Latest / Learnings and Missteps by Depth Builder / The Genuine Approach to Social Media Strategy with Georgia Sarjeant

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The Genuine Approach to Social Media Strategy with Georgia Sarjeant · Learnings and Missteps by Depth Builder

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So not worrying so much about what other people think would be the main takeaway when someone says no, that should be the start of you jiving rather than you completely giving it up.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: It might look easy or fun all the time from the outside, but yeah, there's actually so many different components of it and a lot of actually skills and transferable skills.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: You've got to look at the long run as well and the people that you're going to meet as a result of that.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: If somebody says no to me or criticizes something, that's my biggest fuel and driver.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: What is going on?
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: L&m family, I have a super, super special treat for you, miss Georgia Sargent, who you might be able to notice that she's not from San Antonio.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: I'll let her tell us exactly where she's from.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: I had the privilege of connecting with her via LinkedIn.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: I don't even remember the whole story, but I do remember we started chatting back and forth, had a conversation and I was like I got to get you on the show.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: If you've been curious about social media and strategy, miss Georgia has the goods.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: We're going to learn a lot about her path to success and the way she contributes, and maybe we'll steal some nuggets on how to level up our social media game.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: And if you're new here, this is the Learnings and Missteps podcast, where you get to see how real people just like you are sharing their gifts and talents to leave this world better than they found it.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: I'm Jesse, your selfish servant, and let's get to know Miss Georgia.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Miss Georgia, how are you?
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: I am good.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Thank you, it's a pleasure to be here.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Real quick.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: People are going to say wait a minute, she doesn't sound like she's from San Antonio.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Can you let us know where you're at today?
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: So I am in Surrey in the UK, just below London.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: Just below London.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: It's a hike, and so you're ahead of us in the future.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: What have you learned about the future that we should know about?
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: I've got six hours to capitalize on that information.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: What is it so Wow?
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: I've got six hours to capitalize on that information.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: What is it so?
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: They're on like the floating hoverboards.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Sadly, we're not quite that.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: Oh, I love it.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: So no, back to the future hoverboard.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: We're nearly there.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Oh, my goodness, I love it.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: So, georgia, you are a social media strategist, and some of my friends that have the highlights, the gray hair, will probably say stuff like that's not a real job.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: Is that true?
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: No.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: This is definitely an important topic because I have a lot of friends that work in the industry.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: It is such a new industry, especially in the past few years.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: There's this misconception that we might just be scrolling through Instagram or not doing too much.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: It might look easy or fun all the time from the outside, but yeah, there's actually so many different components of it and a lot of actually skills and transferable skills that you would have in the traditional marketing role.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: So I think that's a big misconception, but it's definitely real.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: I think we talked about this on our phone call.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: Getting active on social media didn't really happen for me until about four years ago.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: Before that, it was just me goofing around.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: What was your path Like?
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: You're a social media strategist.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: You run your own business, which is phenomenal.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: Did you just know?
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: I want to be a social media strategist?
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: I'm going to do these 10 things and that's what's going to happen.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: No, not at all.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: So I, I did.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: I actually did American studies at university, so very on brand.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: I really loved history.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: I loved English.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: I didn't particularly know what I wanted to do, but I originally wanted to be a journalist or work within journalism.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: I always loved editing videos when I was younger, doing anything creative.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: I was also quite good at maths and more analytical things as well, which obviously does make sense now with what I do.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I wasn't completely sure on what I wanted to do.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: I kind of had this idea that I'd work in a magazine.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: I was looking for marketing jobs, general marketing, graduate jobs and then it was the pandemic.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: That's how I ended up going down this path, because I started doing a lot of online internships and things like that.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: It definitely wasn't pre-planned, so what the pandemic, I think, shifted a lot of people's directions in very positive ways.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: I'm one of those, but what was it about that time in our life for you that caused you to shift your direction?
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: So I suffered with an eating disorder.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: The pandemic definitely pushed me to recover from that.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Because it was such a quiet time, I set up an Instagram account.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Before that I didn't have any social media presence at all.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: I set up an Instagram account to help other people with eating disorders or anything kind of just to help with general positivity, confidence, kind of fitness during lockdown, and through that I just kind of noticed how amazing it was to build an online community on Instagram.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: I was doing giveaways and writing little blog posts and all these things that I love doing.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: It wasn't until I started applying to more corporate marketing jobs and getting rejected that I thought maybe I can do this side of things for brands and other people.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: So thank you for your vulnerability and sharing about the eating disorder.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: Here's what I heard During the pandemic you found an outlet to serve on a life experience that you were having.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: You started doing that and then it was like, oh wait, a minute, there's this magic community element that's starting to sprout up.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: Did I get that?
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, and so out of service to others which I think is a common point that I've seen in a lot of my guests they found a different way to serve others and then that lit a path that was different than what they expected.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: Marketing I don't think it's a far leap to journalism, magazine marketing, social media, because that's kind of the evolution.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: It used to be paper and now it's digital.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: What was the signal?
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: Okay, I created this community.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: Rather, it didn't sound like you created it on purpose.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: A community happened and then something in your head started connecting dots.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: What was that like?
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: What was the evolution of that?
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: So I think, as a lot of people did in the pandemic, we all found it incredibly difficult, but I think a lot of us perhaps would do things that we wouldn't perhaps have done otherwise.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: For me, it was always a self-conscious thing about social media or putting your face out there.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: In the pandemic you let go of a lot of that fear or self-consciousness because there was nothing else we could really do.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: It was the only way you could really connect with other people and I think just I would.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: For me as well, I would post every day, so it would be like a different recipe or workout or just me writing some thoughts and advice to help others and that kind of just kept me going each day.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Okay, I've got to make this recipe or write this post.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: So I think that rhythm of it and then just yeah, like building the I think I built it to.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: It wasn't like a huge community, but I think I had about 3000 people000 people and, yeah, I'd get really good engagement on the posts and lots of people commenting.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: I think what I also found really special was that people I knew in my personal life would reach out to me saying they struggled with similar things and how much it meant to them.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: That, for me, was the bit that really made me think and made it all worthwhile.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Perhaps the silent they might not be liking your post necessarily, but the people that are watching silently.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: Oh my God, I've had this conversation with a lot of people.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: I'm posting but nobody's commenting or I'm not getting a million views.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: I've had the issue myself and all it really takes is one person to let me know that it impacted them in some way, and it's okay.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: I'm good for another year, yeah.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: I talk about that a lot on LinkedIn because it's just shifting your mindset from I want to get millions of views to actually maybe I want to change someone's day or change someone's life from what I'm writing in this post and having that impact.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: So I think that, for me, was the bit that really propelled me to carry on with it, and then I think, just all the creative part of that as well.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: I've really enjoyed and building the community and that's what made me think, oh, I can actually help other people with this too.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: So you experienced the value of contributing, figured out accidentally how to build a community, and then you started a business.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: What was that path?
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: What did that look like?
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it right away.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: Here's my marketing strategy, here's my business development strategy, or how did that materialize?
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: yeah.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: So it was a very wiggly kind of no one's path is straightforward.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: I was at university in my second year of university and it works here.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it's the same where you are, but basically for graduate jobs you have to start applying the year before you graduate.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: In the second year of university.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: You've got to be applying to get that job when you've finished university.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: So I was kind of applying for all the big corporate companies like Spotify, like all the classic, like marketing and yeah, yeah.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: I didn't get.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: I was kind of spending all my time.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: I think I probably applied to over a hundred places.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: It was very difficult because it was so competitive during COVID that they used a lot of the internships.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: It was just a very difficult year to graduate.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: So on that, I came up with the idea.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: To On that, I came up with the idea to.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: Before that I want to give the L&M family member shout out to Miss Renee.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: Renee says that's extra special to me because that's what I'm trying to do.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to shift minds just a little bit so that we can transform the workspace for the people we work with, the people we work for, and grow our influence all the way into our community, into the galaxy and so folks out there.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: When you take the time to leave me a comment, a thought, a review, a share, all of that stuff, I super, super appreciate it.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: Please do so so that I can celebrate you in the future.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: Look kind of like virtual internships and things like that, and a lot of them were social media internships.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: So it actually started off that I went on a site called we Make Change.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: Basically, a lot of startups and nonprofits are looking for people to help, either voluntarily or for a small fee to get experience.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: I started working with a nonprofit called Speak Out Revolution and managed their Instagram and eventually did a podcast for them too.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: So that was all very organic.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: So that was how I got my first two clients.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Got my first two clients and then I started going on sites like Upwork and Fiverr and building up my freelance portfolio while I was at university.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: So you started managing it and I think it's really important that people, especially the younglings out there there's a lot of work that you put in and even sacrifice.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: Where you had to go find you submitted 100 applications to internships.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: You didn't give up.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: You said, okay, maybe this ain't going to work, Let me try a different path, a different bucket.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: You connected with the nonprofit, built some experience and then expanded from there.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of folks, especially in the social media space, when I'm scrolling through Instagram or TikTok, every other post is how to make $10,000 a month in 30 days.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: Gosh, what do you think about that?
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: No, I mean, I talk to a lot of friends in the industry about that.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Unfortunately, there are always going to be people in any industry.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Obviously, money is very important.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: It's important to see the reality that most people you speak to would have either been doing some voluntary work or working for a low price Start off.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: You have to make sacrifice because it's not like a kind of no experience to immediately making money.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: So the super curious question where do you get your confidence from?
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Think back to when you started working with the nonprofit, the confidence to say I'm going to do a good job at this.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: How did you make that happen?
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of imposter syndrome to begin with.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: How have I got this role?
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: That was one of the most amazing experiences and I'm still in touch with the people today and they're so helpful to me, Very grateful that they had that faith in me.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: If you've got to that point where they've looked at I think at the time it was of a CV or maybe I did a few example posts If they've got that faith in you, you just need to believe in that and carry it forward, because otherwise you wouldn't be sitting in that position.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: I think that's powerful because I know it's true in my life.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: Maybe I don't have the confidence in me, but if they do, I can ride their confidence until I build mine.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Yes, exactly.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: I think I've been incredibly lucky to come across so many amazing people like that, because all of the women there they're still commenting on my LinkedIn posts or referring clients to me and they're just like my biggest kind of cheerleaders.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: So I think you've got to look at it that, although you might be making sacrifices, perhaps in terms of doing voluntary work or some free work for a time being, you've got to look at it that, although you might be making sacrifices, perhaps in terms of doing voluntary work or some free work for a time being, you've got to look at the long run as well and the people that you're going to meet as a result of that.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: Absolutely the relationships, because you just said they're still referring clients to you.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: You made an investment, delivered some value and invested time in connecting with them on a human level.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: That always happens, provided that we're focused on relational interactions over transactional interactions.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I think there's a big line because I think especially a lot of the social media roles now that companies and things.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it can go a bit far in the amount of work you're expected to do, even for an application or for free.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: But I think that there is a big case for having relationships that aren't just based on that exchange and as you go up it's a bit easier to not have to be so worried about If you're only in it for that financial reason.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: That's not going to get you very far in the long run, I think.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, it's the long game.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: Sure, you can cash everything in right now, but then you got to start all over again, developing, nurturing a new client and all that.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: So you're working with the nonprofit and what signaled to you this?
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: Okay, I'm going to do more, I'm going to go out a little further on this edge.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: I could tell they were really happy with the work I was doing.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: I was learning a lot from working with them.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Then I got another client through the same organization and that eventually became a paid client as well.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: I think I started off doing maybe three months and then it became paid and then it kind of derailed.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: So I think when people, as you say, it's kind of all this talk about how to make a 10k month or something, that's not.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: Unfortunately that's not what the path looks like for most people realistically, unless you've got a lot of background experience, I think, especially people that are at university or something that's not really an attainable goal to start off with.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: It's a short-sighted goal and a dangerous one, I know.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: For me personally.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: Last year, I made a decision to shift my focus because I had just started my business and I had revenue goals.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: It's how much revenue I want to generate this year, this quarter, blah, blah, blah.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: Because of relationships, because of the people that believe in me, it was easy for me to exceed those goals.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: But if I continue chasing financial goals, I'm going to get myself in trouble.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: So I said let's make this harder and more meaningful this year, which is 2024, and going forward.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: I want to focus on these two things because I get the most fulfillment and they're going to require me to build a whole bunch of skills, meet a whole bunch of people in order to make that happen, which is really more valuable and meaningful in terms of my sobriety and my wellness.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: It's really important that I made that shift.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: That's an important lesson, I think.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Last year I was definitely.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: I was just taking on every kind of work that would ever come in and I was earning a lot of money, but I really burnt out and all my friends yeah, my friends and family were kind of saying you need to stop.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: So I think that's definitely one of the biggest lessons I've learned is that you can earn all this money but then I'd kind of end up spending some of the money on like things to try and make me feel like less stressed.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: How you feel and your fulfillment is the most important thing okay, so let's talk about burnout.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: What were the things that your support system were signaling to you, that they were saying, hey girl, you need to breathe, you need to slow it down.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: What did that look like early on?
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: Like when you're like, yeah, yeah, whatever, I gotta work.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: Y'all go take a nap, I'm working I think.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: Think the starting signs are definitely a fine line.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: I've always been a very ambitious person and quite obsessive about things as well.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Once I get in a rabbit hole, there's a fine line between being really passionate about something and obviously when you start a business you have to do a lot of work at the beginning and throughout.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: But when it starts to compromise your sleep how you feel when you wake up in the morning, your energy wanting to go, kind of having excuses for not, kind of going out and doing other things I think sleep for me was probably the biggest thing that was sacrificed.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, it will catch up.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: Like you don't catch up on sleep, you just compound your exhaustion.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: I had an app that showed you your sleep debt and it was like something crazy, like a lot of hours of sleep.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: That wow, oh, that's so good.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: Sleep debt.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: I think that's an important concept.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever heard that before yeah, it's basically the accrued hours of sleep that you've lost and how many you need to catch up with to feel like your energy is back to normal and so, as you were accumulating the sleep debt, your family was like hey girl, georgia, there's, you got a problem.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: We need to look at this.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: How long between they started pointing it out to you, to where you actually listened to them.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, it was probably like a year, like a very long time, just kind of taking on every opportunity that was offered to me.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: I think I was very anxious to say no to anything.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: I was very bad with my boundaries with clients and of answering messages at all times of the night.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: That, for me, was the biggest thing.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: I think, with social media as well, it's very difficult to switch off from.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: So I'd be kind of logging into like client accounts at all times to check how things were performing and, yeah, like it was.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: It just wasn't good in times of switching off.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: But I think, yeah, it probably took until I hit a point where I was literally just kind of unwell all the time that I had to strip things back a bit and have a bigger look at everything.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: Oh, I love it.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: Yes, social media is a 24 seven thing, but the drive or obsession and I'm saying that because I'm referencing me, because I'm super obsessive about stuff, especially a client it's so easy to justify my unhealthy behavior.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: Because I'm going to serve a client, I made a commitment, it's my business, it's my livelihood, blah, blah, blah.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: So my point there is that's a universal problem.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: Overreacting to a client request such that you're violating boundaries, if you even have them, is unhealthy.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't have any boundaries to begin with.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: Okay, that was my next.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: So you didn't have any boundaries, but you discovered the need for boundaries.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: How did you think, through the boundaries that you needed to maintain your business and maintain your health?
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: So I think to begin with, because I was so grateful for every opportunity I still am I was definitely putting all of the actual client work way above, like my business work and my personal life as well.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Now it's just kind of small things like I use Slack for a lot of the clients, turning notifications off and things like that, at certain times having a separate phone for where apps are like instagram, for example, so I'm not receiving notifications all time of the night.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: I think having a good sleep and morning routine is good, so it's not the last thing you're doing is scrolling through your phone before bed and then waking up and looking at your phone, which I still need to get better at.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: I've also been working with a mindset coach and accountability coach, so they've really helped me with boundaries and just sorting all of that out.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: I love it and I concur I also do coaching, like accessing external resources to help me build the skills I need help with.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: That's the way to go.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: I can watch a million hours of YouTube videos that don't change my behavior.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: I need a human being saying hey, dummy, we talked about this.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: Why are you doing this again?
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: It's so powerful.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: And again, the boundaries.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: What I heard was turn off or use the notification right.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: Turn off the notifications, set a limit on the notifications, have a morning routine and a sleep routine and access resources to help you achieve those things or at least make them part of your day.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: Which.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: Those are simple things but so important that we don't take into account when we want to launch a project, an idea or a brand new endeavor.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: So, thinking back, I think I know the answer to this, but if you were going to give advice to an aspiring student that's fixing to start their own business, what would you tell them to do first?
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, first of all, there is a fine line.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: You don't want to make one of your hobbies become your only source of work, but you need to be really passionate about it.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: You need to be really driven, willing to put in a lot of work, aware that it's not going to happen overnight.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: With social media that you kind of I know it does happen sometimes, but unfortunately you do need to kind of consistently.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: Even if no one's looking at it for weeks or months, to begin with you're getting a few views.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: You need to just be consistent and don't give up and I think as well, just not being afraid to put yourself out there and share your thoughts about things, especially with something like LinkedIn.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Doing your first post there is very scary.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: People get quite cringed out and embarrassed about it.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: I also used to be a bit worried about what my clients would think if I was posting stuff on LinkedIn.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: But now I've been doing it consistently for about a year and all it's led to is new people, new opportunities, and no one's come to me and said why are you sharing this?
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Which I think was my fear of what people think.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: So I'm not worrying so much about what other people think would be the main takeaway.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: Do you see a different level of adventure when you're talking to clients about posting on Instagram, maybe flexibility, a different level of flexibility when you're talking to clients about a strategy for LinkedIn versus a strategy for Instagram?
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I do a lot of work at the moment.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: I started off working a lot on Instagram and also TikTok, but this last year I've moved more towards helping founders with their LinkedIn One of the biggest things I've seen, because originally I would do a lot of work with founders to grow their LinkedIn page like their company page, but that's just.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: It's really quite difficult to grow a page if you haven't got any kind of person behind that, or thought leader for that company that's referring the content from that company.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: So a lot of the work I do at the moment is helping founders with their LinkedIn, be working out their content pillars and their content flow for the content.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: And with Instagram, it's it's.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: I mean there are obviously some crossover.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: With linkedin, you can be a bit kind of with the caption.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: I feel like with the linkedin platform there's more emphasis on the caption than there is on instagram.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: It is obviously more of a visual platform, whereas linkedin I feel like your words, although obviously video has been introduced I feel like the way that the platform works, the emphasis is more on your words.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: Although obviously video has been introduced, I feel like the way that feed and the platform works, the emphasis is more on your words and your thoughts.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: I concur, I'm not a professional, but I have noticed.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: I started a newsletter almost a year ago.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: I don't like a lot of words.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: If I see somebody's post and when I click on more and I have to scroll, I'm done, I'm out.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: It's too many.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: Click on more and I have to scroll, I'm done, I'm out, it's too many words.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: So when I created my newsletter, I didn't have a lot of words, right, it was super visual because my grammar and spelling is horrible.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: Then I noticed that whenever I had a post that had more words, it had more traction, more interaction, more repression.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: So I said, okay, what if I increase the word count on my newsletter?
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: As an experiment, I almost tripled the word count using AI.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: Right, super, I cheated, that's my profession y'all, I'm cheating.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: So here's what I do.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: I have my Monday morning hug, which is a video that I've been doing I don't know three years now.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: Every Monday I post it.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: My editing software has a magic AI button and I say draft a blog post based on this video content.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: And so then it'll draft it and it makes it sound really smart and educated.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: I go and jessify it and dirty it up and I post it.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: When I made the change to increasing the word count, the readership and the subscribership to that newsletter increased has gone way, way up.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: I'll say roughly a 30% increase in the number of subscriptions I get and the number of article reads that I get.
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: And I don't like I don't have any other way to prove it except that there's a definitive difference that when I added words to it it started performing way better.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean that would be a lot of factors really, even things like looking at the keywords you're using.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: But with because I do, it's quite interesting because I so I do contract work with an agency that I've done for the past I think it's nearly three years now that amazing creative agency based in Wales and I manage through them a lot of London clients.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: We do Leicester Square.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: We do that marketing on Instagram.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: We do a lot of placemaking marketing, which is all quite visual content on Instagram, very different.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: I do the LinkedIn content for founders.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: It has taught me a lot about the intricacies of the platforms and what kind of content works well on the platforms.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: But I think with LinkedIn it's thinking about when people are coming into the platforms, what frame of mind they're in and if you you're on instagram, you're kind of scrolling through and you're not in your kind of business thinking mode, you might be okay in telly and sitting.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: So you've got to think about attention span.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: On linkedin you're more in work learning mode.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: You're more likely to read and engage more with a post that is a bit more wordy or in depth than it might be on instagram or TikTok.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: So that's what I always try and think about as well, like what frame of mind is that person going into the platform with?
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: For folks out there that want to up their game and maybe not ready to make an investment, that is good advice to understand.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: What is the frame of mind that the viewer?
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: Now I noticed that you have a very personal touch, your style of posting.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: Why did you choose to go with the personal touch as opposed to data, informational and so forth?
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: I think it's a lot to do with what I'm like as a person in the most basic sense.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: People connect with a personal story.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: If you haven't got one bit of content, perhaps amongst a lot more informational content that is, showing more about you and what's driven you to make these decisions, it's difficult for people to connect or trust you as much.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: For me, I'd start off sharing things that were more informative, like here are my favorite tools.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: I didn't necessarily enjoy writing it that much because it just just a bit like I'm just trying to force it, I think.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: Um, so it's.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: It's the most organic way I feel I can write, and also posts that have had the most engagement and where I get the most messages from people saying that's really helped me or I've never thought about it that way.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: So it comes back to what I said before about the impact that it has, and there obviously is a place for the more informative kind of start post.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: But I think if you haven't got a little bit of your personal story in that, it's quite difficult for it to resonate as much.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: I think.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: So I imagine I'm probably one of those people in the past that say, sure, being personal and vulnerable or authentic will get you attention, but it doesn't drive business.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: What's your response to that as?
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: an example one of my friends she's actually my mindset coach as well.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: She has built this amazing business.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: That is all.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: Her clients are young, like-minded women and she's built that platform by being authentic.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: And she's built this amazing business from just being that one thing.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: A lot of it comes out of a fear of what people might think you're weak or something.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: If you're sharing these vulnerabilities, you've got to think about people that are buying your service and if it is something like where it's much more personal, it's coaching.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: They want to respect you and connect with something that you've been through.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: So I think there definitely is a place for business being built on the back of being authentic and sharing these vulnerabilities because, at the end of the day, people are going to invest in someone that they trust and that they can see themselves in.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: I love it and I concur, right, like it's what happened to me accidentally, you know, just having podcasts similar to you pandemic, I needed an outlet and I needed a new way to connect and then, for whatever reason, once in a while, I'll say something smart or something that sounds intelligent and that signaled to somebody else that said, hey, I need to call that guy because I think he can help me.
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: And then it was like, oh, wait a minute, I could do this on purpose, I could say smarter things, and that made me take the leap in posting more clips of the smart things I say, because that helped people understand this is how he is, is what he thinks about, and also help people understand that I don't want to work with that guy because he's a dummy, he's a goofball, he plays too much and I don't want to deal with that.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: It attracts and repels.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: I'm 100% on board with being personal or being real, not just because of the business value, but it's something that I think is really important that creators out there are aspiring people that just want to get active on social media.
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: You said it right it just felt easier to be personal than to talk about what to and how to.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: The question was what can I do that brings the least friction?
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: How can I approach this lowest amount of friction?
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: Oh, videos.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: Why did video clips help me?
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: Because now I don't have to like brainstorm about something to write about.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: I can rewatch the clip that's going to spark an idea that becomes the body of the post.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: Low friction I stay engaged with the community, and so forth.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: What do you think about?
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: that.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of the work I do with my founder clients is essentially they've got all this content articles, books, videos, loads of different documents and some of them think they haven't got any content and a big part of what I do is basically going through that content and organizing it, making everything as easy as possible.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: One video that could be a minute 30 seconds.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: You've got the transcript from that.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: You can do that as a written post, you can do that as a carousel post.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: So even from recording four or five videos, that's going to give you 20 pieces of content.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: So, folks, if y'all didn't catch that, I'm going to rehash it.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: You have a content bank right now that you probably don't know about.
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: If you need help with that, georgia can help you.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: So I always say this about questions people are asking you tools like Ubersuggest or keyword tools, you can type in your products or whatever it is that you do and then see what questions people are asking, and then that's your content right there, from the SEO perspective and the keyword perspective, that's going to rank higher as well, and that could be you just answering that question in a video for 30 seconds or one minute, or just writing it out.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: Okay, so you've already given us two nuggets.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: One, when you're working with your clients.
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: It sounds like particularly founders building their business page on LinkedIn.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: The key to build the business page is to enhance their personal brand.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: Another huge thing is you can help them see the oceans of content that they have that they're blind to.
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: They've been working on the thing.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: They're building the thing.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: What's one high level cheat code that you get to help your clients with?
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: Something that I've really learned in the last year is automation and organization.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: I've taken the perspective and the brain I bring to my client work to my own work.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it's hard to see your own business objectively when you're doing it.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: I'm actually doing a masterclass on this about how to repurpose your content and systems to organize your contents if you use Zapier at all to connect but that's basically a tool that automates things for you.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: For example, I've got a spreadsheet that every time I post on Instagram, it automatically fills out a table of all the content what format that's in, and then I can look back at it and think, okay, I've done this as a video, let's redo this as a caption.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: That is what I would help the clients with, and then you can literally just look back at things and repurpose them.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: Zappy is really good for that.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: You have just blown my mind.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: I was always thinking of it from a different direction.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: Like the automation part.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: You use Zapier, which is an automation tool.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: Right, it connects different apps and identifies the workflow and you can make it do what you want it to do.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: But what I heard was it'll pull the framework of the post and then outline it so that I can say, OK, I can do the same thing and make this tweak and make it a different type of structure, from image to carousel to video.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: Definitely something that I was struggling with myself as well, because, I mean again, it's very ironic when I help other people with it.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: Then I applied it to myself because it automatically updates you.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: Then you can just go into your table and think, oh, actually I've got 20 things here and instead of having to find the original post in the platform.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: It's a very easy way to do that and there's loads of different ways you can do that, but I found that has really helped me in terms of organizing and never running out of ideas.
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: So everybody's probably going to say, okay, she said masterclass.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: How do we get a hold of that?
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: Is this a recurring?
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: masterclass.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: Is it a recording?
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to be doing a masterclass every two months, but it's a content automation and AI masterclass.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: So I'll also talk about how you can use chat GPT more, in the sense of how you can get it to help you with writing things without obviously sounding like a like a robot, and different ways you can use that to help with your content, and there'll also be a recording of it so I can share all the details.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: It's definitely the questions that I get asked a lot.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: One more thing I recommend is called Clio, so it's K-L-E-O and it's an extension you can add on LinkedIn, go on anyone's profile and filter their posts so you can see their top posts.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: You can filter it by likes, by comments, so you can get inspiration for posts by looking at people, and it will automatically filter their top posts for you.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: So that's a really good tool as well.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: Girl.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: Next year, 2025, there's a theme for the year that I put in my head.
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: This year the theme was stabilize.
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: Last year the theme was experiment.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: Next year, the theme is simplify and automate.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: This conversation is perfect timing.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: My question is this you got this mastermind, the masterclass coming up?
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: Sounds like it's going to be every couple months or so, but there's going to be some frequency to it, a cadence.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: Are folks from the US?
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: Is it okay for us to come play too?
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: Of course, yeah, the more the merrier.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: Yes, I love it.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: We'll get a link and put that in the show notes so people can sign up.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: I'll make sure it's a friendly time for both, because I've got a client in the US at the moment.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: So, I'm very used to the time zone and trying to make it work.
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: That's very, very thoughtful of you.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you know this, but we're a little self-centered over here, especially me.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: I'm like what do you mean?
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: Central time US?
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: Oh, I'm not the only thing in the world.
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: So you've given us so many value points and I think they're applicable to even just an individual that wants to get more active on LinkedIn and social media or any platform at all.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: I know that LinkedIn, for me, is the most powerful tool I have right now.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: I'd say that's really important as well, especially when you're starting to worry about having to be on every platform.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: If you're just sticking to the platform that works for you, that's much better than trying to just post everything everywhere.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: The platforms are quite, very different, kind of, in their intricacies, so reposting the same thing across platforms, you've got to optimize it slightly.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: So that's just something else I'd recommend to you.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: Oh, my goodness.
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: So we've talked about your path, which I think is amazing.
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: You gave us some real humanness, talking about how you got introduced or discovered the value of community in sharing a real life situation.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: Talking about your eating disorder and how that contributed to where you're sitting now, dealing with burnout, because I honestly don't know that I know anyone that hasn't become victim to burnout, but that's probably because I surround myself with obsessive workaholics, because there are people that I've heard of that don't like burnout.
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: What's that like work-life balance?
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: They know that.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: They know what that is.
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: Wait a minute, we're talking two different languages here.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: So this idea about community I have first-hand experience, similar to you in serving and supporting your clients is community building part of that?
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: Is there a connection?
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: Do you mean in terms of the work that I do with the clients?
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: So I've worked with so many different industries and it always comes back to building that loyal community.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: Whether that is a high ticket product or service, where the community is a bit smaller, it might be a specific type of client or it might be a product like that there's a really big demographic for and it's a really big community.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: That always comes back to building that community, especially with the founders that I work with on LinkedIn.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: It's about creating a really loyal community and thinking about what that impact looks like to what I really help my clients with, no matter what kind of industry they're in.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: As I mentioned as well, I do physical communities as well with the agency I work with.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: That's about building physical places, so places in London getting people to visit specific places.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: It always comes back to what you actually want to achieve with social media.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: Whenever you get bogged down in having millions of views and I've worked with people that have had that but there's not that kind of looking at more of the impact you can have X amount of clients before you're going to hit burnout.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: You've only got capacity for so much as a business.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: So for you having loads and loads of likes, that's maybe not going to be particularly helpful.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: It's more about the value of those people engaging.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: So it's really coming back to what you're trying to achieve by that platform and maybe kind of getting too consumed in the vanity metrics.
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: Vanity metrics.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: My buddy, Thomas LeMay, and I just did a live stream last night and we talk about vanity metrics, but not in this context of social media.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: We talk about in the context of construction.
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: One of them is tied to burnout.
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: Right Vanity metric is revenue.
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: If I get lost in chasing that vanity metric I can burn myself out.
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: I will expose the weaknesses in my business and run people ragged chasing the vanity metric you just triggered that thought.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: If people want to work with you, what's the best way?
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: Where do they go to find you?
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so on LinkedIn is definitely where I'm most active.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: I also have an Instagram, so my business is called Marketing by G.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: My new website is launching as well in the new year.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: There you can find all of the different services I do.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: Just reach out to me on LinkedIn.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: I've got all of my links there.
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: Oh, excellent.
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: Okay, I got an easy question and a hard question.
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: Here's the easy question what's the super secret awesome thing that very few people know about you that I failed to ask?
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: That's a hard question.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: Very few people know.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: I think it would probably come back to the ambition obsession kind of thing.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: It probably isn't the best thing, but if somebody says no to me or criticizes something, that's my biggest fuel and driver.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: But when someone says no, that should be the start of you jiving rather than you completely giving up.
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: On social media.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: It's so easy to get deflated when somebody leaves a stinky comment Because that's part of the challenge of being active on social media is you expose yourself to jerkheads.
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: But you said, ok, give that to me because I need some fuel.
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: Tell me, no, tell me.
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: I don't know what I'm talking about.
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: I'm going to show you.
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love it.
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: Okay, you ready for the final and hard question?
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: Yes, go for it.
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: All right, here it is Again reframe for everybody.
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: You've had a beautiful and tremendous path.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: It's clear that you're committed to providing value and contributing what you've learned to help others have a better experience.
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: It seems like you've got some runway ahead of you in terms of years.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: So here's the question what is the promise you are intended to be?
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: Gosh, that's hard.
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: I know I love it.
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: I think it always comes back to what I went through with my eating disorder when I was younger and being so afraid of what other people think.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: It's really trying to help other people let go of that fear and do what they were meant to do.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: Stop worrying so much about putting out this perfect image.
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: Beautiful.
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: Not surprised at all that it would be a meaningful thought because I mean, you know that pain Like that is a transformative experience.
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: If you're helping people with that, applause to you and Georgia.
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: If I can contribute in any way to your path because I believe you're doing it to serve others and leave this world better than you found it, I want to contribute.
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: And again, maybe this is maybe a warning I want to contribute and again, maybe this is maybe a warning.
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: I promise it's not a threat, but I'm probably going to be signing up for that masterclass because I need to learn some of that automation magic sister.