Latest / Wedding Pros who are ready to grow - with Becca Pountney / How to respond to a national tragedy

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How to respond to a national tragedy · Wedding Pros who are ready to grow - with Becca Pountney

• 0:01
  Becca: This week in the UK and across the world, we've been
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  shocked and saddened by the death of our beloved queen Elizabeth II.
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  Although we knew this day was going to come, I'm not sure we really understood
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  the huge impact it would have on society.
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  There is so much we can learn from her reign and from her
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  example, her devotion to her work, her servant hearted leadership.
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  And of course her sense of humor as small business owners, it can be hard to know
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  how we react to such huge national events.
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  So in today's episode, I'm gonna share some thoughts to hopefully help.
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  I'm Becca Pountney wedding business, marketing, expert, speaker, and blogger.
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  And you are listening to the wedding pros who are ready to grow podcast.
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  I'm here to share with you actionable tips, strategies, and real life
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  examples to help you take your wedding business to the next level.
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  If you are an ambitious wedding business owner that wants to take your passion
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  and use it to build a profitable, sustainable business, doing what you
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  love, then you're in the right place.
• 1:02
  Let's get going with today's episode.
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  If you're listening to this episode in real time, then hopefully this will help
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  you navigate at this really poignant time.
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  After the death of our beloved queen Elizabeth II.
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  However, there quite often comes national events, things that we don't
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  expect, terrorist attacks, national tragedies, even the COVID crisis
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  that we just don't understand how to navigate as small business owners.
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  I'm hoping that this episode will help prepare you or to come back.
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  If and when these things happen, so you know exactly how we should deal with them.
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  So I'm gonna be sharing with you seven pieces of advice to help you
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  navigate this time here in the UK, and that you can use in the future.
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  So the first thing I wanna say is don't be hard on yourself.
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  If you just don't quite know how to deal with these things as a small business
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  owner, if you think about it, the UK government and the big organizations
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  have been preparing for the death of our Monarch for many, many years.
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  In fact, operation, uh, London bridge has been practiced over and over again.
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  It's like a well oiled.
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  but as small business owners, we haven't got a plan in place
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  for what to do in this instance.
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  And we can't just pull it out from the cupboard and, and follow it.
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  Exactly.
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  We're all making it up as we go along.
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  So the first thing I wanna say is don't be hard on yourself.
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  If you feel a bit disorientated, if you think I don't really know what to say.
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  I don't know what to post.
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  Can I carry on as usual?
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  Do I need to stop?
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  All of those questions are totally normal.
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  Don't be hard on yourself.
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  You haven't had time to prepare for this.
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  And actually, I don't think it's as black, as white as a right,
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  and a wrong way to deal with it as I'm gonna explain later on.
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  So that's the first thing is if you're feeling like you're being really hard
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  on yourself, because you don't know what to do, don't be hard on yourself.
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  You haven't had the time to prepare.
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  Let's just take it one step at a.
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  The second thing that I wanna share with you about how to deal with
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  these kind of events in history.
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  When it comes to dealing with our business is to keep yourself
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  informed and to keep yourself informed with reputable resources.
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  I think this is really important because when it comes to the
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  internet, we know that there's so much information out there.
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  And quite often it's difficult for us to know what's opinion and what is fact?
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  So for me, I read loads of articles about what's gonna happen over
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  the 10 days, but so much of it was opinion based and not entirely fact.
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  In fact, I saw three different dates given for the Queen's funeral
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  before an official announcement was.
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  So the first thing to think about is where are you getting
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  your news information from?
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  I highly recommend going to something like the BBC, because they don't tend
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  to put out a lot of opinion information.
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  They tend to just put out the information as it's told to
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  them by the official channels.
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  So do make sure you're getting your up to date information.
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  Don't get taken in by what other people are saying in groups or opinion,
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  blogs, or even opinion, newspapers and tabloids, because actually it
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  can cause you additional stress.
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  It makes you feel like there's gonna be more things happening than
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  actually are going to be happening.
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  And so it's really important to get your information from reputable sources.
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  This is exactly what I did during the COVID pandemic.
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  Make sure that I was reading what the government were actually saying,
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  rather than everyone's opinion on what we should and shouldn't be doing.
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  So in the event of these kind of crisis, make sure you are going directly to the
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  source to find out the information, rather than relying on what people are saying.
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  People love to cause a stir people love to panic you and make you read and buy their
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  newspapers or read their Facebook posts.
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  So make sure you're going back to that traditional information.
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  What has actually been said, what has been said about what can and can't happen
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  and what is open to interpretation?
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  the third thing I recommend you do.
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  And this is something that I definitely do is watch the
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  bigger brands, follow their lead.
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  Look at what the bigger brands are doing on their social media.
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  And when I talk about bigger brands, I'm not talking about.
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  Bigger brands within the wedding industry.
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  I'm talking about national brands.
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  Look at what John Lewis are doing.
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  Look at what, uh, Tescos or Sainsbury's are doing.
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  I don't know who you wanna look at, but look at what these bigger brands are
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  doing with their social media channels.
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  Are they going silent?
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  Have they had one day of silence?
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  Are they posting as per usual?
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  Are they posting less than usual and follow their leads on the whole if
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  you follow the lead of the bigger brands, you're probably going to.
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  Okay.
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  So don't be worried about looking at what other people are doing
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  and following their example.
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  For example, last week I went to Lego land and on Friday Lego land was closed out
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  of respect for the death of the queen.
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  It was just one day after, but by Saturday, everything was
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  pretty as normal at Lego land.
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  When I was there, it was.
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  Open, the only thing different was the Lego model of Buckingham palace where
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  they'd lowered the mast, which was very poignant and a great way to respect,
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  uh, and pay tribute to her majesty.
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  okay.
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  Number four is in these times, it's okay to be genuine and
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  honest with your audience.
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  The benefit of being a small business owner is often it's you,
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  that's the business, it's you, that's posting the social media.
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  You are the face and the voice of your brand and people know and love you.
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  So it's okay to be genuine and honest with them.
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  You know, tell people, I don't actually know what to say at the
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  moment, so I'm not gonna say.
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  tell people, you know, I'm trying to be sensitive here.
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  Um, hopefully nothing I do is unsensitive, you know, depending on
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  what your relationship's like with your audience, depending on how your tone
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  of voice comes across your audience.
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  It's totally okay.
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  To just be honest with them.
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  I think sometimes coming from a place of vulnerability helps because we
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  can't pretend we have it all together.
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  I saw this a lot.
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  Um, a couple of years back when the black lives matter movement was huge and lots
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  of people were posting about it was that people a bit like me in a white privileged
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  position were struggling to know how to talk about it and how to be sensitive.
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  And actually, instead of pretending, they knew it was really helpful
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  when people said, look, I actually don't know what to say right now.
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  I don't know how to be helpful.
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  Um, and I'm being totally honest with you and it's the same in this situation
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  with the death of the queen or in other national, um, tragedies as well.
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  Sometimes it's okay.
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  Just to say, I don't know what I'm doing.
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  I'm just gonna do my best and people will respect that more than if you pretend
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  you have it all together, my fifth piece of advice for you is that actually
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  sometimes staying quiet is also an option.
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  If you don't know what to post, if you don't know how to be respectful
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  in a time of a tragedy, you don't know what's right or wrong.
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  It's okay to just go silent.
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  I think sometimes we think that everyone's gonna miss us when we go off social media.
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  Do you ever see those posts, which say things like I'm gonna be gone
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  off social media for five days or I'm back after a week away?
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  Well, actually most of that audience probably didn't even notice, like
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  people aren't looking at your social media feed waiting for your next post.
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  Most of the.
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  So it's okay to go silent for a couple of weeks and not post anything.
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  And then just start again as we were before, not making a big announcement that
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  you are back because most people won't have even realized that you'd gone quiet.
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  So remember that being quiet is an option.
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  If it doesn't feel right to you right now to post on your social feeds, then don't.
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  You don't have to post anything.
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  You can just leave it quiet.
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  And in a couple of weeks time, when it feels right, again, just get it
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  going as if nothing has happened, you put way too much pressure on yourself
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  that you have to be consistent.
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  And yes, consistency's great.
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  But if you stop every now and again, give yourself a little
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  break because it feels right.
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  That's absolutely fine.
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  So again, don't be too hard on yourself.
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  If it feels easier to just let things lie and be quiet, then just do.
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  The sick thing I wanna talk about, which is a little bit of a boring thing to
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  talk about, but I think it's important is copyright over the last few days
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  with the death of the queen, I've seen all sorts of people, posting images of
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  the queen and drawings of the queen and all sorts of things in tribute, which
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  is such a wonderful, lovely gesture.
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  The one thing I just wanna remind you of, and to be careful of is
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  to remember that those images are still copyrighted in the same way.
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  When you take place, uh, part in a styled shoot and you share an image
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  and you need to credit the photographer and it's kind of disrespectful.
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  If you don't, it's exactly the same.
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  In these circumstances.
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  So if you are gonna be sharing images, professional images of the queen, the
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  Royal family, or even artwork, please make sure you are crediting the photographer,
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  crediting the artist, tagging them in your post and making sure that's clear
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  often, if those images are professionally owned, you can get in trouble for
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  using them on your social feeds.
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  Now, obviously we'd like to hope that people aren't gonna be looking
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  to make money out of this and by finding us and that kind of thing,
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  but it is something you need to be aware of and to be careful of.
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  One of the safest ways to do it is to share directly from an official account.
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  So for example, if you go to the official Royal family, Instagram
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  account, you can share those posts to your own Instagram stories.
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  And therefore you are not actually taking that picture and using it as your own.
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  You are sharing it and it's got the original accreditation and everything.
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  On it.
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  So just be careful.
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  Yes.
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  I know you want to pay your respects and I know you wanna market and
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  write things and show things on your Instagram feeds or your Facebook pages,
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  but just remember copyright rules do still apply and you do need to be
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  particularly careful when you're sharing professional images of celebrities.
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  And I don't want any of you to get caught out.
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  If at all possible credit, although again, they can still say you can't
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  use their image without paying or ideally share it from an official
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  source so that you're not taking that image and using it as your own.
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  And then the final thing I want to share in today's episode is that
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  you just have to do your best.
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  You can be sensitive, you can be respectful, but at the end of the day, you
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  need to remember it's your own business.
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  Like I said earlier, there is no right and wrong in these situations.
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  There's no right or wrong way to behave in this situation.
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  There's no right or wrong way to behave in another national tragedy either.
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  We need to watch, we need to learn.
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  We need to be thoughtful and sensitive to what our audience might be thinking,
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  but there is no right or wrong way.
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  Do it, however you want to, if you want to pay tribute, pay tribute.
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  If you don't, then don't, if you wanna carry on as normal,
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  then carry on as normal.
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  If you don't wanna carry on as normal and you wanna stay quiet, stay quiet.
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  If you wanna put a black logo on your Instagram page, put a black logo on
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  your Instagram page at the end of the day, it's your business, you know, your
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  business best, you know, your audience best and you know yourself best.
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  So make sure you do what you think.
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  Is right.
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  Yes.
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  Listen for any official guidelines.
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  Yes.
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  Look at what other brands are doing and be sensitive, but don't feel like there's
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  a certain path you have to follow because everyone else is doing it because there
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  absolutely isn't often these posts, when we write tributes, come from a place of.
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  Genuine feeling thoughts and emotion.
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  If we try and force that it becomes obvious that we're just joining
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  in with the rest of the crowd.
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  So be true to yourself.
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  Be true to your audience and share what you think is appropriate
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  to share at the time when you think it's appropriate to share.
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  So to recap those seven thoughts that I had for you on how to react
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  as a small business owner, uh, this week after the death of our beloved
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  queen Elizabeth II or in the event of another national or worldwide tragedy.
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  And we just don't quite know how to respond.
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  So number one, don't be hard on yourself.
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  We are single business owners.
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  We often don't know what we're doing and that's okay.
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  We don't have the same amount of planning and preparation as
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  some of the big corporations.
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  Secondly, stay informed to make sure you're looking to reputable
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  sources for your information.
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  Thirdly, watch what the bigger brands are doing.
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  This is a great practice to get into anyway, in your marketing
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  because they know what they're doing and they often have bigger.
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  Uh, budgets than we do fourthly.
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  Don't be afraid to be honest and genuine about how you're feeling or
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  what you're doing with your audience.
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  Number five, remember that?
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  Staying quiet is an option.
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  It's okay.
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  To just not post anything.
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  If you're unsure of what to say, number six is be careful of copyright,
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  especially when sharing images of celebrities, uh, or professional images
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  that they may want you to pay to use.
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  And finally just do your best.
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  That's all you can ever do.
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  Be true to yourself is your business.
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  You can do it however you want.
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  Don't let other people tell you what to do.
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  Just be true to yourself and do what you think is best.
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  I hope you found this episode helpful.
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  If you need any more help and advice, reach out to me this week on
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  Instagram and I'll see you back next.