Welcome to episode 298 of Hit the Mic with The Stacey Harris.
Hello, hello, 298, here we are, and we’re going to talk a little bit about if you’re actually marketing on social media or if maybe you’re just spending a lot of time on social media which, as a heads up, not the same thing. I want to dive in on this because I’ve been having a lot of conversations with people through consulting calls and networking things and this has been coming up for probably the last 6 or 8 months, where people will tell me that they’re spending a lot of time on social and they’re just not seeing results. They spend hours everyday in Facebook groups and on Twitter and on Facebook, or the really common one right now is Facebook and LinkedIn. “I was spending tonnes of time on LinkedIn, but I’m just not seeing results.”
I asked them some questions. I say, “Well, what groups are you spending time in? What kind of content are you posting? What your analytics telling you about the content? How’s it be reacted to? How’s it being engaged with? How’s it being seen? What networks are driving traffic back to your site?” They go, “Well, I can’t think of any specific groups,” or, “I’m in this group, and this group and this group, but I don’t actually post that much in those ones.” They can’t tell me what information they’re getting from their analytics because they’re not getting any information from their analytics because they’re not posting content consistently and if they are posting even irregularly, they’re not checking their numbers.
They can’t tell me anything they’re actually doing on LinkedIn, any people they’re engaging with or connecting with, the kind of connections and conversations they’re trying to have, and that tells me that they’re not actually using these tools to market. What’s happening is they’re lurking. They’re reading a lot of posts, they’re scrolling a lot, and scrolling is the enemy because what happens is it’s like winding a clock. You’re just moving time. You’re not actually doing anything productive, and that’s why I want you to do a few things differently with your social media time, and that’s what we’re going to break down today, and these are hints that I’ve given you guys some of them before. We’re going to look at them a little differently today, but when you do these things, it gives you a clear course of action to follow.
It’s all going to start with doing things like building a social media strategy, knowing where you’re spending time, and then where within that channel you’re spending time, what kind of content you’re posting, who you’re talking to. All of that’s going to come from your social media strategy and I definitely encourage you to take a step back and build one of those if you haven’t yet, but I want to talk more today about the tactile, spending your time on social, tracking it, using it wisely, and really making it work for you because, and I know you’ve heard me say this before, there is absolutely 1 finite resource for me. I cannot produce more time. I can make more money, I can meet new people, I can get new clients, I can find new people to support me, I can expand my team, I can outsource new things to contractors and automate things. I cannot actually produce more hours in my day. I can’t even produce more seconds in my day, so I am ridiculously conscientious about how I spend my time.
When I feel like I am wasting time, that will drive me crazy faster than anything else because I only get so much in the day, especially when you’re somebody who like me, is very intentional about not working all of the time, who is very specific about what hours I want to work and when I don’t want to be working, because I don’t want to go down that rabbit hole that I was early in my business, working crazy, obscene long days, and I realized in going through that, the reason I was doing that sometimes was because I was not using the time throughout the day very wisely. That’s why I’m so specific about how I spend my time and there are definitely times where I’m better at this than others, which is the other part of the reason I’m sharing this episode today.
If you’re somebody who’s hearing me say these things and they’re like, “Absolutely. I’m so protective of my time. I’m not wasting time anywhere,” yet you can think about to the last couple of weeks or the last couple of months, I know this is true for me, where you’re like, “Oh, I probably could have been more productive then. I probably could have been more productive today. I could probably be more productive right now,” then keep listening, because here’s the deal. This is one of those muscles that we have to keep exercising. I just recently in the last couple weeks, started looking at a new way to track what I’m doing everyday and tracking my time and my tasks, and I went back to looking at my default calendar and when I did things, because I needed to tighten this up again. Hang with me through these things that we’re going to talk about today because they’re absolutely going to change how you spend your time on social. Okay?
Number 1, what exactly is in your social media foundation?
Knowing what needs to be in that foundation, and taking a step back in case you haven’t heard me talking about social media foundations before, social media foundations are the things that have to go out. Your content, your promo, your upcoming events, your webinars, your opt-ins, your curated content from other sources. It’s just stuff that has to go out every single week, and if you don’t know what’s in that list, it’s going to get really hard for you to batch task that because you’re going to be all over the place. You’re going to be pulling things from here, pulling things from there, doing a little of this, doing a little of that. The very thing I want you to do is get really clear on what goes in your social media foundation because that is going to be the first thing we’re actually going to put on our calendar and schedule time for.
Sit down and think about how your foundation is created. For example, we have 2 episodes of this show that go out every single week. Right now, it’s Tuesdays and Fridays. It’s been that for a while, most of the last 298 episodes. I know that every week those 2 episodes need to go out, so I make sure that those get scheduled. Now, in full disclosure, I don’t do that. Charles, who is my right hand here at The Stacey Harris, he does that. Maybe you have a VA doing it, maybe you have an admin in your office that does it, maybe you have your high school kid do it, I don’t know. Maybe you do it, however it gets done. You have to know that that content’s going out, and when it’s going out.
For example, I know that that goes out once the day of the episode goes live on Facebook, I know it goes out on Google Plus and LinkedIn, I also know it goes out everyday for 7 days for a new episode on Twitter. All that’s actually written out in not just my big strategy document, but in a quick sheet social media doc. Anybody who joins the team can see exactly what needs to happen with the foundation. Number 2, we have recycled content, meaning the last 297 episodes before this one, and that is not to mention the 100ish, 75ish maybe episodes we did of “Hit The Mic TV,” blog content, guest content I’ve done on other sites. All of that goes in queues, and we use eClincher so we can actually build queues that recycle the content. That way, they can go out automatically. We don’t have to update that every week.
That takes a little bit of the time we have to spend putting in that foundation, but we know what frequency that’s scheduled for, and again, it’s in our quick sheet for the foundation, knowing exactly what needs to go out in that foundation, because those new episodes need to get added to that queue. Next up, I know how much curated content goes to each source, so again, this is in that quick sheet. I do 2 episodes a day for Facebook, or 3 pieces for LinkedIn, or whatever it is in your strategy. Put that into your quick sheet. Then, the last piece is any additional promo. I’ve got some opt-in promo and backstage promo that goes in, again, a recycled queue using eClincher so that we don’t have to fill that up.
Then, I’ve got a couple of pieces that get added in when there’s something going on, whether maybe I’m a part of an online summit, or I’m speaking at a conference, or I’ve got an event going on, or I’m doing a webinar, or we’re doing an especially big membership push, or maybe we’ve got SocialPro launching, whatever it is, we have space for that in the foundation, and again, all of this is in a quick sheet, so I want you to take a step back and realize exactly what needs to go in your social media foundation, and then you’re going to do part 2 of this first one, which is schedule that. I suggest starting with 2 hours a week. If you want to put in a little elbow room, do 3 hours. As you get more comfortable doing it, you will get faster, but you need to make sure this is actually on your calendar.
Marie Forleo says this and I really, really love it. If it’s not on your calendar, it’s not real. If it’s not scheduled, it’s not real. For me, that’s ridiculously true because there’s always going to be something else that’s coming to grab your attention. There’s always going to be something else that’s going, “Oh, I’m an emergency. Come pay attention to me,” and rarely are these things actually emergencies, but they are shiny objects, they are attention pullers. As my friend, Brandy Lawson over at TekGrl.com says, it’s a squirrel moment. “Squirrel!,” and it’ll pull you away. However, if you come back to your calendar and you know that Monday from 3 to 5, this is what you do, then awesome. Monday, from 3 to 5, this is what you do. It will become habit. Figure out what that time is, put it on your calendar, and treat it like a client.
Give it the same priority, the same importance, the same intentionality that you would give your client work, because if you don’t do that, if you skip over this, you will not have client work at the same maybe consistency as you currently do, or maybe you’re already struggling with that consistency and you’d like to see that consistency happen. Continually, consistent marketing, quality marketing, that gets you there. This is a key part of it. It’s a huge component to that. So, outline exactly what’s in that social media foundation, build a quick sheet that outlines it, and then schedule it, and then actually doing it, because FYI, listening to this episode, not going to change anything.
Only if you go take action on what I’m talking about on this episode will you see change.
Part 2, networking on social.
The stuff that’s got to happen day in, day out. Figure out those 2 primary networks I’ve talked about in the past. Again, this is going to go back to that strategy you’ve already built. They get time on your calendar every single day. 15 minute chunks of time. Not an hour, not 2 hours, 15 minute chunks of time. Depending on what network it is, depending on what your needs are, what your level of involvement is, how many is gig to be up to you. I do 4 to 6 per day, so an hour to an hour and a 1/2 on social. These, again, go on the calendar. You’re going to schedule these again because if it’s not on the calendar, it’s not real. Actually schedule these in on your calendar. Again, 15 minute chunks of time.
I am not asking you to take an hour out of the middle of your day. I’m asking for 15 minutes here, and 15 minutes there, and you’re going to assign these things specific tasks, so maybe it’s respond to people on Twitter, maybe it’s send LinkedIn invitations, maybe it’s respond to LinkedIn invitations, maybe it’s engage in a LinkedIn group, maybe it’s answer questions in a specific Facebook group, and then you’re gig to go in and do those things. Now, the tasks you assign, I don’t want it to be “Check Twitter.” I don’t want it to be, “Look at Facebook groups,” because that’s going to lead to scrolling. I want something specific and actionable. “Post question in ‘Hit The Mic Backstage.’ Post question in my private community,” whatever your Facebook group is. “Answer questions, respond to 5 posts in XYZ group.”
Knowing exactly how you’re spending that 15 minutes. Give that 15 minutes a goal, because now you’re going to go from scrolling and looking for something to do on social to knowing exactly where you’re going and exactly what you’re executing on. When you know exactly what you’re doing and exactly what you’re executing on, it’s really easy when you’re done to see whether that was done or not. When you say, “Oh, I’ve got 15 minutes of Facebook time,” there’s nothing to say, “Okay, this is what I did with this time, and now I can measure these results.” There’s no way to check in on that. When you say, “I’m going to answer 5 questions in my Facebook group, my free Facebook group that I have,” it’s really, really easy to go, “Yep, I answered 5 questions. Here’s the resulting conversations, here’s what happened with those 5 interactions. Here’s how those relationships moved forward.”
There is a clarity that comes from that specific task, that comes from knowing exactly what it is you’re executing on, okay? That’s what I want you to do. I really, really challenge you to take action on this episode. Right now, stop what you’re doing, unless it’s driving. Stop what you’re doing, and actually say, “This is when I’m going to execute on building my 1 sheet, scheduling my social time, scheduling my daily social interaction time, and then do that. Then, let me know, okay? Here’s some accountability. I want you to reach out to me. Tell me that you’ve done this. Tell me that you’re going to do this. I will check, okay? Let me know. Go over to the Facebook page, or Twitter. I You’ll really find me anywhere at TheStaceyHarris, okay?
Check in because I want to see action on this episode. This one is one of those ones that’s newly a good episode if you guys do stuff with it, all right? Speaking of good episodes, next Tuesday, the big 300. I’m excited, I won’t lie. I’m going to do a live show. We’re going to talk about podcasting lessons, we’re going to talk about what’s going on in social right now, we’re going to talk about all sorts of cool stuff. If you want to find out when and get an email reminder, and have the first crack at some prizes that we’re going to be giving away, yes prizes, prizes, free stuff, come hang out. Go on over to TheStaceyHarris.com/episode300 and you will find a link to submit your email address and let me know that you want a reminder. I will send you a reminder and say, “Hey, we’re going to be live. Come join us.” Then, we’ll be live on that same page next Tuesday, September 20th, at 9am Pacific Time, which makes it 12 Eastern. I had to do the math in my head real quick.
Join us. It’s going to be a really good time. 300 episodes, just about 3 years. I think technically October or November is 3 years of this show, but 300 episodes, that’s nuts. I will see you there. Join me live. Thanks for listening. I will see you on Friday.
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