spoken. They answer questions in the room and the room’s packed by the way. Like literally packed. And then because there isn’t enough times there’s never enough time they say. And you know Jasmine and Amy both such lovely people like this they say right wait for us at the front and we’ll answer any other questions. Now obviously pretty much everyone in the room goes and waits for them. And I kind of just step back and I look at this and I see them stood there and they’re all queuing and they all want a photo taken. I am included in this by the way I am also in the queue waiting to speak to them and they go and have their photos taken and they thank them and they ask them questions and they consume their content and they love it. And basically this is one of my dreams. You know this is what I want to happen and I want to speak at social media marketing world and I want to provide so much good content and so much good advice and be seen in the same light as them. I want to stand there and I want to have a group of people waiting to ask me questions waiting to have a photo taken. And I honestly can’t tell you how amazing that feels. And as I was telling this to one of the coaches at James event and I actually got upset like the emotion was so strong and so powerful and I don’t get upset that easily.

 

I have to say I felt as if I’m totally honest but it was such a huge emotion that was like immediate in me that I just thought Oh my God I know what it would mean to me if I could achieve that and that just created this huge emotion in me. And that’s the thing that’s going to drive me forward.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• Twitter is a great platform for those that don’t consider themselves a writer and it teaches you to be concise and straight to the point.
• When creating posts for multiple social media platforms, try creating one for LinkedIn first so you cut down any unnecessary characters when it comes to using the 280-character limit on Twitter.
• To comply with the new rule, a great way to share the same tweet over and over is to continue retweeting it. Doing so won’t break Twitter’s guidelines and will mean your tweet is seen by even more people.
• Whilst Twitter doesn’t want your tweets to look like spam, large scheduling tool companies have confirmed that having the same tweet going out once or twice a week will not go against Twitter’s new rules.
• If you’re not on Twitter as a business, you are missing out. If you want to connect with people in your industry, Twitter is one of the easiest platforms to do this. Even people at the top are directly on Twitter for you to connect with.
• Twitter is platform where people join to build meaningful relationships.
• You can find the people you want to reach and follow them, engagement with them and even include them in tweets you want them to see.
• When someone sends you a tweet, try sending a video reply, this way you can reply exactly as you would in person. If you don’t want to reply via video, try using images of GIFs to keep it fun!
• Twitter is all about making connections and talking to people, so you don’t need to be strict with your content. Instead, have some fun and show your personality through video.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…As Twitter is a platform that is designed to encourage conversation, regardless of what your business does, going out there and talking to people is a great way to make valuable business connections.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Introducing Madalyn Sklar 04:00
• What Madalyn Loves About Twitter 09:00
• Using the 280 Character Limit To Its Full Potential 11:55
• How To Be Seen On Twitter Without Breaking The New Twitter Rules 15:20
• Why Should Businesses Use Twitter 23:13
• Why You Shouldn’t Use Auto DM’s On Twitter (And How You Should Reach Out Instead) 29:00
• Using Video On Twitter To Be More Personal 31:11

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE

• Madalyn Sklar Twitter
• Madalynsklar.com
• #TwitterSmarter Masterclass

Transcript below

 

Hello, and a very warm welcome to this week's episode of the Social Media Marketing Made Simple podcast. I hope wherever you are in the world, you are having a lovely day. In this week's episode, we're going to be talking all about Twitter. Okay, if you're not a Twitter fan, please don't turn off, 'cause I promise you you're going to want to listen to this interview. I got to interview the super lovely Madalyn Sklar, and she is a huge Twitter fan, and has been for ages. She often speaks on Twitter, she does Twitter chats on Twitter ... I'm going to say "Twitter" a lot in this episode, I know it. And she also has her own podcast, where obviously she talks about, you guessed it, Twitter.

Anyway, she is a font of knowledge as to why Twitter's good, why businesses should be on there, why you should actually include it within your social media and marketing strategy. Now if you've listened to me for a while, you're going to know that I actually love Twitter. I used it an awful lot. I'm not going to say I'm as active now as I have been, because I do love Instagram; I do find myself spending a lot of time doing Insta-stories, because I just particularly like that platform at the moment. However, I always go back to Twitter; I always make sure I'm still active, even if I'm not as active as I was.

I can honestly tell you, I have built my profile and found clients through Twitter. I've developed relationships, and I've had people who have seen me tweet and be active, that have then got in touch with me purely because of Twitter. When I say I love it, and it really works, I promise you it does. I'm not going to sit there and say it's the most easiest platform in the world, and I know that some of you are really put off by the style of it and the speed of it, but I urge you to listen to today's episode, and just have an open mind about whether it might be something that is worth doing in your industry.

There are definitely different industries that suit it better, or it works better for, and typically, often if you're business to business, then Twitter can be a really good platform for you to use. It's a great engagement tool, it's a great way of reaching out and speaking to people that you want to connect with, either potential customers, prospects, other people in your industry, key people ... So sending people DMs through Twitter, you're able to connect with them. So I really urge you to listen to this podcast episode, even if Twitter isn't your thing.

And of course if Twitter is your thing, then you're in total luck, because Madalyn and I kind of just completely geek out on how cool it is, and how businesses should be using it, and what it's all about. I think you're going to love today's episode. She's such a lovely lady, she's so nice to talk to, and I think you're going to get lots of good advice. And actually, we got to the end of it and decided it had gone way too quick, and that we needed to do another episode, because there is still so much amazing stuff we can tell you. So in the future, hopefully that will come as well.

 

Introducing Madalyn Sklar

 

I won't keep you waiting any longer. Please welcome to the podcast, the lovely Madalyn Sklar. I am so excited to introduce the super lovely Madalyn Sklar to today's podcast episode, and also that we get to talk about Twitter. Yay! Welcome, Madalyn.

Hey Teresa, thank you so much for inviting me. I love your podcasts; I am a fan. I listen to it every week, and I'm excited to be on and talk about Twitter.

I am so pleased you're here, because we have followed each other for a little while, and I love that fact that you listen to the podcast. And you have podcasts, so you must know what it's like when someone says, "I've listened." You get proper excited-

I do. Right? That's right.

So nice to know that you're producing this stuff, and then that someone out there is listening. But also, I love the fact that you are such a big Twitter fan. And in the social media media world at the moment, we go through trends, don't we? And there's different things that we like and don't like, and obviously Instagram is getting a lot of action at the moment which is lovely and I love it, but I've always been a big fan of Twitter. So I'm actually so excited today to talk about Twitter for a change, and hopefully turn on some of the listeners to why they want to be listening and focusing on Twitter as well.

But it would be great if we could start with just a bit of a brief history as to how you got into doing what you do, and some of the things you do, because I know you are super busy, and you have your fingers in lots of pies. So it would be great if we could let our audience know that.

I do have my finger in a lot of pies; that's really a great way of looking at it. I'm a doer; I do so many things, and it's just how I operate. I've been doing digital marketing on the internet for 22 years, since 1996, which just blows me away that I've been doing this so long. But I saw what was going to become the power of the internet. I just saw it early on, and I actually was one of the very first web designers in Houston, Texas, where I live. And just followed my dream of being an entrepreneur, and I just love it.

Fast forward to today, and I help businesses, I help solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, people of all types and sizes with their social media, but really focused on Twitter. Twitter's just one of those things that gets laughed out, and so I made it my mission to really help people understand how to use Twitter, because people say, "I know how to use Twitter." But there's so much of the ... You don't know what you don't know. There's so many things that Twitter can do that makes it way more fun, and way more helpful in your business. So I'm hoping that some of the things that I share today will help your listeners get fired up about using Twitter and making it work better for their business.

That's awesome, and like you said it's interesting, because I think sometimes people just think they know these platforms. Because they might have had a bit of personal use on them, and they've sent a tweet, and therefore they think they know what it is. But actually often hidden within all these platforms, are so many good things, and also ways in which you can use it to make such a difference. But I can't believe you've been doing online marketing for that long. It almost sounds like the internet wasn't around. Do you know what I mean? Sometimes I think because this is such a new industry, you get used to it being five, 10 years ... But to be doing it that long, and to jump on it and to recognise that this was going to be big, you must have so much experience.

Yeah, I could probably write five books about just ways of using digital marketing, and this is not just social media marketing, but there's so many other facets of how you can market your business using the internet. And for social media marketing, I've been doing that as a business for 13 years, so I've been doing-

Oh my gosh.

... social media for a very long time. I've seen so many changes in the years, from how it was in the beginning to where we are today. And I'm so excited with all the things we can do today, especially with video and live video, it's just one of my favourite things to do, and I'm always urging people to follow along. Watch what I'm doing, and do the same things, because you'll see that it can really help your business.

No, that's so awesome. And again, to think that social media marketing has been around for that long as well, that's crazy. But actually, how innovative of you to look at that back then, because I'm still having trouble convincing some people today that they need to do social media marketing, let along 10 years ago when actually people might not have thought to use this for business. So what was it at the beginning that really made you think, "Actually, Twitter's really good, and I think this could be a really good tool for businesses"?

 

What Madalyn Loves About Twitter

 

What I loved about Twitter when I first got on it ... I've been on it for a little over 10 years now, is that it was short, to the point. 140 characters teaches you to be very concise. Now, that was my way of doing things as it was. I had actually ... You'll love this too. I started blogging before it was cool, and before people even knew what that term meant. I started blogging in 2000, and I had a Blogger. Blogger were the big ... I think it was blogger.net. And I was doing short format blog post posts. I didn't like ... I'm not a writer; I didn't want to do long, wordy posts, so I tend to do more of a shorter format style. Not 140 characters, but more just no fluff, short, to the point. When I discovered Twitter, I thought, "You know, this is just right up my alley. This is the kind of writing I like. Just take that fluff out, and just tell us exactly what's going on, what's on your mind, or what do you want to share with us."

So I immediately fell in love, and I also loved the real time aspect of it. I just loved everything about it; I thought it was a cool tool to use for business.

Do you think then ... There's been a lot of changes on every social media platform. Well, some of them change on it feels like an hourly basis, let alone on a daily basis. Where you concerned when Twitter changed their character count? Because the fact that it gave you that bit more freedom, and I agree with you, one of the things that I liked about it was that it made me get to the point. Which I can fluff easily, so getting to the point is good. How did you feel about the big character change?

Well, I'm not going to lie, I was pretty against it in the beginning. I even was on Social Media Examiner, so they have their Friday talk show, and they bring me on when it's Twitter news, Twitter-related things. And when right before they switched from the 140 to the 280, they had me come on and talk about, okay Twitter's talking about this possibly being the new change, and what are your thoughts? And you had me and Mike Stelzner, and Mike Stelzner was like, "I'm all for it," and I was like, "I'm all against it." And I'm not one of those that likes to get online and duke it out with people. That's not my style. But I just felt like 140 characters is what makes Twitter Twitter.

Yes, yes.

 

Using the 280 Character Limit To Its Full Potential

 

And how could they even think about wanting to change this and add, and make it 280 characters? So initially I was against it. I said, "I don't see this as being a good thing," and then a week or two later, they did it, so okay, let me immerse myself in it, and let me see what I think, now that I can actually do it. And also my big thing was, I was worried that people were going to go crazy, and all we were going to see on Twitter were these long tweets, just tweet after tweet after tweet that was long and wordy, rather than these short, concise tweets.

Now, I read through Twitter Chats every week, and I was also concerned how this was going to affect Twitter Chats. I was thinking, "Did Twitter not think about the implications of Twitter Chats? Because my Twitter Chats are both filled with lots of people ... it's very busy. I can't even see all the tweets, it moves that fast. It's just zooming by. So I thought, "Okay, if it's going to be 280 characters, how can we possibly have a great conversation when it moves very fast in the course of a one hour chat? And what I noticed, Teresa, is that for about one day, people went crazy with the 280 characters. It's like they needed to get it out of their system. It's like, "Oh my gosh, I can do this! Let's see how much fun I could have with this."

And it's like yeah, for 24 hours, Twitter was a little crazy. And then it went right back to normal. It went right back to the way it was. People just ... Sure, you would see some longer tweets, but it was primarily the shorter tweets. But what was nice about it, and I did change my mind, and said, "Okay everyone, I like it, it's good, let's have an open mind about it." It's nice when you're typing that most perfect tweet, and you just need one more character space ... And it's like, "No! Twitter, please let me do one more." And then you have go figure out what word can you abbreviate, or where can I put an ampersand in instead of the word "and"? And that would always be frustrating, when it was one character space. So I have to say, it has been nice when you have that space for that one extra thing that you want to put in. I'm okay with it now, enough time has passed; we all see that it did not destroy Twitter.

No. That's so funny. But you're so right, because I often say to people, when they say to me about putting content on multiple platforms ... Because sometimes, we have the same message ... because it's a really important one, that you want to put on everything. And I say to them often that would start with LinkedIn, because that would be my longest and most wordiest post. So obviously I wouldn't abbreviate anything; it would all be very well written because it's LinkedIn, and a bit more serious.

Then I would be moving over to ... I'll copy it into Facebook, and I'll lighten it up a little bit, and I'll slim it down a bit. And then I'll copy it again over to Twitter, and I literally cut everything out of it. And sometimes it's hard; when you're trying to craft something, like you said, it's not that you need another six paragraphs, you literally just need another few characters. And then you're having to remove any punctuation, or remove any long-form letters and think, "How can I make that smaller?" So I quite like the way it challenged you, actually; I think it makes me laugh a bit.

 

How To Be Seen On Twitter Without Breaking The New Twitter Rules

 

Obviously, that was a huge change in Twitter's world. And then while we're talking about changes as it's just come into my mind, the first problem I have when I talk to people about Twitter, or the first thing they tell me is it's too fast. And when I tell them how much you need to be present in order to be seen in Twitter, they kind of go, "I can't keep up with that, because how can do four, five, six tweets a day or whatever it might be?" And then of course, Twitter changed its rules, and they stopped the ... or they changed the API didn't they, so that people couldn't repeat content. Which, I'm really interested to get your take on this. I was meant to give you my take, but let me take your take first [crosstalk 00:15:35].

Okay, so earlier this year in 2018, Twitter made this really big deal about how you cannot have duplicate tweets, and they had something where they were very specific, and some things that were a little grey. So the specific was if you have multiple Twitter accounts, and a lot of people are doing this ... Let's say you use ... We'll use Buffer as an example. So you host, or you run, multiple Twitter accounts. And this can be common, say, for a radio station or some big company that has little companies underneath them. There's so many different ways this was being done. So let's say you're in charge of their social media, and part of your strategy is that you do one tweet, but you put 'em on all the accounts. And they get scheduled to all go out together. Twitter says, "No, you cannot do that any more." It can only be one account for a tweet. But what you can do is retweet it ... take that tweet, and retweet it from the other accounts. So that was their work-around, is just do that.

Now of course, if you're doing this live, in real time, then you can do whatever you want. But this was to combat scheduling and basically spamming Twitter with just ... 'Cause you could go crazy with the scheduling and there are tools out there that you can just put on autopilot that can just go insanely crazy. And so they wanted to do away with that. I was great with that. I thought, "Okay, some people, some social media marketers that are running these big accounts, multiple big accounts, their work is going to change, because they're going to have to do this individually. They can't just go schedule these the way they were.

Then the other thing, and this was interesting, they said when you do a tweet, they don't want you basically duplicating that same tweet, because they don't want stuff to ... Because that was another problem; people put it on autopilot, and the same stuff goes out over and over and over and over. But I'm talking like, every hour or every day. Where it gets a little grey in there is that they did not say ... I mean, they kind of said, "You can't do this," but they didn't say it. It got a little strange. Like okay, what is the exact ... I want to know for sure, what can we do, what can we not do? Because the way it was worded, it wasn't super clear...

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• Canva is a free tool (with a paid version) that allows you to create social media graphics. With pre-loaded templates that are tailored to each social media platform, this is one of the most useful tools you can use to create engaging images for your socials.
• From an agency point of view, Content Cal is a great platform as it allows you view your content as a grid. It also gives your clients the option to view and approve posts before they go live.
• Social Bee is a social media scheduling tool that has a lot of different functionalities to help you schedule engaging post. Whilst it is not the simplest tool to use, the functions it offers more than make up for it.
• A Color Story is a great app for image editing as it allows you to have more control over the images (more so than editing within the Instagram app), and you can save filters to create to a more consistent feel.
• If you like to plan your Instagram feed in advance, Preview is a great app that allows you to do this.
• For royalty free images that can be used in social media posts, try Unsplash, Pixabay and Pexels.
• Biteable is an online program that allows you to create videos using stock video, your own videos, images and text.
• Mailchimp is a great email marketing service for people that have not done email marketing before as it’s simple. For those looking for a little more, Drip is another great option. If you’re looking for a complete service, try Infusionsoft – especially when it comes to automation and ecommerce.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…No matter what business you’re in, there’s a tool or system out there that can make your life that little bit easier.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Content Creation Tools 03:52
• Social Media Scheduling Tools 06:52
• Instagram Tools 09:05
• Free Stock Image Tools – 11:35
• Video Creation Tools 12:30
• Email Marketing Tools and Platforms 13:42
• Landing Page Tools 15:50
• Other Helpful Tools 16:30

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE

For more information on the resources mentioned, visit the following links:

• Canva
• Buffer
• Content Cal
• Social Bee
• A Color Story
• Preview
• Cut Story
• Unsplash
• Pexels
• Pixabay
• Biteable
• Wave
• Mailchimp
• Drip
• Infusionsoft
• Leadpages
• Manage Flitter
• Rev
• Trintv
• Amazon AWS S3

Transcript below

 

Hello and a super warm welcome to today’s episode of the podcast. How are you? I hope you’ve had an awesome day and things go well and you’ve been productive. I always love hearing from listeners and hearing what their businesses do and how I can how and the kind of information they want. So always feel free to reach out to me come and say hi come and drop me a dm in Instagram or somewhere else and I would love to hear from you. I’d love to hear how you use the podcast and what sort of things you would like to see in future. And you know what the other thing I’d really like to hear from you is who do you want me to interview? Who do you think is a great podcast guest? Now I have been super lucky to have some phenomenal guests on the podcast so far. I’ve got yet more lined up for you. I seem to be doing a lot of interviewing at the moment which is brilliant. And talking to the most fascinating interesting and knowledgeable people. But I would love to hear your recommendations of who you think would be a really good podcast interview who you want me to bring on to share their knowledge and their advice with you. So do please let me know. I’d be fascinated to hear. Also just in case I get them on make sure you are hitting subscribe on whatever device you’re listening to and therefore you won’t miss any episodes coming up just in case I get them. So today’s episode is going to be a bit of a practical one. Now it’s not the most exciting subjects in the world but it’s a absolutely essential must listen because I’m gonna be taking you through all of the online marketing and social media tools and systems and platforms that I use in my business every single day that make my life so much easier. They save me money and time and you know what I’ve tried a million of them and I have wasted that a lot of money on lots of them as well. So I want to tell you the ones that I now use that are my favorites. Some of them I’m sure you’re absolutely going to now buy it because I’ve talked about them before and some of them you may not have heard of or you may be on the lookout for a system that does the particular thing that I’m talking about. But I thought it would be super helpful to take you through all of the different things I use and what I use them for. Now obviously with this episode there’s going to be lots of information around the fact of these different tools and where they are and where you can get them. So what we’re gonna do is I’m going to stick to kind of what the tools are and what they do for me. And then in the show notes which you can find at Teresa Heath-Wearing.com/40 I’m going to be linking up to all of these different tools and we’ll be sending you off to go and get all the details from the various different ones because also there’s no point me going into pricing or some of the kind of you know new functionality or whatever because the chances are if you’re listening to this podcast in six months time it’s not going to be correct. So I’m literally just going to talk you through what I do what I use them for why they’re brilliant and then I will put all the links in my show notes. So I’ve tried to group them in different types of things I use them for and some it’s gone okay and some are just completely random and I just need to tell you what they are but I’m going to start off with content creation. So what do I use in order to create all the images and things you see that we put on social media for us and clients. Well I’ve talked about this before and I love it and it’s Canva so come over as a free tool with a paid version and I do pay for it. It’s not a huge amount of money or not currently huge amount of money. I think it’s about 10 dollars and basically the paid version just gives you a few more other facilities such as being able to save fonts. So if they don’t have your brand font you can actually upload the font to it and also it enables you to save your brand colors. There’s a few other things that are good but those are kind of the main reasons I like paying for it. But the free version is just as good and we use this to create all of our social media content. It has preset sizes of all the different types of content you want to create. It knows what size of Facebook cover photo is it knows what size and Instagram post says and it has those already preset up which you can then go in and just use and duplicate those pages really easily to keep producing that content.

 

So for me Canva is a must. Even though I have a designer that work the team obviously I’m not going to get a designer to create every single social media post we ever do. So the way we work is I normally get the designer to give me an idea of sort of what he would come up with and then I’d get him to give me the elements. And because you can upload things to Canva i.e. you can upload a logo or icons or something particular that you might use particular images then I’d get him to if he’s done any icons or anything like that I get him to produce them and put them on a transparent PMG. That’s just a file name. If you’re talking to a designer they’ll know what that is. And that means I can upload them. And when I put them onto something the file is see through. So therefore it’s not got a big white box around it or a black box or whatever. So canvas for me is top of my list one of my favorites. I talk about all the time and I love them. The next thing that saves lots of time in our world is obviously scheduling tools. Now I know not everyone’s a fan of scheduling social media. We obviously have to although saying that we do for clients and THW. But actually I don’t tend to schedule much of my own stuff. A lot of my stuff is done naturally. The only problem with that is sometimes if I’m super busy then it can be inconsistent and I might not post or if I’m away doing an event then I might be on Instagram stories all the time. So obviously that’s the kind of fall down and by me not scheduling using one of these tools.

 

So we have tried numerous tools over the years and all different types of platforms in order to schedule our social media content. And we’ve come up with a few that we love and always come back to or have been with for years. So the first one is buffer I love buffer. It’s very simple very straightforward and yet super effective. Also it’s not hugely expensive and they have different plans for different types of level of requirements. So for me it’s a great one to get started at. It’s a great one to try for not much money. Again I think they have a plan that starts at about 10 dollars a month and then see how you feel and if it works and you need to up it then you can. But at least you get to try at that lower cost. The other scheduling tools that we use or were big fans of is ContentCal we really like this from an agency point of view because with ContentCal it allows you to view the content on more of a grid. And it seems much more visible than the other platforms. It also gives you some authority to allow the client to see approve comment decline all various aspects of your social media posts. So it’s a really effective tool for agencies in particular but anyone that scheduling again pricing wise there is a free version. There is also a free version of buffer to set as well. And again you can decide what sort of pricing you need for the kind of amount of scheduling or number of accounts that you have. The last one that we really like that we use is social be. And again it’s a really cool scheduling tool. It does have an awful lot of facilities. And if I’m honest it’s not the most beautiful or easy is looking platform to use. However they do have a lot of cool functionality in it which really makes up for the fact that it’s not as maybe straightforward as something like ContentCal or buffer. But those the scheduling tools we use and like I said I’ve used loads of others there are loads out there and these are the three that I find are my particular favorites. The next one is Instagram you know I’m a huge fan of Instagram and I use Instagram an awful lot and therefore I do have a few different apps that I use to enable me to better manage that account and also better plan my content. So the first one I use is for image editing. Now you’re going to wonder why I edit my images in a different app not Instagram. Well this image editor just allows you to have a little bit more control I guess over the image. It also means I can be really consistent with my images because you can save certain filters and there’s different things that you can do with it. So for me I use an app called color story and like I said it just enables you to have a bit more control over the image and make them more consistent when you’re uploading them.

 

So I think that was probably you know a few pounds if that in the App Store and I use that on my iPhone and Android phone that I have I have two phones. Yeah. And it was available on both. So you should be absolutely fine getting that one. The other one I use is called preview because I like to see how the image is going to look against all the other images before I upload it. You might I need to get out a bit more and maybe I do but I just like to make sure that it fits the colors are fine. I haven’t put that type of image up recently and also it enables me to plan ahead so I’m not just looking at the next one image I can be looking at the next six or 10 or whatever. So if I’m planning my content via Instagram I find this one really helpful to get a visual idea of how those images are going to all look once you’ve posted them. The other thing I use for Instagram Stories is an app called cut story. And again I think there’s a free version and then to get the actual branding off you have to pay. And this just cuts up your video into 15 second chunks which can obviously be super helpful if you’re recording a video or you have a video that somewhere else of that is more than 15 seconds.

 

You basically just get the video on your phone. You open the app you choose the video then the app will chop it up so that each video is 15 seconds long so super helpful for stuff like that. Okay. The next tools that I use the next sort of websites that I use are when I need to find images. Now obviously there are paid for stock image websites like Shutter Stock and Getty. But let’s face it no one wants to pay for an image if you don’t have to. But obviously you need to be very careful that you’re not using images that you’re not meant to use because believe me I’ve heard a million examples of people getting letters through the post basically telling them they owe a lot of money in royalties. So the websites that I use in order to find free images are Unsplash pixabay and pixels. They’re my favorites. Again there’s lots of different ones out there but I tend to find that those three normally give me what I need now. My favorite overall is unsplash but that’s because the images tend to be more I guess Instagramable type looking images they’re a little bit more arty and I partically they like them whereas something like pixabay tends to be a bit more stock images looking anyway those three are great resources and ones that we use all the time. Don’t get me wrong we do occasionally buy images if we can’t find what we need. Okay next one is video editing. Now I’m not talking about recording for long videos and editing suites and that sort of thing. I’m talking about producing little videos for social media. Now we have a few different ones that we use in the agency we tend to do more of this than I do on my own stuff.

 

But the platform that we use for this is Bitable useful platform. Online websites where basically you can use aload of stock video you can add in your own stuff you can add in your own images you can change tags you can pick music and again really simple to use. A great way to create some nice videos for social media and the other one I use is for my podcast. So if you’ve ever seen my podcast being advertised on social media you’ll see that I use a small video that has a kind of signed wave moving on it and I use that to promote the podcast and that is produced on a website called Wave.co. And what you do there is you upload an image you upload your audio file and then you choose what type of wave you want i’e what sound wave you want and then they kind of merge altogether and give you a video to download. And I do pay for that one and there is a free version if I remember rightly but it’s how many minutes per month you’re going to want to use that that one’s costed on let’s move on to more marketing type platforms than necessarily just social media.

 

The big one for me is email marketing. What are you using to send out your emails and to automate some of your processes. Now early on in the business when I wasn’t doing any email automation I used MailChimp. It’s a great platform. They’ve certainly developed themselves over time. They’ve got better than they were. And it has a huge free section. So I think if it’s still right it’s about two and a half thousand contacts that you can have in there for free before they need to charge you. Although you won’t get all the functionality but as a starting point and if you don’t want to pay for automation MailChimp is a great one for sending out newsletters. The next one I would recommend that we use is drip. This one has some really good automation features. It has some good campaigns that you can build. It’s a really good and simple system to send emails to store your data in and to basically understand who you’re talking to and get those emails out to them. The cost wise varies depending on how many emails you’ve got in there. But I would say cost wise. It’s a middle of the range cost. Trip has lots of functionality. And if you’re wanting to do any kind of automation or linking up with your landing page or doing pop ups on your Web site then drip will be able to do all that for you. And it’s a great system. However the last one I recommend that we are moving to is infusionsoft. And the reason we’re moving to infusionsoft is because it just does a little bit more. And it has a little bit more functionality so infusionsoft though is quite a step up in price. So hence why our used drip for such a long time. And then when the need came about I’ve then upgraded to infusionsoft. But it’s a great system to some very clever and smart stuff. It can have checkout pages. It can manage people’s payments. It can do recurring payments. It can do some really really cool stuff. So I’d highly recommend that if you’re looking at selling online and you want to really understand your customer then that brings me nicely on to my landing page builder which I don’t need to talk about as I’ve mentioned a million times over the I Love Lead pages. And even though infusionsoft can build landing pages I still choose to pay for and work with lead pages because I love that all super easy super straightforward and a great tool for building landing pages for things like sale pages for lead magnets anywhere where you want them to do something specific and you don’t want that on your Web site. Then lastly I’ve got a few random ones for you which didn’t really fit into any of my categories. The first one is manage flitter. Now I use manage flitter to help me keep track of and tidy up my Twitter account. I obviously follow an awful lot of people on Twitter because I tend to follow most people that follow me or I certainly went through a big phase of doing that and therefore I have a really high number of people that I follow. And obviously I want to make sure that if someone is an active or their account is doorman or actually their spam that I’m not following them and I can clean that up. So I use managed flitter to be able to do that and to keep on top of my account the next random Web site that I use in the business all the time is Rev.com. And also now I’m using something called Trint as well. These are both websites that take audio files and transcribe them. So