In this episode, I'm joined by Annie Jones from Rayleigh Marketing to talk about why Facebook is a useful tool to promote your private practice.

We explore how local Facebook groups, recommendations, consistency, and good quality content can help therapists become more visible without needing to post every day or share your entire personal life online.

In this episode:

• why Facebook still works for local businesses
• the importance of recommendations and local groups
• how often you really need to post
• planning content without burning out
• why consistency matters more than quantity
• ideas for therapists who dislike having their photo taken
• simple ways to make posts more engaging
• mistakes small businesses often make on social media
• Facebook ads, hashtags, keywords, and location tags
• how to stay visible without becoming overwhelmed

You can connect with Annie on Facebook HERE, Instagram HERE and find out more about her club HERE

For more information about Josephine's training courses, please click here: https://josephinehughes.as.me/training

Social Media Ideas for June 2026:

Pride Month and Stillbirth & Neonatal Death Awareness Month

7th: Tourettes Awareness

8th: Carers Week

15th Loneliness Awareness Week (listen to ep 64 on using AI for social media for a deep dive into ideas)

18th: Autistic Pride

27th: PTSD Awareness

Setting up in private practice? Download my free checklist HERE

Need ideas for how to get clients? Download my free handout 21 Ways for Counsellors to Attract New Clients HERE

You can also find me here:

The Good Enough Counsellors Facebook Group

Josephine Hughes on Facebook

Josephine Hughes on YouTube

My website: josephinehughes.com

Keywords: Facebook for small businesses, recommendations on Facebook, social media tips for therapists, local Facebook groups, social media visibility, social media content planning, engagement on Facebook, client recommendations, Facebook advertising for therapists, marketing for private practice, Facebook engagement techniques

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.

I find for local businesses, there's nothing quite like being able to share and comment and recommend people.

You can't just, you just can't do that on Instagram.

And I think there are so many useful local Facebook groups that can recommend businesses.

Facebook is just so easy for that kind of thing.

Yeah.

And as you know, we've all been tagged in posts and it's lovely to be tagged by friends and family and previous clients.

And people are always looking for recommendations.

They use it now more than probably Google sometimes.

So.

Welcome to Good Enough Counsellors, the podcast for growing a private practice without the pressure to be perfect.

I'm Josephine Hughes, counsellor and creator of Therapy Growth Group, helping you get the clients you want and create the practice of your dreams.

So today I'm delighted to welcome Annie Jones from Rayleigh Marketing.

So Annie is someone I've got to know online because Annie specializes in social media marketing and she's really helped me.

So I wondered if she would come on the show and she kindly agreed.

What I really love about Annie is her no nonsense approach and the fact that she focuses on what actually works rather than what we think we should be doing.

And she's really helped me in that department.

Annie actually runs a social media club where she supports small business owners to show up more consistently and confidently online.

And I know that that's something that many therapists find challenging when they're balancing client work with trying to be visible.

But it's really interesting to talk to Annie and hear her experiences of working with her clients, many of whom have the same sort of problems with social media the rest of us have.

So I'm really looking forward to her sharing her insights with us today.

So.

Welcome, Annie.

Nice to have you here.

So can you tell us a bit about your background and how you came to specialize in helping small businesses on Facebook?

So how far back do you want me to go?

So you did tell me about what you used to do before you had your kids?

Yes.

So I did the whole kind of standard life, really, as you might say.

I left school, went to university, did a business studies marketing degree, left university and started working for an Internet company and then various other kind of marketing departments, then left that once I got pregnant with my first child, had then had my second child.

And I think it was after my second child I joined the PA at The school.

Yeah.

And they knew I had a marketing background, so they quickly put me to use on social media.

I didn't even have a Facebook account at the time.

Wow.

So I joined Facebook and started doing the Parents Association Facebook account, Instagram account, and everybody really enjoyed it and I thought, actually, this is something I can do around childcare as well, all the kids.

Yeah.

So it's really useful.

And I basically started from there, just built myself a really bad website and a terrible logo at the time.

But I look back now, but, yes, I started from there and then I advertised and I just kind of got built it up.

Been doing it for 11 years now.

So.

Yeah.

Why do you think that Facebook is helpful?

Because, you know, a lot of people would say that Facebook is, you know, dying a death or, you know, Instagram is stronger or TikTok's better or, you know, what do you think?

Why do you think it's useful?

I have always enjoyed Facebook more.

Whether it is because I am an age, a lady of a certain age, I don't know.

But I just found I've always got more from it.

Yeah.

I find for local businesses, there's nothing quite like being able to share and comment and recommend people.

You can't just.

You just can't do that on Instagram.

Yeah.

And I think there are so many useful local Facebook groups that can recommend businesses.

It's.

Facebook is just so easy for that kind of thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's actually that, that.

That's a sort of really interesting point, that it's that recommendation that really does work on Facebook where you, you know,.

We've all been tagged in posts and it's lovely to be tagged by friends and family and previous clients.

And people are always looking for recommendations.

They use it now more than probably Google sometimes.

So.

Yeah.

Do you think?

I don't know.

My experience actually is that when therapists have advertised in Facebook groups, that it's actually been quite successful, you know, sort of going into those local groups.

Do you think there's people might not recommend or people might not ask?

I don't know.

I don't know if you've ever noticed.

I think obviously you can do it anonymously in a lot of groups and there probably still is a little bit of an embarrassment, isn't there, to ask therapists for certain things?

Yeah, less so now.

But people still might be embarrassed about stuff you can ask anonymously, which helps people.

Yeah.

And I think.

I think it's nice to have all your bases covered.

Like some people will say, I Get all my work through a website.

But people are going to always find you through different ways.

So if you've got your social media coverage, your website covered, your email list, and I always think there's another one which I forget, which you're supposed to do as well.

Networking, maybe network.

It used to be direct mail or something, I think, but I don't think people really do that anymore.

No, you've got your bases covered.

If people look you up.

Yeah.

Then you've got information, everything there.

And that's why, like I've said, you don't need to be posting every day.

That's just unnecessary.

I think so.

I mean, this is something I was going to ask you because a lot of us, I'm sure you find that with all your business owners that you work with because presumably they, they employ you because they haven't got time to do it.

But that's often the thing, isn't it?

It's.

I think many people think, I just haven't got the time.

I haven't got the time to.

To make a page work.

What sort of commitment do you think people need to make?

I think as long as you're posting once a week and it's a nice, it's a good post.

So take your time to create a nice post, whether it be is a photo or a reel or an image or just a text post, but take your time to create that post.

Think about your caption.

Take your time to create a really nice picture.

People are all too, all too frequently go, oh, I haven't posted.

I'm just going to bung this on.

That's one of the things that I kind of say is don't just bung something off.

Take the time to plan your posts, what you do and create it.

And it really does make a massive difference.

I've got a number of clients who I post once a week for and you know, they're still getting likes kind of three or four days after.

So post doesn't just stop after an hour.

Yeah.

I think this is the thing that felt like when, when you first said it.

Oh God, I really appreciated it so much, is you said, give a post time to breathe.

You don't need, you know, you don't need to post something because I think often what happens if you have a post that people are liking, you sort of think, oh, I better follow it up quickly.

Yeah, but I think from what you were saying is, no, you don't have to do that.

Just let it, let it run its course almost.

Yeah.

It's really useful and I think reels do work slightly differently.

They seem to have a bit more longevity reels.

So you'll have, you'll get likes and then a few days later you might get more, they kind of hang around a bit longer.

A good post.

I mean I've posted Monday I think and I'm still getting comments and likes on a post.

So it's you know, a few days later and sometimes I think you think it hasn't done well and then it can almost like it does.

It takes a while to get picked up by the algorithm and then starts to work.

So I not do well till like a day later.

It strange the way it works sometimes.

Yeah it is.

It's odd, isn't it?

And I mean the other thing that you mentioned recently is this idea of interest based social media as well, isn't it?

Would you like to tell us a little bit more about that?

So apparently according to all the experts that I watch and read, social media is changing slightly.

So we all used to have this model of we'd get our followers, we'd keep our followers entertained with interesting content and hopefully they would see our content.

Now if your content is really good, your followers will see it and if it's really, really good then the algorithms will pick that up and share that to people, other people they think will be interested.

Yeah.

Do you think there's a difference?

Because I, I just sort of think sort of, you know, looking at some of the stuff that's gone on for me recently is it does seem to be going out to more of it's saying it's reaching non followers now.

Yeah.

But do you think there's a difference in the type of post?

So the ones that seem to appeal to the non followers are the ones that are more information based.

Right.

Less about the sort of relatability posts about me.

Would that, would that be what you've found as well or.

I've found that the ones that have done well are kind of the ones where I've got local interest.

Yeah, I think definitely for me because I am called Rayleigh Marketing as well.

Yeah, it goes with my audience is perfect.

If I can put myself in a post with a Rayleigh landmark, I know that's going to go do really well.

That's a really good tip for any.

Of our counsellors who put that in my group and say it's amazing.

Actually I posted like this post Monday.

I mean I've only got three and a half thousand followers and it's already on 7,000 people.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

So it's literally because it's two people smiling at a Rayleigh landmark, and just that simple.

I saw that background makes people go, oh, it's Rayleigh.

I'll have a look.

You know, it's a really simple thing, but it does work.

Yeah, yeah.

As I say, that came up on my feed.

I know which one you're talking about.

It's with.

When you were talking to someone, wasn't it?

And I. I was sort of curious to see who he was.

Yeah, exactly.

Y.

People are nosy as well.

That also helps.

People are generally nosy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that definitely worked for me, Annie.

The sort of.

That you met this person who didn't actually say what he did.

So I thought, oh, I wonder what he does.

So I'm sure he's got traffic to his site as well, which is another way of getting it to work.

But I really love that if you've got.

If you're tagging someone, especially if he's also known locally.

So he's also known locally as a videotographer.

So people will be like, oh, what's Dan doing with Annie?

Do you know what I mean?

So you've got that double interest as well.

Yeah, that's what I mean.

I. I knew.

I didn't just say, oh, let's take a selfie.

I said to him, let's go and stand at the clock tower.

Wow.

It was.

That's something I planned as soon as I knew I was meeting him.

It's like, right, I'm getting a photo by that.

Because I plan everything.

Tell us a bit about that.

Because I'm absolutely hopeless at planning.

I just find it so much easier.

So for all of my clients, I have, like, a really simple Excel spreadsheet.

Literally day of the month, day of the week, what time I'm posting, whether I'm posting a photo or a reel or a shared post or anything like that, or creating an event.

And then I literally put content required and what I need, whether it's gonna.

And I'll send that to my client and go, can you take a picture of yourself doing this or filming yourself doing this?

And then they send me all the raw stuff, and I create it into a perfect little post.

Oh, fantastic.

Yeah.

What a fantastic service.

Send me stuff.

And lots of them don't send me any.

So there's two ways we can go from here.

So I'll try and remember both of them.

Number one was what we were talking about just a moment before we started, which was about people and photographs because, you know, talking to a lot of therapists, they really feel uncomfortable with putting themselves on their page.

So let's talk about that first.

Tell us a bit more about what you've experienced.

So I get it all the time.

I myself am now very comfortable.

People are used to seeing me.

My face is my brand new.

But it's not like, for example, I went to see someone this morning and I said, oh, it's, it's.

She's been at this company for four years.

And I said, oh, can I get a nice picture of you for the anniversary post?

No, she's hadn't.

She had gray in her hair and had accidentally done something to her teeth.

She basically said no.

And I was.

It's fair enough.

People and generally people, I would say 85% of my clients don't want that picture taken.

Yeah.

So I just think that's such a lovely sort of thing to hear to reassure therapists who are thinking to themselves, well, I can't do it because I don't like my photo being taken, that actually this is not.

They're not alone.

No, definitely not.

People do generally hate it.

I mean, the idea of people going live or talking on a video is terrifying for a lot of people.

I'm just very, very used to it because I've just always done it.

Yeah.

But with my clients, I said, you can always get around things.

You can always put a silly filter on your face or just do the back of your head or you walking away or you side profile.

You know, there are ways around it.

I'm sure if you put into chat GPT how to show off myself but not my face in a social media post, it would give you some suggestions.

But yeah, it is a, it is a confidence thing because we all want to see.

I think, I personally think if I was going to see a therapist, I would almost want to see what they looked like before I saw them.

Is that normal?

Do you think that's a normal thing?

I think so.

And you know, a lot of us advertise on directories of, you know, lots of counsellors altogether, and you can go through and choose one and people often give you feedback that they chose you because of your profile photo because it's sort of like they just look at your face, think that they can talk to you.

Yeah, I know, it's exactly.

I think it's how.

I think it'd be almost the same as like picking a plumber or a builder or something if you saw him and thought, oh, no, I'm not keen, you know, or that kind of thing.

Like, oh, I don't know, you know, those you're inviting into your house as a therapist, you know, inviting into your mind, so to speak, aren't you?

So, yeah, more important.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So to try and get.

Get a photo, even if, I mean, do you think.

Even if it's only you only got one or two photos that you use, it's still better than nothing, isn't it?

Ye.

I mean, I'm generally in a lot of my photos, but you don't need to be all the time.

Yeah, it's really interesting.

And the other thing I just wanted to ask you, going back to you saying about planning is you said, you know, you might sort of have.

I'm going to do a story or I'm going to do a reel or, you know, I'm going to do a collaboration post or something.

How do you go about deciding what posts you do?

Is it just that you do a.

Variety or, you know, I always try a variety.

Facebook and Meta and especially Instagram have pushed us all massively into trying to do loads of videos.

Yeah, reels, as they like to call them, mainly to try and compete with the success of TikTok, which actually probably one of your first questions was about Facebook decline.

I think Facebook is still the biggest.

Yeah.

I think Tik Tok have taken over them yet, but they basically are rising to the video content of TikTok and trying to recreate, recreate that.

So we're all pushed into creating reels all the time.

I know when you add a photo post, sometimes it will say to you, why don't you make this into a reel?

Why don't you make another reel?

This real reel did really well.

Do another one.

And it's just constantly trying.

Yeah.

And you do have to filter out that noise.

And I've forgotten what your question was now.

Yeah, just.

Oh, sorry.

Content.

Yeah.

And some of it will be whether I'm doing something specific that day and I think that's going to make a really good photo, like the me and Dan the video guy.

Otherwise, other things I just think I should be making a video.

I try and do.

In an ideal world, they say you should do one a week, but I don't, I don't do that.

Yeah, I do.

Sometimes I can try and do it for my clients, but often they'll just send me photos which I have to turn into a reel because they won't send me videos.

But there's nothing wrong with that.

Because there's so many features on the Edits app now.

You can zoom in on pictures and do so many different effects with just pictures.

Yeah.

So it's quite good.

But mine, I just think people will get bored if you just do pictures.

People will get bored if you just do videos.

People like.

People like a variety and get easily bored.

So just use a variety and according to how much time you've got.

Really.

Yes.

That can be a lot.

Sometimes you think, I've got one cracking picture, I don't need a video.

This picture speaks for itself.

Yeah.

And that's, I guess, just experience, really.

Knowing what's going to work when you've got.

Just build that up through experience, I think.

Yeah.

And just to say that, you also did a lovely thing in the.

In the club about how to use the Edits app.

Oh, yes.

Yeah.

I think I only heard about it because you mentioned it, so.

And it's such an easy app.

I mean, I'm not a graphic designer.

I'm not, you know, used.

I'm not particularly techy.

So the Edits app is just so easy to use and it's free.

I did hear a rumor the other day about a premium version they always, like, surprise you with, don't they?

Yeah.

Used to using it, but at the moment it's free and it's really useful.

And.

Yeah, I think.

And that's all part of the meta suite.

If people want to search, just search for the Edits app.

Yeah.

It's a separate app.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But it's how you make your reels, which is just really easy, isn't it?

Yeah.

So if someone, you know, we do get people literally just starting out from scratch.

So what would you say the most important few things they actually need to do if they're starting up a business page?

Funnily enough, I had a lady come around last night who.

And you always think, oh, everybody must have a Facebook page by now.

But people don't.

No.

And she didn't.

And actually she'd created a personal one instead of a business page.

Yeah.

And actually it had been disabled, and I think that's because it was.

In strict Facebook guidelines, you're not allowed to use your personal page strictly for business, although you can have a professional page now.

So you could have a professional page, which probably would be fine for therapists, actually.

So I would probably.

It depends how comfortable you are with sharing.

I'm not someone, surprisingly, who puts much on her personal Facebook.

And that would be the same for therapists that, you know, we Want to keep that division between our privacy and our clients because we feel it distracts too much from the work if the clients know a lot about us.

So, yeah, I think if you had a.

You could have a professional Facebook page or you could have a business page.

Do you think there's.

Because when the professional pages first sort of started up, people were saying, oh, this means you'll get more reach if you use your sort of personal profile in a professional way rather than having a separate business page.

I've tried both and actually I've just really stuck with the business page.

Do you think there's any difference in terms.

I haven't noticed.

Massive amount of difference.

I. I tend to just use my business page.

Really.

Occasionally I will share stuff from my business page to my professional page.

But, yeah, I tend to just use my business page.

Yeah, Yeah, I tend to do the same.

Yeah, yeah.

So that's sort of like number one.

And make sure you're using the right thing, because otherwise you might get disabled by Facebook if it finds out.

Yeah.

And is it.

Just build it.

Make sure you've got a proper logo, cover photo, fill in all the information.

I mean, now the pages have literally travel and hobbies and interests and all that stuff.

I ignore all of that.

I don't fill any of that in.

I just fill in the stuff that I feel is relevant, such as, you know, email.

Yeah.

Phone number, that kind of thing.

And a nice bio about yourself.

I would always try and do a nice introductory post which you can pin to the top of your page, the same as you can on Instagram.

So if someone comes to your profile for the first time, that's really useful.

They can see exactly who you are, what you do, experience, that kind of thing all about you.

So that's quite nice.

Feeling like you're an introductory kind of post or welcome post.

It's quite cool.

Yeah.

Because I think you can have three pinned posts now, can't you?

Yeah.

Something else I discovered some of them used to be able to have six.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It seems to be three now.

Yeah, Yeah.

I think that that's another thing that you did for me was I had one pinned post and then I think I read something and you said you could have three and I just thought, oh, no, never really.

The funniest thing is when you normally go to.

Because they do it and then forget.

Yeah.

So there you go.

Yeah, it is actually.

So I have left it up, but I put some others there as well.

Oh, dear, oh, dear.

You know, I feel as I'm embarrassing myself, really, because I do talk a lot about social media, but, you know, it's always useful to have someone who knows more than you.

You are always learning with social media.

You learn everything.

Like I learn something every day.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, that's really.

Yeah.

So do you think, you know, again, something that people sort of find difficult is.

No.

And I think, again, it's because you don't want to say too much about yourself, but you don't want to be too salesy either, because those don't really go down, do they?

It.

How do we find the balance, do you think, between sort of, you know, not saying too much about ourselves and not being just all about the business or just all about what we're offering?

Yeah, see, there was a general rule.

It used to be an 80, 20 rule, but I think that's a bit past it now, really, where it's only.

Only 20% promotional.

The rest should be about tips and you.

Yeah, Personal stuff.

Therapists can't really share too much.

I think the classic thing of certain things always do well on social media.

So you have humor, food, animals, those kind of things.

I don't know how you'd feel about.

I mean, for example, if you had cats.

Does that matter if you talk about pets or likes or.

Yeah, we do.

I suggest to people that they do pictures of cats and dogs and stuff like that.

For example, I'm a very keen walker, so.

Me in the woods.

Yeah.

Kind of thing.

Yeah.

But you wouldn't necessarily put your husband and your kids and that kind of thing.

And I.

And actually, I don't ever post any pictures of my kids.

I may occasionally drag my husband into something, but that's probably once a year for maybe my birthday or something.

Yeah.

And it's interesting to hear you say that, Annie, that you don't have to do it, because I think sometimes people think in order to be successful, I'm gonna have to share this sort of stuff.

And I feel really uncomfortable with it, you know, so.

Yeah, sorry.

I've always not been one of those people that says, hi, I'm at the restaurant.

Hi, I'm here now.

I'm not.

Not that kind of person.

Yeah.

I do videos with myself, but I try not to overdo it, if you know what I mean.

Yeah.

And.

And it's worked for you.

Yeah.

So here's something that I think a lot of us struggle with as well in that, especially when people are starting out, you know, they start think, right, I'm going to have this posting habit.

And they post and post and post and nothing really seems to happen.

Yeah.

Have you got anything that you could tell us about that's what to do.

If we find ourselves as heartening as posting and.

And nothing happening.

They do always say you get people lurking.

So people often, I won't have heard or known that they've ever been following me for three years.

And then you get a message from someone saying, oh, I've been following you for three years.

And then they make contact and they've never liked or anything.

Yeah, you get your kind of social media lurkers and it's.

It's quite difficult when you've only kind of got sort of 100 followers or something like that.

It's very difficult to kind of get any traction sometimes.

Yeah, I think sometimes it can be just the general perseverance.

Just keep going.

Yeah.

Using your local groups when you can, asking for recommendations.

And I don't know whether therapists.

Do you.

Do you ever do any Facebook advertising or anything like that with that?

Well, I was going to ask you about that.

Do you think that would be worth us giving a go?

It's notoriously awkward.

I was actually doing some this morning and I still took me four attempts to do it even.

I tend not to do the kind of boosting just on your phone.

And you do pay more for that through Apple.

So if you can do it, do it on your desktop.

Right.

That's worth knowing.

Yeah, you pay more on your phone because Apple can now take a percentage.

But the.

It is easier to boost a post on the desktop with Facebook or Instagram because the ad center or ad management area is a mime.

It's just.

Oh, it's just so difficult.

Yeah, really difficult to get my head around.

And I've been on probably three or four advertising courses and I've worked out that nobody knows how to use it because every one of these courses I was like, you're not telling me anything.

I don't know.

You haven't given me those pearls of wisdom, which I was hoping you were.

And we're just fumbling along with this, which is what I. Yeah, I'll tell.

You a little story in that.

I had a lady who came to talk to us about Facebook ads in my therapy growth group, in my membership group, and she said that she gets Facebook people phoning her up, asking her to do it.

So not even surprising.

Some of the Facebook salespeople literally hit and miss.

It's experiment and just try different things.

That's.

That's what everybody seems to try.

That's what everybody seems to recommend, I think.

Yeah.

So did you think they're necessary or would.

Would you think?

I think it's expensive.

It can be expensive.

I've not.

I know people.

It's not as expensive as search engine optimization, which people spend thousands on, but I think you could, I think if you were doing a very small area like geographically, that might be useful.

You wouldn't have a, like a huge turnover of people.

If you wanted to just keep it ticking over to create awareness of your business, that might be worthwhile.

Yeah, yeah.

So not necessarily specifically for clients, but just creating a knowledge about it longer term to recommendations.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And do you think, are there any sort of tips sort of on the organic side, so where we're not paying for it.

Any tips to help maybe people locally see your posts?

I mean, obviously you've talked about posting into groups.

Yes.

Is there anything else?

I would try.

I mean I do still.

You has use hashtags.

Yeah.

They say there's no benefit other than telling the algorithm that you're based in Rayleigh and that you're.

It helps to categorize you.

I think the alcohol in the algorithm.

So I am still using them sort of two or three a time, not much.

And also sort of keyword loading your post.

So if you are say based in Rayleigh or wherever, try and get the word Rayleigh into your posts.

I mean, I think you kind of accidentally keyword load because you're going to be talking about your business anyway.

Yeah.

But if you can kind of be wary or be mindful, there's a better word of what is in your caption and kind of keyword load it.

That can help the search engines.

Well, I say the search engines, the social media sites pick your post up.

Yeah.

Because the keywords are there, then they're going to pick it up, aren't they?

So, yeah, that's.

That's really useful.

And also add your location tags, of course as well.

So that would be like when you were in Rayleigh, you would tag Rayleigh.

Yeah.

Because it's like a little, little pin, isn't it?

Like.

Yeah.

In fact, that's the thing that Facebook is always telling me to do.

Your posts will go further if you add a location tag.

But Facebook is quite useful.

It does give you tips now about what you should do if you kind of Go into your stats area insights.

It will kind of say, why didn't you do this or do this, anything?

Oh, yeah, they are trying to help us.

Yeah.

It gave me little targets today.

I'd noticed.

It didn't tell me.

It didn't tell me at the beginning of the week that I had these targets.

It's now Wednesday, and I looked today and it said, you've met so many of your targets so far.

You think, well, I didn't know it's supposed to be meeting them, but they were there.

Some of them are ridiculous.

It's like, post five more reels or, you know, answer 20 comments and you're like, I'm not doing this.

Really unrealistic, some of the stuff it wants you to do.

Yeah, but having said that is useful, isn't it, to engage with people?

Because that's one of my questions, actually, because I can struggle with this myself, actually, is that sometimes it feels like I'm doing a broadcast as opposed to having a conversation with people.

Yeah.

You know, so say I'm doing an information post.

It can feel.

Sometimes to me, it feels a bit as though I'm trying to teach and it's tips, you know, And I just wonder, is there a way of, you know, making it so that it's sort of easier on people?

Maybe.

I don't know.

Because you want to share stuff that's useful to them and you want to establish yourself as somebody who's got authority, you know, who knows what they're talking about.

But how can you sort of like, make it so it's almost friendlier and more social, rather than just, here's how you do something.

I always say it's about saying the same thing, often over and over again in different ways.

And you've got to find which way your followers like.

Yeah.

As Annie's just said, you have to keep telling people the same thing over and over again.

Just find different ways to say it.

But the question is, is what do you want to tell them?

And this is where I can really help you, because in the training that I'm doing at the moment, I'm talking about how to get beyond the basics.

It's all about knowing who it is that you're trying to speak to and how to speak to them in such a way that they want to follow up on you and your services.

And I'm doing that in several training sessions.

There's my signature training, which is five ways to attract new clients beyond the basics.

And that will be coming up in a month or so, and also I have got a training coming up quite shortly on exploring niching.

Who do you want to help exploring niching?

And one that's really scary is I've got an ask me anything session and this is your chance to come along and just ask me some questions and listen to what other people are asking and get the help that you need.

If you're interested in any of those, just go along to my training portal, which is Josephine Hughes as me training.

And that will show you those three training sessions when they're on and you'll be able to book from there.

And now back to Annie.

I find I am also quite school teachery.

You should do this and this is what you need to do.

I think it's because I say stuff and then people come back to me and I said, have you done any of it?

And they say, no, I do it all the time.

I'll give people do like a power hour with someone and they'll go, this is brilliant.

And you look on their page and they've done nothing.

Yeah.

Snippets.

Very small pieces of information because a lot of the time people won't read much or don't want to take much in.

For example, I could put a big long article about something.

I know people aren't going to read it, but I'll take one thing out of that which is really useful post that.

And people go, that's really useful.

And you think, well, I've already told you that.

But you didn't read it because in a really long article.

Yeah.

So I think people's ability to.

And it's probably got worse to want to read long articles.

I mean, I think blogs and things are really could be dead by now.

I mean, I would read.

If I was really interested in the social media piece of writing, I would read it.

But most people on their one second swipe past your post, you might have to kind of grab them in with that one kind of of headline tip, fact, whatever it is.

Yeah, I agree with you and I find, I mean I will say that I'm not complete novice and what I find sort of works quite well is telling stories that people quite often like to.

To have something that you're making a point but you're wrapping a story around it.

I think, yeah.

That that can really help because it's just sort of more interesting to people.

Yeah.

But yeah, I really like that idea of just, just making it sort of snippets in a sense and just breaking things up.

Yeah.

And a kind of powerful Emotional kind of first line hook often helps as well.

I did one recently so I think I put oh, this is really stressful or something.

And then a picture of me kind of holding my hands.

Yeah.

And the people like, oh, she's stressed.

What's this about?

You know, getting the nosy thing.

And it wasn't really anything.

It's me, oh, I'm trying to help this business do.

No.

People keep asking me the same question, that it wasn't like a particularly light life threatening.

No.

Or anything but I'd made it more dramatic than it needed.

Yeah, yeah, actually, yeah, yeah, I think.

I saw that one as well.

It goes to show that what you're doing is working.

You're mentioning these posts.

Yeah, I remember that one.

But it's really hard because for my clients, for me it's.

For me it's so I find it so much easier to pub like promote my business than I do with other businesses because I know what I want from other businesses but I rarely get what I want because they don't want to do maybe a silly photo or.

Yeah, that kind of thing.

Yeah, it's hard and you.

But I could suggest ideas all day long.

Why don't you do this?

And why don't you do this?

It's just whether people are open to doing stuff or whether they can.

Yeah.

But it is really, it's about thinking about how social media really works, isn't it?

And so like you say, some things that will be eye catching tend to work.

Tend to work for people.

Yeah.

Pulling people in with that really powerful image as well.

Yeah, I think pictures can work really well.

Yeah.

I think that's sometimes why cats and dogs work quite well.

I do use my dog occasionally.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then she has become part of my brand as well.

Yeah, this is true.

And yeah, I think that's true.

That sort of.

Some people, it's really interesting.

So when I think to the therapists that I follow and I see particular styles and you know, one lady, she usually does three photos and I know sometimes Facebook says, oh, you should only do one photo, it's more effective.

But it's her particular style.

She'll have a photo of herself, she'll have some sort of quote and then she'll have a picture of something else that she's doing and it always draws me in and someone else who, you know, she does share photos of herself in various places with some sort of message.

And that I've noticed as well is it's, you know, it might be on her Travels or it's usually because she works with anxiety.

But it always speaks to me.

You know, there's always a point to.

She's showing this picture with a point.

And I think that works really well for me, too.

And I think you can keep that consistency even if you don't look at her posts.

I always think kind of subliminally, even if you swipe past her, then you still know you have.

And it's that kind of branding where she's keeping consistent.

Yeah, yeah, that's really true, actually.

Yeah, yeah, they're doing that really well.

What would you say sort of are the most common mistakes that people make on their sort of business?

Social media?

Probably bunging stuff on not thinking, not planning.

You should always have a plan, whether it's a month in advance or six months in advance, whatever your plan is.

I tend to work monthly.

Yeah, it's the bugging thing on not taking the time to create the quality content, really.

Yeah, I do see it.

Even people that have posted, say, from Instagram to Facebook, they haven't then checked the sizes and it just doesn't lay out very nicely on Facebook.

It irritates me when people do a post from Instagram to Facebook and they put swipe to see and you think, well, that doesn't work on Facebook.

Yeah.

Or they tag someone and they haven't checked that their Facebook tag is different to their Instagram tag.

So it doesn't work.

It's just not attention to detail.

Maybe that's what I should say.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's interesting, isn't it?

Because it is a fiddle, isn't it?

Because I was doing something yesterday which was a post with pictures on, you know, the sort of way you swipe them.

And I have to confess, I didn't take the swipe off for Facebook, but I did change.

Have to change the sizes because I was doing it for LinkedIn as well.

And they all require different sizes, which was a right annoyance.

But it's good to get it right because otherwise, I mean, because I was doing it and I was finding that the Instagram size didn't fit Facebook, so you couldn't read it properly.

It wasn't all, you know, it's all that sort of stuff, isn't it?

It's annoying.

It is annoying.

And I'm terrible.

I generally post my Instagram sizes on Facebook.

Occasionally I'll change them back to the square because it doesn't fit quite nicely on a Facebook post.

LinkedIn I'm so lazy with.

I don't really.

I Only post occasionally on LinkedIn.

I actually said to myself, I'm just going to give up LinkedIn just because I just don't have the time to dedicate to that platform and I've never really got much from it, so.

And I think that's, that's, that's a sort of an interesting remark though, in itself, isn't it, that, you know, in a way it's okay to focus on one particular platform, isn't it?

Yeah.

I mean, I do have a TikTok account, but it's purely for just trying things and it's just to play on, really.

It's not really.

I don't ever expect to get anything from it.

Not my audience.

Yeah, it's an interesting one.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I shut my TikTok down, actually, because I was just finding it so distracting.

I could spend so much time on there and I just thought, you just can't do this.

No, I mean, I think as a social media manager, people would assume that I sit on social media all the time, but I, I work on it and in the evenings I'm not, I don't sit and watch social media at all.

I'm a puzzler.

I like my sudoku.

I will play games on my phone, but very rarely do I ever sit.

And like, people will sit, won't they, and watch videos and stuff.

That's not me.

I don't.

Often my friends say to me, oh, did you see my post?

I'll be like, nope.

Well, and I think that's sort of quite encouraging as well because I can imagine, you know, I talk to therapists and they say, but I don't really use social media, so I don't think I can use social media for my business.

But what you're saying is.

Yeah, you see it as a business exercise.

Yeah.

But it's not necessarily something that you would choose to spend your time on.

No, outside of that, it's very distracting.

I mean, I work on it all day and you've got this constant.

You're constantly being distracted.

Yeah, I do have to wind myself back sometimes.

Sometimes if you get a notification, you think, I'm just going to check that.

And then.

So I am quite strict with the way I work.

That's really interesting.

And that presumably helps you.

Brings you fresh the next day when you're ready to start work again.

Yeah, it's, it's really interesting to hear you say that because recently I've, you know, I really haven't been on social media in the evening and there's part of me that thinks, oh dear, you know, I should be on there, I should be looking.

But another part of me that just thinks I don't want to be.

You know, I have a. I have a constant kind of internal battle, a bit of a love hate relationship with social media.

I realized how useful it is for small businesses.

At the same time, I'm like, especially Instagram.

Instagram's not my favorite at all.

I find it very.

How can I put this nicely?

Look at me.

Shall I say, I find it very like that.

And I know we all call Facebook.

Facebook as well.

But I always say to my husband, I've got about five years left in me and then I'm just gonna shut.

Everything down, move it to pastures new, maybe.

Oh, dear.

That is really interesting, actually, because that, that sort of, I think perhaps partly answered the question I've got, which is how can people stay.

Stay consistent without burning out or overthinking it?

Consistent is, I think a plan is the way to help you be consistent.

Because you can sit and schedule your monthly post.

Sit and do it in an hour or however long.

You've got to do it on a free service.

You know, Meta business suite is perfect.

And then I would just schedule.

And then you can literally get on with doing what you actually want to be doing, knowing that you're still being consistent.

Your posts are ready to go.

You can make changes if you want to.

Something comes up or you've thought of something else, you can move things around.

It's very flexible.

Flexible.

But planning, I think, is the way to help you be consistent.

Yeah, so maybe sit down sort of just before the end of the month and.

Yeah, look at what I mean.

Because I obviously, I use the social media calendar and I pass some of the important dates.

Like we probably just have had Mental Health awareness week when this podcast comes out.

So that's one that we could focus on.

So you'd sort of have a look.

I'd look at something like that and think about what do I want to post and just sort of sit down and do that.

That like in the month before your posts are coming out.

And it's really easy.

There's lots of places you can look at all the special days.

I mean, there's a national day for everything True.

Everything.

I'll just make one up.

You can make one up.

No one will ever know that it's not true.

Yeah, make your own one up.

The national days are quite good and I always say keep it related to your business.

Like you said, the National Mental Health, one example I do.

And social media for an artificial grass company, which in itself is quite difficult.

People don't like it.

So you get abused sometimes.

It's amazing what people we abuse you for.

On Facebook, there's National Green Day.

Do you know what I mean?

So, yeah, that kind of thing you can kind of use related to your business.

Yeah.

So that, that brings up an important thing that I think people often worry about as well, which is abuse.

I mean, you think if somebody's going to complain about artificial lawn, there's no hope for us, really.

Yeah.

I've always, in fact, I was telling someone the other day, I've only considering I've been going 11 or 11 years now.

I've only actually, actually had three people be mean to me, which I don't think is too bad.

That's pretty good actually, isn't it?

Yeah.

So you don't think it's as bad maybe as people think it will be.

I think if you're going to talk about anything political or anything like that, then it's expected.

But most of us are just kind of just happily bobbing along.

Yeah, we know that you don't really give a strong.

It just, just.

I always say to people, never ever anything negative on your page either, because you will see people kind of.

Even if they do like a, oh, I'm fed up with clients not turning up, I'm gonna.

That kind of stuff.

Even that is a no, no in my book.

Yeah, nothing, just anything negative, stay away from it.

Yeah.

I think sometimes as well you see people sort of emoting.

Not in.

Like you were saying, I'm stressed.

It's not more like that.

But, you know, oh, there's this going wrong and there's that going wrong.

And I think that's the sort of thing I probably wouldn't talk about.

You know, I might go back over something as a sort of teaching point almost, you know, like, you know, I've been ill recently, so I've talked about how I responded to the illness and what that taught me about, you know, what drives me and that sort of thing.

So I can use it as a teaching point.

But I think sometimes people get really sort of pulled into a situation and then they start posting about it.

And, you know, sometimes you see people having rows as well, don't you?

And it's so, in a way it's sort of, you know, it does make you read it, but in a way it's not really a very good impression as well.

And so I shy away from that.

I Don't know what you think.

I don't think it's good business, particularly.

Definitely make sure that you're not using your business account to reply to anything that you shouldn't, because do make that mistake as well sometimes.

Yeah.

Just keep it all separate,.

Personal WhatsApp groups with your friends.

I say, yeah, yeah.

And I think, I think that's true, actually, because I was in a Facebook group earlier, answering something and having to be very patient, and then I went into my little group of friends who I know are in the same place as me with this particular issue and just said, oh, feeling exhausted because I've had to be really patient.

And they all said, yeah, it's great.

It's great that you've been patient.

Well done.

So if people were to take just one thing away from listening to you talking about Facebook for local businesses, what would you want it to be?

Put you on the spot here.

I don't know whether I can do one thing.

I think for me, it's probably the consistency thing.

Probably the consistency and quality.

Yeah.

So don't worry too much about quantity.

No.

If.

Even if you're just doing one post a week.

Yeah.

And you make one.

Yeah.

And listen, listen back to your tips on what makes it a good one.

So just in closing, I wonder, I'm sure people would be interested in finding out a bit more about what you do and your social media club.

Would you like to just say where we can find you?

Yes.

So I have.

I've always been very passionate about helping small businesses and appreciate that most small businesses can't kind of afford to pay someone to manage their social media.

So the idea behind my social media club was to put all the tips and knowledge and guidance and all the new things that I learn every day.

As I said, you're always learning into this group so that small businesses can use all my tips.

Basically, I'm working for my clients all day.

I learn a new tip and I'll go and put it straight into my social media club and let everybody else use it.

It's.

Yeah, it's basically been a passion of mine because there's nothing more rewarding hoarding, I don't think.

Then, yes, I've gone.

The post has done really well and people are contacting me.

It's a really nice feeling and you can see why people get addicted to creating quality, that quality content, because it's that kind of.

Oh, yes, people are contacting me.

So it's really nice.

Yeah.

So basically my club is there to share all my Knowledge.

People can ask any questions they want.

I do monthly webinars with special topics.

I do a newsletter at the end of each month.

Month.

To kind of share all the tips.

You can go back and see anything that you've missed and.

Yeah, it's just.

And actually, it's turning into a really nice little community now.

I've really kind of got everyone talking and I often do.

I think I've done the dare for my daring people to go live.

There was one where we had to fill in the little speech box.

There was that one, wasn't there?

Yes.

Challenges.

That's what the word I was looking for.

Yeah.

But little challenges for people to do kind of.

And maybe slightly out of their social media comfort zone.

Yes.

It's turning into a nice little group and I've got nearly 50 members now, which is lovely.

Yeah.

Range of kind of knowledge as well.

Like, you obviously kind of know what you're doing and, like, there's other people who are just literally starting out.

So it's kind of nice.

People can pick and choose.

Yeah.

There's also lots of guides in there as well, like how to plan, how to post, how to use the edits app.

Real ideas.

Yeah, a lot of ideas.

Lots of stuff.

Brilliant.

Oh, well, thanks so much, Annie.

And thanks so much for coming along and sharing all your wisdom with us.

No problem.

I can talk social media all day long.

And so people want to find you on Facebook.

It's just Rayleigh marketing.

Yes.

And.

Or they can look up.

Annie's social media club should be able to find me.

It is a private group that they should be able to find me.

Brilliant.

Oh, thanks so much for coming along, Annie.

I really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thanks for listening.

Do come and join my Facebook community.

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 app and include closing.

I'd love to remind you that every single step you make gets you closer to your dream.

I really believe you can do it.