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Social Media Q&A

So basically to bring everybody up to speed, the question was do I use a business account for my Instagram? Now, as a point of clarification, I use Instagram for business. I do not have a business account. Here's why. Facebook is the owner of Instagram, and Facebook told business owners, get a Facebook page. Get a Facebook page. Get a page, not a personal profile. And then Facebook changed the algorithm. Changed the algorithm so distinctly that Facebook pages were no longer indexed the way that personal Facebook pages were. And now Facebook is favoring personal profiles over Facebook pages to be shown, and as a result, my engagement that was extraordinarily strong completely tanked overnight. I was like, what just happened to my Facebook page? No matter what I did, I could not get my stuff seen anymore. So I had to try a bunch of different strategies. I had to change how much I was engaging. I had to change the frequency. I had to change the type of content, started experimenting, and ...

I'm glad to say that we brought it back up, but it's not where it was. And I understand, because Facebook will only let your posts play a certain amount before they want you to one, pay for it, or two, they think it's so good it has the potential, maybe not going viral, but just getting a lot, a lot of engagement. That is how your Facebook page is seen. So going back to your question, I will not change my Instagram account to a business account because I feel that somewhere down the line, according to the algorithm, they're gonna truncate those pages again. That's what I feel. It's all speculation, but I'm like, listen, for a physical location, I think that a business account is great because you can get driving locations, you can call directly from your Instagram. But I'm an online business. I don't want anybody showing up at my door. I don't need anybody calling me. I don't need to give any directions. I don't need to have ratings. In that regard, it's completely null and void for me. Yes, Patricia. Okay, so here's something that I struggled with even with my platform. Do I really need to have an Instagram business page, or not Instagram, Facebook. If I, if everywhere, you know, everybody that... I feel like everybody is on Instagram and I'm just sort of driving them to Facebook? No. Or I don't feel like I'm really getting the follow, like, I'm not involved with Facebook enough to grow it like I have with, like, Instagram has been my baby. So do I really even need to have that? If you have, once you, okay, right now the answer's no. Once you build up your digital education, absolutely. Facebook hands down is three times bigger, four times bigger than Instagram is. There's billions of users on Facebook. Basically, Facebook's the next TV, and they know that. And so in my regard, you wanna play where the most people are. Now, if you're not actively cultivating your audience on Facebook and you're just transferring the same content, I would caution you to say, can you still use the same content, but make sure that it feels like it's native to that platform? So instead of having vertical videos, right, so on Facebook, you know if somebody took it, like, in Stories or in Snapchat because you'll see black lines along the video, and then it's, like, vertical in the center. It's not good for viewing. If you have a square video, that becomes easier for viewership both on Instagram and on Facebook. So you wanna make sure that the video looks native. And do I think you should build your page on the largest social platform that is constantly innovating and by far is smashing out all other competition and the competition they cannot buy out, they just rip out and copy? (laughter) Yeah, I do. I absolutely do. I'm active on my Facebook page every single day because that is by far, and when you run ads, go into your workshops that are local. There's no better ad system. Like, no better ad system period. Not in radio, not in TV, not in print. Facebook is so acutely aware of what your purchasers are doing that when you sell your online content, when you sell your physical content, create ads in Atlanta for hair people who want to go paint, hair painting. You spend $500 in ads and you're gonna get $5000 worth of people in the seats. It's incredible. So yes, Facebook. Josh. Here you go. So I had something interesting I thought to add, and then I have a question to follow. So interestingly enough, you added award-winning hair stylist on the bio, and so Patricia, being very humble, I mentioned that to her before, and she was like, no way, no way, I can never, you know, I can never say that about myself. So this follows up, no, so this follows up with a question. I think that sometimes we get a little... We don't wanna brag. We don't wanna brag. We don't wanna say things about ourselves. So maybe it's best if we have someone from the outside say, you know, what you do. So, for instance, do you have your husband maybe write a tag line for you if you can't come up with anything creative on the spot or, you know, or you're drawing a blank? Is that something you might recommend? Your husband or one of your friends. Well, it's Patricia's bio, so I can write her bio, you can write her bio, President Obama, Former President Obama can write her bio. (laughter) It still looks like she wrote it. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So to me it's a personal preference, but I put award-winning because it one, differentiates, two, it's the description that you use behind closed doors. Yeah. And you'd rather, if you were, if you think people are not gonna like you for being award-winning, they were never your client to begin with. And it's also a social qualifier. I didn't list your, you didn't say 25 awards. You didn't say the top awards. You didn't say national awards. You just said award. Exactly. It could be, like, mother of the year at your kid's school. It doesn't matter. You're technically an award winner. (laughter) At the end of the day, I do not think it's, like, a humble brag. Yeah, exactly, and I couldn't agree more. So yeah, so my question was, yeah, do you think that it's useful to maybe ask your friends or someone from the outside looking in, hey, can you help me out with this tag line? What, you see what I do every day. From your perspective, what do you think I do every day, and maybe put it on paper? Yes, but, my advice is always make it easier, make it the easiest possible way for people to give feedback. And so when you say, so what do you think? People are like, um, I think that you're so nice and you love your family... Yeah, exactly. ...and you love God. It's, like, all over the place. I would write three tag lines and say which one do you like and why. You narrow down, and then all the sudden it leads to conversations that are already honed in, like, I, yes, you are this, but what if that, or what if you got this one from this one. All the sudden it morphs together. So make it as easy as possible to get the feedback, listen to the feedback, and amend from there. Awesome. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you, Josh. We have two online questions before we get to yours. Thanks, babe. Thank you. We'll give the mic to you, though. Let's go to an online question. Okay, I noticed I win as many followers as I lose. Well, one, clarify, mindset shift. Social media's not a win or lose. We're not at war. (laughter) I normally get 10 to 13 new followers a day and the next morning I lose five to 10. Why is this happening? Mir Salgado Photography. Okay, so let's break this down a little bit. Okay, the reason why you're getting followers is because people have employed a method of follow for follow. I'll follow your account with the hopes that you follow my account, and the next morning I go and I unfollow all those accounts. Let me tell you, it's a great way to get followers, but it's sheisty as all get out, because people have apps when they notice that they're being unfollowed, and two, people take it offense. They feel like they got used. So the reason why you're picking up 10 to and losing them the next day is they were never your followers to begin with. They wanted you as their follower. That has nothing to do with you. Why is this happening? Just the name of the game. It's a shady move. That's what I'll call it. I call it for what it is. I'm not gonna follow your account. I'm only gonna follow your account if I like what you're doing. Period, the end. Secondly, I lose followers. I do. Three weeks ago, I just got into, like, a really sad place. I don't ever look at my numbers. I don't look at my numbers. I do me. I'm not defined to them. I don't give a rip. But somebody had texted me when I was on family vacation and said, hey, congratulations, you passed 200,000 followers on Facebook. And I was like, I did? And I went to the Facebook page and I was like, hey, passed 200. Great. Went back to making dinner. And then the next day, I dropped, like, 30, and I was like, well, that's funny. I didn't even post anything for people to have an opinion about. People might've saw that I got over and they just thought, I don't know, I don't know. And then I post something and I lost another 40 followers. Posted another thing, I lost another 35 followers. And I was like, what's going on? I started taking it so personally, so personally that I was just like, I feel like I'm doing something wrong when I'm just trying to help people. I took it so, I was so burdened that I woke JD up. It wasn't even, I wake up at, like, 4:30 or five. It's dark. And I wait just for, like, sunrise, and I wake him up, and he's like, it's still too early. And I was like, I'm having a moment. (laughter) He's like, okay, what's wrong? And I was like, people are unfollowing me and I think it's because of me. And he said something that we talked about when we decided to start this new venture, and the mantra was burn the list. If you are not by our side, burn the list. Our newsletter, people are unfollowing left and right. Burn the list. If you do not like the direction I'm going, I'm burning the list. I pay to have my newsletter, handsomely. If you aren't opening, if you aren't reading, if you aren't liking, and you're simply there to judge, burn the list. I don't need millions of followers. I need a portion. And that is what my commission is to you. You lose 10 followers, good. They weren't participating anyway. Do I have so much swag that when people are spamming my account, bye. Block and delete. Block and delete. My mantra to you is burn the list. You don't need numbers. You need tribe members. Hold onto that every time you get involved. And I'm telling you, it hurts as all get out. You shift your perspective and say, I am who I am and I'm moving forward. And I can tell you that when I made that mindset shift after losing 200 followers, we're now well over 200,000, and I believe it was because I don't give a rip. Like me, hate me, love me, I'm doing my thing, and that has totally changed my perspective. Don't worry about the 10. Worry about what you're gonna do with the five that are left over. Little... (woman speaking without mic) Good. I didn't care. Good. I didn't care about my follow, not that I didn't care about my following, but I just didn't, I wasn't numbers obsessed. I just did what I love to do and what I was passionate about... And people see that. And if I had 50 or I had 100 or I had 400,000... People see it. Good. I'm still doing me and living my life. Perfect. Yeah. We have a question here. I'mma have you stand up. Thank you. So I have a two-part question. The first part is, I feel so much pressure, like, whenever I post on my business account, it's almost like I start, like, picking out photos. I'm a wedding photographer. Okay. So I start picking out photos that I'm going to post, and then I just don't do it. I just back out. I'm like, I can't pick which photos. And I'm just so indecisive and I feel like I, maybe it's, like, a fear of being judged. Yeah. Like, you know, or, like, so... (laughter) So I guess, like, that's me saying, like, I can relate to, like, you know, burning the list, but... Good. More so, okay, so my question really was, I find that when I post to my business account, I tag myself on Facebook so that it shows up on my personal account. Okay. I'm wondering if you would recommend, like, just not even posting on the business account, in regards to, like, what you were saying before, and maybe just, like, posting my pictures on my regular personal account? How do you, what do you think about that? I feel pretty strongly about it one way, and I am more focused as an entrepreneur to grow the thing I want to grow. Do I wanna grow my personal page? Then I would put them on my personal account. Even, or do I wanna grow my business page? And I want to grow my business page. And so even if you're not getting the same reach on either page, I'm gonna be pouring more energy and cultivating conversations to happen there, because at the end of the day, you're limited to 5000 friends on Facebook. So once you get to the 5000, you're gonna have to build a page anyway, and you'll have to start from scratch. I firmly believe start where you want it to grow without the limitations, cultivate conversation, and then when people, like, bridesmaids or mother of the grooms or friends of friends, they're going to your business page, not trying to friend you on your personal page. And so when you go on your family vacations and don't really want the whole world to see you in your bathing suit, you feel comfortable putting them there and keeping your professional stuff professional.