In this week's episode, I'm talking about the results from my experiment to post natively on social media (LinkedIn & Instagram)

You may remember last month when I decided to post natively for 4 weeks to see if there was any difference in my engagement on LinkedIn and Instagram as opposed to scheduling using a 3rd party tool which may offend the Algorithm Gods.

What did I find?

Linkedin [1.00 min]

When comparing October's scheduled posts and November's native posts, there isn't much difference.

I did get more video engagement posting natively, but impressions-wise, the months were very similar.

I have been engaging with the platform much more recently so I think that has a lot to do with it.

Instagram [5.00 min]

The results are a bit mixed!

I've doubled my reach but halved my engagement!

The reach has expanded because I've been posting more stories and reels.

My Take Away [9.27min]

Not forgetting to do that all-important engagement piece. And not just with your current audience, finding new people to genuinely connect with and start building those relationships with.

I personally don't feel that posting natively or scheduling makes a lot of difference!

If you have any questions or would like some help with your podcast, book a podcast enquiry call.

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You can leave one here

Thanks so much!

I'd love to connect with you on social!

You can find me on:

LinkedIn | Website

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Rachael Botfield: 00:00:08

Welcome to Podcasting 1 0 1 with me, your host, Rachael.

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This podcast is for female business owners and solopreneurs that are

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looking to start a podcast that add to your own already awesome offering.

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I'll give you helpful advice that you can take away in use

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in your podcasting journey.

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I hope to answer those tricky questions that just keep you from starting.

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Once a month, I'll be joined by other female podcasters.

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Other journey with you and offer tips and advice they discovered along the way.

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Let's get started.

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Hi, and welcome to this week's episode.

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Some of you may remember that about four weeks ago I was talking about

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the effect of scheduling your social media posts into like LinkedIn and

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Instagram and and, and Facebook, and whether there was a difference between.

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Posting it natively because the person I was talking to was, was, was talking about

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how LinkedIn especially like, punishes you for having using a third party provider.

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So I was interested to see whether or not how much difference it.

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It actually makes, first I was gonna take a look at the LinkedIn results.

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So I created a spreadsheet so I could track the four weeks

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I was doing native posting and the previous four weeks to that.

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So I looked at the, this is on LinkedIn discovery or impressions, reactions,

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comments, reposts, and then there's a separate video performance which

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has views, viewers and minutes viewed So, Quickly taking a little look.

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I know you can't see my screen and I don't really want to bore

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everybody with like loads of numbers.

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. So on the whole, I would say my video performance is better posting natively.

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I have got probably double the amount of views that I got from previous four week

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weeks and the minutes views are higher.

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So that was a plus.

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I, on the whole, I would say I got, I got roughly about the same

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kind of discovery or impressions.

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I had a post that did really well in October.

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There was one post that I talked about how I've been nominated for an award

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entrepreneur of the Year, and that got a load of engagement that was actually

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posted natively as well as that doesn't really count cuz it's a, it was.

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You know, an ad hoc post because I just found out that I'd been nominated for

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this award, which was like super exciting.

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So, and that was a personal kind of a personal post as well.

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And I always find that posts that are slightly personal or talking

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about you rather than the business tend to do better than other posts.

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So, but just comparing those, I would say, For LinkedIn, it hasn't

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really made that much difference Posting natively, comparatively

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to posting and using a scheduler.

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I would say what also what makes, what can make a difference is how

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much you're engaging with a platform.

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So I have been making an effort these past few months to do a lot more

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engagement, reaching out to people, you know, connecting with my network.

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Over the summer I took like pretty much six weeks off work I did.

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I did have some holiday time and I did engage, but I didn't do a lot of

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engagement on LinkedIn because I had the kids off and I just didn't feel like

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it was something that I wanted to do.

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And I noticed there was a noticeable drop there, but because I have since

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September hit been engaging a lot more on the platform, I think that those results

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show, it shows that I have more view.

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And it's not just because you know I'm putting stuff out there.

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You have to.

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You have to do, it's a bit of give and take, isn't it?

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We, we all know this.

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We can't just put stuff out there and go, Hey, look at my stuff.

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And then expect like a load of return on it.

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You have to you know, play the game and engage with your audience and your

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community and support them as well.

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And they in return, will do the same fee.

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So I do feel that the different, it's not really made much

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difference in terms of native.

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Or scheduling, but actually the amount of engagement that

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I was doing on the platform.

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And then for Instagram, I'm not gonna bother with Facebook because I hardly

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get anything on Facebook, but I mean, maybe you'll disagree with me on this.

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And if you do disagree, I would love to hear from you.

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I don't really get anything on Facebook.

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I have Facebook.

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For business cuz it links to my Instagram account.

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It's a great way for my kind of friends and family network to

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see the stuff that I'm doing, which is quite always quite good.

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So it's always quite, it's always good to keep that part of your network

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informed about what you're doing cuz you never know that somebody might

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recommend you and then they'll pop you in Facebook and they'll find you.

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But in terms of leads and business, I don't really.

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Bother that much.

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With Facebook, I just kind of use it as a, as a shop window.

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If you.

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Instagram I obviously do more with, so I kind of compared, these are just

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kind of like an overview of the stats.

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I haven't gone into like too much data driven detail.

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Cause it would make for a rather boring podcast episode.

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And it was just to get an idea of whether or not it made a difference

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for scheduling versus native.

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So compared to October.

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So again, I did like a spreadsheet and I looked at.

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Accounts at a reach, the percentage, whether that's up or down from the

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previous month, accounts that engaged, and then the percentage of whether that

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was up or down from the previous month.

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Total followers.

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And then I looked at how many like the content shared, it gives you a

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little breakdown of like post stories, reels and videos that you've shared.

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So you can get an.

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Of how much you have shared compared to previous months, whether it's

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the same, whether it's more or less.

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So I reached.

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397 accounts in October and in November between the first and the 27th.

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Cause I'm recording this on the 28th.

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So I, and up the accounts reach was 728, so it's 110%.

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More engagement accounts reach, sorry, than last month, which is a massive plus.

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So the stats for accounts engaged is actually down 43.1%.

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So, which means I have reached more accounts, but half the amount of

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accounts have engaged back with me.

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So it was 84 in October and 45 in November.

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So obviously that's not great.

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My followers have grown by four I instead of 396.

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In October, I now have 400 followers, and compared to last month in terms

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of what was shared, I actually.

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10 posts last month and seven this month.

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I've doubled the amount of stories that I've shared and that would have

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some, I would say that has something to do with the amount of account

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accounts that I've reached because stories I find are quite popular.

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I've also made an effort to change my videos into reels, so I've

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got four reels this month where I didn't have any last month.

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I do, I do feel that reels have a better reach than anything

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else as well, so that could.

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A reason why, another reason why I have reached more accounts, in fact

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I'm pretty sure doing more wheels and stories is a reason why I've

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managed to reach more accounts, but potentially not had anyone engage back

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with me which is a bit disappointing.

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But I have also, I have made an effort, like you can see, I've doubled the

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amount of stories that I'm doing.

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I've tried to make more stories and more, instead of just sharing my grid

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post to my stories, I followed this other account that talked about it.

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I can't remember the lady's name, but she talked about really you should be

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doing specific content for your story.

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So I have started to make more specific content, so making my audio.

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in stories in a proper story rather than just sharing it for my grid.

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And I've done more targeted, more specific posts in my stories as

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well as doing some of the personal stuff that I like to do as well.

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So I guess the results are a bit mixed from Instagram.

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I.

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Really we can see that using Stories and Wheels has increased the amount

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of reach that I have on the accounts, but I need to work on that engagement.

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And I think this is a bit of a, a thing for everybody really.

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Is that.

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Not to forget that we, we spend, and I'm very guilty of this myself,

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spending the time creating this content.

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You know, no matter how much time you're potentially saving by creating your

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podcast episode or your blog and, and then repurposing that into different types

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of video and stories and social captions and all those kind of things, but also

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to get that all important engagement with your community to be able to build.

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To be able to build your community, you need to be able to get in front

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of them and get talking with them.

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And I know it's easier said than done because I have those times where I

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go, I log on and go, right, I'm gonna spend 30 minutes and I'm gonna find

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some awesome people to connect with and look at their content, listen

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to their podcast, and I'm gonna, you know, engage with them genuinely.

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But it's quite hard sometimes to find those people and it

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can be a little bit difficult.

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To begin with, spending that time trying to find those people.

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I had recently had some coaching.

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I was lucky enough to get a grant for some coaching with the real

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world consultancy, and I had a lovely lady called Christina, be my coach.

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She was the one that nominated me for the Entrepreneur of the Year Award as

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it's through the real world consultancy.

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Results on that on the 8th of December, . But we worked on.

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Like part of the thing that I guess I was avoiding as well was.

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Since the summer, taking a break over summer, coming back September

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is getting in front of people that you don't already know.

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So in front of people that you do know.

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You know, I have quite a nice engaged community on LinkedIn where I, there's

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people that I know when I engage with them and they engage with me, but it's trying

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to find those new people getting in front of those new people to, to shout about.

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Not just shout about how great you are because obviously that's not what you

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wanna do, but be genuinely engaged with their content and think, is this person

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somebody that I could get on with?

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Do our values align?

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Would we get on, could we have a coffee chat?

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That is probably like my main aim would be to try and connect with somebody

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and then have a coffee chat with them.

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I feel like I do much better face to face with somebody I really like having.

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Coffee chats or little virtual coffees with people to connect with them

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and get to know them a bit better.

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I just find it, it, it works a little bit better than just

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leaving stuff in the comments.

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It's been interesting tracking the engagement and follows and reaches

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and things like that for this past four, four weeks, and I've come to the

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conclusion that I don't think it really matters whether you schedule or natively

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post your content to social media, but that you engage with as many accounts

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as you can and that feel genuine for.

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That would be my big piece of takeaway advice here.

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As always, if you have any questions, I'd love to hear from you.

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Pop me an email or DM me on Instagram or LinkedIn.

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I will leave all the information in the show notes for you to contact me easily.

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I.

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Also, if you have a podcast or thinking about starting a podcast

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and you're feeling a little bit stuck, then I offer a 30 minute free

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consultation where I can give you some personalized advice for your podcast.

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So if you'd like to book in that session, that will be a calendarly

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link in the show notes, and you can book straight into my diary there.

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Find a time that's convenient for you.

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Ask me your podcast questions or anything to do with what you're

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stuck on in your podcast, and I will give you some personalized advice.

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Thanks for listening, and I will catch you next time.

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Bye.

Rachael Botfield: 00:12:53

Thanks so much for listening.

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If you've enjoyed today's episode, please like, share, and subscribe.

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Your support means so much to me.

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If there's a question or topic you'd like covering, then I'd love to hear from you.

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Find the podcast on Instagram at rachiebotfield and drop me a dm.