Social Media, Newsletters, and Content Marketing

Kathleen Shannon 0:05
Get your business together, get yourself into what you do and see it through.

Emily Thompson 0:10
Being bosses hard. Lending work in life is messy. Making a dream job of your own isn't easy,

Kathleen Shannon 0:17
but getting paid for it, becoming known for it. And finding purpose in it is so doable

Emily Thompson 0:23
if you do the work.

Kathleen Shannon 0:26
Being boss is a podcast for creative entrepreneurs. Brought to you by Emily Thompson and Kathleen Shannon.

Emily Thompson 0:32
Hi, I'm Emily and I own indie shop agafay, where I help passionate entrepreneurs establish and grow their business online. By helping them build brands that attract and websites that sell. I help my clients launch their business so they can do more of what they love, and make money doing it.

Kathleen Shannon 0:50
And I'm Kathleen, I'm the CO owner of brave creative where I specialize in branding and business visioning for creative entrepreneurs who want to blend who they are with what they do narrow in on their core genius and shape their content so they can position themselves as experts to attract more dream clients.

Emily Thompson 1:09
And being bosses a podcast where we're talking shop, giving you a peek behind the scenes of what it takes to build a business, interviewing other working creatives and figuring it out. As we go right there with you.

Unknown Speaker 1:21
Check out our archives at loving boss calm.

Emily Thompson 1:25
Welcome to episode number 41. This episode is brought to you by fresh books cloud accounting.

Kathleen Shannon 1:30
Today, Emily and I will be talking to you about content marketing strategies like newsletters, social media, blogs, and podcasts, and what you should and shouldn't be doing. One of my mottos whenever it comes to running a creative business is that you track what you attract. So you guys might know about my chalkboard system for tracking my clients. But I also think that it works whenever it comes to your finances too. So I was recently coaching a creative who was a total mess about their finances and felt like they weren't making the money that they wanted to make. So I asked him a little bit more about how they were tracking their finances. And they revealed that they're not at all. So I recommended freshbooks immediately. It's so easy to use. It's so intuitive, you don't have to have a degree in financing or accounting to use fresh books. So I think that tracking your income and your expenses, really just almost on a woowoo level gets you in touch with your money in a way where you start attracting more of it. So try fresh books for free today. Go to freshbooks comm slash being boss and select being boss in the How did you hear about us section? So today, Emily, and I want to get really practical with you guys. Yeah, well, first, I do have to share that we're meeting up a little bit early because of some work life crisis. Yeah, my little bugaboo is not feeling good. And this is like the first time ever, that I mean, usually like while he's at school, I know he's taking care of and I just don't think about him much. Right. And today, after I dropped him off, he was super clean me didn't want to like go and was crying. And it that's not the first time that's happened. And it's usually not a big deal. Like usually they totally get over it. But around 930 I called the school and I was like, I just want to check in on Fox, how's he doing? And they're like, well, he's a little grumpy, and he just doesn't seem like he's feeling well. So I'm gonna go pick him up early. It's the first time I've really done that. So I texted you, Emily, and I was like, you hop on the podcast early.

Emily Thompson 3:44
Yeah. And I was I was really glad to do it. We so I went this morning and that with with Autumn autumn Boyd, you guys want to check out like a good creative, creative lawyer, which I'm really excited about. So I went and talked to her this morning about some things for being involved in for indie shop agafay. And as we were driving riding home, I was thinking about how I really wanted to record early. Because I know so it's one of those things like I'm sorry, Fox feels bad that you have to go get him I think it's gonna work out really well. So now we get to chat about some real fun practical stuff. And see each other early today.

Kathleen Shannon 4:24
I was talking about in our last episode is just real. I kind of have a vulnerability hangover about it because we're just talking a lot about we're just chatting. And it was a real conversation. Yeah, we hit record on but today I just really wanted to get super practical and give the creatives listening, lots of practical things to think about. So Emily, you and I have had hundreds of creatives, if not 1000s ask guys, should I have a newsletter?

Emily Thompson 4:57
Or should I be on Facebook or should I be On Twitter, or should I be on Instagram?

Unknown Speaker 5:03
What about Pinterest? What about blogging, maybe I should have a podcast, maybe so.

Kathleen Shannon 5:12
Alright, so today we're going to be tackling a little bit of content marketing, because all of those are what you would call content, marketing your content out, and for maybe the purpose of getting clients or maybe just sharing your gifts and knowledge to attract your tribe. And we just want to kind of give you our thoughts on it. So Emily and I are kind of experts in this field. But I think that what we want to give you today is really just practical, casual advice that we would tell anyone without knowing your specific story. So first off, I want to say that if you're asking, should I, the answer is probably no, or else you'd already be doing it. And I don't think that you should really do anything that you aren't excited about.

Emily Thompson 5:58
Absolutely. Whenever I hear someone come to me, they come to me saying, should I it's usually followed by because I don't want to, like they're like, should I be blogging? Because I really hate writing? In which case? Absolutely not? Or should I be on Facebook? Because I really hate being on Facebook? Absolutely not. If it's something you're excited about, you're probably already doing it. And you're probably not needing to ask someone else if it's a place that your brand should be. So um, so I agree if you're if you're asking yourself this question out of like, difficulty, because you don't want to be on a platform or be doing some sort of content marketing in these places, then you shouldn't be doing it.

Kathleen Shannon 6:41
But maybe you should still have a space in those arenas. And maybe that's something you should be delegating to someone else. So we're going to be talking a little bit about the ins and outs of that. But I just kind of want to go down platform by platform and talk about the pros and cons of both, and maybe why you should or should not be doing this. So let's start with newsletters, because I think that's something that, yes. for both of us, we both love newsletters. But I've also seen I mean, I think that a lot of content marketing started with email newsletters. I remember for a while I felt like newsletters were so dated like that's such a dated thing who uses newsletters. But now I'm seeing definitely almost a resurgence in newsletters. And so let's talk about that. Emily, what is your personal experience in history with newsletters?

Emily Thompson 7:35
I love I love doing newsletters. So, um, my personal history is that I've had I've been actively building my list for probably about four years. And I really started using it to like doing content marketing on it about three years ago, has it been three years it probably has been either two or three years ago. And so I sent out a weekly newsletter, it's indie tactics, you can sign up for it in the chat biography.com slash newsletter. And it's a weekly email that I send out to my like little tribe of people. And it's about how to just be a better entrepreneur. So it's just like little, little messages, I guess that I write and I send out now sort of helping people like fit into their boss pants, I think a little bit better, or at least navigate their way into their boss.

Unknown Speaker 8:28
I love your newsletters, thank

Emily Thompson 8:30
you, they I love writing them whenever I think about the things that I do, like you know, in a week at my job, and that the things that feel like work to me the things that I really, really enjoy doing my newsletter is one of those things that I really, really love doing. And I love doing it because it's a place that I can share and I can like nurture those connections with people who are as I see them and my biggest fans, but it's also a place where I can I can I don't know just market myself, I guess the place where I can authentically sell what I do and nurture those relationships. And really kind of feel like an online business owner. I feel like having a list for your online business is absolutely necessary. I know that's a little against some things that you see online. Gary Vee is one of those who like thinks that email marketing is dead. But if you listen to this, the recent episode with Brian Clark, he talks about how important and building your list is. The episode was chalene Johnson was a really huge one for us. So after, after we get off that episode with chalene Johnson. She chatted with us for an extra what 2030 minutes. And the one thing that she said to me that totally like hit home and is now ingrained in my head is like every day when you wake up, the thing you should be focusing on is growing your list because your list is your group of people who are going to buy you and as long as you have that list there then you have a tribe of people who will buy what you launch which is really important when you're creating products and services in the online realm.

Kathleen Shannon 10:04
Alright, so my history with newsletters is that I really wanted a place that was separate from my blog, where I could get more personal or behind the scenes whenever it comes to braid creative. So I have my personal blog, and I have very creative, but I wanted to share more of just the day to day of what I was going through with braid. So I started a newsletter. And I also felt that it felt more personal and sacred to be in someone's inbox, and a place where they really could hit reply. So at the bottom of my newsletters, I will often say hit reply, and let me know what you think. And I mean it, I really do love getting those responses back. Now, my list grew. And I never even thought about using it as a marketing tool or a place to sell, I really, truly didn't. So maybe I went into it a little bit naive, but now I'm seeing how valuable that is for selling directly to people who want your goods. So one thing I want to mention is, though, that you don't have to have a huge list to have a successful newsletter. And in fact, I was listening to an episode of Britt Castillo's on the life coaching school, and she was talking about having a newsletter list and how she decided to send out an email every day for seven days, like kind of a fun intensive, and that it would actually make people opt out who didn't really want to be receiving what she had to offer or what she had to say. So it's kind of a good way for her to even trim down her list. And I know Emily that you actually deleted your entire list and invited people to opt back in. So having huge numbers isn't necessarily a good thing. So I think that kind of shillings point of view, is that if you can build your list huge, huge, huge to like 100,000 people and that you can sell to I've noticed, okay, for my own metrics that I can typically sell to between one and 3% of my newsletter list at any given time, on whatever I'm offering. So if I had 100,000 people on my list, I would probably be able to sell 10,000 things at any given time. I think that's where chalene is probably at whenever she says build your list, and it's everything. But I also think that the more narrow and focus you can get with your newsletter and just authentic, the more it's naturally going to grow on its own, and your conversion rates will probably be higher in a way.

Emily Thompson 12:37
Oh, definitely like the the health of your list is really important. And it's something something that I certainly keep in mind. Again, this is where I get really nerdy email marketing is one of those things that I will totally geek out on sometimes. But having a healthy list is really, really important. And that's exactly why I deleted my list. So I did that at the beginning of this year. So right at the end of 2014, beginning of 2015, I sent out, I sent out a series of three emails to my list, you know, just a Hey, I'm deleting everyone if you want to opt back in off again, and then two follow ups just in case anyone didn't see it with the idea that, that I wanted to build a healthier list. And I had been growing that list for I guess about three, three and a half years at that point. And my open rates were getting lower. My replies were getting less and less. So even though my list my number had numbers had been growing my metrics were going down which, which shows that I had an unhealthy list. So I needed to like purge it and make sure

Kathleen Shannon 13:37
Oh, would you be willing to share numbers? Like, what was your list whenever you grew it? And you said, Okay, I'm going to delete it.

Emily Thompson 13:45
I think it was at about maybe 2000 or 2500 or something. So I mean, not a small list. Not a huge list. But it was it was getting up there like 2000 was a really big milestone for me. But but having those having the other metrics being really crappy, proved to me that that number of just signups was not as important. So I did I deleted the entire list ask everyone who wanted to be on it to read subscribe, they did. And since then, I think in the past 10 months, it's grown to about I think a little over 4000 now, so in 10 months went from zero to 4000 by asking those people to sign back up and then by cultivating and I think in some way probably making some room in the universe for for some more people to come along and then also be involved in all the things that we've been doing. So um, so my list is at about 4000 now and and I'm right there with you that one to 3% metric is is pretty standard, I think for for launching. I was reading a book recently I think it was the ultimate sales machine or something like that total like nervous In this book, but he was saying the same thing like it's it's pretty industry standard that at any moment whether you're in a room full of people or your newsletter list or whatever, between one and 3% of those people are going to be ready to buy whatever you have as long as it's a well curated group. So, so cleaning up my list was really important. And then I also like to watch my metrics really, really well actually make this worksheet once I shared it with a client yesterday and then apologize for how completely nerdy it was for watching those metrics and seeing what works for your list and what doesn't. But email marketing, email marketing is really, really important, I think, for today's online business. And I think what you were saying a minute ago is right on point with this idea that you were literally being invited into someone's or like, what I think is someone's most sacred space, which is their inbox, like, giving it you their

Unknown Speaker 15:53
email, I can think of more sacred space.

Emily Thompson 15:59
Of course, you can, my inbox is one of my most so.

So these people are literally inviting you into this this very, like sacred personal space of their inbox. And it's not something that I think you should use to, to sell constantly. There should certainly be a level and intention to nurture your list, which is something that I don't think enough people talk about, I think a lot of us do. A lot of us do it really, really naturally one of our great indie clients that did indie boom, Brenda, Mangalore, she's a fine artist. And she sends out a newsletter every month. And her intention with this newsletter is to update her followers on what's going on in her life and in the studio, but also to send them free downloads to use her artwork for them to like, dress up their tech. So it's like screens, screen savers, and like iPad screen savers and things like that, using her artwork, and like inspirational quotes and those freebies, or how she nurtures the list. She She nurtures her tribe of people who want to know what's going on in her world. And you know, so it's a nice something that she sends to their inbox. So that level of nurturing is really important. So that you're not constantly selling because it is a thing also to sell out your list, which is something that a lot of people don't really consider whenever they're just starting to build their list. If you only send out promos to your list, people are going to stop buying because you sell out your list, there's no one left on there who want to buy anymore. So doing like nurture, nurture, nurture cell, is how it is that you build a healthy list full of people who are going to consistently be there, and be inspired by what you say or send, but also be inspired by when it's time to do so.

Kathleen Shannon 18:01
I think that something that you said there is so important whenever it comes to your newsletter, and that's just so if someone's asking, should I have a newsletter, I think the important thing is to just know your intention for having a newsletter. So my intention was that I wanted a more personal space to share content and to have a conversation. So think about just what your intention is. Now another practical thing that I want to hammer out whenever it comes to newsletters is a lot of people ask what platform is the best. And I right now use Adobe Business Catalyst. So my entire website is on Business Catalyst through Emily. So Emily, an indie shop biography developed out our site. One of the things I loved about it was that that CRM, which is kind of your customer management tool, which is hooked into your newsletter list, so that for me, was all in one place, which I loved. So in my e commerce, like it was all just linked together, but now my list has grown so much that it costs me basically $80 every time I send out a newsletter to my list, so

Emily Thompson 19:10
yeah, platforms are really hard. So that's something that we are working on with, with you. And it's something that I talk to every single one of my clients about whether it's just a coaching client, or if it's a website client, because you know, a lot of people default to platforms they're, they're used to and like this is same with like us talking about social media here. It's also the same with websites. And people usually default to Squarespace or WordPress, because everyone is on Squarespace and WordPress. Most people will default to Constant Contact or MailChimp because everyone knows about Constant Contact and MailChimp. And what you have to do is you have to think about what your business actually needs. So for you and for us, because our our list is getting to a point where we're going to have to start moving it often to a better made platform for that list size as well. Is is how is it You want to use your list? Um, and I go through this with all of my clients, you know, do you want to use it as promo? So you only send out newsletters whenever you are offering some sort of promotion. I also I have this blog in my website somewhere about like the dangers of having sales. So if you only using it for promo, go also check out that blog post because that's really not the best way I don't think to use an email newsletter

Kathleen Shannon 20:23
I want to mention whenever you're talking about nurture, nurture, nurture, so I feel like I sell in every single newsletter because it's costing me $80.

Unknown Speaker 20:32
To use Yes,

Emily Thompson 20:33
yes, but you're also you're pairing it with nurture. Yeah, so and that's really important. Like, if you only send out newsletters that were like, Hey, we're looking at brain method projects, you know, three this quarter, like by now, then that is just a cell. And there's no nurture in that whatsoever.

Kathleen Shannon 20:51
And I only do those once a quarter. So if I do a project that has maybe a tight deadline, I send out a newsletter, because sometimes they really just is nice to remind people like hey, if you're wanting to buy this, the deadline is now. So um, but I do like pairing probably more, more so than nurture, nurture. So I kind of like to think of it in each, each newsletter as four fifths nurture, and then 1/5 sale. So at the very bottom of my newsletter, I have kind of a call to action. And sometimes that call to action is more like, listen to being boss, or check out my blog posts. Sometimes my call to action isn't always by my theme,

Emily Thompson 21:35
right? Yeah, well, it's about mixing it up. And it's about knowing your audience like that really is the key, like, we can give you a million examples of how to use your list, or how to use Facebook or Twitter or whatever. And it could be totally different from us because of a different audience. So that's something to always think about, obviously, but something else to really consider with newsletter is that if it is something you're paying for, it should be adding value to your business. And to add value to your business, you need to be consistently reminding people how to buy you. But there's a way to do that and not sleazy ways and doing forfeits nurture, and 1/5 sell is a completely okay way to do it. If someone is signing up for an email list for a business, you should absolutely assume that at some point, you're going to be sold to whenever whenever I hear of people who get nasty emails from subscribers, because they asked to you know, to buy, and they get appalled, because you're selling to them in a newsletter, like ditch that email immediately. Because that is their fault, not yours. It is definitely your right. And really sort of responsibility, I think, to sell what you do in your email marketing. And really in all of your content marketing. That's why it's there. But it is about balancing that nurture with cells so that you are adding enough value that they want to buy you whenever it's time to do so.

Kathleen Shannon 23:02
Yeah, I think my rule of thumb, which I've even I'm pretty sure I've said this on a podcast before is to basically be giving away $100 worth of free knowledge or worksheets or tactics in every single newsletter you send out. So in that, I mean, this really goes for I would say blog posts and even podcast too, because you're being invited to into these sacred spaces. Yeah, yeah, time is money. It's all energy. Okay, so should I have a newsletter? Emily? Yes, sir. No.

Emily Thompson 23:38
I think that's a yes. Even if you don't want to do it, I think that email marketing for your business is if you are going to be anywhere, I think a newsletter should be it.

Kathleen Shannon 23:50
I'm going to say, maybe that's cheating. No, I would say yes to so I think that it's easy enough to sign up for a MailChimp account or if newsletter marketing is integrated into your platform, it's easy enough to put a subscribe bar on your website. So even if you never send out a newsletter, start building that list or those emails just so that you have them whenever you're ready. Even if you're not ready Now, you might be ready later. So I think that's a good idea. Yes, I'm gonna say yes to

Emily Thompson 24:27
Good, good effect. Build the list. Alright, let's

Kathleen Shannon 24:31
talk about social media. I'm asked almost every day. Well, okay, here's the big question. I asked no matter what the platform is, should I keep my accounts separate or together? And that's in regards to personal accounts and professional accounts? Oh, the answer is we don't know.

Emily Thompson 24:52
No, we don't know. But no, we don't know. That is definitely one of those things that you need to make a decision for in terms of yourself. your business and your dream customer period. Every combo in that for every person is going to be slightly different. And it's just about making a decision whether it won't be right or wrong, it's about how you use it that I think is really important. And either way you choose to do it if you are keeping your personal and speaking as your personal brand or separating into a brand and then like a private personal, you must use your brand social media as a brand. And I'm air quoting that I don't know, illustrating, you have to use it as a brand. If you are if you are committing to use your personal social media accounts to promote your business, use it as a responsible brand or don't at all.

Kathleen Shannon 25:48
So one example of this in our own personal life. So the way that we do it, is I have my and Kathleen accounts. So on Instagram, and Kathleen, on Twitter and Kathleen. We also have a brave Twitter, which went all the dormant until we got a virtual assistant to start managing it for us. So that's another space, where should I be on Twitter? Yeah, I probably should be. But I'm not doing it. So that's one of those places where I felt really good about delegating, I would feel really funny delegating my personal account. Because again, I want to keep it meaningful and authentic. And not that my assistant doesn't keep it meaningful and authentic. Because she's, she's basically keeping it informative. She's directing people to things that we've written or podcasts that we've published on those more professional accounts. So and then Emily, you have Emily,

Emily Thompson 26:48
I have a purse, Emily M. Thompson, underscore Thompson on Instagram and Twitter. So I have quote unquote, personal ones, but I use those as a brand like you will never see me sharing like anything about anything super personal, because I definitely use those as personal brand platforms. So

Kathleen Shannon 27:10
like you'll still, you know, share stuff on your indie goes West adventure, which is our personal professional blend, exactly, I

Emily Thompson 27:18
share plenty of personal professional blend, the trip was definitely part of it, it was also very curated. Um, it was, um, you will never see me sharing on social media, anything about my religious views, or about my political views, or about any sort of really personal things that I don't want mixed up in my brand. And I think that's, that's one of the one of the like, lines in the concrete for me for like deciding how it is that you would use social media personally, and how that would be different as a face of a brand or a company. Because that is the crossover whenever you choose to use your personal accounts to promote a business, where you are creating products and services that help other people is that you have to draw those lines. It's not a place where you bitch about other brands that have screwed you over in some way. And it's not a place where you talk about who you're going to vote for not unless those are

Unknown Speaker 28:20
the vendors.

Emily Thompson 28:30
Well, you may certainly choose to be a part of your personal brand. And it is it's not something that I won't talk about to like in passing or if it comes up in a conversation. Sure. But it's never going to be something that I just randomly start tweeting about. Because that's a place where I certainly do, and certainly do see those places as places where I will communicate who I am and what I'm doing in terms of like how you would do business with me. And actually, I have a really great story I want to share this is something I've shared with you before. And I may be like throwing up some like shit in the storm again, and

Unknown Speaker 29:10
it's the ice cream.

Emily Thompson 29:11
It is the x ray. Okay, so two years ago, many years and a half ago, whenever I was living in Florence, I had a client and just some local friends who were opening an ice cream business and work slam, dunking it like they had over 1000 people following them on Facebook before they even had a product. They were starting this ice cream business and we're literally just like high fiving all over social media. They were doing such a great job. And they released their product and it was a really, really great I mean totally had a future as the most badass business that I think the shoals area had ever seen from young creatives, like they were empowering all of us in the area for for building this business in a place that's very traditional and really breaking through in ways that a lot of us have. really been struggling doing. Um, there was three brothers who were doing it and one of the brothers decided to take to his personal Facebook account where, where he was listed as, as being a member of this business where an on on like their packaging, it said they were three brothers like he was obviously a part of this business. And he starts sharing really, really heinous things about, about the gay community about just all kinds of things like talking about like the Boy Scouts and how they were, he called them sissified feminists or something like that. I mean, just like,

Kathleen Shannon 30:38
just and this is also around the height of a lot of states approving gay marriage. Yeah, I think it was a gay marriage issue, wasn't it?

Emily Thompson 30:46
It was a gay marriage issue. And it was, it was a lot of issues.

Unknown Speaker 30:50
Regardless,

Emily Thompson 30:51
regardless, it was some it was some not very nice thing said about very touchy subjects, by someone who was supposed to be creating a business in the local scene. That was it was ice cream, like ice cream doesn't hate ice cream loves. So um, whenever I saw some of these things on on Facebook, as someone who had helped them build their brand, I messaged one of them. And I was like, you know, I've seen what this guy's on what your brother has put on Facebook, you should probably talk to him and maybe remove it. And the response that I received was what is whatever, it's just his personal views, it doesn't matter.

Unknown Speaker 31:30
Okay,

Emily Thompson 31:31
I'm like, we'll see. And about a month later, shit hit the fan. like one of those cute little like, online trolls found it. And it went everywhere. It totally went viral. I mean, it was on the news in Atlanta, I remember seeing it on the news in in like Kansas, like it really went everywhere. And in three days, there really great thriving business was closed down, because the entire local community, like band together and put them out of business. And it was in the the feedback that they sent back. And in terms of like, talking about what the brother had said was that, that they would stand by him and that they would they supported his beliefs, which is perfectly fine. And okay. But the point of this story is, whatever you put out on social media, people will judge your business by it. So that's why whenever it comes to any sort of controversial subject, of course, I have opinions, you can be very sure that I have opinions. But if it's not something that I want a sanction associated with my brand, that is not something that I want people to judge my brand by, it will never be something that I share on social media.

Kathleen Shannon 32:52
I think that's all really great points. My thing is, whatever it is that I'm standing by, I guess I have to be willing to lose business for it. And so obviously, I'm on the other side of the spectrum from the ice cream brothers, where I'm probably on Facebook having my profile image covered in a rainbow flag in support of gay marriage. Right. If that turns off a potential client, Good riddance.

Emily Thompson 33:23
Yes. Oh, I completely agree. There are things that I certainly want to be judged by. I mean, like, there if I dropped the F bomb on being boss more times than I think Kathleen is comfortable with. Like, there are obviously places where I don't mind toeing the line because I agree, if you have problems with someone who's going to use what some people would assume would be strong language, then we are not going to be a great fit together because I love my language. Um, so so there are certainly places but you have to pick and choose, you absolutely have to pick a choosing, you have to be willing to stand behind it. Because in terms of the ice cream business, that was something that they had a had a funny time standing behind and whenever they finally chose to stand behind it, it absolutely shut them down in that business has never returned. So if you are willing to lose business over it, you better be willing to just start something new, because you could lose it the entirety of your business over it.

Kathleen Shannon 34:31
Well, I think that it comes back to intention. So if your intention is hateful, which obviously that intention was, then you're going to see it in your bottom line. I think that like even if I got on the podcast and said Bernie Sanders like Donald Trump, actually, I did hear on NPR that he wants to keep taxes down to like 15% for freelancers. I was like he's got my vote. But like whenever it comes to tax touchy subjects. I think that for me, it's more of like, if my intention behind saying, here's who I'm voting for is just to maybe help someone else feel permission around also voting for that person or to feel less alone in their beliefs. And then that is a good thing to share. I don't ever want to share my politics to start a fight. So political season is always a good time for me to unfriend people on Facebook, because I'm not willing to have to be friends with people who have other beliefs are views, and I do, but if those beliefs and views are shared in a hateful way, then you're being a hateful person. So I think that we can all agree there right now. And it is different, like I would never get on the braid account, and say anything political or religious, even though I might on my personal account. So the thing that you're saying about your personal brand for me, I'm probably a little bit more open with my personal brand. And again, I think it's a sharing spectrum. And it goes from like, open book to maybe arm's distance to straight up, no one even knows your real name. I mean, they're definitely sharing spectrums. And my boundaries are always changing. So like my new boundary is like, I want to be able to change my mind. So even politically, right now, I'm not talking about anything because I'm undecided or because I might want to be able to change my mind in 10 years. But again, that's not to say if I shared something now that I couldn't change my mind. Anyway, it's a dance, it's a little bit of a dance, and you have to just establish your boundaries almost day by day. But one thing I want to talk about is, so we have our personal accounts, and then we have our professional accounts, but then we don't have any accounts for being boss. I know if that's a conversation we need. I know it is a conversation. So that's the kind of thing where when we first started being boss, we didn't really imagine it growing into what it's grown into. Right? Um, but I imagine any day now we'll probably have been boss accounts for things like right now. We host Twitter chats. And those are being hosted from indie shot biography. Emily,

Emily Thompson 37:19
Emily Thompson, and and braid is in some of that, too. It's fun. We don't even know. How

Unknown Speaker 37:28
is it being boss chat?

Emily Thompson 37:30
Yes, being boss chat. It's every Wednesday after Wednesday evening, I believe at 6pm. Central. I moved timezones, I don't know where I am anymore. And Chris usually runs those. I'm in there actually did the one last week and it was tons of fun. But we go in there, and we talk about the episode and ask questions, and there's some fun community building going on in their Twitter chats had been a really fun thing. So they were away. Twitter chat was my idea. And it came after Facebook. So let's talk about like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, because yeah, one of the things that I that I make my clients do is we're especially as we're going to end boom, when it comes to the point where we need to make your social media platforms look and sound like a new branded website that you have. So we actually, we sit them down and we say, Okay, what platforms are you going to be using? And? And how are you going to use them? Because that's not something that a lot of people really think about. They just think, Oh, you know, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, just put all the things. But to really use social media really well. You have to have sort of a different purpose for each platform. So we sit down and say, you know, how are you going to use your Facebook page? Like what information? are you sharing? What sort of what purpose does that serve in your business? And how is that different from how you use Twitter, and how to use Pinterest and how you use Instagram. And so you sort of create these like content? content plans around each platform. So it's slightly different. There can't be some overlap. But it's a really big No, no, just automatically like send all of your twit, Twitter things to your Facebook or vice versa. You should be using each platform a little bit differently. So the Twitter chat came from us having the Facebook group which is fantastic. You can find it being false on Facebook. I would

Unknown Speaker 39:20
say I probably had up that Facebook group.

Emily Thompson 39:23
Oh dad a little bit more. I so you were like Facebook.

Kathleen Shannon 39:28
I feel like a grandma. I can't hate and so this is what I'm curious about on the Twitter chat. Are you using like some sort of Tweet Deck or Hootsuite to see everything Are you on your phone because on my phone I'm just like, oh my god. Yeah,

Emily Thompson 39:47
so um, well, I was on the road I had to use my phone or my iPad a lot and that stuff is hard but since since we've finally like settled it is that we can get on my computer and use it like a real human being and Hootsuite is one thing that we You can also just like click on the hashtag and Twitter and use that I use that a lot. But you just want to follow along and like Twitter is not everyone's thing, just like Facebook is not everyone's thing. So the Twitter chat for me was a way for us to nurture the Twitter community, because the Facebook was getting so much love. And so I wanted to take it to Twitter, so we can nurture that community as well. And that's really how you have to think about what platforms you're going to be on. So where are your Where is your audience hanging out? Or is your audience like, are they eventually tweet heads? In which case like, I totally made that up, by the way? Um, so are they all on Twitter? Or do they really use Facebook, and then that's where your brand should be? If no, if every if your dream customer is like 60 years old, and not to say that like 16, year old eight year olds aren't on Twitter, but there aren't, that's not the place where we're that group of people are really hanging out, those people are much more on Facebook, in which case, put your put your energy there. Um, if you if your people are Instagram users, especially if they're of the younger crowd, be on Instagram, don't worry about Pinterest, it's about finding where your people are and going there, but having a different purpose for each and really nurturing the community that is in those places be adding value, just like you do on the in that newsletter, do the same thing for your content on those social media platforms.

Kathleen Shannon 41:28
So I want to take it from the approach of not necessarily where your people are, but where you already are. So you ask your indie boom clients, where do you want to be? How are you going to use it? One thing that I like asking my clients is, where are you already add? If you have 8000 Instagram followers didn't Yeah, maybe you should be using her Instagram account? business. Yeah, I think that going where you already have energy is huge. And one thing I wanted to mention here is that we've been able to divide and conquer in our businesses. And even on being boss, where I'm on Facebook, you're on Twitter, we're both on Instagram. But if you can divide and conquer, just pick your favorite Yes, or pick where you're already at, or what doesn't feel like a burden on you. If that's Pinterest, if you're already on Pinterest all the time. And you're just pinning stuff because you love looking at inspiration, then start thinking about ways to use Pinterest to leverage your business. I'm not a Pinterest expert at all. But I love using it to create mood boards and to get on the same page with my clients as far as the look and feel for their brand goes. So I say show me your Pinterest page. And then from there, I can start to uncover patterns. And whenever I say patterns, I mean like I can see different colors or textures or typefaces that this person is attracted to, or even visual metaphors. And so it's great for me Pinterest is a great tool for my business. But it's not necessarily a sharing platform. It's not like I'm trying to get people to find me through Pinterest.

Emily Thompson 43:05
So Pinterest is really really great for blogs like Pinterest is what will keep the blog alive. I'm pretty sure so if you if you have a blog and you're sharing lots of content on your blog, Pinterest is a really great way to drive traffic to your blog. Pinterest is also really really great for product shot shops. One of my very favorites, like the person who I think is the most boss when it comes to Pinterest and product is Maria seal, like her Pinterest. His account is so legit. And it's really I think been partly that Pinterest account that's really elevated her so quickly and in what she's been up to. So there are lots of ways that you know, curating things like like braid does. We do so that I don't like to just use it for like food and house design ideas.

Kathleen Shannon 44:00
I like to look for outfits. Yeah,

Emily Thompson 44:02
and haircuts haircuts is a big one for me too. So um, so you can definitely use Pinterest and like enjoy having a Pinterest but you can also have a marketing campaign around it. We have a couple of clients you are diving into like Pinterest ads, I think those are going to be really really huge if you have product or if you have like content marketing heavy in your blog. I think that that getting in Pinterest and really seeing how it works and then seeing what you can do there can be really powerful for driving people to other places that you live online.

Kathleen Shannon 44:37
I've had even some people ask us and I'm looking right now to see because we don't have a blog on love being boss calm, which is our website people have asked us like how do I pin your stuff to Pinterest?

Emily Thompson 44:49
I Okay, so I've actually been thinking about that. This is this is a fun conversation we get to have someday, because I think that it is time for being both to have a stronger, stronger presence on social media. Yeah, we've been totally dividing and conquering and just sort of promoting things on our separate accounts. But I think that I think they're stepping balls could be massive on Pinterest. And I think that we should I want to start doing some Facebook ads just sort of see what we can do there. I've been playing around with those and been talking to a lot of people about some of the best ways to go about that. Maybe we could do an episode on that once we give it a go. But I think it is time to start taking being boss until like,

Kathleen Shannon 45:28
okay, so I'm curious, how do you think that we could be boss on Pinterest? Like in what, what ways?

Unknown Speaker 45:34
And what I like Would it help?

Kathleen Shannon 45:36
Like, okay, would we have a being boss Pinterest account where we're curating stuff? So just inspiration? Or is it to just promote our own stuff? Because I remember one of our Pinterest first launch, it was a no, no to pin your own stuff. But now,

Emily Thompson 45:50
everyone does. Everyone does it. And again, going back to her resale, one of the things that totally feeds her massive, amazing feed is she's going and repeating her own stuff all over the place. And no one hates her for it. Definitely nothing like that. No, I think I think it could be something where maybe we just do it under our separate accounts. Like my initial biography was one in your brain one. And we create some really just like badass, totally, like, vertical friendly, like, quote, graphics and things like that pulling quote, quotes from our podcast, like we do on our Instagram. So that we're pushing all of those people to find being boss, like on the website and listening to us anymore. Fantastic.

Kathleen Shannon 46:33
So one thing I wanted to mention on social media, whenever it comes to which platforms you should or should not be on, again, just wherever you have energy, but one of the things that you were saying earlier is that it's no no to push the same thing across all your platforms. But found, as social media is growing, a lot of people are, it seems like picking one place and sticking to it. So redundant content being blasted across all those platforms. I don't know that it is hitting all the same people anymore, like it used to be? No, it's not. So

Emily Thompson 47:08
agreed. All of your content is a no no, choosing content is perfectly fine. And I think that is the difference is a lot of people will have it automatically set up. So literally, every time they put something on Facebook, it'll be through tip Twitter with like 20 characters and a link, like that's not helping anyone or adding value to anyone's Twitter experience. Um, so if you can pick and choose your content, then then sometimes it is perfectly fine to push it I push my Instagram content to Twitter, often and no one hates me for it. And if you do, bye. But I don't do all of them. Like I definitely pick and choose. And same thing like sometimes I'll take things from Instagram and feed it to my T shirt burgerfi Facebook page, which you can do all that by ifttt.com. But I think I think that putting all of your content is a no, no, I'm choosing curating your content for each individual platform and the audience that is on that platform. Because you're right, your audiences are going to be a little bit different on each platform. So they may not be seeing all of the content all the time. And a really, really great book is on social media and how to use each individual platform. I loved it was Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook by Gary Vaynerchuk. It's a really great book. And it really breaks down a lot of basic things on social media, especially if you aren't, especially if you haven't been doing it for 10 years, like we have been. It's a it really does a great job of breaking down each of those individual platforms, with some good like do's and don'ts for things like hashtagging, and how to share really great images, how to pair images with captions that will actually convert. It was a book that totally floored me, I loved it.

Kathleen Shannon 48:57
So one thing I'm asked a lot about is frequency, whether it's a newsletter, or social media, or blogging, or podcasting, how often should I be posting and I just want to touch on social media. Since we're talking about that, I think that social media, you should be posting every single day. And if you're not posting every day, then it might not be the platform for you or you need to narrow down your platforms or hire someone else to do it for you. But I think that social media is an everyday thing.

Emily Thompson 49:26
I completely agree. I think one of the best things I ever did for my business was was hiring Chris to do my social media stuff. So you know, as you are like in your hustle, this is something I talk about a lot too. I feel you know, we don't we don't start these businesses to become social media marketers. Like that's not why I'm here is not what I want to do with all of my time. There are people out there who loves doing social media marketing, so handing that stuff off does not make your brand less you If you're creating the content and having someone else schedule it all out for you, and that is something in that book Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook that Gary says is a huge No, no is scheduling your content. I don't care, I do it because I don't want to spend all day on Twitter. So we, we've curated like these libraries have content and scheduled and schedule them out and use Meet Edgar calm to schedule them out. It's the best social media platform schedule scheduling platform that I have found. It's a little pricier, but totally worth it in my book. And we've fixed it so that, you know, scheduling content out that way, has you a consistent presence, online, and on your social media platform. So if you wake up one day, and you are hustling out all the things and you forget to get on Twitter, it's fine. No one's going to know because it's already scheduled out and it's going out for you. Um, I think I think that scheduling it out is a really good idea as long as you are carefully curating that content. So it doesn't become a robot sending it out. But it actually still has your voice and your your authenticity in there. I

Kathleen Shannon 51:11
think what's tricky for me whenever you say that none of us got into this business to be social media marketers. For me, I got into the I was almost a social media marketer first business.

Unknown Speaker 51:24
You are the exemption, right?

Kathleen Shannon 51:29
That happens to a lot of people. So I started my business by having a blog. So we'll get into blogging. But I had a blog. And I was working at an advertising agency. I was blogging about, I blogged about my wedding. And I shared my invitations. And soon I was getting hired to design wedding invitations. So I was doing that on the side for way too cheap. But it was a lot of fun. Then I decided to quit my job and focus on doing wedding invitations, but also a little bit of branding and bringing some of my agency experience to other creative entrepreneurs who were following my blog. So of course, I'm on Twitter. I'm having Twitter chats and friendships and also go back to the Hey, sweet pea episode has Elise never even had a blog, she was only on Twitter and entirely built her business off of Twitter. But for me, my jam was my blog, and I blogged every single day, sometimes multiple times a day. So now, I'm not blogging as much. But even yesterday, our assistant Caitlin wrote her first braid blog post, and it's just fine. And I felt really that was nice. I had a hard time letting go control because it's almost like I thought, because I had success doing it this way if I stopped doing it this way with the success stop. Right? So for me, it was a little bit tricky, because that's how I built my business. It was scary to let it go. Sure, well, and

Emily Thompson 53:11
I love that you are the exception, or at least you're the different one, or you're with all the different people and that you there are totally a group of people who started this online journey blogging, they started by sharing. But then there is that whole other group of people who have to share to sell what they are actually that they came here to do. Like think of Tara I think Tara is the perfect flipside of this. So Tara is here as the other half of braid to like, do her job. And sharing is like a sort of a necessary byproduct or a necessary thing to do to like run the business. Luckily, she is you and Caitlin and she she writes, does she still write blog posts and newsletters she

Kathleen Shannon 53:57
does. So but the way that we've structured our business in a way that we've really been able to think about it in our minds. And also for me to not feel guilty about not doing as much of the client work is that in our business, my role is sharing and doing the one to many. So I'm reaching out to a lot of people through the podcasts through blogging through newsletters, and she's more focused on the one to one. That doesn't mean that we're not both doing both because we are as we were really able to define our roles and our focus so that we never felt guilty that the other one was doing more. Sure. And so that was really helpful for us. One thing I want to mention about blogging and because it just came to mind, we recently had a maker in our Facebook group feel really discouraged because a lot of what we talk about on our podcast is service based. So we're designers were developers were doing a lot of Creative Services writers. But what About people who are making products, and don't have a digital product to sell, I think that blogging is such a good way. And even social media, all the content marketing is such a good way to build a relationship and to build trust with your consumer, your potential consumer, where they're not just buying what you're making, they're buying a piece of you. And that is worth so much. So I love wearing jewelry from makers who I'm following and I know their story, because then I think about them and, and I think about supporting them whenever I'm buying from them. So I just want to point that out to you that it's a good way to share more of who you are and to increase your prices.

Emily Thompson 55:48
Absolutely. So whenever I my first online business was jewelry making, and that's when I that's when I stopped blogging for like stupid personal shit. And started like blogging as a brand, and doing some some business blogging and things like that. And it was definitely, it was definitely my blog and my consistent content and like building that community and making those connections that gave me a wildly successful like jewelry business online. If I had only been there just like hammering out metal and putting up listings, I wouldn't have sold anything. It is that sharing component. It's content marketing, it's allowing people to connect with you through messages that you share. That will make them buyers instead of just lookers. But I'm the same way like I will follow someone on Instagram for a while and watch them make pieces and show me behind the scenes and show me what they're listening to in their studio and like hear their story. And that will not only make me want to buy it, but will give me no qualms about how much it costs to do so.

Kathleen Shannon 56:55
Agreed. So let's talk then about blogging. I think we've covered social media. I think that the main thing with social media, I would say social media, yes or no?

Emily Thompson 57:07
Yes,

Kathleen Shannon 57:08
yes, I would say yes. But maybe pick one.

Unknown Speaker 57:12
Yeah, or one?

Unknown Speaker 57:13
Well,

Emily Thompson 57:15
if you do it well, again, like and I don't know, automate all the other ones then go cross platform, but at least pick one and do it optimally.

Kathleen Shannon 57:27
And even I think that there's something to be said for starting small. So even with newsletters, for example, I started with one small newsletter. Now I have multiple lists, because I've different offerings. And then I'm able to, you know, get more targeted, but I didn't start that way that would have been really overwhelming into that would have been really overwhelming. So whatever you need to do to not be overwhelmed, start there. And okay, so blogging. I love it. I have a background in it, but I feel like it's changing. It is changing, and I'm almost in a grieving process over it. No, truly Okay, so my personal blog.

Emily Thompson 58:09
Let's get really dramatic about it. Kevin grieving the depth of blogging. I'm just kidding.

Kathleen Shannon 58:17
I love you because you can make fun of me, but I'm shit. So I don't have I have my personal blog. Yes. And so that's and Kathleen, calm, right. And after I had the baby, I didn't really want to turn into a mom, blogger. But I didn't really have anything to say that was personal. I mean, that's your life, right? So I did enjoy blogging about certain aspects of that. But my boundaries were changing and what I was willing to share and what I wasn't willing to share, and I also just didn't have a lot of time anymore. And then I got out of the habit of writing. So that's one of those things to where I remember people used to ask me, How do you blog every day, and once it becomes a habit, it's just super easy. But I'm out of the habit now. So that writing muscle has atrophied a little bit. And, um, I guess it makes me a little bit sad because I love reading memoirs and biographies and stuff like Nora Ephron and or you know, like Amy polars Yes, please, I love reading that stuff. And I want to be able to write that stuff. And I truly love writing stuff like that. I just don't know that I need to be sharing it anymore. And I think that's my thing. And also I was using an Kathleen as a personal platform to share my life. But I think what happened was it served me in getting married and going freelance in learning how to be a little more domesticated. But I think that maybe at this point, it's served its purpose. And so that might be something to ask. yourself whenever it comes to social media or blogging or whatever, what is the purpose has has it already served its purpose is the purpose being served somewhere else. So another thing that happened to my blog is Instagram. And I was much more into kind of the I think there's a word for it like mini blogging. So I was much more into that and sharing in the moment, I could be more candid there. And then of course, the podcast happened. And this is definitely a place where I can be candid and talk about stuff. I mean, I definitely crossed boundaries on the podcast, because it feels like I'm just talking to you. Right? But I think it's what keeps it real. And that's something that we value, keeping it real. Anyway, um, but across the board, I'm seeing more and more friends quit their blogs. So I'm just curious, what are your thoughts on blogging?

Emily Thompson 1:00:56
Um, I'm straddling the fence at the moment. Because I agree. I think blogging is changing. It's funny. We did a periscope or I did a periscope recently, because there was some chatter going on in the Facebook group about, like, the death of blogging or something dramatic like that. And so I did a little periscope or in

Unknown Speaker 1:01:13
the been best Facebook. Oh, yeah.

Emily Thompson 1:01:15
There's a couple weeks ago, I don't remember. Um, I did a periscope. Like just sort of followed up, like noon chatting about it. No, I think I kind of agree. I think blogging as we know, it, is changing. Like, I've even talked to some big bloggers, and there was a big blogger who quit recently,

Unknown Speaker 1:01:31
hollywood housewife.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:33
Not that one. Well, she's

Unknown Speaker 1:01:34
one, she just quit.

Emily Thompson 1:01:37
Okay, there are a couple of them that are quitting because blogging is changing. Um, so I think there is like a depth of blogging as it has traditionally been. But it's funny, as soon as I did the periscope, I got an email from my friend April's from Blacksburg bell. And she's like, it's not dying. So I had to have a good laugh about that. Because it's not like it's still there. It's still active, but it is different. And I think I think Pinterest is one of the things that's going to help it live on all of that to say, I'm still on the fence, I have been blogging in one capacity or the other for the past. Like 15 years, I think like, it's something ridiculous like that. I'm so I'm kind of tired of sharing. In like a written form. Um, so that is like one side of me, and that I really just don't care about blogging anymore. For myself, and because I feel like I've done the time. And because of this podcast, I'm right there with you like it, this podcast gives me the place to share the things that I would like to be blogging about if I didn't have the podcast, and my newsletter is a place that I can write and share in a way that is just like blogging, it's just for a very niche group of people. And it's super exclusive for them only. So I'm in a place where I have no idea if blogging is one of those things that I should be doing. Because it's content marketing, it's great for search engine optimization, it will attract dream customers, and it will like, prove my expertise. But does it have to be a blog? Because I'm

Unknown Speaker 1:03:09
done.

Emily Thompson 1:03:10
So I was actually talking to Kendrick the other day because my sales coach and and I told her like we're talking about, you know, how can we reach my goals, and I was like, one of the things that I'm really on the fence on, and maybe I just need a kick in the ass over is, is blogging, and she's like, girl, she gave me a little kick in the ass, because content marketing is so important. And doing long form content marketing, like you can do. And blogging is really, really huge for positioning yourself as that expert, and really for that search engine optimization, if you want to get to get into those super nerdiness of like attracting people online. But whenever I feel the need to share, it's really hard for me to do it in the blogging platform. Because I can do it in my newsletter, I can do it in the podcast. And I also super enjoy using Instagram as a mini blogging platform for some of that more personal stuff that I would share on my blog. So I don't know my answer. I don't know if I should just shut the fuck up and do it.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:11
Or

Emily Thompson 1:04:12
if I should just let it go.

Kathleen Shannon 1:04:15
What do you think about putting your newsletters on the blog? there because there's one thing, here's one of the cons with a newsletter is that once you write it and it goes to that list, it's gone. You know, it's not really archived for new audiences to read. So that might be something too and I'm on the fence about that. Like I can't really imagine and again, that's because my blog and my newsletters serve different purposes. But the way that your newsletter is Emily, I could totally see you just putting that up on a blog post because they're really good and they're, they're basically blog posts that straight to an inbox

Emily Thompson 1:04:55
right? I completely agree. And that's actually I have like a piece of paper around You're somewhere again with that idea of like creating a purpose for each of the ways that you share and being bosses how we share you know, Boss tips for being boss. And, and my Instagram is where I can show like little insights and behind the scenes of my life, and also share thoughts on things that are happening, especially in terms of the podcasts and things. my newsletter is where I share my like entrepreneur kicks in your pants along with like, small to dues. And my blog could definitely be that or my blog could be something totally different. And now even adding on the whole other layer of toolkits. And having that place to be a place where I can share you know, really good how tos on like building the online business.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:40
Um,

Emily Thompson 1:05:41
it's one of those things, where do I need to supplement all of that with a blog? Do I need to change the you know, newsletter to the blog, one of the things I love about the newsletter is the exclusive exclusivity was that word exclusiveness. A bit that being content that literally just goes out to my people. Um, so I don't know, it's, I'm on the fence about blogging for myself, I feel like I've served my time with blogging. But for people who want to grow a website, and grow a website, because the SEO piece of that puzzle is very, very important for having a blog, and not only having it but having it on your website. It's not having, you know, a Squarespace website and a WordPress blog that does not do the same thing for your SEO. It's about having your website and blog be in one place. And having that content be a way for people to find you. And for you to prove your expertise. And that long format form is super important for most other online businesses. It would be for mine too, if I cared that much.

Kathleen Shannon 1:06:49
Okay, so for me, whenever it comes to personal blogging, which is how I started, I don't really care about blogging anymore. But I really do care about writing. And I really do care about capturing and shaping who I am right now, but also who I want to be. I feel like that's what blogging really did for me on a personal level. So sometimes I wonder if some of the anxiety I've had over even the last year and a half has been because I'm not blogging as much about who I want to be like if I'm not holding myself accountable anymore. So that's where I'm at on personal blogging, I'm keeping that space open, because I might come back to it. But I'm definitely not feeling the need to use it to get business anymore. When at one point I certainly did. I am blogging on free creative weekly, or we are publishing blog posts weekly there, because I do the things that you mentioned SEO, but also positioning ourselves as experts sharing our gifts and knowledge. I think it's just a great place to attract dream customers. Or we're a place where potential dream customers or people who might not ever be able to afford us can get really solid help and advice. So I feel very much Yes, on blogging, and but between personal and professional, I don't know. And then a lot of people ask me, should I keep my personal blog and my professional blog separate, I think if it's just you and your business, you should keep them together. That's just my general diagnosis. Of course, there's always case by case circumstances, but I always tell people do whatever makes you most prolific. So if having two separate blogs makes you write more than by all means write more. I remember there was one time whenever I didn't like the way my blog looked anymore, and I was writing less because of it. So you know, whatever you need to do to write more do that. But um, I think that blogging is a great place also, like if you're concerned about not having an audience. Oh, so this is one thing that I just did with blogging as I turn off comments. So yeah, and especially on I've never had them on the braid blog. And but I think in general, that's another way the landscape of blogging has changed is that the conversation is happening on social media. So even if blogging isn't dead, maybe commenting is or maybe the way that people are consuming blogs is changing. So um, yeah, blogging, I'm going to say yes,

Emily Thompson 1:09:27
I'm going to say I'm going to say yes to and then just not doing basically, no, I think I am and something else I want to touch on here because this is something that I'm sincerely thinking about. Because I have no problem dreaming up blog post and podcast and Instagram post ideas like that is not a problem that I have. I have been experiencing the most intense writing blocks when it comes To actually sitting down and fleshing out any of my, like blog post topics. Um, so one of the things that I'm considering is hiring a copywriter to take my blog post and write them for me and not that it's any less me because it's my thoughts and my outlines, and, and all of that, but having someone else write it for me so that I have that content because it's content that I want to share. It's gone, then that I know will serve our community greatly. And it's not something that I'm going to allow myself to feel guilty about.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:32
I have two thoughts for you. Sure. One, could you just pretend like you're writing a newsletter? No, because here's the thing about

Emily Thompson 1:10:39
newsletters, so please send me people will email me and be like, Oh, I read your newsletter. It was that one, because I'm sure you were two weeks ago, I write it five minutes before I send it out, like my creative process with my newsletter is that I have to sit down and write it just before I send it out. I can't write it the day before. I can't write it the week before. I have to write it in that moment. And I send it, I need to practice some things in my life.

Kathleen Shannon 1:11:08
Okay, so what if you sat down and wrote it? And then pretended like you're gonna send it

Unknown Speaker 1:11:16
to your blog?

Emily Thompson 1:11:18
I could do that. I could trick myself that way. I'm sure. I mean,

Kathleen Shannon 1:11:22
it's just having some restraint from hitting send, right, instead of hitting publish? I don't know. Like, I just think that there's some opportunities for you they're been sent

Emily Thompson 1:11:32
to I know, there is two, which is why it is still a conversation that I'm having with myself and not one that I have totally just shut down.

Kathleen Shannon 1:11:40
And frequency goes on blogging, I think that again, it doesn't, I think I'm blogging, you can do it less and less. It's just being consistent about it. So if you're posting once a month posts once a month, I would recommend probably two to four times a month, at the least. And at the most every day. But I think the days of posting three posts a day, maybe that's gone. Maybe that's gone replaced by Pinterest. And

Emily Thompson 1:12:09
unless you were a huge blog,

Kathleen Shannon 1:12:11
you know, who has great posts on kind of the landscape of blogging is grace, Bonnie on Design Sponge? Oh, yeah. She she said. Okay, let's talk about podcasting, which is our probably new favorite Sherry. Yes,

Emily Thompson 1:12:26
it is my new favorite. I love doing this. Um, I think podcasting, as I told you about 10 months ago, is going to be huge. I think that there is so much power behind this new way. And it's not even neat, which is what's funny about it, we've just all discovered it, behind this new way of sharing content. And I think one of nothing, there are two keys to it. I think one of which is that it does not require you to be sitting at your computer to consume it. Because I'm done with sitting in front of my computer. You can do it while working out do you mean consumable walking to the grocery store while on a walk? Like it's content that you can consume commuting?

Yes, commuting is huge. When you're sitting there listening to bad radio Anyway, you could be listening to something that will inspire you or teach you or whatever. So I think that's really huge for podcasting. It's now a platform that does not require people to be you know, facing their phone or computer in order to consume it. And then to I think it goes down to like the power of hearing someone speak their own words. And that, that being such a strong force in podcasting that you cannot get through any other way that we currently share.

Kathleen Shannon 1:13:43
You know, one thing that was really bothering me about blogging was feeling really misunderstood by internet haters. Not that I give them a lot of attention. But if you're going to be listening to my podcast, that's a lot of time to dedicate to listening to and then hating me. So one of the things I like about the podcast

Emily Thompson 1:14:03
is that it's harder to hate Catholics.

Kathleen Shannon 1:14:08
I mean, just easier, I don't know. But I guess what, what I think about the podcast is that you're really going to attract or you're really going to repel your tribe. So all the things that we kind of said about a newsletter, I feel is the same for a podcast where it's going to be a very specific group of people, no matter how many people listen to it. So I think that's another thing too, that people who want to start a podcast are getting caught up in are the metrics and the numbers that literally if you have 30 loyal fans listening to your podcast, it might be worth it, especially if they end up hiring you for one on one services. I think podcasting is really great for coaches. And I say this because I think a lot of coaches are using their voices, and have a lot of power in their voices and in their questions and in their curiosity. And in the advice that they give. So it's one thing that I'm always recommending to coaches, the only thing is, is that podcasting, I would say, it's not hard, you don't have to have a lot of tech. But it's not the easiest thing in the world to get up and running. And so for us, I mean, thank God, we had the skills to brand it, to edit it, to do all the things to have a website to get it up on iTunes. It's just a lot of work upfront, and then the show notes and all of that. So there's a lot more work into it. But I think that it is really powerful, especially for that, for that really niche tribe that you're cultivating. Yeah, I

Emily Thompson 1:15:42
think it's huge. And even just to even speak on like, how hard it is to do as hard as as it is for us to do it's also really easy to do like, you don't have to edit it, you don't have to do show notes, you don't have to have a website for it, you can have a free like, I we use buzzsprout free buzzsprout account, you can load up your raw audio, but they

Unknown Speaker 1:16:04
just sent us an email saying that we had to upgrade,

Emily Thompson 1:16:07
oh, well, you can get a free and we don't have a penguin when we load too much audio, you have the free one. Um, but um, but as hard as we have made it because we have very high standards when it comes to launching new things. Sometimes Sometimes maybe a little too. It can also be one of the easiest things that you do. Because for me, one of the reasons why I like podcasting so much more is I don't have to write a blog post. Like I can just sit here and say what I want to say and publish or edit out Kathleen's nonsense and then

Kathleen Shannon 1:16:46
which I think is easier. Sometimes I feel more scattered talking. And I feel like Oh, I should have said this thing. Whereas with blogging, I can go back. And really sometimes with blogging as much as I said, I hate being misunderstood there. I feel like what it's lacking is context of tone and voice and just the small little laughs and pauses that you get with podcasts. But what I like about blogging is that I can really just hammer my point home. But I guess even then people aren't. Sometimes people are just skimming and they're not reading what I said, but I love podcasting. One of the things I think is cool is doing kind of almost even a limited time podcast. So even if you decide to do a podcast, it might just be around a certain offering. It doesn't have to be indefinitely, like being passes. It could be that and another option is to be a guest. So just like blogging, I think that you can be a guest on other podcasts and maybe start that way. That's how I started. And that's what got me interested in podcasting in the first place. And the con with podcasting is that you're just asking a lot of people's time. And so for me, my vulnerability hangover is quite a bit bigger because if someone listens or like what if they listen to one episode, and it's maybe not the best episode, they might not ever listen to another episode again.

Emily Thompson 1:18:10
Yeah, so I've never had a hard time going back and reading my blog posts, but it's really hard for me to go back and re listen to podcasts that we record like I told her ability that comes from again, giving it the power of like speaking your own words. is real.

Unknown Speaker 1:18:27
is a real real like

Emily Thompson 1:18:28
I always thought it was weird to hear that Johnny Depp never watched any of his like any of his movies. And I was I was so weird. Now I get it. I wouldn't want to watch them either. If

Kathleen Shannon 1:18:37
I was Johnny Depp, I would not only be watching my own movies, I would be licking the TV screen I would be

Unknown Speaker 1:18:46
Johnny Depp

Emily Thompson 1:18:49
perfect perfect.

Unknown Speaker 1:18:53
Just trying to give you those outtakes. Corey.

Emily Thompson 1:19:00
Perfect, perfect.

Unknown Speaker 1:19:02
Now I think I do

Emily Thompson 1:19:04
the podcasting is huge. I think that I think it is going to be around for a while. I'm glad that we've gotten into it. And if it's something that you want to do is something that Kathleen and I knew nothing about. So it's not one of those things that you need to have a ton of skill. And like learning already in you Google it. All you need to do is Google it.

Unknown Speaker 1:19:27
And I

Kathleen Shannon 1:19:27
think those are together we might also create an offering around that. I think we should what kind of feedback we get if you guys are interested in learning about podcasting, go to love being boss calm and fill out the contact us form and just let us know like yes, I want you guys to teach me how to podcast because it's something that I think we're interested in doing. Yes. Um, okay, so another thing as an alternative to podcasting is YouTubing so yeah, like there's a whole YouTube community and It's funny, like I love one of my favorite YouTubers. Her name is Brooke Kalki, and she's from Oklahoma City. But she does these videos just like she's very go into Burning Man. And as always, like hashtagging free the nipple. She's wild child, but she she has this bath baby YouTube video. Well, that's one of the series on her YouTube channel and it's just hilarious. It's her in the bathtub, she has clothes on just saying funny stuff. I Oh, no, it might not be everybody's jam. I like it. And then also another one that I recently got into is another Oklahoma City YouTuber. And she has a beauty YouTube, which I think is a whole. It's a big segment out there. So again, I'm new to the YouTube thing. So it's not like I can say I recommend it for these people. But I could see it being good for beauty bloggers or foodies people are wanting to share in a more visual way. Um, anyway, her name is on YouTube, how to be fancy. And she has a fun just YouTube channel where she's sharing beauty products and stuff like that. So I've been watching YouTube just for like how to do my makeup and tutorials like that.

Emily Thompson 1:21:15
Good. I love you do I use it to learn all kinds of things, too. I've never really gotten into the community aspect of YouTube. And I don't know why I was just like another thing that I never got into. But, but I've been getting into it a little more recently, too. I watched someone recommended I watch OMG we got to house a lot of house because there's just this little couple that bought a house and it's just really cute. They like start redoing it. I'm also one of our previous guests and then indeed boom break. Indeed, client. Talia Chai just recently launched her first like YouTube video, she's gonna do a fun little channel.

Kathleen Shannon 1:21:52
I was actually just thinking about her wanna raise like, I don't know who I recommend this for. I was actually thinking about Talia.

Emily Thompson 1:21:56
Yeah, she just launched hers. Yeah, so that's really exciting. I think I think YouTube is a really cool place. And it's a really great way to show to share some really just serious, cool content. There's, oh, there's one called you need a drink. That is hysterical. I'm gonna have to find it. Go to the go to the show notes and look up this thing that I'm thinking about. That will make you laugh if you like cocktails and laugh at stupid things. All right.

Kathleen Shannon 1:22:29
I think that ultimately what I want to close on and there might even be more content marketing platforms out there. But to sum it up, do what you want. If you're saying I should it probably means that you need to not do it. Yeah, go where your energy already is. And I think that ultimately when it comes to content marketing, it's about building trust and building relationships. So no matter what platform you're on, if you're building trust, and you're building relationships, and you're creating conversations, then it's not a bad thing.

Emily Thompson 1:23:04
Right? Well and during in there adding value. I think that it is it is your brand's responsibility for having a place on these platforms and in people's inboxes and in people's Twitter feeds that your job as that as a brand is to add value. If you're doing it as a person, share your cat videos and bitch about McDonald's spitting on your hamburger or whatever it is. But as a brand, your responsibility is to add value and building that trust and creating those relationships. Because it's those things that that make it all do.

Kathleen Shannon 1:23:43
Thank you for listening to being boss. Find Show Notes for this episode at love being boss calm. Listen to past episodes and subscribe to new episodes on our website on iTunes, SoundCloud or Stitcher.

Emily Thompson 1:23:57
Did you like this episode, head on over to our Facebook group by searching bean balls in Facebook to join in on the conversation with other bosses or share it with a friend. Do the work be boss and we'll see you next week.

Unknown Speaker 1:24:38
Planes falling by. Okay I have all my windows open and