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Lesson Info

Social & Publishing Platforms

So let's move on to what is a publishing platform. So I want to get a little bit more clear on this for all of you, because I know that it might be a little confusing. So this is what lives on forever, and it helps establish you as a trusted resource or or an industry leader. So this state, this content, stays virtual. It's evergreen if you want it to be. And I'm gonna talk to you about some of the publishing platforms that you may be interested in doing. So one is having a bog. Another is being on YouTube and having a YouTube channel. Another is live streaming or podcasting, so your published content can come in written visual or video format. And this really helps establish you as someone who knows your field. So this course is going to cover. Like I said earlier, the social platforms. But you need to understand what the publishing platforms are, because this is the content that you can share over and over again and drives people back to your website, where you want to get those emai...

l often and grow your list and grow your business. So what's the social platform. This acts as a distribution channel for your published content. It broadcast the news so some of those platforms are Facebook, twitter, instagram, Pinterest and live streaming. So this is where you can create a community and where they were. You share your published content, so we have a community on each of these platforms. And yes, I'm active on pretty much every one of them. My community is different on each of them, but there may be some crossover because some people just like to consume YouTube videos. Or maybe some people tune into my scopes and they don't want to go on instagram. So the reason that we we have exposure on different platforms is because we know we can grow a thriving community on each one of them. So today we're gonna be talking about Facebook and Twitter, and tomorrow we're gonna be talking about instagram, Pinterest and live streaming. So let's talk about branding. Okay, So branding is a combination of your messaging, your visual presentation and your actions. So I like to say I live, breathe and drink my brand and everything I dio from the way that I dress to the way that I act to the energy that I portray in person and online because I want you to know that when you see that anchor or that be you think of Su B or when you see a hashtag fine or one of my pillows, you think of me as well. So these air just touch points of aspects around your brand that make you more memorable and make you stand out doing what you love. So this is visual eye candy. So your branding is your voice, your visual representation of yourself and your brand. It's what your customers will actually remember you by, and when you're branding is on point, you will attract your target market, and that gets really exciting. So if you're starting from scratch, okay, think about what you can do to figure out what your branding is. Because a lot of people are like, I don't know what my branding is. I just like doing what I dio. So I want you to get really clear on what your branding is, so I recommend doing focus groups. Maybe you'll do this with your family, your friends. I actually did a focus group on Facebook I want. I asked people on my personal page because I have a lot of family and friends on my personal page. I ask people, What are the five words that you think of when you think of May? So this was kind of fun for me to get that feedback back. Passionate, contagious, magnetic, energetic, friendly. And you take all those responses and you you look at those words and you write them down and you figure out Wow, a lot of people see me like this. So maybe this is a good word for me to use as part of my branding. So you can do it in focus groups in person or in if you're in a Facebook group, where I think those are great places to do focus groups because they're a little bit more interactive. That's another way for you to figure it out. Okay, Questions line again. So much activity. Great. So 1% of question and I actually medicine the answer as well. How can, in terms of branding, how can you combine your personal and business personas? And should you combine them? Yeah, I I think you should be one with your brand. I mean, this is my personal opinion, you know, again, especially if you're an entrepreneur, sold for nor standing out and being memorable. It could be from something the way, the colors that you used to the way that you do your hair. Like Johanna. I feel like she's branded with her cute little bangs, and she draws herself and her pictures that way, like there's certain aspects of each person's personal. Nina, I know likes bright, vibrant colors on DSHEA is rocking that today, so maybe it's a color. Maybe it's an aspect of your personality. Maybe it's in the colors of your branding or icons around your brand, but you really need to understand how you can create a memorable brand is the essence of it. So in my situation, for instance, like I have a theater company and I have a very active personal Facebook page and in the face of page for the theatre company and people been saying, Oh, you may want you should probably do but this page for yourself as well. But I have a personal Facebook page of my business, my theater company, Facebook Page, and I'm just not sure if I can handle another branding like another business page. I do that or just personal page. You have another business, right? And my question is you have a six year old seven year old s o The question I always ask my clients is, Do you have the time? Because it goes back to doing it just to do it, because everyone's telling you to do it, and you feeling like, Oh, my goodness isn't There's a new platform and everyone's talking about its periscope and I gotta be honest. That's great. But if you don't have the time to do it and you're an overwhelming, you're spinning and you're not making money and paying those bills. I say, Don't don't do it like don't take on something else unless you know you can do it and do it really well. So based on the information you share with me yesterday, I don't think you have time. E feel relieved now. OK, ok. One other question from online. How do you advertise your business if you aren't selling anything? Like if you're a public library trying to promote circulation with patrons, for instance, so every business has core values around their business. No matter if you're selling something or not, you can show the core values within that business and what you value. Did you say she's a library? What was it he does? The example was a public library trying to promote circulation among so every single book in the library is, as far as I'm concerned, an opportunity to print to promote something in the library, especially all the best selling books, and like doing some really great visual content around those books. You could do videos. You can have people talk about why they love reading that book. I mean, you're in a place with books, and in my opinion books are great eye candy. But I always say that you're going to post a book on Instagram. It's better to have a person in it holding up the book as opposed to just the book. But she's sitting with a whole library full of awesome content, as far as I'm concerned with is that do you think that's good for her? Okay, all right. So books and then I live in a town where the library is gorgeous and Wellesley, Massachusetts. It is a piece of art. So maybe if the building, if the architectural building is, is historic, hysterical, historical or if it is, you know, just beautiful to look at, maybe the landscape around the buildings beautiful. Those are aspects of the building around where the books are. So there's things to do within the town that the libraries in that could absolutely help with promoting the library. So I wanted to think not just with in the walls but outside the walls of where it sits. I hope that makes sense. Okay, so the second thing that you can dio our surveys and survey is a great and you can use. There's all kinds of software to do to put out surveys with your business and to get an understanding of what your customers want more of because you might be developing something that you love to dio. But your customers might not want to be buying that. One of the things that I did early on with my store on Cape Cod when I was actively on Pinterest is I would put um and this is how I did a little. I'm gonna call this a survey. This is actually market research slash survey. I would put items that I was thinking of selling in my store on Pinterest to see if there was actually if I was getting comments and repent and I felt like the validation of the re pens was like, Wow, a lot of people really like this and they want to buy it now I'm gonna buy some inventory to support that. So so surveys for me are not just little literally writing a survey, but it's checking in to see before you invest in inventory before you draw a lot of of art. Or, you know, you think that your style is what a lot of people want. Go ahead and do a little bit of market research and do a survey to make sure that people like that and you can obviously do this on Instagram. If you're getting 200 likes on a picture and you're used to getting 10 that says something and there's a lot of comments of where can I buy this? So you want to pay attention to all of that. You can also do polls to your car, your current customers. So on Twitter, you can do polls to Andi. So check in with the customers that you have and so that you can determine what might be working for your brand. And you don't really want to hone in on the keywords that you've established within your brand. So I want you all to write down 5 to 7 words like right now in your worksheet. This is homework, you guys right now, cause but a workshop this I'm gonna put you to work that describe your business. I want you to think about what those works words are, even if you don't have a presence yet on social channels. But you have something. I know that you have something that you can write down on paper. So we're gonna re be referring this to this throughout the course. But it's really important for you to have. Rachel likes to call them buckets like 5 to 7 buckets that you can put your content in and stay within those buckets. So let me show you a couple of visual buckets that I have. All right, So it's also important this could be built around aesthetics to. So for me, that's a huge part of it. My branding is colorful. It's nautical. I'm high energy and fun, or so I've been told, and you can have your your core values can be also around being inclusive and collaborating. So I want this. I want my visual imagery to portray my branding. So another example that you can use is Zappos. I love Zappos, their quirky and their weird, but they have amazing customer service. So whenever I think of that pose, I think of Oh my goodness, I love them because their customer service is awesome. So So you can take elements from bigger brands that you buy from and that you love and figure out how that could be an element within your business. So you need to have very clear and strong business goals on this before we move through the rest of the course. So you have to love and believe in the product that you're selling, as I said, and some of you might just want to be making a difference in the world with what you do, and maybe you're not selling a product or service, but that is all part of this as well. And you want to commit to the social platforms that get you the most results for your business. And that's not what everyone else is doing. It's what's the best for your business. So you need to know, What do you sell and what do you do to and who do you sell to? Okay, so this is really important. You need to have a lot of clarity on this before we move through the rest of the course. All right, so we're gonna write down those 3 to business goals I really wanted. Toe. Make sure that you guys air on this project. This is really important. And I'll let you guys do this as I move along, but make sure that you're doing the homework. That's really important as we continue.