We are being asked a lot how Covid-19 is affecting our business. What all of this means for our little Company of One, what we are doing with all our “extra time” and are we worried about what the future holds?
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We have to change the way we are using social media in 2019. Not just you, not just me, but all of us.
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Itʼs a topic that comes up pretty quickly when you talk to business owners – they arenʼt getting the engagement they want on social media, the cost of boosting all their posts is too high and they arenʼt even sure if anyone is seeing their posts at all. As a company who works in the space, we hear this all too often and we see it regularly. More and more, social media platforms are becoming a discovery platform or a portfolio showcase, rather than a regular engagement channel. They are no longer the key way to capture the attention of your audience.
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I spoke last week about how important it is to be blogging for your brand, but it’s important to note that no one wants to be putting in all the effort of blogging without sharing it with the intended audience. While content being live on your website is a good thing for increasing your search results or giving you kudos in the eyes of Google, ultimately what we should be trying to do with any blog post is to deliver value for your customers – so we have to get the content to the people! What are you doing to amplify your blog posts? Firstly, you need to consider the lifecycle of your blog post when writing it. Is it a piece of evergreen or cornerstone content – a blog post on a topic that will continue to be relevant for an extended period of time? Or is it really topical and will only be relevant for a little while? If your content is evergreen, share it a little bit now, but anticipate that you will be able to share and promote that content for as much as years afterwards. If your content is only going to be relevant for a short period, share and amplify it quickly and regularly over a shorter space of time to get maximum mileage out of your posts. Then consider your amplification platforms. Where does your blog go once it’s live on your website? Pick and mix from the list, depending on what your marketing strategy looks like right now: Email newsletter | Affiliate or partner websites | Social media | As an article on LinkedIn | as part of a campaign promoting another piece of content | via direct email to customers (usually in an email signature) | As a printed fact sheet | Now consider the piece of content itself – what are the ways that we can get maximum mileage out of this one idea? Some of these I touched on earlier in the article. You can share a blog post with your suppliers or partners in the hope that they will share it with their audience. You can turn a brief (350 words or so for best results) blog post into a longer report or fact sheet. Turn quotes from the blog post into images to go onto your social media. Create an explainer video that…
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We have all been there. Looming deadlines, taking on extra projects that end up blowing out to much more time, public holidays that shorten your week and double your workload. It’s tough, really tough when sitting down to look at your list fills you with a sense of dread because you feel like it simply can’t be done. I get you, I’ve been there. Having dug my way out of this hole more times than you can count, here are my tips on getting your workload back under control without losing your mind. Take a deep breath. Call it a little woo-woo if you like but I recommend this first, as it can often head off a full-blown crisis before it has a chance to take hold. Take one deep breath, as deep into your lungs as you can and let it out with an audible ‘wooosh’. This floods your brain with oxygen which gives you a mini high and the ‘wooosh’ sound makes you feel like you’re actively releasing something. By taking a minute to relax, instead of getting caught in a tornado, starting your day off on completely the wrong foot and with a poor attitude, start your day in control and a bit calmer. You’ll be surprised and how much more achievable that list looks now. Get your priorities in order Work out what you absolutely MUST do and what you can move out. Promised something to someone? Make sure you know what that deadline is and make it – your reputation is important. Probably should write a blog or schedule your own social media posts? That one you can let slide – this time. When you’re deep in the shit, sometimes you have to make sacrifices to get back on top. Reschedule the task and come back to it when the air has cleared a little. Better to cut a few things off the list and achieve your goals than panic and not get to any of it. Make more time No, I’m not a magician, but we can all find a little more time in our day or working week, in the short term. Get to work an hour or two earlier and really dedicate that time to getting shit done. Work on a Saturday morning or stay back late. Post-pone your gym session or a long lunch with your bestie, anything to pull yourself…
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I had a fairly in-depth conversation with a good friend the other day about life and business and everything that is going on, and she made a fairly sweeping statement – “It’s so nice to hear from someone who is doing cool stuff but didn’t just fall into it.” Maybe it’s that others wrap it up in a fairy-floss coating, but I cannot believe that anyone in business for themselves, whether its full time, part time or a side hustle, could have “fallen into it”. It sounds too much like that stupid idiom you see plastered on Pinterest and Instagram “Love what you do and you will never work a day in your life”. It’s just not bloody true.
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I took the not-so-conventional route to growing my side hustle into a business, and now my major source of income. Or maybe it is actually a more conventional route. I started freelancing as soon as I knew I could do design. I had originally gotten into graphic design because I wanted to one day own my own business and have the flexibility that that brings – so I went into this experience eyes wide open knowing that running my own business was in my future. The vision with the side hustle was to start small and work my way up. Get a book of clients together, enough to cover my salary, and then when I got there, quit the corporate job and go legit. And I guess it kind of worked out like that – but there are some things I did well, and others I didn’t do so well that have taught me a few things about the change from nights-and-weekends side hustle to all-encompassing small business. Start small, but make a start Get your side hustle going, whatever that looks like for you. Start an Instagram and talk about what you’re doing, or start trading your services with your mates and go from there. Be serious about it as future business, register yourself for an ABN, speak to a financial advisor about how to work this into your tax and create a brand. However you choose to start is completely fine, but make a start and do it intentionally. Build it up slowly No-one is going to go out and tell you to quit your day job and make candles full time. And if they do I think that’s really crappy advice. Yes, if you’re loving your side hustle more than your job and you KNOW that’s what you want to do full-time, then have that as a goal. But that takes time of the side hustle being just that – so don’t just go and pack everything in so soon. Work out whether the business model is sustainable, work out whether it’s truly something you can do for a career and not get sick of it, work out how you are going to cover your monthly expenses. Get your ducks in a row. Use the time while the side hustle is that to work out kinks – are you any good at chasing invoices? No?…
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Value is a term that is often tossed around, mostly from people trying to sell you things. For me, value is about what I learn, grow or get enjoyment from – and that is a pretty broad set of standards. In the fast-paced, often vapid-seeming world of social media though, the question we should ALL be asking is “What VALUE does my social media bring to my customers lives?”
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Social media is a fantastic thing for small businesses, giving you direct marketing access to your customers and allowing your brand to be a part of their every day and every movement. Thinking back 40 years ago, brands had nothing like the access we have to customers today – but that works both ways.
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Saying NO to different opportunities as a small business owner is scary. We want to say YES all the time because we aren’t sure when the next opportunity might come or if by saying NO just that once, all the opportunities will disappear. But it’s not that cut and dried.
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