Lessons

Lesson Info

Social Media

So this is the quote I was trying to tell you about yesterday when it comes to blogging, so this is the real one, not the one that I made up, but in reality, your block should be about the whole world is filtered through the lens of your passions, so that's an easy way to figure out how to get material. What do you really care about? And what can you talk about quickly or easily that somebody would want to read? Most people these days don't read incredibly long blawg posts unless they have a very strong emotional attachment to the author of those posts. So that's, why pictures air so great, because you're really they're just scanning. They're not getting getting in deep into your words, so just putting some parameters and building some structure boundaries around what you're going to write about can also help making that writing easier. You give yourself some guidelines again, if you just sit down like, ok, I'm going to do this, then it's a little bit harder to dio if you're wondering ...

what your website or what you're what your blog's should really be about the best place tio look, teo answers for that our other blog's, that you admire what web sites and live issue goes, who would read regularly and why. Take note of that figure that out in these air questions for you to answer in the workbook too. What are some of your favorite web sites within the handmade community? Do any of you have blog's thatyou read regularly that you never, never miss? I have a few that I've stuck with for a long time. I love wise craft by blair stocker if any of you have ever she lives right here in seattle I love her blogged I love the block posey gets cozy bye alicia paulson and I have read that blawg for over ten years I would wager and it's a lot of pictures a little bit about her day and it just makes me feel like, uh, somewhere someone in the world is loving their life. It just is a really nice blog's. So think about why you like the sites that you go to and what brings you back again and again and that'll give you some ideas on what you want to create for yourself. Also, when you're looking at other bloggers and web sites, look for features or themes or elements of those websites or blog's that you might like tio have for yourself that'll give you some direction and give you some ideas of what direction to take your own information to when you were blogging it's a great idea to write your ideal customer this is, after all, who you're doing this work for, so keep that ideal customer in mind if you think nobody's reading your imaginary ideal customer is she's gonna log on as soon as you had post so right to her and keep her in mind, people do like a little bit of this, and a little bit of that they like a mixture of personal and business. If you have a great tip that you can share or a wonderful place that you've gotten a supply or you've discovered a new way that your product could be useful or helpful to people, you can put that in your block. People really like photos. We've already talked about that, and I, for one, want to know what you had for lunch, so I'm just going to put that out there, since we're told repeatedly not to talk about food, I'm interested. So it's also a good idea to figure out what topics or what themes are going to help you sell what you make. So if you sell something that goes on the wall, you know, adding hanging tips or instructions now and then, or linking back to resource is that would help somebody hang their art or a good place to put this piece, or what kind of room would this go best in those are all things that help you sell your products and that's information that you know so remember that we're all really close to our own work we're in it all the time it's what we're constantly doing so we often overlook what we think is really obvious but that's not always obvious to our audience so keep that in mind when you're deciding what to write because it doesn't always have to be really deep and meaningful it can just sometimes be hey are you looking for an easy rating pictures I just came across this great pen on pinterest I thought I would share it here you know? So so give people the other kinds of information that they really need to do well I've included some pages in the workbook for youto list for youkilis topics that you might be interested in blogging about when I was blogging regularly as a personal blogger I found that to be one of the best tools that I had because often I would just be having a conversation with somebody and I would think oh, I could write about this oh, that was a great question that that person just asked me I could right about that but if I didn't personally write it down I really wouldn't remember also other items that make great block conversations are questioned your customers send you if you are getting questions from people that shows through the conversations in your online venue or through your email? Those are all blocked topics if one person is wondering it, a lot of people are wondering it and that's just a rule. So calm through your social media comb through your feedback if you khun it's really easy to pick out potential topics, people are really telling you what they want to know about you just have to be listening and then respond to them they will. They will really help you do your job if you're paying attention s o if you already have a blogger website and you feel like you're not being very active with it or it's just something that you feel like you should improve and you're interested in improving, but you're not sure how to do it again. Take a look at other websites and blog's and figure that out we through your feet back, making intention based around the particular part of your web site that you would like to fix if you want to increase your readership if you want to start selling more three or blawg if you want to put the social media buttons beneath their block post macon intention around it, give yourself one thing toe work toward and just focus on that for a while there's there's no reason to think that you can sit down on tuesday morning and have the blogger website of your dreams before dinner that night it's just not it's not going to happen, and you shouldn't put those kinds of expectations or pressure on yourself because then you're not going to like it, and if you don't like it, you're not going to do it. And if you don't do it that's ok too, because you get to decide no your end goal if you know where you want to end up, you're going to have a much easier time getting there and be brave. It's it's not always easy to put yourself out there like that if you are going to feel bad that you don't get comments from people, take off the comments part just don't have it it's, not a rule that you have to have it. When I do blogged, I turn off the comments and then just link the blogged post into my facebook group. If people want to talk about it, they can talk about it on facebook. I don't I don't want it coming into my web site, I don't want to think about that any anymore, and I don't enjoy comments on my block. Well, I should say do enjoy comments, but I don't enjoy worrying about if I'm going to get any I don't like setting up other ways, tio judge myself. So I just took it out of out of the equation that was the good boston me says common stress you out taken get it get rid of them you don't need to worry about that anymore um s so it does it does take guts to share and but if you're wondering is anybody reading am I boring is does this matter to anyone that's not your problem really if it if it ends a bothering you so much that it's stressful then don't do it you don't have to do everything and having a web having a website is really important you do have to do that but you don't have to have a block because because you don't you don't have to have that worry if you don't want it okay the same goes for social media will just start with that since we're there there's a lot of options for social media and I don't know about you but sometimes it feels like just maintaining my social media feeds is the bulk of my work day where I sit down on I sit down at the computer and I'm like ok, I'm going to check twitter I'm going to check instagram I'm going toe, you know, check facebook and I'm just going right back to a few people will see what see what's up and before I know it, you know I've been pinning multiple multiple things and I have gone down so many internet rabbit holes that it's now lunchtime. And why should I even bother getting started with my work today? Already wasted out the day I should have something to eat and then read a book so a social media if you are not connecting or don't enjoy any of these web sites than that, don't use them, don't use them. Do any of you have a juicer? Yeah, yeah, okay, so I got a juicer about six years ago, my parents had my mom and had won my whole life and it broke and we had to get a new gee, sir, and they were very they were like new fangled, so they weren't like the old fashioned long to g, sir, that we were used to and we ended up buying like four juicers in one year, and the reason was is because we hated cleaning them, and since we hated cleaning them, we weren't making juice, and we were wasting a lot of produce in our garden, and we weren't having something that we grew up having, and that was a big part of our life, and we learned a really big less, and and that was, if you're not going to clean the juicer. Don't buy it if it's too hard for you like don't get that what is the best you sir to buy the one you're going to be able t use in clean if you buy a fantastic juicer but it's taking you half an hour to clean it then you're not going to have juice then you have like made a bunch of mistakes right there and also wasted a lot of money so the's social media is like buying a juicer you want tio utilize the social media that you're actually going to use that you're actually going to have a good time on that your customers on and that you enjoy maintaining so if twitter is not for you, don't do it if facebook is in for you, you have to do it if pinterest isn't for you what's your secret because I would really like to know how to spend less time on pinterest instagram is probably my favorite social media of the moment I love just being able to take those pictures and shares something very quickly I really like being able to search for other people's photos I really have a great time on instagram it's by far my favorite social media site at the moment youtube a lot of people use youtube to put up tutorials or to address their customer directly or to show their customers how to use their product kathy your business is ideal for you two videos have you done that yet yeah so your business is perfect that's a really great social media spot for you to be whereas my business isn't necessarily always suited to using some you know she rosalie would you make a video of showing people how to hang up shower maybe ok I want to see it you know that's if it's not gonna work for you and if your people aren't going to be there then don't do it I've created a social media statistics tracker for you and that was in the enrollment materials if when you are steep peed on this is for you to be able to see if it's effective for your business there's also a more detailed involved charge um in the workbook about social media where you can actually enter in topics clicks and you can really follow the trail of your social media to see if people where people are responding if you find they're spending a lot of time on twitter but your customer isn't relating to their they're not clicking through twitter to get back tio your shop or your website then then they don't want to hear from you on twitter so check you can take that right after plate and continue to tweet about things you want to tweet about but you know that you don't have to focus any of your business efforts there which which is a relief sometimes so tracking these hacking these statistics is really important because it it will really show you where you should work and where you shouldn't keep her efforts focused. Does anyone have any great social media tips that they could share for making it easier to market your business on social media? I think that that would be interesting tio ask ask each other what makes you enjoy social media or what makes it easier for you do any of you guys tag your stuff? Sometimes I find that to be confusing within other times a minute oh that's so helpful that really does work but what I'm trying to type in a bunch of tags on my phone it makes it a little more difficulty I read a great article that said the most effective amount of tags on instagram was eleven anything less than eleven and it wouldn't reach a big enough audience and anything more than eleven it was going to reach excuse me it was going to reach too broad of a group of people so sometimes I try to think like is there eleven tags I could put on here that useful like and I can't so sometimes tagging seems a bit of a challenge my favorite tag is carry live so that's that's a really good one to use but I saw some hands go up do you have tips? I just don't I really enjoyed instagram because you can share it on facebook and twitter and tumbler so you could do one post and you can hit all your different social sites with one post instead of coming up with separate ones, right? Do you have a temblor? Heather? I do have a temblor. Yeah, what do you put there? Um, I mostly put the artwork there. When I finish a piece, I tag it as art, and it goes in my tumbler, her pro polio, but I don't do a lot of them direct on tumbler, right? Yeah, this linked rosalie what's. Your tip might was similar, but you can also use our assess feeds tio automatically post to facebook or twitter from your website. So if you write a block post and you don't necessarily want to then go to facebook directly type in all the information again and linked to it, you can set it up so that it just post for you automatically, right that's, really useful and quite a timesaver. I don't always connect twitter and instagram, but I sometimes d'oh and I used to use a word press ap, right on my phone, where I could just pop stuff up on my web site as I was out and about, but that was before instagram, so it sends instagram people wanted to stop that completely, but so we have a great suggestion from our cameraman alex oh great alex thinks is a let's have a social media tips here for us what is it and his social media tip is that you should do social media sometimes of the day are better than others so I find for myself I do social media in the afternoons on tuesday wednesday and thursday seemed to be better social media days that's a monday or sunday so I know all that stuff is on google as faras they have analytics as faras the times and days you should get the most punch for your social media yeah that's a great suggestion thanks alex I know there's a website also that will help you that will track yours and I can't remember the name of it but maybe somebody online can look it up and tell us but it'll tell you when most of your photos on instagram are looked at so attracts those stats for you and I'll say like kathy nine hundred people looked at your photo between four and six p m but on ly to look at it between four a m and six a m or whatever it is and that that's another great way to figure out how to schedule your stuff you can also pre schedule a lot of your social media but I think there's a couple of caveats to that I think we've all seen something happen in the world and some blogger business has pre scheduled all of their tweets and in the middle of a big news story there saying, stuff like shoes are on sale and you're like what that seems, you know, so that's a little weird, so no, they as much as you can schedule your social media, you can also stop that if you need to, you can hit hit pause on that, but finding in building systems around your social media, like when are people really going to look at it? When is most effective? Are they actually using it, connecting things that you can connect? I think that that will make it a lot easier for you, and I do know that a lot of people worry about well, if I write a newsletter and then I post the newsletter to facebook and then male chimp also sends it to twitter and then I'm going toe put a picture of it on instagram m I swamping people? Am I giving them information overload? Is it too much? And again your customer will let you know that I don't follow the same people on instagram that I follow on twitter and I don't follow the same people on facebook that I follow on pinterest, so it's really up to you of somebody feels like they're getting way way way too much of you as if that was possible they will let you know they'll either hide you in their feed or they will send you an email saying this is too much for me and then you have to say oh I'm so glad you get to control your own social media so that's really that's really up to you so this is too much for you then take care of your self thank you very much so that's a pretty easy thing to d'oh ladies you have you know we have a lot of people talking and giving suggestions about social media and the chat rooms may weaken read off a few those but I also wanted to remind people that we talked about yesterday but there is an instagram marketing class that is starting on monday june ninth three day class with soupy zimmerman on how to market with instagram so yeah perfect perfect timing I'm going to watch that one I'm excited for it good good make sure you are sleepy carrie I already have ugo so what do we got people saying season there was a question from curious carry about what is fine vine is a little video app that I think puts up six second video clips that you khun like take a short video or I think you can even make little videos from your pictures and I've seen crafters do really cute things with that, taking a little snippet of the crowd at a craft show so that you can see, like what's happening there or if their cat is in their yarn bass skid or just like a little cute video. So it's just one other easy way to connect with people if they use that particular social media happened. If you happen to like video. So it's just a fun little simple, quick thing. People are talking about things to manage their social media, like hoot suite or jeopardize tweetdeck things that they can, yes, to kind of schedule everything. And I love that sweet I use it all the time just kind of manage everything at once, so yeah, let's, do you use any of those? I don't use any of those but it's because I am not overly active on any except for instagram and pinterest I so I don't really schedule my social media or use any kind of aggregator to collect it. I do use the website, but I can't think of the name of it is now when I participated, cheat it sweet chad, um, usually website that helps me with that. And it will just keep that flow based on that hashtag going right in front of me a lot of times I get asked to participate in tweet chats and I find those really hard to keep up with that I'm trying to respond to people and hit reply, and I just can't refresh and also type of the same time, so I do I have you services like that to make my social media easier and in fact tweetdeck that's the one I was trying to think of earlier but that I'm using with the hashtag carry live so we can see all of those tweets coming in in real name, I say, what about you ladies anymore? Suggestions or how you deal with the overwhelming feeling that is social media? Do you guys like social media? I mean, I think maybe some social media straight talk would be kind of a good idea because I think that a lot of times we feel like we're supposed to like it like everybody else likes it or what? What don't I get about a specific a specific social media opportunity? And I think so I think it's one of those topics works just important to say like it's ok, if you don't resonate with that or if your customer doesn't hurt that's not what you want to dio does anybody I love social media parts of aaron good what do you love about it? Instagram? I like to look at people's life and you know, just that little snapshot of you know what someone doing um I like to look at food too you know what they're eating tio that I love that keeps us I don't like twitter personally, I feel like I just feel like it's a lot of people talking at once and nobody's really listening back when twitter first came on the scene, I have got an account right away and I used to read my whole twitter feed every day, you know? So maybe I think to this day I follow two hundred thirty people, maybe on twitter, but I used to read the whole feed every day and people used to say good morning twitter people and then like good night twitter and it was really nice and I wasn't so overwhelming that actually could read that, but then it was really just twitter, facebook there weren't other places to spend my spend my time online and are as many social media places to visit online that I really did enjoy twitter quite a bit at one point time, but one of the intentions that I've set for my own business this year and that I've been working on in all of two thousand fourteen is to engage more in social media, so I have been utilizing them more and actually learning fight more quite a bit more about them and so it hasn't been that bad. Yeah have a good comment from a michelle lynn who says I love social media, but I've had a hard time transitioning for how to use it for my business because it's been my home and my personal story for so many years now and it's been a weird transition give any tips for that? So depending on what kind of business you have, michele, you might want tio actually consider having a business account where you can follow your customers and your customers can follow you there, and then you can stay focused on business or interacting with customers on your business feed and slowly adding personal stuff if that feels right to you to see if there's some way that you can measure, combine those two accounts together eso there's you can have more than one twitter account that's for sure, but if it feels weird for you to combine them and you can't always put you don't want to stop telling people about your dogs, for instance, but you don't think that belongs in your business feed, then just get too scared of business feed it's, it's it's easy enough to dio and you can sort of see if there's something that you can melt together into one and if not you can complain on one and sell on the otherwise healthy did you have something I just I find it overwhelming which one were all yeah pretty much I find it a distraction when I'm trying to think about my work I find oh now I should be I don't I find it overwhelming it's almost like you can't do it off although I know I recognize that it's important yeah and I think the fact is I have to teach myself how to do it I just joined instagram you know night because you recommended it so I had that extra push toe get on instagram but get on there yeah especially was such a visual business it's a really great match for you but if you track those stats particularly since you just started and if nobody is coming liking or commenting and you're using it in the best ways that you know how are the ways that you are most comfortable and you're not getting the results then drop it absolutely drop it I think it's best to schedule time to do social media rather than check in and out of it throughout the day because it's a it's really easy to just start clicking on links start chatting to your friends start checking on somebody it's really easy to get lost in there that you have to tightly control the time you spend on social media and you I sometimes set a timer and say, I'm only doing this for twenty minutes I can come back to it it's not going anywhere so all that stuff is going to be there later. But as far as using social media for your business is some things that you need to think about are your avatars I mean, to talk about this yesterday. You want to make sure that you are projecting the image that you want to project with the image that you put out to represent yourself or your business on all internet platforms. If you are offered the opportunity to have a bio or description or background or banner, make that make that tie into your business, so do a responsible job with your profile if you are there, tio, educate people about what you do and find new customers, then be sure you mentioned where people can find you. Um, so and is it obvious how people can get in touch with you if they need tio eyes there a way for them to connect with you and that goes back to your profile? So presumably, if this is on a social media site, they're just going to hit at and talk to you directly, but if somebody needs to ask you something more in depth, they need to know where else to find you online, which is why listing your business information in your profiler in your introduction is really important try to find new people to follow each week if you are finding yourself not really enjoying social media picks it up just because it's your business feed doesn't mean that you can't follow whomever you might want to follow if you have a hobby interest and there's a way for you to make your social media more enjoyable by following a different kind of community or person that you might really enjoy it's ok to do that it's also the point of your putting your business on these websites is tio connect with your customer so following them back interacting with meeting them halfway, finding out other things they're interested in those air all really great growth uses for social media that have nothing to do with you saying anything all of the time there's other information to be found there link your posts and your updates to your social network that's another great way to spread the word about what you're doing particularly if somebody is not on in syria um like kathy was not just just yesterday but now she is, you know, so she's not going to see my great picture about make creative live event on my instagram because she doesn't follow me there so linking that log poster that face the post back to other places where she might be helps her find me and to know to know what I'm doing don't just sell don't just use thes avenues as a way to sell nobody likes the feed that is just updated my fc shop just listed new product nobody nobody responds well to that person because people don't want to be sold to all the time social media isn't your chance to continually constantly advertise your business it's your chance to make a connection and to meet your customers and to interact with them and to share with them. So while it's definitely okay to promote your business and say I was just working on this and putting it in my shop later you need to be adding more to the conversation just then just that and you need to be responding to people being social is a two way street it's hard to be social all by yourself so you need to interact and don't just sell track your stats and again this is because maybe you can get away with not using some some form of social media if you want or this is one way to get to know your ideal customer a lot better um and add your social efforts to your marketing plan figure out what you're going to dio how you're going to do it and when you're going to do it and stick to it if you write it down you can make it happen if he write it down then you're starting and you're figuring it out and if you find it to be overwhelming, schedule it like any other task that you would do for your business owning a businesses work selling your stuff is work by noon customers is work just because this couldn't be a place where you talk about fun things or read fun things doesn't mean that it's not going to be work because it is um yes carrie, can I ask you a question about tracking your stats? Yes, because I just see that and see the word stats and I shy away what do you use something that's particularly helpful or useful? Do you have to do them separately? Does anybody have wanted to share what they use on dh? And I think one of things we didn't talk about the votes were asking about is cloud do you follow that as well? I don't follow cloud sometimes I get an email telling me what my clout score is and I'll just be straight up I just I just don't care. So if I don't really understand what cloud is and I don't want people to keep inventing things that I should have to care about on the internet that that takes time out of my day so I'm not sure what it is I would like to say I'm happy that I think my crowd scores great because it's better than being a cloud failure but I don't know really that much about it? And I'm not sure what impact overall has on their business if anybody else does, I would love to learn susan you're pretty active on cloud right? You could expect cloud is just it's a way to monitor all of your social media presents so they use algorithms and they decide how many likes you get or how many retweets and things like that and they kind of just have an algorithm for your overall popularity on social media so it's not necessarily like the amount of friends if you have a certain amount of friends but they're not active with what you're doing, then your score will be different than if there if you have even a smaller amount of friends but they're really active and you know, so it's kind of like your your analytics, but for your social efforts pretty much yes, so that that makes me more interested right there that sounds actually pretty good and I have actually heard that there's employers now depending on your job, they're looking at your clout score determines here I've heard I've read articles and people are into it's very true I spoke with somebody to help me with something in my business last year who said that I needed to increase my my platform that my actual work and the response to my work and my sales weren't weren't up to his standards for working with me and that I had to increase my social media efforts and so I did so it is important to people I mean, I have flat out had people share stories with me about wanting to do a job or get hired for something and they've been told no, you know, you don't have enough followers, so but I don't think we should really worry about that because it's so much pressure is a lot of pressure yeah it's just it's just a lot of pressure and I don't think that's that's the part of business that doesn't feel good to me so that's a part of my business that I make less important because it just it's not I'm not going to be able to be a good boss to myself if I'm really worried about that, so a lot of people are talking about this pressure you know you either love it or you love it or you don't like all things, so people that love it, they don't necessarily feel that pressure and people that don't love it probably feel a lot of that pressure. Um coach said there's lots of option options, but it sure sounds like even spent your entire day on blogging and websites and not have enough time to work on the handmade items how hard is it for one person to keep up with all of this I don't think that you have to do everything and I hope that that's the one thing that people are taking away from this I don't think you have to be on all of these places and do all of these things to have a successful business. I think over time things will filter into your tear here awareness level something like that and you will eventually find what works for you and what doesn't work for you. The biggest and best tip I have for any of this is to play in what you're going to write about or what you're going to talk about on social media, an advance and schedule that and then set times to check in and respond and then get off you really could spend all day on these websites and I have I mean it's not it's, not ideal, but I certainly have sat down in the morning and not gotten up until much later and thought, what were the heck did that day go? But I'm sure glad I know how they forge cast iron frying hands now because I'll be able to sleep at night it cz really hard and it's ridiculous it's a great way to procrastinate and it's difficult I don't think that you have to do everything and I don't think that you have to focus on things that you don't like and that aren't going to work for you I do think it's really important that you have your own web site though that's the one thing that I don't feel very flexible on if you want to build a really successful business and a sustainable business, I think you need a place on the internet to direct people to go to and whether you start out selling there is up to you but a place on the internet is absolutely a must and that's the only thing that I really think is a must yes, just a quick follow up on that from ashley calder things that shine but is it ok to have a blogger instead of a stand alone website? Yes, I'm updating it regularly considering that people here still find you on your block you can have one or both and you can have either one there's no as long as I can type your name into the internet or the name of your business or at a search term that has something to do with what you make and somehow come across you that's what I want to be able to d'oh so yes and you don't have to have everything on your web site you know we had a little list of things that were necessary how do I get in touch with you? How do I ask you question? Can you tell me more about your business? Those are all important and simple things you definitely do not have to do both and you don't have to do everything you don't have to do things that you don't like. You are the boss? Yes. So yes, we talked about my perfectionism addiction and I'm working on it thanks to your advice yesterday and so I wanted to hear your opinion about the blogger who has stopped blogging. We're a year or more and I see a lot of bloggers do that and then when they come back they're like, oh, I'm so sorry I was gone for so long, I was busy, I had a baby like, you know, there's all this kind of apologetic sort of obligation feeling, yeah, I don't personally like it, but how would you suggest sort of getting back? Just heard blagging just start I don't like it when people apologize for that either, like, this is your world, you know, just, you know, not to apologize for anything if you don't like doing it in you stop don't there's nothing worse than going back to a block that's like, I know I haven't been here for six months, but now I'm gonna block regularly and I can't take it back and do it have so many ideas and then, like three months later, I know I said it was going to do it and I mean, trust me, I did that from, like, two thousand eight through two thousand twelve until I finally told myself, do you wish kerry, you don't want to do it, so just stop, you know, if you want to start blogging again to start and you could just simply say, hey, I'm excited tio, to be to be here today, I'm I've I had an urge to block, and here I am and then you can say stuff on your social if you want, like I wrote a blood post, you know, I haven't blogged for years, and I'm actually starting again next week when my blawg launches again, and I'm looking forward to it for the first time in a really long time, but I'm not going to apologize about it because I'm not sorry on dh that's, that's, another really important business thing. You don't ever have to apologize when you're not sorry people aren't expecting you to be sorry. You don't need anyone's forgiveness for making decisions about your business that are best for you or the most comfortable for you if you're not sorry, don't say you're sorry, it's condescending, and it makes people lose trust in you don't do it.