Let me say right now, this episode has a high chance of rant because we’re gonna be talking about the one thing … Just one thing today I want you to stop doing this week on social. Just one thing, but it’s really big thing, so that’s what we’re gonna talk about today.
If you’ve any questions about this episode specifically you know I usually say if you have questions go Backstage, but if you have thoughts specifically about this one, I want you to reach out on Facebook, or Instagram, or Twitter, or wherever else we’re connected and let me know your thoughts on this one thing because this is a conversation I want to … And this is actually something that I really debated doing on Hit the Mic TV Live versus the show, but I wanted to have the chance to really pull my thoughts together and share this in this format.
It may be something we do onHit the Mic TV Live at a future date, but again, I want to hear from you on this one.
Yes, I want you to join Backstage, and Backstage is great, and it’s gonna be a great resource for you, and we’ll still talk about it later … At some point you’ll hear about it in this episode, but wherever you are connected with me right now, reach out.
If you’re on the email list, hit reply and tell me what your thoughts are, because I want to have this conversation with you, and I want to hear from you.
Stop Comparing Yourself to Others
The one thing I want you to stop doing on social media this week is comparing your channels to someone else’s channels, because there’s no value in it.
I’m trying really hard not to make this episode explicit, because I know some of you listen in the car with children who you do not want to have hearing foul language, so I’m trying really hard today guys, but I don’t want you to be comparing yourself.
This is a larger message. I don’t want you to compare your on personal to someone else’s personal, your body, your mind, your goals, your income, your car, your house, your career choice, your business, your marketing, your client. Stop comparing, there’s no value in it.
So I want you to stop doing that just in life, but in social specifically, because here’s the deal guys. Your social needs to speak to your audience, and your goals, and your business model, and that may be different than someone else’s.
The thing that comes up for me a lot is we’ll get somebody who comes in, and I will be honest with you right now, these are generally clients we end up not taking on, we end up not accepting, which is why we have an application process for BAM.
But I get emails from people and they’ll say, “I really wanna have a social media presence like XYZ, Ali Brown, Fabienne Fredrickson, Marie Forleo, Denise Duffield-Thomas, whatever it is. I just started my business, we’ve been in business six months, I am working one to one with clients.” Here’s the deal, when you’re working one to one and you’ve been in business six months, having 1000 followers, 5000 followers, 10000 followers, 100000 followers, 1000000 followers, it’s really irrelevant.
Real talk… where are you?
At six months in working one to one, in most cases you’re probably still trying to figure out how to consistently generate clients. If you’ve figured that out, awesome. Now really your focus should be on what am I going to put in place to scale, because if I get you 1000 new followers, and they’re quality followers that want to work with you, you can’t take on 1000 new clients. You can’t take on 100 new of those 1000 people as clients.
Realistically could you take on 10 of those 1000 people as clients? Probably not. Figure that out first. Also look at the fact that you’ve been in business six months. All of those people I mentioned have been in business significantly longer.
That’s why comparing where you are to where they are is a waste of time. A, their marketing budgets are likely different than your marketing budget. Their marketing goals are likely different than your marketing goals. Their business model is likely different than your business model, so there’s no comparison except you’re both on Instagram.
That’s the only thing you have in common guys, from a marketing and business perspective.
The other thing you have in common, you both started with nothing. I really want that to sink in, that’s why I pause. You both started with zero. They’ve done the work over time to build an audience.
Now, I also want to talk about this with some people maybe you don’t know who they are. Maybe they’re not someone who’s up on their radar, maybe it’s just you tell me that you wanna have 1000 followers. Great, what do you want to do with them? Maybe it’s that you tell me one of 10000 Facebook likes, great, what do you wanna do with those?
What is the purpose?
If the purpose is, I wanna have that many followers so I can convert them, it’s gonna take time, because I don’t want you to have 10000 followers for the sake of 10000 followers. I want you to hae 10000 followers that are going to do something. That are gonna pay attention to your call to action. That are gonna engage with you. That are gonna like, and share, and comment. That are going to be involved with your brand, because that’s where see value. That’s where we see a different in our business, so worry less about what someone else has. Worry less about, this person who’s also only been in business a year, they have 5000 followers, and I only have 500.
You don’t know how they got them. In fact, we just had this conversation Backstage. Somebody posted an Instagram, they posted their first image four hours before, how did they already have I think it was 5000 followers, or something like that. I’m like, they bought them.
Yeah. They bought them. Is that what you wanna do? Do you wanna buy them? There’s no value in it and it’s against the rules, and could very likely get your account shut down.
That’s not what I want. That’s not in line with my business goals, that’s not in line with my big picture goals.
There’s no value, so stop comparing yourself, because nowhere, no comparison is going to be of value, because no comparison is going to be accurate.
You don’t have a total look at what their business looks like. You don’t have a total look at what the impact of that social has, so don’t worry about the front facing vanity metrics that somebody else has.
Now I want this to be something that really seeps into every part of your business, but especially social media. This week, stop comparing. Stop saying, “They’re working with so and so, so that’s who I need to work with. They’re launching a live show, so I need to launch a live show. They’re hosting a live event, so I need to host a live event.”
Don’t, just stop, just really guys, stop.
I know what I’m sounding a little ranty, and a little crazy, and a little repeaty, but I can’t emphasize this enough. I can’t express how awful it is to yourself to spend your time this way, so what do we do instead? How do we build our metrics? How do we measure our success?
Compare your Current to Your Past
We measure against what we’ve done before. If you really want audience growth, and you really want quality audience growth, measure it. Be tracking, and it’s okay if you want those front facing metrics to grow.
Maybe you want 10000 Instagram followers because you want to be able to have a call to action in your stories to swipe up. Awesome. I’ll be honest, it’s something I’m currently really working at, let’s grow it.
Up until now I’ve not really cared because I’ve got a pretty engaged audience, I drive traffic, people buy, great. I didn’t need 10000. Now I’m investing more in stories. I’d really like to be able to say swipe up, so we’re really going hard in late queue 2, early queue 3, really mostly queue 3 to grow the following to 10000 so I have that call to action.
Awesome. Cool. That’s your goal. So guess what I’m doing? I’m actually measuring the growth of that Instagram every day. I actually have a doc on my computer that’s called goals, and every day I put how many Instagram followers I have as of today so I can see in comparison as I review where I’m seeing growth.
So I can measure the impact of the hashtags I’m using because that’s a lot of the strategy I’m using. We’re actually running Instagram ads focused on engagement and getting in front of new audiences. Not so much focused on driving traffic someplace off of Instagram because I’m really focused on getting new followers.
Now I’m not saying I want 10000 because someone else has 10000. I’m saying I want 10000 because this is my goal and here’s how I’m doing it, and every day I’m not comparing my follower count to somebody else’s.
I’m comparing my follower count today to what my follower count yesterday was. That’s what I want you to be doing instead. I want you to say, I wanna focus on traffic, so I wanna know that I drove from social today was better than the traffic I drove to my site from social yesterday.
Compare your current version of you to your past version of you. Not your current version of you to your future you, or your current somebody else. Look at how far you’ve come, and this is actually something a mentor of mine Todd Herman talks about with his … I think it’s his Oww Versus Wow Brain, and I’ll link to the video that he talks about this on his Facebook page in the show notes, because it’s one bazillion percent worth watching.
I absolutely love it, but focus on were you’ve been and where you are now. That is going to keep you motivated moving forward. That is going to motivate you so much more than saying, I still have so far to go, and so much more than look at how far somebody else is in comparison to me.
Again, I want you to stop doing that. Instead, I want you to measure where you’ve been. Yesterday we had 10 followers, today we have 15. Today we have 15 followers … Or yesterday we had 15 followers, today 12 have 17. Today we have 17 followers, tomorrow we have… Whatever, you know what I’m doing. You know what I’m saying here, right? Pay attention to that instead, alright?
Super short one today, a little bit ranty. I hope we ended it on a positive note. If any kind of social media growth is your goal, join us Backstage. It’s gonna be helpful in getting really clear on how you do that, and you can ask questions anytime, and get support from a community anytime. I’d love to have you.
Alright? Thanks for listening to this, I hope you join us on Thursday for Hit the Mic TV live over on the Facebook page, I will see you very soon.
Please stop comparing yourself. I’ll talk to you soon. Bye.
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