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Favorite Resources — November 2020
To quote Stuart Smalley (a fictional character from Saturday Night Live), “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it people like me.”
Albert Einstein (one of the greatest minds of the 20 century) said “Never memorize something you can look up.”
While I’m good, and I’m smart — I do not even attempt to memorize things “I can look up.” Especially in the realm of the works of social media.
Things change ALL THE TIME!!!!
And I’m a nerd — really I am — and I will spend quite some time diving into the annual reports and summaries and knowledge but I will not attempt to memorize everything, because I KNOW that things will change.
In my private program, (you can find out more about that here) I have a running resource of what’s new. Here are some of those useful resources:
- In November 2020 AgoraPulse published their opinion of the 45 best social media analytics tools. (NOTE — since this was published be AgoraPulse – there may be a slight bias). Find the AgoraPulse Report here.
- The folks at Sprout Social maintain an “Always Up-to-Date Guide to Social Media Image Sizes.” This is updated every few months. As we all know that the “best” size can change for any platform I always advise my clients to review their platforms regularly (from both phone and laptop), and ALWAYS leave a bit of a border on any image you create (so … if it does change … there’s a chance you might not get information cut off). You can find the Sprout Social guide here.
- As of this writing (November 2020) I’m expecting to see all the “year-end” and “new year” data coming out within the next 30-60 days, As a geek, I’ll enjoy pouring through all the information, and as a consultant, I’ll be reading with a thought to what my clients need to know (because for the average business person, some of it is kind of dry and boring). If you would love to see the information I pull out and highlight – ask me about my private program.
And as a side note — I know many start-ups that “bootstrap” their social media. If you are looking to learn from free YouTube channels or webinars — my best piece of advice that I want to have folks understand is
PLEASE LOOK AT THE DATES on any “free” resources. If it’s over 6 months old just walk away. There was an article published listing 15 social media training courses, this was published in 2020. It listed a course on YouTube, that was published in 2016, so please, always check the dates. (I was going to list it as a resource — but not with a course that is over 4 years old).
If you’d like to always keep up with the latest changes happening in the social media world, I can share the 4 podcasts, 5 Facebook groups, 2 newsletters, and 1 videocast that I watch or you can save time and discover the summaries that I post in my private consulting program. (Psssst — you might want to send me a private message and ask about the year-end special I have going on).
It’s that time of year
For me, it’s the “beginning” of a new semester (I know the semester started a while back — but the first class I’m teaching is on October 14).
I teach the same subjects – but they change ALL THE TIME
But — they don’t change at all.
The technology changes, the “how-tos,” which buttons you push change. The size of images changes frequently, but there are some basics that stay the same.
So — what are the basics? I’ll list 5 things you should be considering when you’re planning your social media activities.
- Begin with the end in mind. Whether you’re thinking about a long term strategy or thinking about a 3-minute video, know what action you want your readers/viewers to take after your post. You do not need to do this for every post everywhere – but you should have an idea where you’re leading your readers. (pssst stay tuned I’ll show a great example later.)
- Know WHO you are talking to. Figure out who your ideal client is and make sure you are directing your information to that person. Knowing your ideal client not only helps with your messaging, but it also helps you determine where your message needs to be (for instance, if you’re product is an anti-aging cream you’re not needing to spend time and effort on Tik Tok)
- Be YOU. There are “experts” out there that want to train people to do social media the “one right way.” But the great thing about people is that we’re a mixed-up bag of different personalities and styles and ideas. Let YOU shine through — people do business with people they know, like, and trust. Be yourself and your people will find you. (Okay – they won’t find you if you’re locked in a house and not posting or commenting or networking — but you get the idea).
- Stay focussed. Getting clients and referral partners on social media is a marathon, not a sprint. If you’ve done a Facebook Live once a week for a month — don’t give up if you don’t have thousands of followers. Be persistent (but if you need to, you can always check with someone you trust to see if you need to make adjustments).
- Know your limits. Make sure you are actively engaged with others on your chosen platform. If you are a business owner and you actually have, like work to do, you can’t be on every platform. So make sure you follow #2 above – find your platform – and engage with the people you want to attract.
Oh – and remember what I said above about knowing the actions you want people to take. WELL!!!!!!!!!! I will be teaching classes in October and November so if you need to know more about social media, LinkedIn, Facebook groups, Mailchimp, or Instagram, check out the following link. I’m doing 5 classes and each is $39
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT ENTREPRENEUR TRAINING AT JOLIET JUNIOR COLLEGE
My classroom will not look like this — but the information will still be great.
Tuesday Tip – Facebook Group Posting
For some people, Facebook Group posting is somewhat fun and distracting. For other people, Facebook Group posting is essential to their business. Some businesses take advantage of Facebook Groups to keep in touch with their “tribe,” be it a networking group or a group of their ideal clients.
I’m seeing more people re-purposing content from their Facebook (personal) Profile or their Facebook (business) Page and using this content in groups they belong to. Generally speaking, re-purposing content is a good thing, and I’m all for using something multiple times in multiple places. When you share content from your Facebook (business) Page, it’s easy to share, is public, and has the added benefit of possibly driving people back to your Facebook (business) Page to see what else is there.
There’s a bit of a different twist, however, if you’re on your Facebook (personal) Profile page and want to share something to one of the groups you belong to. As you go to share the item, you may notice the following message.
“You chose a specific audience for this post. Only people in that audience will be able to see this when you share it.”
If you continue on with this posting — your audience (possibly made up of potential clients) will see …
“Attachment Unavailable
This attachment may have been removed or the person who shared it may not have permission to share it with you.”
This same issue can happen if you’re trying to share content from one group to another group. If a group is NOT a “public” group, and if you try to share information outside of the group, the share will be visible to anyone that belongs to the group, but it will not be able to be seen by someone that’s not in the group. So if you’re in a private coaching group and your coach has a spectacular program she’s mentioned that you’d like to share outside the group – it needs to be FIRST posted in a public place.
If you’re trying to share an event or a special or a meme or a photo with a Facebook group, make sure what you’re trying to share is public, otherwise things will get really boring, really quickly and all your audience will see is a rather dull box.
Struggling with social media?
Click here to arrange a social media consult.
*There are details in the Facebook Terms of Use that are incredibly boring but very significant to people that are using Facebook profiles for business use. That will likely be covered in a future blog post.
OOOPS They Did it Again
And then THIS happened.
Say WHAT??? Another major overhaul coming to Facebook Pages. Didn’t they just do that a few months ago??
And people who manage their own Facebook business pages went
Stress Meter Showing Panic Attack From Stress And Worry
And then they went 
And the people who have a social media manager went
“call me if I need to know anything.”
And the Social Media Managers went
And then called their clients and said
“RELAX – I got this”
The moral of the story — if you’re using Facebook for business – and you panic every time they make a change, RELAX and find someone who can always have your back in the social media world.
THURSDAY TIP – Give Credit Where it’s Due
Let’s say you’re starting up a business on a shoestring, because let’s face it, most start-ups are on a tight budget. You’ve heard that it’s important to have a presence on Facebook and LinkedIn and Twitter and that you need to have a GREAT profile picture. So you’ve found a friend that does wonderful photography and he (or SHE – KERRY LYNN) does a photo shoot for you and you find the perfect profile photo, as happened for me with Kerramel Studios when I first opened my doors two years ago.
You put this photo on Facebook and your friends say, “You look awesome!” There are two things you should now do. If your photo is drawing engagement, make sure to say, “And the photo was taken by _photographer_ making sure to tag @photographer on that platform. (I find a get more personal photo engagement on my personal Facebook profile, and not so much on my business Facebook Page.)
After that (I’m using Facebook as the example here), click on your profile photo (bottom left corner of your banner)
In this example I clicked on the picture of me, and not on my logo.
From here, we’d click on the words in blue that say “Add a description”
In this example, I typed “Thanks @Kerry Lynn at @Kerramel Studios”
Finding great people to work can be easy if we work together and give shout outs to the people with patented “awesome sauce.”
Images courtesy of:
“Tips,” Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Mary Wu, Kerry Lynn at Kerramel Studios
Logo, Suzanne Wills
And a special thanks to Deb Zelman, my bestie, for asking the question which encouraged this post.
7 Ways to keep the “social” in social networking
The ability to use insights and do statistical analysis on websites and for social media is interesting and can be endlessly fascinating (especially for nerdy people that love looking at numbers).
For day to day use of social media, however, we need to remember to keep the “social” in social networking.
Here are some tips.
- Find Your Tribe.
When you are adding people to your social network, remember to add the right people. Find your ideal client or your people that are good joint venture partners. Remember that you’re addressing people, and not just analytics. - Be Yourself.
Yes, you want to portray your “best” self when you’re on social media. Just as people don’t go to meetings wearing coffee stained yoga pants, you do want to put your best “verbal” foot forward. Keep this in mind whether posting to your own pages or making comments on other pages. - Maximize Information (minimize promotion).
You want to share content and information that is of interest or helpful to your audience. Some experts recommend having 80% of your content being information or communication and 20% of your content being promotional. Some experts recommend having 40% of your content being informational, 40% being conversational, and 20% being promotional. Whichever way you look at it there’s always a maximum of 20% promotional content. If you wouldn’t meet someone at a coffee shop and spend 30 minutes saying “buy my stuff, buy my stuff, buy my stuff,” then don’t do that on your Twitter account or Facebook page. - Converse and Engage.
In addition to being attentive to what you are putting on your page, also be aware of what you’re putting on other pages. Comment on pages of industry leaders, engage in conversations on your clients’ pages, and share information from your clients or your joint venture partners. - People Before Tech.
I’ve seen people get worried about how to handle ROI or SEO, and I’ve seen people avoiding getting involved in social media because they are afraid of messing up. Picture your social media platforms as a great big coffee shop (or networking event). “Walk” around, see what other people are doing, and say “hi.” - Don’t Lose Time.
Unless most of your clients are virtual, don’t devote time to social media networking at the expense of in-person networking. And, if you find it difficult to get “work” done without resorting to the temptations of crushing the candy or feeding the farm animals, find a way to walk away. You can use different windows for “work” and “personal,” you can have a set schedule for “work” time and “play” time, or (if all else fails) find yourself a social media manager or a virtual assistant to help with the business. - The Internet – It’s Forever.
A few weeks ago a politician (or, most likely, his social media manager) posted something insensitive and confrontational on his Twitter account. Ten minutes later the post was removed. However, in that ten minute time frame (on a Sunday evening — let’s face it people are always paying attention), someone from the opposing camp managed to grab a screen shot of the offensive post. Within 24 hours it went viral.
Just treat social media like a coffee shop, with pleasant conversation and a “give and take” mentality, and you’ll do just fine.
There are two articles below. One of them talks about in-person networking but some of the same rules apply to social media networking.
“If you seek to form personal, mutually beneficial connections rather than the comparatively parasitic kinds, networking may seem more palatable to you.”
Keep this in mind both online and off.
OH — and just for fun, read the article below about the Grandmas. Sometimes we really need to spend an extra moment or two on proffraeding. (<– Okay, that’s really not a good example because it would get highlighted as a misspelling, but you get the idea).
Related articles
- Grandmas Are Tagging Themselves ‘Grandmaster Flash’ on Facebook Laura Beck. (cosmopolitan.com)
- Networking is Literally Disgusting. Melissa Dahl. (nymag.com)
Starting Over
Recently I was reading about how President George H.W. Bush (41st President of the United States) celebrated his 90th birthday by skydiving.* You can watch the video at this link. While I’m p
retty sure that I would never actually jump out of a perfectly fine airplane, I have to give kudos to President Bush for following his passion.
For the fourth in my small business series, I’d like to introduce you to Felicity. Sometimes it might be hard to pinpoint your passions. You might have so many that it’s hard to narrow down (and not all of us have the means that someone in the Texas oil business has to chase all our dreams). But for those of you rethinking your future goals and desires, or for those looking toward a promotion or career change, you can contact Felicity Solomon at Savvy Services.
Whether you’re thinking of a new career opportunity or trying to realize your dreams, a life coach would be a great person to have on your team. (After all, our 41st President couldn’t have jumped out of a plane without an entire team to help him).
Related articles
- George H.W. Bush’s 90th birthday treat: Skydiving (cbsnews.com)
*He announced the jump on his Twitter feed. The fastest growing demographic on Twitter is the 55-64 year old age group.
How to Prepare your Business for your Vacation
Guest Post (with minor edits) courtesy of Evie Burke at One Insight Closer. 
Whether it’s spring break or summer vacation or winter holidays, we all need a few days off, or even a vacation (!) to have some time to relax.
Sounds wonderful right? But then you start to think about all those things that you want to or should be doing for your business right now – and suddenly taking any time away from your home office sounds less wonderful and more stressful.
On some level though, you know you need the time away – a time to rest and not think about your business. You just don’t know if that’s possible.
Let’s take a step back and remember having a JOB (play with me here). Remember going on vacation then? If your job was anything like mine, going on vacation meant that you had to set aside some extra time before you left to tie up any loose ends, to let clients and/or co-workers know you’re going to be gone and to update anyone who was going to be handling some of your responsibilities while you were gone (and maybe letting them know how to reach you in an emergency).
You know that that process was? A system, even if you didn’t call it that or think of it that way, it was the system that you, or the business you worked for, setup to make sure that things ran relatively smoothly while you were gone.
Let’s step back to today. What is your system for taking time off in your business?
Okay, I hear some of you laughing (or sighing) that you are your business and if you’re not there things don’t run. Nothing happens when you’re not in the office – or worse, if you’re not in the office things start to fall apart. Well, that might currently be true, but there are probably a few things that you can do before you leave or set up to happen while you’re gone to make sure nothing falls apart and that things run smoothly when you return.
- Let your clients know you’ll be out of the office
Just give them a heads up. This could be a quick phone call and a follow-up email so they have the dates and other information at their fingertips. And let them know how to contact you if you’re in a business where emergencies happen and they might need you now. Let them know how to handle that. - Tie up loose ends
If you have any projects or communications that have under 15 minutes left on them, finish those up. These things will take longer to do if you wait until you return, because they won’t be fresh in your mind. - Decide what can wait until after you get back
If you’re anything like me you’ve suddenly decided that those two bigger projects that you put on the back burner should really be DONE before you leave. Because you don’t want to think about it when you return. You want to have time available for those great new ideas that will pop up when you return from vacation.This is where I remind us both (you and me) that some things will have to wait until after vacation. Trying to cram too much in before you leave will result in frustration and the temptation to take work with you on vacation (don’t do it!). Instead, decide ahead of time what can wait. Make a list if you need to and then you can schedule those things when you return. - Out of Office email reply
Most email programs have this. Set it up for the dates that you’ll be gone and let them know when they can expect a reply back from you. - Update your voice mail message
Again, let people know you’re out and when you’ll get back to them. - Set time aside for replies and phone calls when you return
Set aside a couple hours on your first day back in the office for returning emails and phone calls (and cleaning out your inbox). - Plan the first couple days you’re back in the office
This one is really important for me. Last year I didn’t do this when I went on a two week vacation. Actually, I “planned” on planning my first week back on the airplane ride home. Yeah, so on the airplane ride home I think I slept, talked with my husband and maybe read a couple of chapters of a fiction book. So, my first week back “in the office” I did catch up on email and send my newsletter, but that was about it…I realized that first week back would have been a lot smoother, and more productive, if I would have planned a few tasks to be completed that week. I could have gotten back into the swing of things a lot faster. - Write and schedule your newsletter in advance
If you send a newsletter, you can write it in advance and schedule it to go out while you’re gone. And if you have a VA you can write everything in advance and pass it along to her early. - Enjoy your time off!
Allow yourself to mentally unplug from your business and enjoy your time off!
You deserve some time off! Put it on your schedule and start planning for it!
In the comments below share what else you do to prepare for vacation or even a day away from your business.
(Additional note on #8, if you don’t have time to write a weekly blog post, remember to ask if someone wants to do a guest blog — Mary).
Photo by Mary Wu, on a previous vacation.
How to “Social” your Media
Karthika Gupta, a photographer I know, recently did a blog post titled “Entrepreneurial Lessons From The Field.” She shares some lessons that she learned from three female entrepreneurs living in India. Karthika pointed out that these women are running businesses without some of the tools that most businesses take for granted, like business cards and websites. However, even without the use of a computer I feel we have lessons to learn from their “social” media.
Know your customers. While these three women business owners in India have gotten to know their customers through frequent personal interactions, that might not be an option for people in virtual industries. However, even in our technology driven world, we can understand our customers by trying to understand their needs. We can engage with our clients (and potential clients) on their social media pages. We can subscribe to their newsletters and know what promotions they are offering (and even share those promotions).
If some of your clients live near you, you can get to know them better, perhaps over a cup of tea. (more…)
Forming a Social Media Success Plan – Step 8
This series started by discussing the 7 steps to a successful social media plan. After a few of the posts, I realized it might be valuable to some to have an understanding of some of the tools I use to make social media less time consuming.
To review, the 7 (now 8) steps to forming a social media plan are:
- Create a Vision
- Set Strategic Goals
- Find Your Social Media Voice (Persona)
- Build Your Social Media Platform
- Create a Publishing Plan
- Build Your Tribe (Community)
- Evaluate Your Results
- (Yes, I said there are 7 steps, but I’m going to be doing 8 posts and #8 will be a summary of tools of the trade – stay tuned to find out about useful things like Buffer, and Hootsuite).
Hopefully most of the people reading this understand the basic need to have an active presence on at least some social media platforms. But if you’re a small business owner or a solopreneur, you may wonder how you’re going to find the time to add social media to an already full schedule. We’ve talked about consistent publishing and maximizing engagement. While consulting with clients, I’ve suggested that most of them put some content on their social media platforms at least 5 times each week. So, you might question how you’re going to find time to post while also running your business. Here are a few tips.