Creating Your Sustainable Social Media Marketing Strategy with Andréa Jones

Building a social media marketing strategy that works for you takes time, especially if you aren’t creating it to be sustainable. In today’s episode, Andréa Jones joins us to discuss how you should approach your social media marketing strategy, why you should use the 80/20 rule, and which platform you should focus on first!

The Business-First Creatives Podcast is brought to you by CRM and Dubsado expert Colie James. Join Colie each week as she discusses how to build a business that brings you joy and a paycheck! From business advice with fellow entrepreneurs to sharing automation tips and tricks, Colie and her guests are sharing industry trends and resources, along with a little bit of sarcasm.

LISTEN ON YOUR FAVORITE PODCAST PLAYER

Apple Podcast App | Spotify | Amazon | Google Podcast | Youtube

Guest Bio:

Andréa Jones is the social media strategist helping brands with bold personalities, bold opinions, and bold ideas make bold moves towards elevating their thought leadership and growing their business using the power of social media.

Ready for a light-on-your-feet approach to social media (no heavy lifting required)? Reach out to Andréa at onlinedrea.com or @onlinedrea on Instagram.

Today’s episode is brought to you by my Love Your Leads private audio training! Are you providing an experience for your leads that sets an expectation on when they’ll hear from you, provides them with tools that will help them easily say yes and book you, while also making them feel seen and heard? In my private audio training, you’ll learn how to love your leads and get more booked clients through an automated booking process.

Here are the highlights…

[1:14] Meet Andréa

[1:28] Social Media Tool Agnostic

[2:10] The Approach to Finding a Strategy that Works

[4:15] Content Delivery

[5:30] Differentiating Social Media Platforms & Purposes

[7:31] TikTok is the Leading Social Media Innovation Tool

[11:16] Client-First Content Creation & Strategy

[14:38] Using Social Media as a Business Card

[15:52] Creating Accounts on All Platforms (Even If You’re Not Active)

[17:05] The 80/20 Rule for Social Media

[19:20] Setting Boundaries

[22:32] Finding Your One Platform to Focus On

[25:33] Testing for 90 Days

[26:50] Data to Consider

[30:48] Social Strategy Geared Towards Referral Partners

[32:15] Pinterest as a Search Engine

[34:42] Biggest Fuck Up

[36:06] Sustainable Businesses for Teams

Mentioned in this Episode

Episode 33 with Maddie Peschong

Connect with Andréa

Website: https://onlinedrea.com/

Savvy Social Podcast: https://onlinedrea.com/podcast

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@onlinedrea

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/onlinedrea/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OnlineDrea/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/onlinedrea

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/onlinedrea/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@onlinedrea

Social Media Starter Kit free course: https://onlinedrea.com/free

Review the Transcript:

Colie: Hello, hello, and welcome back to the Business First Creatives podcast.

Today you are in for a real treat. I am interviewing Andréa Jones, the host of The Savvy Social Podcast. Andréa, how are you doing today?

Andréa: I am wonderful. Thank you for having me on the show.

Colie: Ah, anyone who lives in like a cave and doesn’t know who you are and what you’re about, why don’t you tell the listening audience what you do and who you serve.

Andréa: I am flattered first of all, so thank you. So I’m a social media strategist. I work with brands and personality based brands, usually, helping them leverage social media as a tool to grow their business. So, we’re not influencers. We’re not just here to play. We’re here to actually like, use it to grow our business.

So I do that through my services, done, free services, and then also in my, program at the Savvy Social School.

Colie: Yes, and as we were saying before I hit recording, one of the things that I’m absolutely fascinated with is that you don’t focus on one tool. You’re like tool agnostic. I really feel like you have a good handle. On what’s going on in almost every single tool in social media, and that you are curating it and finding a strategy to fit your clients.

So tell me if someone comes to you because they’re overwhelmed by social media, they know that it can help them grow their business and they just don’t know how, how is it that you approach them and find a strategy that’s good for that particular business owner?

Andréa: Yeah, and I’m glad that you said strategy too, because. Sometimes with social media, we focus on the tactics too much. You know, like, oh, I should post three times a day on this X, Y, Z platform. And E even as I start saying that, people go, I already feel overwhelmed like three times posting a day about what?

So, that’s why I do take a strategy, first approach, and a lot of that strategy is based on the person who’s posting, especially if they are a founder or a business owner. Who’s doing it for themselves. It’s a whole different game if you are doing that and running your whole business versus if you have a team or even an assistant helping you.

So the first thing I ask is, which platform do you enjoy? Because if I say, oh, you have to be on LinkedIn, and then you log into LinkedIn and you start scrolling around and you’re like, I do not like this at all. Even if I say That’s the platform you have to be on, it’s the best platform if you don’t like it.

You’re not going to log in. Even if you do log in, you’re not gonna feel comfortable there. And we’ve all had those experiences where we, you know, join a new friend group or a new work group and we just don’t feel like we fit in. So we just don’t participate as much. And I do think it’s like that on social media sometimes.

Some of the platforms you log on and you go, this is not my. This is not my jam, so you don’t spend time there. So it does start with where kind of your preferences lie, and then how you wanna create content is the next question. So I’m a video girl, put a camera in front of me, a mic in front of me. I talk all day.

If you ask me to write a caption though, it’s gonna take me a minute. So for me, any platform where I can use my voice to speak is a lot better than writing out. Text-based posts. So first it’s your preference on platform, and then second, it’s your preference on content delivery method. And then with those two things, we usually can kind of like nail down a platform.

And the key here is one that you actually like or maybe you even feel neutral towards. Cuz if you start hating it, you’re not gonna use it.

Colie: So it’s odd that you say content delivery though, because that is something that I feel is not as important anymore because like you said, you love video. I mean, you can do video anywhere. Now, videos on TikTok, on Instagram, on YouTube, on Facebook, I mean on LinkedIn. I will say, I’ve never been in the corporate world.

I spent 10 years in academia before I became a solopreneur, now an entrepreneur, and so LinkedIn was something that I, I just never engaged in. I’m also old enough to wear, like when LinkedIn first came out, guys, it is not what it is today. I mean, when I. Finally got an account, Jayo, which was honestly in the last year is when I finally made a LinkedIn account.

And technically it’s my fake name, Coley James. So like no one from like academia would ever find me on LinkedIn because I don’t use my real name, I use my business name. but like I was really surprised at how much it felt like the, like a social media platform, like a Facebook, like an Instagram in that, how you can make the connections.

Like I know that LinkedIn is all about making connections, but to me it was a lot different than what I imagined it, or what I know my husband had for his LinkedIn account where he was looking for his first job outside of his postdoc, like, you know, 12 years ago. It just, it looks very different than what I expected.

Andréa: Oh yeah. Like they, honestly, a lot of the apps are starting to look alike, but LinkedIn used to be a resume, like you basically just upload your resume. That was your profile, and that was it. And then it’s evolved over the years to be something more like Facebook. And especially in the past two years. I mean, the U, the active number of users has almost doubled.

And so there’s a lot of people on the platform just kind of hanging out, engaging, especially. Business to business. So, it, it is changing. It’s not for everybody, but I personally really like it, especially their search functionality. Like you can find people with very specific job titles in very specific locations, which you can’t really do with some of the other apps.

So I like

it.

Colie: can’t, and it’s, it’s interesting that you mentioned the search feature because I don’t know where I was listening to it. So if this was you, I apologize to the world listening world, but someone recently said that TikTok is the new Google for millennials. And I was like, wait, what?

And then they were like, yeah, you know, if they wanna figure out how to make tortilla soup, they’re actually going to TikTok and they are searching for it.

And I was like, Really, I was like, I would never go to TikTok to search for content.

Not like that. Like I don’t think of it as a search engine. So how should we approach putting content on TikTok differently than say, Facebook or Instagram or LinkedIn? If the new kids on the block are really using TikTok as a search engine and not just as a social media.

platform to like consume content because like my 12 year old is obsessed with TikTok.

She is making videos all day. She actually found a video recently that was talking about why they hated school and she sent it to me. I think she’s trying to, you know, send me messages. But it seems like there are vastly different ways that people consume TikTok versus the other platforms.

Do you find that to be true?

Andréa: Yeah, TikTok is the leading, social media innovation tool right now, and many of the platforms are copying TikTok, like we have Instagram reels because of TikTok and Facebook reels and YouTube shorts and all of those things. So one of the ways they’re leading the innovation is marrying social and search, and it really is based on users.

So I used to use Instagram like this. Like, you know, five years ago if I was looking for a brand photographer, I would go to Instagram and search brand photographer in Niagara Falls and I would look for people cuz I liked the visuals. I want someone who’s on social media actively because that’s my brand.

So I definitely want them to understand the social piece. I found a life coach this way. I found, a brand photographer this way. You know, there’s a lot of. Ways that you can use social media that way. The thing is though, with Instagram or even some of the other platforms, is you kind of have to know what you’re looking for first in order to find them.

Where TikTok is different is that they are helping you find something even if you don’t know what you’re looking for. So this is where. It’s like a combination of like YouTube and social, right? Because YouTube, you can go and watch a bunch of videos. But the thing about YouTube is it’s looking at things like the video title and the video description.

Whereas TikTok is actually looking at the, you know, transcript in the video. It’s looking at the comment sections, what are people saying about this video? And so, you know, looking at the, I think you said chicken, chicken tortilla.

Colie: Uhhuh.

Andréa: So it’s not just looking at, you know, who put, here’s a chicken tortilla soup recipe in the caption or in the title, but it’s actually the content of the video and the way people are reacting in the comments that becomes part of the search.

So, TikTok after recognizing that that’s how their users are using the app is now like promoting it. So if you go to look for something on TikTok, it’s gonna try to help you find it even better than some of the other platforms. They’re even running ads now that says, you know, use TikTok to search for whatever it is you’re looking for, which I just find fascinating.

So I think they’re taking, how users use the platform and kind of reverse engineering it to make their platform even better. And we have not seen this in a long time. I think the last time I can think about this particularly is when hashtags were birthed on Twitter back in the day. User started using it that way, and then it became like a clickable hyperlink and now it’s just embedded everywhere.

I think that’s what’s happening with TikTok search is that that’s gonna become how we just all use social media. One day I could just, I geek out about this stuff.

Colie: I mean, and it’s funny because I had to kick my kid off of my TikTok and give her her own account because in the beginning, like I didn’t care. So she was posting like all of her video game. Like videos and just videos of herself. And she made me do some of ’em. You know, where we would play at something.

And then when I realized, oh no, I might actually need this TikTok for business, I had to go hide all of those videos and make her her own account so that she could do it somewhere that like, I guess my potential clients wouldn’t see it. Oh. But speaking of clients,

so I feel like that’s the one missing piece that we haven’t talked about.

We talked about your preference. And the content delivery, but how does your market, how do your clients or your ideal clients play into how you create content for social media and where you choose to exist? Like is that a thing?

Andréa: Yeah, so you can do it that way where you, you think about your client first. How do they wanna consume content? How do they wanna connect with you? So for example, One of my colleagues, I guess, has a TikTok account, and she’s a florist. So she does like wedding flowers and things like that.

And so she used to be very active on Instagram, but she noticed her ideal client is on TikTok more now. So she just switched platform, started playing with TikTok, creating content that TikTok likes, and she’s seen success that way. So you can do it that way. Where you, you follow your client and her demographic.

You know, people who are getting married are getting, are younger and younger every year. And so, that’s what worked for her. I do also believe that your ideal client. Should match your style as well. So for instance, for me, I, like I said, I love speaking, I love talking. It’s not a lot of written materials.

So if someone was a learning style that needed written materials, even if I started writing a lot more on social media, if they joined my program, it’s a lot of videos, it’s a lot of, you know, audio. So for me, I tend to. Lean into my preference more and know that the people who appreciate that will find me.

Um, so that also is another way to look at it is, you know, if you have your preference, you lean into how you wanna create content, your people will come and find you, and social media should reflect what it’s like to work with you. So if they come into your world and you really like. You know, styled photography with like very minimal captions and then they come into your world and it’s a lot of imagery and not a lot of writing, then that is accurate, right?

It’s an accurate reflection of that. And you can take that to almost any platform, including TikTok. There is a lot of people who post almost like, like if you’re a photographer, they post these like slideshow almost of just their photos with some trending sound and. You know, you don’t have to like be face to camera on video, so you could really take that style and apply it to any platform.

Colie: Yeah, so in addition to being a family photographer, I am also a filmmaker, and so I have been using videos since, way before it was cool, like 2012. In the very beginning of my business, I would always take video clips of my clients, and I do think that. Now for photographers, there is a really good trend of them taking behind the scenes footage while they are in a house because a lot of photographers do not feel comfortable in front of the camera.

Clearly, I’m not one of those people, but those people do exist, and so I am constantly telling them. If you don’t feel comfortable being on video, there are plenty of ways for you to put out video content and not be the face in front of the camera. Like you can use your content in different ways. And so I love that you’re saying this because.

You and I both love the camera. We both love being in front of the camera. It’s where we feel most comfortable. But for the listening audience, it’s like, yeah, but like that’s not my jam. Like I don’t wanna be in front and be front and center. It’s okay, especially for photographers. You

guys can put your work front and center and basically let it talk for you, but you can use your audio and your words at the same time to really connect your ideal clients to your work.

Andréa: Yeah, I love this. And like you already said, this is how users expect to find. Brands and things this these days as well. You know, it’s almost like having that virtual business card of sorts. It’s like you’re allowing people, you remember Yellow Pages? Am I aging myself?

Colie: Oh, no, no. I’m older than you. I’m a hundred percent sure.

Andréa: we, for those that don’t know, we used to get these giant books. Delivered to our house, and you would look up businesses that way, and if you tried to find something and it wasn’t there, well then you would never know it exists. So I do think that social media plays a similar role in 2023, you know, today in the sense that if I go to search for. A videographer and I don’t see examples online of what they can produce, I’m probably gonna go with someone else. And so I do think that there is so much opportunity for creatives to showcase their work without necessarily having to center on you. Like you can definitely have your clients be the star of the show and, and show, uh, what’s possible using social media.

Colie: I find it so fascinating. First of all, we definitely aged ourselves with Yellow Pages, but I find it fascinating that you said that because one of the things that I try to get all of my um, students to understand is even if you don’t wanna be active on LinkedIn, you should have the account number one, so that someone does not steal it from you in case you ever in the future decide to use it.

But also, It’s just another place for you to display your work. And so especially with the Grid nine, which I know that you are very familiar with and you have a product related to it, but. You know, putting that out there and having that kind of static nine places where you have the opportunity to increase no, like and trust with people who aren’t in Instagram, even if it’s not your jam, even if you don’t want to interact on Instagram on a daily basis.

Think about it like a listing in the Yellow Pages. Like you’re basically just putting a sign up. And if you prefer to be on TikTok, guess what guys? You can have your standard nine, and then you can send people to TikTok. You can send people to LinkedIn if that’s more your jam. But I do think that all of us should have all of the listings so that if someone is looking for us somewhere, they can find us, even if that’s not where we are active on a daily basis.

Andréa: Yeah, a hundred percent. And then, you know, to piggyback off of that, I do think like focusing in on one platform is key. So claim all of the others. Put your, put your little listing up, you know, whether it’s in Instagram, you know, the nine grid or um, you know, just one post on LinkedIn that says, Hey, this is what I’m all about.

And then pick your platform and stick with that and spend about 80% of your time there. Because while content. Is a great driver for helping people to find you. There is the second part of this where it’s networking, it’s engaging with people, it’s finding collaboration partners. It’s, you know, connecting with your potential clients and customers.

It’s showing up in the community spaces where your people hang out. And so that piece to social media, like the social piece of social media is also very, it’s a very key element and part of this process. And I do think sometimes we think I can just post and people will find me. And as much as I wish that were true is

not

Colie: not, I call that hopeful marketing.

It’s when you throw your stuff out into the world and you just hope that people will come. Yeah. That, that, that doesn’t work 90% of the time. So you said you should spend 80% of your time on the platform that you like. What is the other 20%? Is the other 20% networking or is the other 20% minimally posting on other platforms or doing some other kind of marketing?

Andréa: Yeah, so 80% of your social media time is on one platform. The other 20% is reposting stuff to other platforms. So, if you are creating on Instagram reels, for instance, it’s very easy to take that video, post it as a TikTok post on YouTube shorts posted as a Pinterest idea pin. There’s a lot of tools that will help.

Automate that process as well for you. So kind of making sure that you’re, you have a presence on those other platforms without actively networking and engaging on those. So that’s content wise. When it comes to actually spending time on the platforms, I do recommend giving yourself a time limit

for the networking piece.

Colie: She said, boundaries. Y’all.

Andréa: Boundaries. So my boundaries. Just a little bit of background. I got super overwhelmed with social media in 2017. I remember it very distinctly because I was describing it to my doctor and she was like, it sounds like you’re having anxiety attacks. I was like,

Colie: Aww.

Andréa: Okay, great. Cool. So I, even the thought of like opening, you know, Facebook messages, I was like, oh my gosh, what is going on today?

So I turned off all my notifications everywhere. I only have texts and really it’s only my husband that texts me and like my sister. So everything is turned off. That’s my first boundary. And the second boundary is time limits. So I spend about 15, 20 minutes a day, kind of responding to comments and messages and you know, networking, leaving other comments and messaging other people.

For me and a lot of my clients and students, this is a manageable because as business owners we have like, A crap ton of other stuff that we have to do. We don’t have time to be scrolling on social media all day. So giving that boundary really helps set the parameters of like, I’m here, I’m working and I’m here to, to check a box and do that job instead of like getting sucked into the black hole of scrolling.

Especially on TikTok. TikTok knows me so well. I

Colie: So

it shows you stuff to just keep you engaged and keep you scrolling for hours. I feel like that sometimes when I get on to post something, I’m like, oh my gosh, it’s been like an hour and I haven’t posted it. What I intended to do, and I had one of my good friends who’s a brand photographer out of South Dakota, Maddie Peschong, has been on this podcast twice y’all, and this is how bad it was for Maddie.

She put, passcode. And time limits on her social media, and her husband was the one with the code so

Andréa: Oh

Colie: could not overrule it. Yeah. I mean, and it really worked for her. She said that, you know, it made social media manageable again, and then she was only doing it for like the work purpose. I mean, so some of us can set boundaries and stick to them, and for those of you that can’t lock up your phone and give your husband the passcode

Andréa: Yeah. No, I love that I love that. Cuz I feel like, okay, so I feel like social media’s like ice cream. I’ve been thinking about this analogy a lot because I. I’m the type of person who can buy ice cream and it can sit in the freezer for a week, and I just, I’ll eat it when I’m ready and then just leave it there.

My husband is the type of person where ice cream cannot be in the house or else he will eat it, and so I think you have to figure out what kind of person you are. I’m the kind of person where I’m like, I know it’s there. I’ll get to it when I get to it. Some people are like, lock it up. Don’t even bring it here.

Cause. You know, that’s my way of keeping my boundaries. So I, she’s, you know, she sounds like the kind of person who’s like ice cream cannot be in this house right now.

Colie: I mean ice cream, I have a, a. Some cookies and cream blue ball right now and every day I’ve been getting like a little half a bowl and enjoying my little half a bowl. But I do remember a time where I would’ve eaten, like, you know, the whole thing and there’s been like, oh, I dunno where the ice cream went.

Like that ice cream’s been gone for a long time. What are you talking about? I didn’t buy new ice cream. I mean, that would be, that would be my philosophy.

Andréa: Yeah, I love it. I love it.

Colie: So one platform.

How do you find the platform? Because I think this is where a lot of creatives get stuck. Like they love someone, they follow someone, someone says, oh, Instagram is where it is for me. And so they dive headfirst into Instagram, basically copying all the strategy, well actually maybe not strategy, copying all the tactics

that someone told them to, and then two months later, They have nothing to show for it.

So how do you suggest that someone who really is brand new, like they don’t have a preference on which social media they love, they’re not currently active on any of them. How do you find your soulmate in social media? How do you find that one platform that lights you up?

Andréa: Yes. Okay. So the top three platforms right now, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, they have the most active users right now. Anyone who tells you that TikTok is only for young people, hasn’t looked at the data, 50% of the people are below 30? Yes. But there’s 50% of the people who are older than 30. So there’s a lot of people on this app.

So those are the top three platforms out of those platforms. I just don’t recommend starting from scratch on Facebook. It’s really hard to do without paid advertising as a business owner. So that one’s out. So now we have Instagram and TikTok, and then it comes down to preference. Do you prefer video or photo?

Um, and I do think that both apps have their pros and cons, but anyone starting from scratch, I would almost say Instagram would be the winner. Right now here in Alan today because of the, complexity that you, that the app has over TikTok. So you have photos in the feed, you have videos in the feed, you also have stories.

So you have three different ways that you can create content and the users on the app. You do have to initiate connections a little more than TikTok, but people tend to be a little bit more business minded. So as a business owner it can be easier to build, like collaboration partners and things like that.

Colie: Okay.

Andréa: If, however, your offer is. One of those things that people consume a lot of. So for example, right now I’m seeing a lot of artists, especially like painters, really take off on TikTok just by recording the process and speeding up the video. Those types of videos have a very, Almost like viral effect to them, where people will consume a lot of that content and it, TikTok is designed to be discoverable.

So you post a video today, people you don’t know are already gonna see it. Whereas Instagram, I. You kind of need to have followers first in order for people to see that content. TikTok, zero followers, first posts, could get a million views, right?

Colie: Okay.

Andréa: So with those two apps in mind, I would try them out, give yourself at least 90 days. Okay? Try one at a time, at least 90 days, and then you will have a preference after that. And that’s where you’ll spend most of your time. In the other app, you’ll just use as a repurposing tool.

Colie: Na. Andréa, I know you love data. Like you

make my heart happy every time you say data. You did that one recently where you were kicking out all that stats and I pulled over in my car to write some of them down. So I’m a very analytical data person, but like we’re telling everybody, try both. Uh, give it 90 days on each one, but how should they determine besides their preference, if they’re actually getting growth?

Because I know people would be like, oh, but I didn’t get anything from it. And I think it’s because people just don’t know

how to measure growth. Everybody is about instant gratification and nothing that we are talking about, like social media is a long-term growth strategy. It is not gonna happen overnight.

Even if you have a post that goes viral, which. I know Drea would love to talk to some of you guys about not paying attention to that kind of thing, but like what should they look for in order to measure actual growth for their business on either platform?

Andréa: Yes. So there’s a few different types of metrics that I like to geek out about, and you’re right, I love the data.

so the first one is looking at, reach or impressions. So this is impact. So are people even seeing what I’m posting? And most of the platforms have reach or impressions or views. It’s telling you how many people.

Even glanced at this content. Okay. So that’s very high level. You can also look at followers or community growth. So, okay, I’m reaching people and they’re following me. Okay. Those are two initial things. If we’re gonna dig a little bit deeper. Engagement is great, but look at the hidden metrics. These are oftentimes more valuable than things like likes or comments.

I’m talking about saves, I’m talking about shares. And you have to go in your metrics oftentimes to see those things. And then the biggest one, the most important one to me is conversions. So let’s say you’re reaching people, they’re following you, they’re engaging, but then are they taking that next step towards working with you?

We’re looking at things like if you’re saying on Instagram, tap the link in the bio. Well, did they?

Colie: Mm-hmm.

Andréa: asking for a, you know them to look at the link in the bio and they’re not even clicking that, they’re not going to your website, they’re not looking at your offers. So really kind of breaking down each step of that process.

And I challenge you to go through it yourself. If you say, click the link in your bio, okay, what does someone do? They go, they click the link. Usually we have multiple links. Now they’re on your website. What happens then? Kind of go through it yourself. And then I also like to look at website traffic.

I use Google Analytics, but there are a ton of analytics tools coming out now, especially with some of the data privacy, concerns happening right now. But I like to look at things like time on the website. You know, what did they click when they were on the website? Did people sign up for my email newsletter?

Did they fill out the intake form? You know, those are things that are super important to me personally, and that’s what I look for as a measure of success. So, likes, followers, even impact, like, impression and reach are all great. Cool. But for me, I, I’m running a business here, so I need to see people actually moving down that sales funnel into becoming a client or customer.

Colie: And it’s so interesting that you say that. You mentioned about the data privacy, because I remember I was obsessed with Google Analytics when I opened my photography business. I mean, I would spend hours looking at the analytics and seeing what people did on my website because guys, 10 years ago, Google Analytics would tell you that I could tell if someone landed on the homepage and then what page they went to next, and then what page they went to next.

I could see how long they were spending on each page. You cannot follow people like that anymore. Like it’s not a thing. You go into Google Analytics and it makes me cry that it’s missing. And so you have to be a little proactive. I mean, I love what Dre is saying, but at the end of the day, if you are not asking people where they found you

and keeping track of it, you are missing a big piece of the conversion like puzzle.

Andréa: Yep.

Colie: So inside of your C R M, since you guys know I’m the C R M Queen, on your intake form, on your contact form, you need to be asking people where they found you, and of course all of those things that we’ve mentioned, like social media, are you on TikTok, are you on Instagram, are you on Facebook? List, all of those separately.

If you are currently running Google Ads list, Google Ads and Google Organic search separately so that people can tell you where they found you so that you can figure out what parts of your marketing are most effective. Or in the case of today’s talk all about social media. If they’re finding you on social media, find out where it’s most effective, because then maybe you need to put more effort towards that platform if you are getting a higher conversion rate.

Andréa: Yes, I love everything about this, and I have two follow ups to this as well. One is that, so I, I’m a Dubsado girly as well. Love Dubsado. So I have this question and most frequently people say referrals for me. Not social media. So how I change my social media strategy is geared towards my referral partners.

Colie: Okay.

Andréa: So my, so that’s what, how I leverage social media. So e even if you see something coming in that is, you know, maybe not social media directly, how can you use social media to build up that other thing? Right? Maybe it’s email, maybe it’s podcast guesting, whatever it is, right? So I, I challenge you to look at it that way too.

So the other thing too about some of this analytical data is. That referral box will, will give you the real tea. Because sometimes people, you know, Google Analytics will say like, oh, you’re getting a ton of traffic from Pinterest. Right? And this happens all the time, especially with Pinterest, because people do click, they click, they click.

But it has some of the lowest conversion rates that I’ve ever

seen out of any, any platform. So people try to say, oh, you’ll get all of this traffic from Pinterest. And I’m like, okay, who cares? Like it is it. Is it business traffic or is it just people who like pretty pictures, right? So some of that referral box I love this will help you determine where people are actually converting, not where people are looking, which is really important.

Colie: I agree. And it’s funny, I mean, cuz we have, I mean think about it girl, it took us 33 minutes to mention the word Pinterest. I find it really interesting that Pinterest is a search engine. But as a photographer, I have never put much stock in Pinterest because my most viral pins are for what we call Fresh 40 eights, documenting, you know, newborns right after they were born in the hospital.

But like all of my traffic is not local.

Like, I mean, I get tons of thousands of pins and likes and you know, all of the, all of the Pinterest talk on those particular pins I get, you know, lots of traffic to my website. But those people are 100% bounce rate because

they have. They don’t have, they don’t even have the ability to be my client, even if they wanted to, because they are not local to me.

And so that is another thing. I guess that’s another piece of the puzzle is when you’re thinking about conversions and traffic, like are the people that are coming to you. Even able to be your clients now, I mean, for my Dubsado setups, it doesn’t matter where people are located, but for someone where local SEO and the actual location of where you live for the service is super important.

I think there’s one more layer, one more layer to like Pinterest and I guess others, but when they come to your website, Are they in your area?

Because all of the people that are coming to you, it’s great if you’re getting like 5,000, you know, hits users to your website every month. But if only 20 of those 5,000 are local, it’s not doing its job.

It’s not gonna get you conversions in the, you know, realm of what you need it to be.

Andréa: Yeah. Yeah, and I think I also see this with TikTok as well, is that there is a lot of that the same thing happening right now where it can get you a lot of attention, but is it the right attention is the big question. Their geotargeting is a, is a, is a, it’s better than Pinterest, but it’s. Still too broad, in my opinion, for something as targeted as a local photographer or local videographer.

So you gotta keep that in mind when you’re thinking about something. Unless you’re in like a large city, like New York City, it’s gonna, it’s gonna be tough. It’s gonna be a challenge.

Colie: I could literally talk to you for hours, and so I am gonna ask you the question that I ask everyone on the podcast, Drea, what was your biggest fuck up in business? What did you learn from it, and how did you grow?

Andréa: Yeah, so, oh man, I have so many of these, but the one that stands out to me, me the most is in 2018, I was not priced appropriately. So I had two clients who were everything, and then like 10 clients who were barely. Anything, I shouldn’t say barely anything. Their invoice amount was just so small, that those two clients left in the same month, and it was the only time in my business that I was in the red.

I had to let go of some of my team and it was a really, really important lesson on being priced appropriately because I. Was just trying to work with way too many people and literally couldn’t sustain myself. So ever since then I’ve been really, really strategic about my pricing and it’s something I talk a lot, even though I’m not like a business coach or a business expert.

I do think the pricing piece plays a huge. A huge role in social media. A lot of the people that I work with, for instance, they actually wanna outsource social media one day. And in order to do that, you have to have a pricing structure that supports a team, right? So I, I talk about this a lot too. It’s like if you don’t wanna do social media or even other pieces of your business, you can outsource it.

And you have to be priced to be able to kind of be able to afford hiring a team. So big lesson learned.

Colie: Absolutely. And I’m actually gonna have quite a few people on the podcast, in the next few months talking about sustainability and how to prepare your business to build a team, because I think that’s like the piece that we’re all missing is I. At least as photographers. I mean, other entrepreneurs might be a little different, but when we think about building a team, it’s this very future goal like.

We, we have been taught that most photographers can be solopreneurs forever, and so, you know, you only do the team when you’ve really made it big. But there are tons of things that you can do in your business right now to prepare yourself to have a team later.

Like for example, the one thing that I was having a conversation with someone recently was do not create all of your social media accounts with your Google login.

Andréa: Oh

Colie: create exactly. It will create trouble

down the line when you want to hire people either in your business or to outsource it, and all of a sudden, all of your accounts were created with the same Google. Id, I

mean, cuz I don’t wanna give anybody my Google Id like that’s, that’s more precious than gold.

And so, I mean, preparing yourself for something like that in the future, making sure that you can articulate what your needs are to hire someone for your social media. So actually Drea, I

usually end with the whole biggest fuck up question, but I think I’m gonna ask you a follow up

because I feel like there are a lot of people.

Who want to outsource their social media and they don’t have a real clear understanding of like what the first step should be. So we’ve talked a lot about figuring out what platform you’re more comfortable on, and I’m assuming we were having that conversation for the people in the audience that wanted to diy.

But if they want to outsource, do we need to do that first? Or can you still hire someone, a professional to help you outsource your social media strategy before you know where you should exist?

Andréa: Okay, so I am a huge believer in that you need to do it yourself first because I think there’s a nuance to social media that it’s really hard for someone else to come in, especially for something as personal, as like say photography businesses and just like crush it right out the gate. It’s very hard, and what oftentimes happens is people hire someone and then they go, I don’t see any return on this investment.

Right. I’m not seeing clients come in the door. And so I do think as business owners you need to figure out the role that social media plays in your business. Cuz sometimes it’s not clients in the door. Like I said, for me it’s referral partners. So I don’t get direct clients from social media. It’s referral partnerships.

So when I hire, like when my team does my social, we’re thinking about referrals. We’re not thinking about clients. You have to kind of understand that nuance before outsourcing it. So then you tell that person, here’s our goal, here’s our path forward. And then I also think that. It depends on what kind of support you need.

So some people like social media and they’re like, I love it. I just need someone to come in and like post everywhere else and I’m gonna hang out on Instagram and they’re gonna take what I post on Instagram, post it everywhere else. And there are some people who are like, I don’t even wanna log in. Like, I don’t wanna see it.

I just need someone else to take it. So you kind of have to figure out too what your, your, your role is in your social media as well.

Colie: Well, and I also, I kind of think of social media in the same way that I think of my C R M setup services. Like there’s the setting up part, there’s the strategy.

And then there’s the actual management and like implementation. So I could totally see in like the social media world, you could hire someone to help you form a strategy,

but then you are responsible for actually implementing it for some, you know, set amount of time until you get comfortable, until you get your groove, until you know that that’s the direction that you want to go.

And then maybe you can look for social media management.

Like I know that people do both. And other people do one or the other. I do feel like though, that there is a place for people who are like, but I, it’s not even that I’m not trying, it’s that I have no idea what I should be doing. And so there’s gotta be someone out there that can like help me look at my business and basically dissect it and give me a strategy to try.

And then of course, again, give it 90 days.

And after 90 days you see some growth, maybe you don’t, you tweak and you try it for another 90 days. So, I wanna put out there, I love what you said about people doing it first, cuz I feel the same way about a podcast, which is odd. I mean, we’re both podcasters, but when people ask me about immediately hiring a team for their podcast, I’m like, no.

I did everything myself for four months and it really helps me editing. Listening to the questions, making sure that I didn’t interrupt my damn guest. I mean, that was actually how I figured out. I have to sit here and count Drea to make sure that I don’t talk over you. I would have never known that if I just handed over the podcast to someone else immediately, and they were always like, quote, unquote, fixing my mistakes.

Like I just, I would never know how to make it better. Until I did it myself. And then once I figured out what I loved, what I was doing wrong, what I could tweak, that is when I felt comfortable enough to hand it off. And I hired two people in the same week. I hired my podcast manager and my virtual assistant, and they both, you know, have a role for the podcast, but I hired them in the same week.

But there is no way a year ago when I first started this podcast that I could have done it then, because I didn’t know what I didn’t know

and I didn’t know. And. Was going to be able to articulate what I needed them to do.

Andréa: Yes, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. And I do think that, I, I think that about a lot of things in business bookkeeping is one of them where it’s like, yes, you could hire someone to just do it for you, but I think it’s your responsibility as a business owner to understand it so that you, you can take over you.

Let’s say they, they. Move on and do something else. You can hire someone else and you know, they know what, you know, what they’re doing. I think it’s so important to understand that and you now you, you understand the value in that service. Same thing with my podcast. I edited my show for three months and then I am happy to pay someone else to do

it because, oh my gosh, I do not wanna do this anymore.

Colie: All right, Drea, it has been an awesome conversation and we’re gonna end it here because you mentioned your podcast. And again, guys Savvy Social podcast. It’s amazing. It is one of the ones that you guys know that I listened to well during co-op drop-offs, but I’m done with that for the year. So when Chloe starts going to summer camp, it is one of the ones that I will be listening in my, you know, shuttle every day.

But Drea, tell everyone where they can find you on the internet.

Andréa: Yeah, I’m everywhere at online Drea. That’s online, d r e a. I spend a lot of time on Instagram and TikTok these days. And then my website online, drea.com is where you’ll find everything, the podcast, free resources, all of it.

Colie: Drea, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. This was an amazing conversation.

Andréa: Oh, thank you so much for having me.

Colie: All right, y’all. That’s it for this episode. See you next time.