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Hi there.
Speaker:It's Sue.
Speaker:And thanks for joining me for tips and talk day.
Speaker:These are bite-sized topics that I pull from community questions and
Speaker:things that I'm observing in the world of handmade small business.
Speaker:If you'd like to submit a topic,
Speaker:DME, over on Instagram at gift biz unwrapped,
Speaker:gosh, this year I've rolled out a number of new opportunities
Speaker:for you here.
Speaker:There are the bashes where you have a chance to showcase
Speaker:your business to this entire listening audience.
Speaker:There's the new owl app.
Speaker:When you have a quick question where you'd like my input,
Speaker:and now I'm excited to bring you gift biz boosts.
Speaker:Think of these as free strategy sessions,
Speaker:leaving you with a clear action plan to boost you forward.
Speaker:Whether you're at the beginning of your business journey and need
Speaker:concrete steps on how to start,
Speaker:or you've been doing this for a while and could use
Speaker:a fresh approach.
Speaker:These boosts are for you you'll know,
Speaker:a podcast is a boost.
Speaker:If you see that word in the title,
Speaker:want to get your own free boost.
Speaker:I'm taking these on a first come first serve basis.
Speaker:Head over to gift biz,
Speaker:unwrapped.com forward slash boost and sign up for your session.
Speaker:Today. I took a month off of social media in July.
Speaker:This certainly wasn't my intent,
Speaker:but it proved to be an enlightening experience.
Speaker:I've been going full force on Facebook,
Speaker:Instagram, and Pinterest,
Speaker:which are my channels of choice for as long as I
Speaker:can remember some short breaks here and there.
Speaker:Yes, but for the most part,
Speaker:all in and that plan was meant to continue even be
Speaker:beefed up a bit until I unexpectedly switched things up.
Speaker:I'll explain.
Speaker:I've always been challenged with feeling like I need to document
Speaker:my life personal and business on a regular basis on social.
Speaker:It's a struggle because I want to be in my life
Speaker:moments, not partially in while creating an Instagram story or something.
Speaker:It's not that I mind sharing at all,
Speaker:but not by forsaking the living part of my life.
Speaker:I keep working on this to find the perfect balance.
Speaker:In fact,
Speaker:a little over a month ago,
Speaker:we were on vacation in Provence.
Speaker:This was a special,
Speaker:big birthday present from my husband.
Speaker:A couple of years delayed.
Speaker:We all know why.
Speaker:And I thought what a perfect time to really jumpstart my
Speaker:Instagram story game.
Speaker:I'll have tons of contents since I know we'll be visiting
Speaker:a lot of markets.
Speaker:So that could be a great way to tie in craft
Speaker:show tips,
Speaker:as well as my personal experience of dancing in the lavender
Speaker:fields in France,
Speaker:these are all things that Instagram stories should be right.
Speaker:And it was off to a great start.
Speaker:I wasn't feeling the need to be posting right in the
Speaker:moment because I was in a different time zone than the
Speaker:majority of my community.
Speaker:I was also excited to share parts of Provence with you
Speaker:until it all got shut down right now,
Speaker:you may be thinking my account got hacked or closed.
Speaker:Nope. Worse,
Speaker:July 4th in Highland park.
Speaker:Illinois happened.
Speaker:If you listen to,
Speaker:to my tips and talk 71 episode,
Speaker:I give you as much detail as I want to share
Speaker:about that day.
Speaker:But to me,
Speaker:even though I still had a few days of vacation left,
Speaker:I knew for certain I wasn't in a Headspace for social
Speaker:media at all hard stop.
Speaker:In fact,
Speaker:I was off for a little over a month and given
Speaker:what we experienced here at home,
Speaker:I didn't care.
Speaker:I didn't care if I lost followers.
Speaker:I didn't care if the algorithm dinged me about my consistency.
Speaker:I'm sure you can understand.
Speaker:It just didn't matter.
Speaker:I'm using my situation as a podcast episode because let's face
Speaker:it. Life presents us all with drama,
Speaker:tragedy, illness loss.
Speaker:Yet at some point we need to get back up and
Speaker:keep living.
Speaker:But to get to that point,
Speaker:it's important to focus on you and your recovery,
Speaker:going through the stages of grief,
Speaker:whatever it is for you.
Speaker:And it could be good times too.
Speaker:You want time to be all in for your wedding or
Speaker:for the birth of a baby?
Speaker:I guess what I'm trying to say here is life comes
Speaker:first and sometimes while having our own businesses,
Speaker:we forget that.
Speaker:So here's what I learned in my time off social.
Speaker:I think it might help for when you feel the need
Speaker:to do the same first off and kind of surprising to
Speaker:me. I didn't lose followers focusing here on my Instagram account.
Speaker:Not only did I not lose followers,
Speaker:but I gained some,
Speaker:my Facebook group gift biz breeze continued to attract new members
Speaker:as it does every week.
Speaker:And the giving supportive women in this group kept it going
Speaker:without me engagement stayed the same and all was well.
Speaker:In fact,
Speaker:I know many of you didn't even realize I wasn't actively
Speaker:on social for such a long time.
Speaker:And that's because of this next point.
Speaker:My strategic plan carried me through.
Speaker:So even though I wasn't consciously on social things were still
Speaker:posting. What I mean by this is that I have content
Speaker:programmed and ready to go without me having to make it
Speaker:happen in lifetime.
Speaker:There are two parts to this and you can do it
Speaker:too. First.
Speaker:I schedule some posts to go live on a date in
Speaker:the future.
Speaker:Like the podcast in fall.
Speaker:Now truth is I have a team that helps me with
Speaker:this, but even when I was doing it all myself,
Speaker:I had a system.
Speaker:You can do the same thing for when you want to
Speaker:promote presence at a craft show or already have product launches
Speaker:or seasonal sales set for certain dates to take this even
Speaker:further, whatever your posting frequency,
Speaker:you can schedule it out for the whole week and not
Speaker:have to touch it again until it's time to do the
Speaker:same for the following week or gosh,
Speaker:schedule out two weeks or even a month.
Speaker:If you can.
Speaker:Then the only activities you need to do daily is engaging
Speaker:with others.
Speaker:And with people who respond to your already scheduled posts and
Speaker:then create stories,
Speaker:if you want them to be live at the time,
Speaker:by the way,
Speaker:remember not to make all your posts,
Speaker:promotional, meaning don't sell all the time.
Speaker:This is a quick way to lose followers.
Speaker:If you want help,
Speaker:figuring out what to say in posts that will increase your
Speaker:audience and engagement.
Speaker:Take advantage of my content for makers program.
Speaker:I created it for you for just this purpose.
Speaker:It's only $27 and you just buy it once not year
Speaker:over year or season after season,
Speaker:you'll learn a posting strategy and get a year of post
Speaker:content that you can tweak for your product and individual situations.
Speaker:That's why you only have to buy it once.
Speaker:If you're interested,
Speaker:read more about it and get yours at gift biz,
Speaker:unwrapped.com forward slash content for makers.
Speaker:Okay. Before I had diverted myself with all of that,
Speaker:we're talking about scheduling posts in advance,
Speaker:which frees up your time.
Speaker:Overall, the second point under my strategically scheduled posting strategy is
Speaker:that I have regular posts appearing on both my Facebook pages
Speaker:and in gift biz breeze that are evergreen.
Speaker:This means they're valuable messages that apply now.
Speaker:And in the future,
Speaker:remember, it's such a low percentage of people who see your
Speaker:posts that even reposting content from a couple of months ago
Speaker:will be seen by new people.
Speaker:This is perfect for you.
Speaker:If you have a blog,
Speaker:why write the article and then share it with your community
Speaker:only once.
Speaker:Yes, if you've done it well,
Speaker:you have SEO power behind it,
Speaker:but you're missing out.
Speaker:If you don't continue to post it up on social from
Speaker:time to time,
Speaker:I use smarter queue to do this.
Speaker:I have enough blog posts that I can rotate through them
Speaker:all weekly.
Speaker:And one will only be repeated each quarter.
Speaker:So I do this as well with some of my podcast
Speaker:episodes, that cover topics that are most popular and stay relevant
Speaker:over time.
Speaker:And all this happens automatically.
Speaker:I update it from time to time,
Speaker:but otherwise it's hands-off to check out smarter queue,
Speaker:you can find a special link giving you a free trial
Speaker:over on my website,
Speaker:gift biz unwrapped under the tab called resources and then business
Speaker:tools. You'll find other business development programs.
Speaker:I recommend there too.
Speaker:The final thing I want to share with you about my
Speaker:time off social is that it resulted in a major reduction
Speaker:of my anxiety and stress levels.
Speaker:I had given myself permission to take the month off,
Speaker:regardless of the consequences.
Speaker:And immediately I felt a weight lifted.
Speaker:Maybe I shouldn't be saying this,
Speaker:but it's true.
Speaker:My time off has been a reset of all sorts that
Speaker:has served me well.
Speaker:I've had a chance to evaluate what I'm doing there,
Speaker:and I'm actually excited to dive back in,
Speaker:will the anxiety and stress reappear maybe.
Speaker:And then again,
Speaker:something we'll need to change.
Speaker:Overall. I've found that taking a break from social has been
Speaker:a really good thing.
Speaker:I'm still a huge advocate of social.
Speaker:Don't get me wrong.
Speaker:This is one way to grow your business and interact with
Speaker:your community,
Speaker:but it's not the only way it holds a solid spot
Speaker:in an overall marketing strategy.
Speaker:But again,
Speaker:it's just a single spot with social media in particular,
Speaker:it can get out of hand,
Speaker:new platforms arise.
Speaker:They're always changing.
Speaker:And the experts on each platform continually stress what's best right
Speaker:now and how you should be showing up.
Speaker:It's exhausting trying to integrate that into everything else you do
Speaker:for your business.
Speaker:Well, it can get you in a tail spin.
Speaker:So here and now I'm giving you permission to get off
Speaker:the wheel for a while.
Speaker:When you need to take time out to stand back and
Speaker:reevaluate what you're doing,
Speaker:do that don't stay stuck in a cycle because you're afraid
Speaker:of what will happen if you stop.
Speaker:I did that for too long.
Speaker:During your time away,
Speaker:you're much better equipped to decide what's right for you.
Speaker:And when you're ready,
Speaker:you can re-engage with social media accordingly,
Speaker:that's a wrap.
Speaker:I'm a get to the point kind of girl.
Speaker:And this is what you can expect from these quick midweek
Speaker:sessions. Now it's your turn go out and fulfill that dream
Speaker:of yours.
Speaker:Share your handmade products with us.
