Welcome to episode 306 of Hit the Mic with the Stacey Harris.
Real talk time, guys. How many of you are having a little bit of a tough time getting back into social media? Summer can sometimes mean we take a little time off, we slow down a little, and one of the things that can sometimes fall through is social media. Or maybe in September you launch, you hit that back-to-school vibe, launched a program, so you were feeling a little burned out, took a little time off, and now you’re still trying to get back into it. You’re not alone. Actually, I get this question a lot.
Today I want to talk about the three things I want you to do when it’s time to get back on track with social media, because it’s not bad to step back. It’s not impossible to get back into it. However, a lot of times the most painful part is the stress we put on ourselves about, like, “Why isn’t this done? Why am I not doing this? This has to happen and I haven’t done it. I suck.” Then, now you’ve just attached all of this negative garbage to doing it at all, and so we continue to not do anything with it. That goes longer and longer and longer, and it gets harder and harder and harder to get back into our mojo, get back into being social, get back into community building, get back into providing a real value. Yeah, magic word there, “value.”
Here’s what I want you to do, three things. Let’s start off at the top. Number one, reevaluate what you were doing. Step back. Look at your strategy. Look at your clients. Look at who you’re attracting. Look at your community. Look at your ads budget. Go through and evaluate everything. Clean house. This is something you should be doing pretty regularly anyways. I try to touch base on my strategy about once a quarter, ads budget maybe a little less than that just because it’s laid out beforehand what I want to spend around launches and things like that.
Look at all of the pieces and make sure that all of the things you were doing feed your goals right now and feed your goals moving forward in the next quarter, in the next six months, however long you want to look at. I tend to look at like 12-week periods when I’m doing this evaluation because any longer than that and my brain goes blah, which is a technical term for brain-fried. I like 12 weeks. If you haven’t read The 12 Week Year yet, definitely do that. We actually reviewed it over on the Biz BFFs podcast, Brandy Lawson and I, and she and I have both started using that in her businesses. It’s a really cool way to break down the overwhelm, and it may help you stay more consistent on social over time because you’re looking at that strategy at 12-week chunks and not, “I have to do this forever.”
Again, look at your strategy. Look at what’s been happening and look at what needs to be changed or executed on moving forward, because that’s going to be really the difference maker for you in actually getting stuff done. Step one, reevaluate your strategy.
Number two, get started. Update your graphics. Update your bio. Update any links. I find a lot of times, especially for clients who go into maybe a post-launch lull, I call it the launch hangover, and they kind of disconnect, what I’ll find is they’ll hire me to come in and do a consult and I’ll be looking at their stuff and I’ll say, “Why am I linking to a sales page that doesn’t work any more in all of your bios?” They’ll go, “Oh, I forgot to change that after the launch.” Clean house. Check your bios. Check your photos. Check your links for your call to action buttons on Facebook, your pinned post on Twitter. Make sure everything that’s there, you’re linking your bio on Instagram.
Make sure everything that exists is really feeding whatever your goal is for that next 12 weeks. Maybe that’s sales growth. Maybe that’s another launch. Maybe that’s community building. Maybe that’s e-mail list growth. I think I said e-mail list growth. Whatever. It just needs to be serving that goal for you for the next 12 weeks. That’s what’s important. Again, updating your profile photos, making sure that it looks something like you look now. This is something I’m super guilty of and I promise I am working on. We’re going to take some new photos here soonish. I’m working on it, guys, I promise. You need to make sure that all of that is updated. Check your strategy, and then of course clean house.
Then the third step, and what we’re going to spend the most time on today, is really then start doing stuff. The best way to get back into it is to simply get back into it. Maybe that’s putting some calendar dates for Facebook Lives. You actually schedule it into your calendar just like you would a client call or a webinar or anything else. Give it that same level of importance. You’re not going to promo a webinar and then just not show up. Do the same thing with your Facebook Lives. Say, “Hey, we’re going to go live on Tuesdays at 11:00,” and then show up on Tuesdays at 11:00 and go live.
Schedule time into your calendar to set up your social media foundation. Reevaluate what your other people’s content pieces are. I’ve mentioned a few times that I use Feedly to manage all of the blogs that I pull content from, just the sources I love, because having to search for them all the time is just not happening. I’ve got some topics that I pull from, and then I’ve got actual blog links that I pull from so that I can make sure that I am getting the best of the best out there for you guys in the other people’s content and content curation stuff. There’s got to be time for you to do that. Until you make time, if you’re not in the habit of doing it, it’s going to really hard to do.
I find myself even doing this. We had a crazy summer. I’m not nearly as far ahead as I like to be on content, on social, on any of that. I’ve actually got my default calendar showing on my Google Calendar. I’m literally looking at it right now. It’s right in front of me right now. It’s got my social media time, my education time, my e-mail time, my content curation time, work on my Mastermind time. It’s got my e-mail times are in there, the time I work on Biz BFF stuff. It’s all actually in my default calendar, and that’s actually showing on my schedule right now because I’m out of the habit of being in that structured schedule where I know I work best, where I know I get the most done.
If you’re getting back into this, put that social media time back on your schedule right in front of you all day. If you use a white board or you use a paper calendar or you use a Google calendar or you use the iCalendar on your iPhone, I don’t care what you use, but I want to see that on your schedule, because that’s going to be the difference maker. That’s going to be the, “Hey, this actually happens.” Actually get it on your calendar and then execute on it.
The same thing with your engagement time. Like I said, I have social media time on my calendar. I actually have it in a couple of places because those are my times to go in and check in. This summer, in all of the craziness that happened in my private life and in moving and all of that stuff, I have kind of been ridiculously MIA from any of my Facebook groups that I network and I market in. One of the things I’ve been working on this week, because transparency, it’s the way we roll here, is evaluating those Facebook groups, really going in and saying, “These are the ones that serve my goals for the next 12 weeks, these are the ones that don’t,” staying in the ones that do, leaving the ones that don’t.
Over the next couple of days, now that I’ve done that, that cleaning of house, I’ll go in and do some reintroducing, some posting, some commenting, some connecting, and some networking so that I can be a part of the community again, because right now I’m not. I’m just member. I’m not a part of the community. There’s a big difference there. That time is actually showing on my calendar right now because I’m out of the habit. It has to be on my calendar so that it actually gets done. The same is going to be true for you. Put it on your calendar and it will actually happen.
From there, execute the strategy. Get in and do these things. Share your content. Share your old content. Look at your tools and making sure that your queues are full, making sure that maybe your other people’s content resources need to be updated. Get in and do this stuff. The first two steps are a lot of evaluating, a lot of looking, a lot of seeing what’s what. This third step is the most important one. The first two steps don’t matter if you don’t do this one. Get in and start doing stuff. You see that calendar schedule pop up, you go, “Oh, look, it’s time for me to get engaged on social media. It’s not a time for me to be distracted by something else. I’m going to stop what I’m doing and I’m going to go do that. I’m going to set the timer and I’m going to execute.” That is where getting back into it is actually getting back into it. Until you take that step, the worry, the angst, it’s going to stay.
Here’s the deal. When you get back in when you start taking action, don’t announce, “Hey, I know I’ve been gone for a long time, but I’m back now.” No. Just start posting, because here’s the deal. Ego aside, a very small portion of your audience is going to realize that you were ever gone. Yeah, I know. It’s a kick to the ego, right? It’s true. Don’t announce it. Just like if you’ve not posted an e-mail or a blog post or a podcast in a couple of weeks, don’t announce it. Just start doing it again. From an e-mail perspective it will probably get you some unsubscribes because people will have forgotten who you are. It’s just the way it is. In most cases, they’ll just think they missed the e-mail. They’ll just think they forgot about it.
Just get in there. Just start doing it. Don’t announce a big to-do. “I know, I’ve been gone for so long and I’m sorry, but it’ll never happen again.” No. Just do it. I’m super guilty of doing this on Snapchat. I’ll miss Snapchatting for a while, and I’ll be like, “I haven’t been using Snapchat much.” I’ve realized that like once a week I was posting this, “I know I don’t Snap very often,” which is dumb. Now I don’t do that. I just Snap when I Snap, because it’s not a primary network for me. Don’t announce it. Just get back into your habits and execute your plan. That will make a much bigger impact. Remember, actions mean more than words. Especially true on social. Okay? All right.
That’s our show for today. If you want some support in keeping yourself active on social, if you want to ask some questions as you review your strategy, the best place to do that is Hit the Mic Backstage. It really is the next step for this show. It really is the extension of what you get here as far as trainings, partnered with some actual connection with me and with the people in the community. Head over to hitthemicbackstage.com to join us in the community. You can start right now for $40 a month and absolutely no long-term commitment. It’s very cool. You can cancel any time. It’s super easy. We’re actually in the process right now of making it even easier, which is pretty cool. Join us inside of Hit the Mic Backstage. I cannot wait to have you as part of the community. I will see you on Friday.
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