We all want more followers on social media, but DO NOT LET this lead your marketing efforts.

If you think just posting on social media is going to grow your business, this episode is for you.

As mentioned on today's episode…
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[TL;DR]

“The reason why you are feeling so overwhelmed with social media is because you are putting way too much reliance on that platform for your business. Okay, so let me backtrack here for a second. I am not saying that social media is not a good tool for your business. It is absolutely a great marketing tool. Okay. But it is not a marketing plan.”

Jessi Cabanin  00:04

Hey, girl, Hey, are you ready for some real talk? If you are a female entrepreneur who has ever felt like a total failure, or maybe even a frequent flyer of imposter syndrome, this podcast is for you. I'm your host, Jessi, a millennial business owner, boy mom and creative genius helping women bring their business dreams to life. After 10 years of building numerous creative brands from the ground up, I'm ready to get real about what actually goes on behind the scenes of building your very own empire failure opened a brand new mindset for me. And I really want that for you too, because honestly, I am just so over society's definition of what it means to live a successful life. So together, we are going to create and navigate a version of success that works for you. Together, we can redefine fabulous.

Jessi Cabanin  00:51

All right, guys, it's another Friday, thanks for being here. Today, we are going to talk about marketing and social media and kind of how they go together and kind of how you are wasting a lot of time doing something very wrong. Okay? Now, I am also guilty of this plenty of times, but it is something that I come back to. And I've really tried to like, keep myself in check with this, because it is very, very important message.

Jessi Cabanin  01:18

Okay, so I was just finishing up building a course, for my Empowerment Group. And if you guys are not in my empowerment group on Facebook, you need to get your tissue over there it is facebook.com/groups/empowheryourbiz, okay, I will drop that link in the show notes for you. But seriously, get your butt over there. If you are not in there, you are seriously missing out on some amazing information, as well as opportunity to connect with other people. So what we're going to be talking about in this co working session next week is marketing mistakes that are wasting your business money. Okay, this is a very, very hot topic for all of my business coaching clients. And so I'm bringing to you five of the top mistakes that people waste their money on in that co working session. So make sure you join.

Jessi Cabanin  02:12

But today, we are only talking about one of those things. Because as I was putting this together, I just feel really passionate about this subject because I talked to countless business owners about this very, very topic. And I just kind of feel like I'm repeating myself over and over. And that's okay, because we all need time to sort of like open our minds to something new. And also, we need to hear things numerous times to actually take action on it. And sometimes we need to hear it in a different way. So I decided to take this topic and repurpose it into a specific podcast episode for you because I feel like it is just so so important.

Jessi Cabanin  02:49

Okay, so that Topic is over relying on social media. Okay, so this is a huge topic, a huge topic. I could talk about this for days. But I'm going to keep this episode short and sweet for you. Because I think that the message here, you just need to hear it and you need to run with it.

Jessi Cabanin  03:07

So keep in mind that social media is always changing, the algorithms are always changing. The platforms are always changing the capabilities, the technology, all of it is constantly changing. And one thing I hear from a lot of business owners a lot is that they are so overwhelmed with the constant changes. They feel like they can't keep up, they feel like they're always doing something wrong. They feel like they're never doing anything. Right. Okay, if you are feeling that way, raise your hand right now to the heavens because you are not alone. Okay? Most of us feel like this. I even feel like this plenty of days.

Jessi Cabanin  03:43

But the reasoning, why you are feeling so overwhelmed with social media is because you are putting way too much reliance on that platform for your business. Okay, so let me backtrack here for a second. I am not saying that social media is not a good tool for your business. It is absolutely a great marketing tool. Okay. But it is not a marketing plan.

Jessi Cabanin  04:07

Okay, so on top of the algorithm constantly changing, new platforms are popping up daily, you feel like you need to be on every single platform. And can we just talk about device addiction, okay, this is a real freaking thing. I promise you. It's a real thing. And I also promise you that I am guilty of this, okay. Do you ever feel like some days you are trying to really focus and you put your phone somewhere else, you put it on your desk, put it on your charger, whatever, and you try to leave it over there. You're like, you know what, I just need, like 30 minutes of silence. It just needs to work on this. Okay. And then what happens 10 minutes in is you're like, oh, I have to check this one thing. Oh, I have to see if somebody texted me. Oh, I have to see if there was a new email. Oh, I have to see if somebody commented on my post Okay. Device and social media addiction is so freakin real. You guys. Okay? And the funny part about it is I know What do you think it's a problem? Okay? So I started to realize that this was a problem for me. Because when I am home with my son on the days that he's not at school, I feel like I have to have my phone attached to me at all times, I need to know if somebody's texting me, I need to know someone's emailing me, I need to know how that Instagram post is going. Okay? And it is an addiction. It is very, very, very hard for me to leave my phone in another room and just like not think about it for a long time. Okay? If you are feeling the same as me raise that hand girl, you are not alone.

Jessi Cabanin  05:33

Let's backtrack back to social media and over reliance. Okay. Social media is a great tool for marketing, but it is not a marketing plan. Okay, I'm gonna say that again, because I need you to hear me posting on social media is not a marketing plan. Okay, posting on social media can absolutely be part of your marketing plan. But it alone is not a marketing plan.

Jessi Cabanin  05:58

So if you listen to a couple episodes back or you are in any of my empowerment calls, you know that I developed this super cute analogy of what social media means to your marketing. And what it is is an Uber, okay,

so social media is essentially an Uber, that your customer needs to get in to go to a place where you have control, okay, so you want your customers to happen that Uber excitedly, head to your website, because your website is a environment that you can control.

Okay?

Jessi Cabanin  06:34

Social media could go away tomorrow, Instagram could file for bankruptcy. And if you have all these followers and no other way to connect with them, you're screwed babe, like, just point blank, you're screwed.

Jessi Cabanin  06:48

Okay. This is why social media is not a marketing plan on its own. So you want to utilize social media to reach your customer. You want to guide them to your website where you own the control the experience, and you want to use your website, build your website, to develop a trust with your customer, and ultimately convert them to a customer or a sale. Yes, there are ways to monetize social media, I am not here to like Bash social media by any means. I'm obviously a social media user as well. And there are ways to monetize social media alone. However, that is a short term mindset. That is not a long game marketing plan.

Jessi Cabanin  07:29

So I want you to really think about how much time you spend putting into your social media platform. Now Instagram is my social media platform of choice, that does not mean that it's the right platform for you, okay, you need to be hanging out and spending the time on a platform that your ideal customer hangs out in.

Jessi Cabanin  07:48

Just because Instagram is mine does not mean that it's yours. It might be Facebook, it might be tick tock, it might be LinkedIn, wherever it is, that's where you need to be spending the time to get them to your website, okay? But you should not, you should not be spending all of your time on social media, without conversion. Okay, if you are spending all this time and you're not making any sales, you are not bringing in any leads, you are spending way too much time in the wrong place.

Jessi Cabanin  08:18

Okay, now another huge part of this like a huge, huge, huge part of social media reliance, that I also really want you to hear and think about. Okay, the number one issue that business owners have, when they come to me for business coaching, is they are constantly asking me how to grow their following on social media, okay, they're like, I'm only at 1000 followers, so and so's got 10,000. So it's whoever hears God, you know, 10,000, okay, that doesn't matter.

Jessi Cabanin  08:48

Stop wasting your freaking brainpower thinking about a follower count. Your follower count means frickin nothing, if it converts nothing.

Jessi Cabanin  08:58

You have to keep in mind that the people who have a lot of followers, their engagement rates are shit, okay? Like they are just, they're awful. Because when you are speaking to the masses, you are not speaking to your ideal customer. Now celebrities are obviously just talking to everybody, they don't really have any, you know, like they're not. They're not like necessarily specifically looking to talk to someone specifically. They are, you know, out there to talk to the masses, but the majority of us in small business, we are not here to speak to the masses, we are here to speak to a very specific person.

Jessi Cabanin  09:32

If you don't know who that person is, I encourage you to hop into that Facebook and listen to this a little bit more because we do talk a little bit more about analytics and really tracking the things that you're doing and really kind of finding your demographic and making sure that you have narrowed down your customer avatar because if you have not, you are wasting all of your precious time marketing to people who don't give a shit about what you have to say you need to Make sure that you're spending the time speaking to the people who actually care and who will actually convert into working with you. So I'm gonna say one more time. And I really, really, really hope you hear me. But stop freaking thinking about your follower count.

Jessi Cabanin  10:15

Yes, we all want to get more followers. But I want you to know that the long game of your social media is growing your following organically and growing it with people who give a shit about what you have to say that people like the numbers don't matter, okay?

Jessi Cabanin  10:29

Because in social media engagement rates rate you way higher in the algorithm than your follower count, do Instagram, Facebook, they want to know that people are connecting with what you're saying, okay? And this is also why things like call to action are very important. But again, if you want to hear more about those things happen to the co working call, because we talk a little bit more about that. But you have to make sure that in your head you are aware that all the time that you're spending on social media is not a marketing plan.

Jessi Cabanin  11:00

 Okay, I hope you guys resonated with this even just a little bit I know that you are out there may be thinking like oh, I don't want to admit this girl in minute jump on the train, come on over to my party because we are bringing these topics to light because it is important. It is so important to know that we are not alone in all the mistakes we are making and mistakes are a good thing you guys mistakes are things that we can learn from mistakes are things that we can change the way we approach something in the future and the next phase of business and then next phase of life. Okay. All right, baby.

Jessi Cabanin  11:36

I hope you really enjoyed today's conversation. I am super curious to know what your biggest takeaway was from today. So go ahead and share this episode on social media. Be sure to tag me at this way to fabulous and let me know what you connected with. What did you learn from this episode and what action item are you going to take today?

Until next time babe, keep pushing, keep dreaming, and let's keep on redefining fabulous. Chat soon guys.