How to remove the stress & overwhelm from social media

You're listening to Episode 38, how to remove the stress and overwhelm from social media. Yep, it is time to dive back into good old social media because it's been a while since we have really sort of gone deep and talked not only strategy, but really also the mindset piece around it too. And I'm just finding at the moment that the conversations that I'm having with clients and audience members and just random people I bumped into, everyone just feels like they are just drowning in negative feels, about social media. And I think we need to do something about it. Because it is a tool, it can be amazing for your business, but it is sending you spiralling out of control that is going to be costing you so much. And we don't want that at all. So what I decided to do is a mini series on social media. So I've got a three part series coming for you starting with today's episode that I really help is going to just start to reframe all of the the negative thoughts and beliefs that you have about social media as well as in helping you build out the strategy and support that you need to not only see more results or results full stop if you're not seeing any right now, and staying consistent and learning really how to optimise moving forward. So let's just dive into this. Welcome to the personal branding project. I'm your host Kat Elizabeth and actor and personal branding coach who is obsessed with helping creative entrepreneurs like you build personal brands that change your life for good from attracting bigger opportunities, more joy and freedom in your life. And the ability to get paid to do the things that you love most each week, I'm bringing you inspiration, practical advice and the occasional dose of tough love. So you can stop dreaming and start doing what it takes to make those dreams a reality. Hello, and welcome back, my friends. So happy that you chose to have me inside your earholes again this week, I'm actually tuning in from a brand new apartment. Yes, move number five, in 10 months. So it's been a lot. There's a lot going on. Exciting times ahead. But stressful times behind, let's just say. So there's all sorts of things going on behind the scenes in my life and in my business at the moment, which is why I have been fairly quiet for most of this year, honestly. But I'm really excited about what is coming, laying a lot of groundwork at the moment improving, seen heard paid Academy, like adding extra elements of you know, challenges and automations and all sorts of things like that. Also officially a bit late to let you know this, but the expert status quiz is live. And if you haven't taken it, you should go check it out. So in this quiz, I'm going to help you determine what your expert status is. Spoiler alert, it could be one of four different levels. And not only that, because I think it's great you get told Oh, this is your expert status, like what do you do with that information? The entire quiz results page is set up to give you that roadmap to really help you identify any stumbling blocks like potential stumbling blocks areas that a lot of clients I see get stuck at here, as well as giving you the key areas of focus that I want you to be working on to make sure that you get to your next level. So you can go check it that out at personalbrandingproject.co/quiz. Number two, stop worrying about what everyone else is doing. Oh And make sure like screenshot your results and share it to my goodness. This, I think gets people most, I think we we have Instagram tag me at I am Kat Elizabeth, so I can see what you got. And if you have any questions, following up any feedback on the quiz, I'd love to hear from you. people that honestly we like we have them up on pedestals and But with that out of the way, it's time to dive in to today's episode, which is actually part one of three. So we are going to look, I'm all for, you know, having like business crushes on go right in to the self belief aspect, all of that mindset people and being like, oh, my goodness, their brand is stuff that is involved in social media success today, then we're amazing, you know, but there is this, again, a danger zone, if going to have the chance to dive into the other elements of success, which is strategy and support. So I'm really excited we see that what they're doing. And we think, Oh, well, they're about to kick off this series because I think it is high time we dug in to the nitty gritty of what it really takes to do well I love their brand, they're successful. Therefore, I need to on social media. And not just that to stay sane, really. Essentially what we have got is five different things that I show up on social media, the way they're showing up, which then want you to do. Or that you you might want to reassess right now immediately puts us with completely gets us out of whack to help you get rid of that stress and overwhelm and really then start to be able to show up on social media with a very different energy. with the purpose of our brand, which is just to show up for our Let's just dive into number one, which is we need to put social media back in perspective, okay, so we really start to put too audience and show up as our selves to connect with the right much weight on social media, and we start to see it almost as being your entire business instead of just a tool that can people. And instead, we're trying to fit some other mould. support our business and our brand. Now, yes, social media has the power to really blow up your brand. You know, you see And so this is what generally leads to, you know, dancing and some people who say, oh, I've made this much money because of being on social media, you see, they built their entire pointing in reels if it completely goes against your following on Instagram. And that is wonderful. But that is not the only path to get there. And that is like, this is the I personality or like your your style, like nothing against guess, the biggest danger zone. And the thing that really bothers me the most, when people are selling formulas and dancing and pointing and reels. If that's your thing, and you secrets, you know, on social media, they're like, I'll just use my proven formula to get this many followers or like, absolutely love it, I'm going to be able to tell in the reel and make this much revenue on Instagram. Like, maybe, yeah, I'm gonna be like, yeah, that's cute. If you're just doing it, that worked for them, that does not mean it will work for you. And it doesn't mean you need to use that approach. Like, there are so many different ways that we can approach this. But because everyone else is doing it. And you're like, I don't essentially, what we need to just see is that, you know, just like, you know, let's say Asana or Trello, you know, they're know if there's any other way to do reels, and I see all these project management tools, that can definitely make your business run smoother, like they're fantastic. But really, other people going viral from pointing at text on reels. So it comes down to you know, how you use them. And you could totally replace them in a second. Like, I want you to see, social media, like Instagram is something that, you know, it is then you do it, I can tell that to and I go, Oh, this is replaceable, you don't have to be there. While you're there. You know, while things are working really well, that's uncomfortable. You don't like okay, I'm going to be completely wonderful. Use it to its you know, to its fullest. But don't think that it's the be all and end all like it's honestly, and honest with you. I have not posted one reel is that stupid I guess the other thing is people think that the responsibility of Instagram is to literally grow your following of me? Perhaps it could be letting me down. I'm not getting get to know them sell to them. But that's again, that's a lot of pressure. What if we took some of the pressure off, and we seen as much. But I've had to prioritise and realise that, you saw that okay, maybe actually, Instagram for me, or, you know, insert any social media platform here is, the focus for me is know, I had an existing strategy in place. I've also been crazy just nurturing my audience to showing up and serving them. You know, we didn't put the pressure of them finding you there. And we also didn't put the pressure of them buying from you there. busy dealing with so many other things that you try to do reels And it could just be about showing up learning things about them having conversations. Would that help a little bit? I don't and to do them properly was going to completely blow my know, you tell me. But that's, that's point number one. schedule. Like there was just no time, like I would have had to just like give up sleep at least one night a week to try and start doing reels. So even though I see other people doing them, they growing their accounts that doing unlike I have to just take a step back and go that's it's not for you right now. I'd love to be doing reels, I'd love to have time to be super creative and do all this stuff. And I believe it will come but if I just beat myself up and either like get miserable because I'm not doing what other people are doing or compromise my existing strategy and schedule to try and do it. Like neither of those things are gonna serve me. So you really need to remember, and I kind of touched on this already, I believe, but there is no secret. There is no secret to success. I'll explain. So I have done training through Brandon Lucero. There's no secret to Instagram. Every one that says, Oh, you just have to do this and you will see x results is lying to you like, yes, that might lead to x results. But there are so many other ways that you can get those results as well. And ultimately, you being you, that's where the results are going to come. So you trying to emulate other people do the posts, the way they do them, if it hasn't come from within, if it's kind of like outside in marketing, where it's like, oh, well, let's just reverse engineer what this person did. That is never going to get the same results, no matter how well you do, it won't be the same as if you can come up with something from the inside, when you just really felt called, to communicate with your audience in a particular way, create a post in a particular way, you know, really use your natural creativity, communications strengths experience, and put that into how you show up. But that's also because this takes time. And most people don't want to spend that time doing this kind of work. And one of his big things is about sitting in the silence, which is giving yourself time and space, and it looks different for everyone. But generally, it means not consuming, not worrying what other people are doing, and always meditating on, you know, why am I doing this? Who are these people that I'm really needing to help? What is the best way to communicate with them, and that stuff is painfully slow, often, and it doesn't come when you think it's gonna come like it's not like you can just sit down and just like quickly churn out a couple of scripts, or a couple of posts, like this stuff takes time. And most people will avoid doing this kind of work, they would rather just look at what everyone else is doing and go, Oh, well, that works really well, I'm just gonna do that. So the nice thing, though, is that if you are one of those people who do the work for real, take the time sit in the silence, you will end up having a much bigger impact than all those people who are just trying to reverse engineer everyone else's success might take you longer, because there's other people are hacking the system, you know, like the growth hacking and funnel hacking and everything, like they might see immediate results. But what is your endgame here? Like? Are you just wanting some quick results? Or are you trying to build a business build a brand that is actually life changing? For you? And for your audience? Like, do you want to be up on that Ted stage talking one day, you now, being interviewed on by ome incredible inspirational eople and having them see you s an equal, you know, having hanged 10s or hundreds of 1000s f people's of lives, you know, elping make a big difference? hat's the question you have to sk yourself, if it is that if ou want to make that kind of mpact, then the work is going o be slower. And it's gonna be little bit harder than if you ust want to growth hack. This, oh, my goodness, I've gone on a tangent. I wasn't planning on going this deep with this point. But I think it has to be said, Because essentially, that's, I mean, that's what I'm doing at the moment. Like for full disclosure, I have some really big plans. And I realised that for a while there, I lost sight of my vision. I got so caught up in my to do list I got so caught up into just trying to like keep up with everybody else and do it the way that it's being done. And, and it honestly, it cost me so much time and energy and money. And I've had to go back to basics in so many ways to get back but reconnect with like, okay, who am I? How do I want to show up in the world? And what's the impact that I want to make? And it's meant that I've had to slow down, which is painful for someone who is like, I want it all and I want it now I'm like the least patient person I've ever met. Have I met myself, I suppose I've met myself, but you know what I mean? So I just wanted to let you know that I I'm here in it with you. And it's why you don't see me like churning out high volumes of content right now. I'm actually removing offers from my website week after week to simplify to give myself the space to do things the way that I really believe they should be done. And that is it's like I think there are two parts for everybody. And so not just two parts to how you show up on social media. But how you build your business. It's like, do we want the business in a box? copy what everyone else is doing? Have some quick success. But then then what? Or are we really in it for the long run to really let this entire thing be this huge journey of exploration of reconnecting with ourselves and finding a deeper purpose that we don't even know we have yet. My goodness, this was meant to be about social media. But hey, this is what happens when you give yourself a few bullet points and you don't script your episodes. Anyways, long story short, stop worrying about what everyone else is doing because trust me, there is a better way There's your way. And even though it might take you longer to get there, it's going to mean that when you are showing up, it's going to feel so much better. So give it a go. Or don't ignore me completely. Say that I'm crazy. Turn off this podcast, it's actually completely up to you, I won't know. Anyways, let's move on to number three. This is an important one. Do not put all your eggs in the social media basket, I beg of you. You do not own your social media real estate. Okay, so it, we know, the algorithm will change. Platforms could disappear completely. I can't remember if I told you about this, but during the Mark Zuckerberg, I never heard of Mike Zuckerberg Zuckerberg, I found, I feel so fuzzy when I say that. He was having an argument with the Australian Government. And they did this whole like news ban, where no news publication or media publication was allowed to share anything on Facebook, as in no links. Well, somehow my website got caught up in that. And I couldn't share a link to personal branding project.co. And I had a moment of panic, and then went well, okay. I mean, it was annoying, because I realised those over those like, I can't remember how long it happened for it might have been a week or two, I can't remember. But in that time, I realised how often I go to share a resource or something from my website, and I just couldn't do it. Like even in Facebook groups or anything. After that initial panic, I just went aff. I don't need it. Like I can actually live without Facebook, it caused me to remove my entire community from Facebook, my paid community, not the not the free group and move it somewhere else where I had control and didn't have to worry about it being taken for me. Because the fact is, as I say, like, if you're not paying for something, it means you are the product. I think that's what like the saying is. So essentially like if Yeah, if you've got something for free from Facebook, like you can bet that they're benefiting of you using it. So I moved my group elsewhere, I was looking at my analytics and like, well, I'm ranking for lots of search terms. So my SEO is working, I've got an email list, you know, I'm okay, I'm going to be completely fine. If you are relying on social media for everything you are setting yourself up to fail. So what do we do instead, we need to, number one, have a traffic strategy of visibility strategy that goes beyond just the algorithm and you know, social media. So that could mean borrowing other people's audiences like so getting yourself in front of established audiences that other people have spent all this time building up. This could mean search engine optimization, which sounds really scary, but it's completely doable, and will mean that you know, good old Google is going to be sending people your way. And you know, and then you could also even look into, like, beyond other people's audiences, as in media and PR, like, what if you would start getting featured in some publications, again, all doable. I, you know, I, I teach some of these things, I've got friends that teach these things. It's you can DIY all of this stuff. But ultimately, we want to be sending them to your website and your email list, not just a social media. So you might not have an email list right now. And that is completely fine. This isn't about you having to do it immediately. But I want you to be thinking about this for the future. Okay, you will want to build one, at some point, it is going to give you so much more freedom and flexibility to pivot to evolve. And you know, it's it's kind of your security system as well for if something was to happen on social media. So I'm just planting the seed now. Not saying to freak out. But let's start planning for that email list. Or if you have one, and you're not doing anything with it, it's like okay, maybe now's the time, maybe because again, it was like that whole, when's the best time to plant a tree? 20 years ago, when is the second best time today? That's kind of how it is with social with email building, email list building? I think so I'm really terrible at using quotes and metaphors and everything, I should really hire a script writer anyway. Okay, moving on to point number four. Stop worrying that talking about your offers will scare off your followers. Now, this is a funny one to talk about. Because I've had all sorts of challenges with this. It's one of my big things that I struggle with. And I have to remind myself of it constantly. But the thing is, we have this like what happens is because everyone's like, Oh give value, give value, give value free content, this that and the other. We then start to kind of train ourselves and train our audiences to only expect free stuff from us. And if you can't blame your audience for this, like we I have had this conversation with a few different clients with these damn freebie seekers. I'm like, but You know, when you first like attracted them to your list, all you were giving them was free stuff. So you can't really get upset at them like you literally train them to expect a never ending supply of free content from you. And you never gave them any anything else like you never even asked them to buy anything. So of course, now when you're finally selling things, you're gonna have resistance from those people like they were the wrong people. Because that's the other thing. If all you do is create free content, you're probably going to attract, I hate to say it cheapskates. People who want stuff for free, and nothing else. So we've got to be careful here, there's this some content danger zone, where on one side of the scale, we've got everything that your audience wants, which is like all the information, like all the free education, they want entertainment, they want to be inspired and motivated, and all of those things. And on the other side, we've got this promo zone, which is where all we're doing is like sell, sell, sell, you know, talking about our authority, you know, asking people to buy things, you know, all of that. We don't want to be all one or all the other, we really need to find that sweet spot, go back through your posts. And really ask yourself, where are these sitting right now? What is the percentage? And am I kind of all one and all the other? Or am I managing to include a bit of both in these, the next thing we need to think about is the psychology and rolling up, it's really about a reframe around selling. So we often associate sales with being sleazy, and gross, and manipulative. And almost like it's a bad thing. Like, Oh, no, I need to ask them to buy something and like, Oh, my gosh, what's going to happen now, but we need to do a huge reframe here. Okay? The fact is free content tends not to change lives. Yes. Occasionally, there'll be that one message that you hear and you're like, Oh, my gosh, that changed me forever. But really, those quick little bite sized pieces of content that we're consuming on social media, even on you know, on YouTube, and podcasts like even this today, right now, yes, it gives you that boost, it's going to give you a little bit of the picture. But this is not where the transformation happens. This is not where the long lasting change happens. Okay, that happens when people choose to invest in themselves, you know, they buy the real the actual product, they sign up for the programme, they hire you to take their photos or build their website for them, okay? We otherwise it's just like a, it's almost like a shadow of those things when when we're just consuming the free content. So if you genuinely care about your audience, and you actually want to have an impact on their lives in a way that really creates lasting change, they will need to eventually pay you. So if you are not giving them that opportunity to do so, if you are not talking about how they can work with you, if you're not promoting your services, and it's really difficult to even know what you do and how to work with you. You're doing them a disservice. Yes, you are doing them a disservice. And I did this for too many years. Like I would just dance around it, I would just like offer all the free things. And they're like, oh, by the way, if you want to. Like, honestly, like that was how much I was talking about what I did, and how you could work with me, and I'm in a paid capacity. So you know, we need to like we need to just be done with this. We need to get over ourselves, because it's a good thing. And keep in mind, there will be people like think about your own behaviour as well, you would be following people who happily talk about the things that they offer. And do you just unfollow them the second they do that? If you do, it's probably because you're already on the fence about following them. But if you truly love what they do, and you think, you know what, there's so much value to be had maybe one day, I'll work with them, you're probably going to keep following them stay on the email list. I know I do. I'm subscribed to all these different email lists, and they constantly promoting to me and I'm like, oh, you're nice. And I pay attention to the promotion. I'm like, you have all this cool, I might click on it. It's not for me right now. But I just keep following because I love it. I love them. You know, and that's that's what will happen with your audience too. But if for two years, you just like offer free, free, free, free free and then one day you suddenly there's this huge promotion and everything, you know, people are gonna be very confused. So it's, we actually need to get them used to you offering what you do and reminding them that Yeah, I'm a I'm a paid service provider. You know, I sell products, I sell services, I sell coaching, you know, so because they know like everyone knows, like, if it's a business account, of course we know that's coming next like nah, but anyway, enough on that. The other thing I wanted to say is that like once they have worked with you, that is when they have the chance to become real superfans. And when I say superfans, I'm kind of talking like the Pat Flynn. You know, he has that book super fans, amazing. I really love It highly recommended, you know, the kind of people that go out and they shout your name from the rooftops saying, Oh my gosh, befor her worked with cat I felt like this, she helped me achieve this so good. You have to have her speak in your community, you have to go work with her. You have to do this. Okay, those superfans rarely happen before they've worked with you. It happens occasionally. I know I'm not gonna name any names. I've got some awesome people in my audience who have never worked with me, but you know, just amazing, so supportive. They do tell people about me, I'm so grateful for that. But they're rare. Okay, the ones who generally like who genuinely tend to pass on my name and, you know, lead to referrals. They are the ones that worked with me in a paid capacity at some point. So you're also missing out on superfans if you don't give people the chance to work with you in that way. Okay, I think I've I can't get off my my, my little pedestal now. my soapbox. Okay, so let's move on to final point number five, which is going to beautifully segue into next week's episode, we need to stop second guessing everything we post, okay, it is just the this honestly causes so much stress and anxiety if you're not confident about what you're posting. And there's they're like agonising over the blank page, there's rewriting it, there's going to post it and be like, Oh, this is dumb, or posting and then deleting like, I don't know, if you've ever had this experience, like reach out to me, I should run a poll a couple of points, couple of things to think about, okay, posts don't need to be perfect, perfect in order to perform, I should put that on a T shirt. They don't need to be perfect in order to turn followers into clients. Okay, perfection is not the key, impact is and we can be really impactful without having these like beautifully written posts that just touches on every point, I have had posts where I just slapped them together did not think though, that well written. And they had such a wonderful result. And then there were the ones that I spent so much time on, I was so proud of it, and then crickets, so you just never know. But if we post at least if we're posting and we're getting it out there, you know, we get to get the feedback from our audience, we get to improve, you know, which is kind of my next thing to think about, like the the active posting, the active publishing is the thing that gets better at it, not writing the thing and then never posting it. Alright. Also, your audience is going to forget fast. So whatever you posted today, you know, like they're not going to remember it probably a week later, two weeks later, like they're not going to be like oh, man that really everage post the cat posted last week. No, you know, it's only a small percentage of of your audience or even reading your posts at any given time. And that's not meant to be depressing. It's just a fact that, you know, it's it's okay, like, it's it's no biggie, you know, they're not seeing it as like, Oh, she's published a new book. It's like, No, it's just a post. Hopefully, it's helpful. You know, maybe it makes them smile or laugh. That's great. And if it doesn't, they're not gonna be like, Oh, my gosh, that's terrible time to unfollow. But also, you're like, I guess the best thing about social media that I really like to keep in mind is that you get to post again tomorrow. Like, it's not like your entire business is like hanging in the balance of this, you know, your last post, you just show up the next day, do another one, rinse and repeat. And it's all good. Something else to really keep in mind is that low engagement does not mean low quality, because sometimes it's like the low engagement is what gets us really second guessing what we've posted and being like, Oh, no, people hate it. Just think about it. Like think about when someone is promoting something that they're doing and talking about a programme versus when someone is like sharing a really funny story and asking for you to comment and share your own funny story. Of course, the engagement is going to look completely different for those those two kind of posts. But which post do you think is going to lead to sales and impact? Okay, so let's just not attach being I guess the results, the engagement to the like thought that are this is a good post or this is a bad post. Okay, let those two things be separate. We will go into a little bit to analytics and metrics in a one of the upcoming episodes. So stay tuned for that one. Because yes, metrics are important but there are different kinds of posts, some are going to be high engagement, some of them are going to be like high results high behind the scenes, things like people dming you or clicking on a link and going and checking out your offering. So the final I guess thing to wrap up this second guessing piece though, is having a solid strategy is going to solve most of this. Okay, so you know, if you really are lacking confidence in what you're sharing, there's a good chance something is missing from your strategy, clarity around who you're actually speaking to, what you want to be known for, you know, the kinds of angles of content they need to be sharing the topics they should be talking about. We are going to dive into that next episode. So make sure you check back in next week. If you haven't subscribed, you obviously should at this point, so that you hear about the next episode. Also, I would love it if you could take 30 seconds and just write a positive review about the show if you're enjoying it and learning things. So the five things that you need to do to remove the stress and overwhelm from social media are one, put social media back in perspective, to stop worrying about what everyone else is doing. Three don't put all your eggs in the social media basket for stop worrying that talking about your office will scare off your followers. No, no, no. And five stop second guessing everything that you post church. That wraps up another episode of the personal branding project. thank you as always for listening and I am looking forward to being inside your ears next week. Bye for now.