Hello, hello, episode 439 today, first episode of a new month which means we’re talking about three things I want you to know. Talking a little Instagram, talking a little Linkedin, talking a little mindset with social. I’m really excited. So before we jump in, I wanted to let you know we do have some very cool things coming up in the next couple of months that I want you to know about now.
Our next date for Backstage Live is officially announced, it’s up on the page now if you go to the thestacyharris.com/backstagelive. We’re gonna be here in Orange County which is between LA and San Diego for those of you who don’t know. So my LA peeps can come down, my San Diego peeps can come up. And my Orange County peeps, I’m right in the neighborhood. So we’re gonna do that May 2nd. If though you were thinking well, I don’t live anywhere near California, nor do I want to travel on May 2nd to California for a one-day event which by the way it’s completely worth it and you should because it’s gonna be awesome.
We’re also gonna do a virtual event. So we have on April 18th, Backstage Live happening virtually. We’re doing the full day version, it’ll be just like what we do in person except virtually. So I’m really, really excited about that. Those tickets are also up right now at thestacyharris.com/backstagelive, so you can choose which you’d like to attend or attend both, that’s cool too, I’m into it, I’m into it. So that’s big news and stay tuned for more information on future dates, but that’s what we’ve got kind of calendared right now. Again, virtually and here on the West Coast without any further ado, what do you say we jump into this week’s episode.
I want to talk about video and my first two things today and we’re going to start with Instagram.
So IGTV I don’t know if you’re using it, I don’t use it a ton anymore. When it first came out I used it a little bit. But I found that it was just kind of hidden. I wasn’t getting a ton of traction with it. But Instagram is finally, after like what almost a year, taking some big steps to make it easier to get our IGTV content in front of our existing audience.
They are putting IGTV previews essentially in the newsfeed. So now as you’re scrolling through the newsfeed, it’ll look just like a post specifically a video post but in the bottom left-hand corner there will be a continue to watch on IGTV, and you click that and it’ll take you right to the full video. I like this, I think it’s a step in the right direction. It does make me more excited to try IGTV again and see what we get traction wise. We’re gonna be rolling out some IGTV content that I actually never released but I had recorded over the next couple of weeks here in March and seeing kind of what shakes out.
But I just wanted to wait until this content was like gonna be seen by people. So this newsfeed is a new thing and a great addition. Now, I’d like to see some other discoverability things get added personally before I go all in on IGTV certainly. But again, this is a good step in the right direction so if you’ve been using IGTV or you’ve been on the fence with IGTV, now is a great time to test it. Because again, they’re rolling that out to the newsfeed, so that’s cool. Number two video thing and we’re gonna try and keep today’s episode pretty short, so we’re gonna roll right through.
Number two, more video. This have live video, Linkedin live.
This was announced earlier in February right around mid-month in February. Here’s the deal, it’s US only right now and it’s invite only right now. So not everybody has this option. I believe in the coming weeks there’s gonna be an option to basically request an invite but I’m actually really stoked for this. I’m really excited to see how quickly once Linkedin sort of got on the train of video, they’re evolving it.
Adding native video to their feed, now live video. I think this is gonna be really cool for those of you who are in a B-to-B space, but also and I want you to remember this, even if you are in a B-to-C space, there may be an opportunity from time to time to get access to your consumers through another business. A great example of this we’ve had over the years wellness coaches we’ve worked with that we’ve built out a really wonderful Linkedin presence for to get them specifically connected with HR departments, wellness program directors, inside of companies so that they can come in, the company would pay them to talk to their employees and then guess what, their employees are their actual customer.
So they can then upsell those customers, generally not through a hard sell on their room but when your information is good, people tend to be like hey, can I have more. Certainly, that’s been my experience, I actually sell better when I don’t make a huge effort to sell from the stage. Which I find is very interesting. But anyways, this has been a really cool way for them to get in front of their audience in a new way and so we leveraged Linkedin to connect with the people who could connect them with their customers.
So even if you’re sitting here going, my audience is not on Linkedin, the access to them may be on Linkedin. So look at where you can add that especially for those of you who are doing speaking or presenting from time to time going live from your events, from time to time going live with content. Giving that potential higher contractor whatever, that person a look at what it’s like to see you present content, it’s hugely, hugely, hugely valuable. So don’t leave that on the table, take advantage of Linkedin live to do that. I’m really excited.
The last thing I want to talk about is a bit of mindset thing when it comes to your marketing.
We’ve now reached the last month of the first quarter of the year and it’s right about now that I find sometimes, it’s easy to get a little less excited about all the things you wanted to do this year. All of the things you were going to test, all the products you were going to launch, all of the people you were going to work with, it’s just easy to be a little like in the day-to-day grind and detach from those big ideas you had in January.
And so I want to remind you that the year is far from over yet. Look at where you can add some of that excitement and one of the ways that I do this is I make an effort from time to time to really behave as I want my audience to behave. And what I mean by this is often times, when we start to get less excited about our ideas we start to sort of minimum viable product our marketing. And that is a dangerous, dangerous place to be. It’s a slippery slope and I feel like that lack of care comes through. And I’m absolutely guilty of this.
Like this is not me elevating myself and being like, what you guys are doing. I’m saying, we here. This certainly is an I think. I went through it in February. Like full disclosure, as I’m recording these episodes for March, I’m coming out of that because I exhausted myself in February with my trip to New York and with some big projects and it was a tough month for me mentally and so my marketing has really been evidence of that. I’ve not been showing up, I’ve not been as much value as I like to be for you guys.
I have been running minimum viable product. And so one of the things I do to snap out of that is I conscientiously start behaving how I want my audience to behave with me. Not only with them but with the people who I purchase from and I connect with. And my biz friends and I really set aside a certain amount of time per day usually about a half hour to just going in behaving how I want people to engage with my content. Meaning I’m leaving comments, I’m sharing stories, I’m shouting out favorite podcasts and blog posts, and videos, and resources, and I’m really stepping into, oh hey, I want people to be doing this for me because I’m a little tired right now. And I don’t feel like I can carry the ball by myself.
So I’m gonna make sure I’m doing this for the people who I respect, who I care about. And sometimes that’s pulling stuff from the community, sometimes that’s pulling stuff from people I know, people I buy from, people I work with, but I really encourage you, if you’re feeling like no ones listening, if you’re feeling like no ones engaging and no ones sharing and no ones shouting you out, start doing it. Start shouting some people out, start commenting, start engaging, you would be amazed how much that shift in your focus from no one is to I am will bring light to how much people are doing that. And or encourage more people to do that.
Okay, so look at that because it’s very, very powerful to get people starting to engage with you and also just to shift your energy out of like I don’t want to do this. All right. All right. So that’s all we’ve got for today, three things you must know. Again, we’ve got the two next backstage live dates announced. We will be virtual on April 18th, and we will be live and in person on May second, so I hope to see you there. If you have any questions about anything, head over to Instagram and send me a DM. I’m @thestacyharris and I will see you next Thursday.
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