Finding clarity in your purpose for social media is essential for effective marketing, especially as we enter a new year. Josephine Hughes discusses the importance of understanding your "why" behind your social media presence and how it can guide your content strategy. She emphasizes three key points: clarity, consistency, and character, which are vital for resonating with your audience and attracting clients. By defining who you're trying to reach and establishing measurable goals, you can create a more impactful social media presence. Additionally, Josephine shares practical ideas for content in February, leveraging awareness days to connect with potential clients and showcase your unique approach.

Takeaways:

• Establishing clarity in your social media goals can enhance your overall marketing strategy.
• Consistency in posting helps maintain visibility and builds trust with your audience over time.
• Character in your social media presence fosters authentic connections with potential clients.
• Utilising awareness days allows you to create relevant and engaging content for your audience.
• Understanding who you're trying to reach can guide your content creation effectively.
• Measuring your progress against specific goals, rather than likes, helps maintain motivation.

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My website: josephinehughes.com

The information contained in Good Enough Counsellors is provided for information purposes only. The contents of this podcast are not intended to amount to advice and you should not rely on any of the contents of this podcast. Professional advice should be obtained before taking or refraining from taking any action as a result of the contents of this podcast.

Josephine Hughes disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on any of the contents of this podcast.

Josephine Hughes: 00:00:01

A week or so ago, I was feeling discouraged by my social media output.

Josephine Hughes: 00:00:07

I was putting in a lot of effort for little reward.

Josephine Hughes: 00:00:12

I was comparing myself to others who I perceived to be doing better.

Josephine Hughes: 00:00:18

In fact, the problem wasn't really about how many followers I have or how many people I was reaching.

Josephine Hughes: 00:00:26

It was a sign that I needed to attend to my why, what I want to achieve with my social media, and why I do it.

Josephine Hughes: 00:00:40

Welcome to the Good Enough Counsellors Podcast.

Josephine Hughes: 00:00:43

I'm Josephine Hughes and today's episode is aimed to help you at the start of the new year to find a deeper focus for your marketing and give you a sense of direction in your social media.

Josephine Hughes: 00:00:57

Many of us can find ourselves setting up a social media page because we want clients, but then we're not really sure what to do next.

Josephine Hughes: 00:01:07

Or we keep posting in the hope that we'll make a difference.

Josephine Hughes: 00:01:11

Someone's told us it's a good idea to have a social media page, but we're not really sure what to do with it.

Josephine Hughes: 00:01:19

But let's face it, not many of us have got hours to spend crafting social media posts.

Josephine Hughes: 00:01:26

So we want to make the best use of the time that we have.

Josephine Hughes: 00:01:30

And this is what this episode is all about.

Josephine Hughes: 00:01:34

I thought it might be helpful to try and distill the ideas into three key points.

Josephine Hughes: 00:01:41

And for ease of memory, I've used Cs.

Josephine Hughes: 00:01:45

So they are clarity, consistency and character.

Josephine Hughes: 00:01:50

And I'm going to talk about those three points and then at the end of the episode I'll give you some ideas for what you can post on your page for the month of February.

Josephine Hughes: 00:02:02

The first key is clarity.

Josephine Hughes: 00:02:04

It's thinking about why you want to be on social media.

Josephine Hughes: 00:02:09

And you may think that the answer is really obvious.

Josephine Hughes: 00:02:12

You may think it's because I want to get clients, and I think we can probably hold that as our overall aim.

Josephine Hughes: 00:02:20

But if you divide that up a little bit, it might also be that you want to raise awareness of the fact that your service exists.

Josephine Hughes: 00:02:28

And it may be that you want to position yourself as somebody who can help.

Josephine Hughes: 00:02:34

And this might be in a specific area or niche, and you may hesitate to think about this, but it is about positioning yourself as an authority, as an expert in that particular area.

Josephine Hughes: 00:02:48

Now, I know many of you really object to that word expert, because you really don't feel that you could own that word.

Josephine Hughes: 00:02:54

What I'd like you to think about is that compared to the people who you will be seeing, so the clients who are coming in to see you, you actually know quite a lot about the context of their problems.

Josephine Hughes: 00:03:07

For example, if someone is coming to see you around anxiety, you probably have quite an in depth understanding of the effects of anxiety, of what people can do about anxiety, how people might be able to move forward as they work on their own anxious feelings.

Josephine Hughes: 00:03:26

So it's about allowing yourself to acknowledge that actually you do have something to offer and you can help people within this particular subject.

Josephine Hughes: 00:03:37

I'll return in a moment to think about these different aspects of your why and how that can affect your posts.

Josephine Hughes: 00:03:45

But first I'd like you to think about who.

Josephine Hughes: 00:03:47

Who is it that you're trying to reach.

Josephine Hughes: 00:03:50

It's very important when you're thinking about your social media to think about the sorts of clients that you do want to speak to, because it gives you a focus and it gives you a way of speaking to people to their particular problems that makes you resonate with them, that makes them want to follow you, because you're speaking directly to what they might be experiencing.

Josephine Hughes: 00:04:15

You can also share with people how your particular approach helps with those problems.

Josephine Hughes: 00:04:22

And that can help to drive inquiries, because people can see that you can help them and they may well like the way that you particularly work with those problems.

Josephine Hughes: 00:04:32

If you've got clarity around why you're on social media, you can use that to actually shape your posts.

Josephine Hughes: 00:04:39

For example, if one of the reasons you're on social media is to create inquiries, you can include specific calls to action within your social media.

Josephine Hughes: 00:04:49

So this would mean that you would, for example, add a button to contact you or tell people to contact you through your DMs.

Josephine Hughes: 00:04:59

Or it may be that if you're promoting a blog, you might have a specific call to action that tells people to click on the link to read your blog.

Josephine Hughes: 00:05:07

That will get them off social media onto your website, and that can increase the chances of people contacting you.

Josephine Hughes: 00:05:14

And I think the other really important part of clarity is that it allows you to identify how you're going to measure your progress.

Josephine Hughes: 00:05:23

And this means that you're less likely to be shifting day to day according to how many likes or follows that you get on a particular post.

Josephine Hughes: 00:05:32

And this is what's helped me to lift myself out of those sloughs of despondency that I can get in when a particular post or set of posts don't seem to work very well.

Josephine Hughes: 00:05:43

It's recognizing what my overall purposes and I'm able to measure my progress not by a particular post or set of posts, but the overall direction that I'm taking.

Josephine Hughes: 00:05:58

So it may be that what you want to do is set a goal around your consistency, for example.

Josephine Hughes: 00:06:05

So this would be, I'm going to post a particular type of post on my page at least once a week for the next three months.

Josephine Hughes: 00:06:15

And that's a really nice goal that you can measure.

Josephine Hughes: 00:06:18

And it's also something that isn't related to likes or follows.

Josephine Hughes: 00:06:23

You can just think, I'm doing this, I'm in this for the long term and this is how long I'm going to do it for.

Josephine Hughes: 00:06:29

And then I can take a break, review it and just see how things are going.

Josephine Hughes: 00:06:34

And it stops you from being pushed and pulled around and doubting yourself a lot.

Josephine Hughes: 00:06:39

You just think, no, I am going to do this for this length of time.

Josephine Hughes: 00:06:43

And then I'll take a break and review, view it and see how I'm doing.

Josephine Hughes: 00:06:47

If, for example, one of your goals is to increase the number of inquiries that you're getting through social media, you could do something like think to yourself, okay, how many link clicks am I getting with each post?

Josephine Hughes: 00:07:02

And you can watch and see over time whether or not those link clicks are actually growing.

Josephine Hughes: 00:07:09

And that will give you a picture of how well you're doing too.

Josephine Hughes: 00:07:12

Therefore, I think it's really important to sit down and think about what is it that I want to be doing with my social media and how am I going to measure it.

Josephine Hughes: 00:07:22

And that enables you to find some resilience as you go forward with your posting.

Josephine Hughes: 00:07:29

Now, I'd like to return to that idea of your different reasons for posting.

Josephine Hughes: 00:07:35

And I've divided this up into three different areas.

Josephine Hughes: 00:07:40

So first off, there's awareness, and this is about raising awareness of your service, particularly if you're new or you haven't got very many people who are following you at the moment.

Josephine Hughes: 00:07:49

You can use your social media output to let people know that you exist, that you're available.

Josephine Hughes: 00:07:55

So these are what I would call awareness posts.

Josephine Hughes: 00:07:58

And awareness posts could include a whole raft of different types of posts, but really it's about getting your name out there, showing people that you're available and getting people to know that you exist.

Josephine Hughes: 00:08:12

So you want to be talking about who you are, what services you offer, and why you're a good fit for clients.

Josephine Hughes: 00:08:19

So the types of posts that you could be doing around this awareness theme are things like behind the scenes posts where you share maybe a day in the life of a therapist, or you share how you get ready for therapy or how you decompress after you've done a therapy session.

Josephine Hughes: 00:08:36

You could talk about Your values.

Josephine Hughes: 00:08:38

So who you are as a person, why you are a therapist, just giving people an insight into who you are and why you're doing the work that you're doing.

Josephine Hughes: 00:08:49

You can do things like explain to people what they can expect from a first session.

Josephine Hughes: 00:08:53

You could do some posts or videos about frequently asked questions that people might have about therapy.

Josephine Hughes: 00:09:01

You could share all about yourself, relatable posts that just help people to know a little bit more about you.

Josephine Hughes: 00:09:09

The second type of area that you might want to cover are your client attraction posts.

Josephine Hughes: 00:09:15

Normally in social media, these would be social proof type posts.

Josephine Hughes: 00:09:20

Social proof are what we call testimonials.

Josephine Hughes: 00:09:23

And there's a big debate within the counselling world as to whether or not you could use testimonials.

Josephine Hughes: 00:09:28

Because obviously as therapists, we want to protect client confidentiality.

Josephine Hughes: 00:09:34

And so it's much more tricky for us as therapists to think about testimonials.

Josephine Hughes: 00:09:39

But something you could do is talk about generally how clients benefit from your particular services.

Josephine Hughes: 00:09:48

So you could talk about the types of things that you would see from a broad brush approach as opposed to a specific client.

Josephine Hughes: 00:09:57

And while client testimonials tends to be a controversial subject, if you are somebody who's okay with sharing client testimonials, these are the posts where you could do so.

Josephine Hughes: 00:10:09

Another way to demonstrate that you are suitable for people is the third area, which is where I was talking about becoming an authority around your particular subject area.

Josephine Hughes: 00:10:21

So this would be having identified the type of clients that you work with, that you talk about the sorts of problems that they would have and how therapy can help.

Josephine Hughes: 00:10:33

What you're doing with these authority type posts is you're sharing your knowledge, you're sharing content that demonstrates that you understand the issues at a deeper level.

Josephine Hughes: 00:10:44

And part of these posts is not only about attracting clients, but also attracting other people who are interested in this field, collaborating with them, discussing things with them, having them comment on your post, perhaps using their audience, because they can be people who may well put you in front of potential clients.

Josephine Hughes: 00:11:08

And so there's a lot to be said for getting involved in the area that you're particularly interested in and making connections.

Josephine Hughes: 00:11:16

And you can use your social media to do this.

Josephine Hughes: 00:11:20

You can use your social media to not only demonstrate your knowledge to clients, but also to connect with other people in a similar field to you.

Josephine Hughes: 00:11:30

What I think it's important to say at this point is that people are going to be discovering you at different stages of the journey.

Josephine Hughes: 00:11:38

It's not as though it's a linear process so you could start your social media today and you could do a whole lot of awareness posts.

Josephine Hughes: 00:11:48

But if you stop doing them, what about trying to speak to someone who stumbles over you this time next year?

Josephine Hughes: 00:11:55

So it's really helpful to do a mixture of all these types of posts.

Josephine Hughes: 00:12:01

So every week, do something that raises awareness about your service.

Josephine Hughes: 00:12:06

Do something that shares how you help clients.

Josephine Hughes: 00:12:10

Do something that showcases your knowledge.

Josephine Hughes: 00:12:14

Try to mix these up every week so that whatever stage people are at, you speak to them.

Josephine Hughes: 00:12:21

And this is where our second C comes in.

Josephine Hughes: 00:12:24

Consistency.

Josephine Hughes: 00:12:25

You want to keep a mixture of steady content flowing through your social media feed over weeks and months.

Josephine Hughes: 00:12:34

A steady presence helps you to stay top of mind for people who are following you.

Josephine Hughes: 00:12:40

It helps your visibility, it helps people to find you.

Josephine Hughes: 00:12:44

And if you're doing something consistently, like I do my live video, it means that clients know when you're going to be turning up and they may well tune in for something like that.

Josephine Hughes: 00:12:56

I get people who regularly watch my Live at Fives on a Tuesday because they know when I'm going to do it.

Josephine Hughes: 00:13:02

So that consistency can really help you to build relationships with people.

Josephine Hughes: 00:13:07

And if you'd like to know a little bit more about how to keep consistent, especially when you're busy and during busy times, do listen to episodes 24 and 43.

Josephine Hughes: 00:13:20

They both talk about how to be consistent and how to do things like repurpose and schedule your post to aid your consistency.

Josephine Hughes: 00:13:30

And now let's move on to the third key to consider.

Josephine Hughes: 00:13:34

And this is character.

Josephine Hughes: 00:13:36

And it's a really important part of your social media.

Josephine Hughes: 00:13:42

And what I mean by character is, I mean, be who you are.

Josephine Hughes: 00:13:47

One of the things that can happen is that you can end up comparing yourself to other people and think that they're doing really well and they're going to attract all the clients and how can you possibly compete with them?

Josephine Hughes: 00:14:00

But it's actually not about competing because when it comes down to it, you are you.

Josephine Hughes: 00:14:06

No one else can be you.

Josephine Hughes: 00:14:08

You're unique.

Josephine Hughes: 00:14:09

And actually your approach is going to resonate with certain types of people.

Josephine Hughes: 00:14:14

And if someone else is successful, that's brilliant.

Josephine Hughes: 00:14:16

But it doesn't necessarily mean that they'll attract the people who you could work with.

Josephine Hughes: 00:14:22

And so try not to compare yourself with others.

Josephine Hughes: 00:14:25

It is like comparing apples with bananas.

Josephine Hughes: 00:14:28

You're just completely different.

Josephine Hughes: 00:14:30

So if you're you, if you can be as authentic as possible in your social media, that's going to make you stand out, and it means that you'll resonate with your ideal clients.

Josephine Hughes: 00:14:42

And as time is going by, I'm getting more and more comfortable that there are lots of other people who do what I do, other coaches who are also helping therapists with their social media and with their marketing and with their websites and directories.

Josephine Hughes: 00:15:00

But the fact is, I appeal to a certain type of person.

Josephine Hughes: 00:15:04

And you know what?

Josephine Hughes: 00:15:05

I feel really comfortable with that.

Josephine Hughes: 00:15:07

I love working with the people who like working with me.

Josephine Hughes: 00:15:10

I know who they are.

Josephine Hughes: 00:15:11

I can write stuff that appeals to them.

Josephine Hughes: 00:15:14

And I feel great.

Josephine Hughes: 00:15:16

It's great to be me and to be the person that I am, and it helps me to relax even more into just being me.

Josephine Hughes: 00:15:27

So be who you are.

Josephine Hughes: 00:15:29

Show what you believe in.

Josephine Hughes: 00:15:31

Show people why you're a therapist, what it is that's important to you, and let that shine through in all of your posts.

Josephine Hughes: 00:15:40

You don't have to agree with everybody.

Josephine Hughes: 00:15:42

You're allowed to be different.

Josephine Hughes: 00:15:44

And by being you, you're actually creating connection with people.

Josephine Hughes: 00:15:50

When people get to know you through your social media posts, it's like they're building a relationship with you.

Josephine Hughes: 00:15:56

And that really does ease the process of them getting in touch with you because they feel like they already know you.

Josephine Hughes: 00:16:03

You're going to attract people who resonate with you and your values.

Josephine Hughes: 00:16:08

When people get to know you via social media, they will see you as someone they can trust and relate to.

Josephine Hughes: 00:16:15

And let's face it, that's so important if you're seeking emotional support.

Josephine Hughes: 00:16:21

So I'd really like to emphasize this third C of character.

Josephine Hughes: 00:16:25

It's all about being the person that you are.

Josephine Hughes: 00:16:29

And at this point, I'd love to remind you about who I am and what I do.

Josephine Hughes: 00:16:35

What I really love to do is to help people find their unique purpose and who it is that they really want to help when they're working in counselling.

Josephine Hughes: 00:16:47

Because when we can find that out, there's an awful lot that flows from there.

Josephine Hughes: 00:16:52

Your content ideas flow from there.

Josephine Hughes: 00:16:54

The, the way you write, your marketing, your directory entry, your website, it all flows from there.

Josephine Hughes: 00:17:00

And so I would say that's what I really specialize in.

Josephine Hughes: 00:17:04

And helping people find that sense of purpose gives them such a deep sense of confidence and such a great sense of direction in what they're going to be doing.

Josephine Hughes: 00:17:15

That's who I am.

Josephine Hughes: 00:17:16

And I love to encourage people and help them know who they are and what they want to do.

Josephine Hughes: 00:17:23

So if that's something you're interested in finding out, then do get in touch with me.

Josephine Hughes: 00:17:29

It's quite simple.

Josephine Hughes: 00:17:30

Just email me@josephineosaphinehughes.com and we can take it from there.

Josephine Hughes: 00:17:36

Let's move on now to talk about ideas for February and how you can use social media awareness dates in your content.

Josephine Hughes: 00:17:46

These ideas will be able to help you do some of those posts across the themes of awareness and authority.

Josephine Hughes: 00:17:56

So let's get going and I'll tell you what's coming up in the next month.

Josephine Hughes: 00:18:00

First off, a day that I think is really important for us to talk about as therapists is Time To Talk Day, and that's on the 6th of February.

Josephine Hughes: 00:18:09

There'll be a lot in social media about mental health that particular day.

Josephine Hughes: 00:18:13

So if you go along to Time To Talk Day, you'll be able to find resources and ideas on that page to help you produce material for Time To Talk Day.

Josephine Hughes: 00:18:27

And this is a chance for you to talk about why you're involved in therapy, how you help people and the importance of what you do.

Josephine Hughes: 00:18:35

It's also Children's Mental Health Week, and that runs from the 3rd to the 9th of February, as does sexual Abuse and Sexual Violence Awareness Week.

Josephine Hughes: 00:18:47

So if you've got a niche within one of those two areas, then that would be an opportunity for you to showcase what you do and talk about therapy and the issues that people might be facing around children's mental health or around sexual abuse or sexual violence.

Josephine Hughes: 00:19:07

Also coming up in February is the obvious it's Valentine's Day.

Josephine Hughes: 00:19:11

I'm sure I don't need to tell you the date of that, but did you know that it's also Singles day on the 15th and then on the 16th?

Josephine Hughes: 00:19:18

It's actually the start of Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week, which lasts from the 16th to the 22nd of February.

Josephine Hughes: 00:19:26

So aromantic people are those that don't experience romantic attraction towards others.

Josephine Hughes: 00:19:32

So if you deal in the subject of relationships, there's some great things there that you could talk about.

Josephine Hughes: 00:19:39

Everything from couple relationships to romance to how do you keep relationships alive, to what it feels like if you're single, how difficult it can be if you're bereaved and you've lost your partner, how these days can really be upsetting.

Josephine Hughes: 00:19:56

So there's quite a lot that you could use around those particular subjects that week.

Josephine Hughes: 00:20:02

And following on from that, we've got Emotional Health Week, which is from the 24th, 4th to 28th February.

Josephine Hughes: 00:20:09

And I would really use this to talk about how you help people in your particular niche.

Josephine Hughes: 00:20:14

You could talk about the emotional health of people who are going through particular things, for example, bereavement, how people's Emotional health is affected by bereavement, how people's emotional health is affected by chronic illness, how people's emotional health is affected by parenting.

Josephine Hughes: 00:20:36

So lots of different aspects of this that you could use to talk about your particular niche and how you help.

Josephine Hughes: 00:20:45

It's also Eating Disorders Awareness Week at the end of the month that starts on the 24th of February.

Josephine Hughes: 00:20:52

And I was thinking about this because obviously for many of you this won't be your niche, but you could use it to talk about the issues that people might face, and you could use it to refer people to sources of support.

Josephine Hughes: 00:21:06

So you can still show that you have a knowledge and awareness of it, even if it's not something that you particularly deal with.

Josephine Hughes: 00:21:12

But if it's within your niche, obviously it's a big one for you to be joining in with that week.

Josephine Hughes: 00:21:18

And finally, I'm going to mention a few other awareness days that are coming up.

Josephine Hughes: 00:21:23

So we've got World cancer day on the 6th of February.

Josephine Hughes: 00:21:27

Obviously, if that's your niche, that's an important one to note down.

Josephine Hughes: 00:21:30

There's Love youe Pet day on the 20th, and if you've listened to any of my social media podcasts, you'll know that I always think using pets is a great way to create connection with your followers.

Josephine Hughes: 00:21:44

So if you've got a pet, it's a great one to share a photo and get people to share their photos.

Josephine Hughes: 00:21:50

It just helps to increase engagement on your page and helps you to connect with people when they share photos of their pets.

Josephine Hughes: 00:22:00

And then on the 28th, it's actually stand up to Bullying Day.

Josephine Hughes: 00:22:05

So again, bullying is something that I think many of your clients will have been experiencing and applying that to your particular niche, whether it's children and families, whether it's the workplace, whether it's relationships, it's something that you can use to target your particular clients and talk about that issue.

Josephine Hughes: 00:22:25

I hope this episode has given you a sense of direction for your social media for the year.

Josephine Hughes: 00:22:33

So having listened to it, how about sitting down and just thinking to yourself, why am I doing social media?

Josephine Hughes: 00:22:41

What is it that I want to achieve?

Josephine Hughes: 00:22:44

How can I use my posts to increase awareness of my service, show people that I'm worth booking, and increase the opportunity to showcase my particular approach and knowledge?

Josephine Hughes: 00:22:59

You can then set your goals around those aims and that will help you to feel more anchored and grounded as you produce posts.

Josephine Hughes: 00:23:09

And you can keep an eye on your social media and review it over time to see how you're meeting those particular goals.

Josephine Hughes: 00:23:17

I'd like to remind you that I produce ideas for social media for every day of the month and this is available to members of my therapy growth group.

Josephine Hughes: 00:23:28

It's a real support for you if you are producing social media output and I've got a lot of information in therapy growth group to help you find your niche.

Josephine Hughes: 00:23:38

So if that's something you're interested in, I've got a great opportunity coming up for you in February when I'll be running my directory profile training again.

Josephine Hughes: 00:23:48

This comes up once every four months and it's happening in February in therapy growth group.

Josephine Hughes: 00:23:54

So do get in touch with me to find out more about that and how it can support you not only in writing your directory, but also in writing your website and writing all your social media copy as well.

Josephine Hughes: 00:24:07

It's the start of the year.

Josephine Hughes: 00:24:09

Clients may still be recovering from Christmas.

Josephine Hughes: 00:24:12

They might not have a lot of finance at the moment, so you may find that there's not a huge amount of inquiries coming through at the moment.

Josephine Hughes: 00:24:19

But this is a perfect time for you to recalibrate and reset yourself and your marketing.

Josephine Hughes: 00:24:27

So keep going, be consistent, show people that you're going to keep turning up and then they'll trust you that you're around for the longer term and they'll get in touch when they're ready.

Josephine Hughes: 00:24:39

Thanks for listening.

Josephine Hughes: 00:24:41

Do come and join my Facebook community.

Josephine Hughes: 00:24:43

Good enough counsellors and for more information about how I can help you develop your private practice, please Visit my website, JosephineHughes.com if you found this episode helpful, I'd love it if you could share it with a fellow therapist or leave a review on your podcast.

Josephine Hughes: 00:25:02

Step and in closing, I'd love to remind you that every single step you make gets you closer to your dream.

Josephine Hughes: 00:25:11

I really believe you can do it.