Bret Shuford 0:08
Hey, what's up, I'm Bret Shuford, the Creative Life Coach and I help creatives make money doing what they love by turning their passions into profits without sacrificing their authenticity. And if that's something you want to learn more about, then
Bret Shuford 0:21
check out the subscribe button below, click that subscribe, you're going to get a lot more content from me coming up. This is a great channel for anyone who wants to build a brand, a social media brand, a personal brand, especially for creatives, who maybe feel a little stuck in how to make money doing what they love, this channel is for you. So today we're talking about is something that I noticed comes up a lot with new clients. Whenever I, I work with a new client, we really struggle to even listen, even existing clients, we struggled to post consistently on social media, whether we're posting a blog, whether we're posting a video, whether we're posting on IG or Tik Tok, consistency is really a struggle. And so many of us can beat ourselves up about it, because we feel like if we're not consistent, we're not being successful. And consistency, as you probably hear a lot is key. You know, if you're like most people, you probably find it hard to show up, you may even struggle feeling like maybe your content isn't good enough, or that your posts won't be interesting or won't be valuable to people. And a lot of these things are just limiting beliefs, things that we're allowing ourselves to get in the way. And they continue to be strengthened when we are consuming more than we're creating. Right? That's where that compare and despair comes in. So what I like to teach people is that we want social media, and blogging or whatever are content creation, to really become a habit, not an event. And if you can create a habit of posting, if you can create a habit of making things, you're going to find it less daunting, because the routine just like brushing your teeth or working out will be more natural. But creating habits take time. It's not easy, right? Growth isn't easy. So this episode is hopefully going to give you some pointers to help unlock some of these beliefs so that you can start moving forward, here's some ways that I've noticed we can get in our own way. Maybe you feel like you don't have anything to share that your everyday stuff isn't interesting enough, or you'd have no new ideas, you feel like you have to be original. You see so many people making original things and how do I be original? Maybe you share way too much personal stuff. And you're not sharing enough of the business stuff, the stuff that you really want people to know you for. That's that would be a personal brand. Right? So how do you make it a habit? Number one stop trying to create on so many platforms, I think a lot of us get burnt out pretty quick, because we're trying to make content on every single platform. So I want you if you haven't done this, just give yourself permission to just choose to for now, right? Two platforms at the most for now. I know for me, I've alternated through different platforms throughout my years sometimes I'm like, thriving on YouTube, sometimes. You know, it's been Facebook for a long time until Instagram came along. Now it's all Instagram most of the time and then I do a little bit of tick tock you know, all that dabbling, can really spread you thin. So I want you to think how can I dominate? Not dabble? How can I dominate? Not dabble. So pick one or two platforms that you can just completely own. And I want you to base it not on necessarily where you think your audience is, which is certainly a factor. But what do you like doing because it's never going to be consistent if you don't enjoy doing it. So if you like writing, if you'd like being witty, Twitter might be a great platform for you. If you like video, YouTube is a great platform, maybe one of the best if you like video and photo and I don't know being witty and fun. Instagram is great, right? So maybe just focus on how can I get really, really good at this platform. The second thing you want to really start to think about is identifying your voice. What does that mean? All right. Well, number one like you have things that inspire you, right people that inspire you brands that inspire you. And also, your audience has brands and places that and companies and people that inspire them. So looking at not being afraid, and this came up recently with a coaching client of mine, who is an awesome personal trainer. And I said, Hey, you know, I was referring to people on Instagram, he really wants to grow his Instagram, who I think are amazing fitness people, and he didn't know who they were. So you need to know where your audience already is. And the challenge here is getting over yourself, right, summed up sometimes we don't do it because we are comparing or seeing someone else's success. And we're thinking, Well, I can't do that, because they're already successful. But success leaves clues. And it is okay. Every artist, right, there's a great book called Steal Like an Artist steals from other artists, right, Romeo and Juliet is also a West Side Story. So knowing that, you know, you can start to use what's already working successfully in the space that you already live in. And with from people who are already successful, you want to credit them, you know, a copy immediately, but gather inspiration,
Bret Shuford 6:19
the more you start to practice what's already working, the more you're going to start to find your own voice. The other thing number three, that I think is really important is to set a schedule for yourself. But be realistic, you're going to hear a lot of social media experts, including myself, we're going to tell you, like, I have this schedule, I post a lot of content. But it's all that I do, like it is my business now. Right? It may not be all that you do, you may have other things happening. So you want to set a schedule that you can realistically show up to. So if you can't post every day, can you post three days a week. And if you decide to post three days a week, you got to commit to that, you got to show up for yourself, you got to show up for your brand and your business. Otherwise, you're going to constantly be kind of starting over and never gained the momentum because all social media is it's a compounding effect. Over time, you build a following from showing up consistently. That's how we do it organically. And that's how you do it in a way that feels real and right and authentic. Alright, number five, are sorry, number four, is if you don't use an editorial calendar, I'm not huge on editorial calendars. But I do like to kind of map some things out, I like to have it as an option. So what you might want to consider as you can certainly download I every month, I have a free download, that's a calendar of suggestions for the month, especially events, current events, holidays, national holidays, and things that are happening that you can create content for. It might even inspire you to come up with things in between those dates that are more relevant to you and your audience. But think through okay, you know, like for instance, while this His birthday is coming up, so I started thinking about that today. Okay, what do I want to make that concelebrate While does his birthday, because that's a huge part of my inspiration. So think about that write maybe creating a rough editorial calendar, it doesn't have to be tried. And you know, for some people who are very at a type that works, I like to be more organic. So I know I'm going to post two meals a day, and I'm going to post an infeed post. And I'm going to alternate between four or five topics coffee, Disney inspiration, social media, marketing, and LGBTQ plus issues, right? Those are the things you're most likely going to see in my feed. So I usually just kind of leave it open. Okay, what's my impulse was my audience feeling I have plenty of content to choose from. But that's taken years to build. So you want to build that up, then you want to think about number five, when is your audience most active? Now, I can't tell you that you're going to have to go into your insights. And if you haven't registered as a business or creator, that's the first thing you need to do, because insights are going to tell you a lot. They're especially going to tell you when your audience is most active so that when you're posting, you are getting the most engagement out of that post, right. The other thing you can do number six is use apps that can get composed for you. I have a client who loves to have her Sunday coffee. She doesn't go to church, she sits down and she maps out her content for the week and she schedules it in buffer. But there's other things like later there's HootSuite. And a lot of those software's might even give you ideas and prompts to help you come up with some ideas. So just check those out. And then number seven, is to get away from comparing and despairing, right? Stop looking at what others are doing. If you catch yourself consuming more than you're creating, you're headed in the wrong direction we want to do is create more than we consume. And I know that sounds, you know easier than then done. But when we are comparing and we're consuming, we are no longer in the creator of the creator seat, right. And that again is we got to create a habit and habit of being a creator. And so sometimes it's gonna feel really good just to keep scrolling through and get you know, and I certainly still can find myself doing this sometimes where I'm just consuming, consuming. And thinking, while these people are so good at this, how am I going to do this, letting go of that letting go of perfection, you might need to put the phone down, go for a walk, shake it off, right, shake the energy off, and come back.
Bret Shuford 11:09
So getting away from comparing and despairing because everyone's brand is different. You got to figure out what works for you. And when I talk about analytics and insights, this is something that came up with that same client of the day, if you aren't posting consistently, you are not getting the data that you need to then decide what's working and what's not working, you need to be posting at least for 90 days consistently, before you go into your analytics and decide if your audience likes something, you're just not getting enough data if you're just doing it intermittently. So I'm gonna encourage you just to be consistent, try things being willing to be imperfect. Number nine, give yourself grace. You know, Rome wasn't built in a day. So you're not going to be able to build new habits overnight. It takes time. One of the things that I learned from a mentor of mine Chalene Johnson is you might want to attach your social media to a habit that you currently do. Perhaps you're already you know, brushing your teeth, eating breakfast working out, maybe you attach 15 minutes of engagement there, right or making a post. The other thing you want to do is number 10, is to celebrate your wins, even the smallest wins are huge. You can't build on success, you don't acknowledge. So you want to be able to take your wins the things that are working, acknowledge them, so that you can then build on them. Because then it then that's where it becomes fun. If we're constantly looking at what's not working or not. And we're not taking the time to look at what is working, we're gonna constantly feel behind. So they're stuck you're doing that's working. Let's acknowledge those, let's celebrate those cool. So the bottom line is that if you want to be successful on social media, you got to make posting a habit. And when you do this, it's just going to become easier for you to share your thoughts authentically your ideas to not be so afraid to be vulnerable, the more creative you're going to be because you're going to start to gather inspiration and think what does my audience need today? How can I serve them today? Just all we're doing here is serving our audience. You know, one of the things that I want to encourage you is if you haven't taken the time to really think through who your ideal audience is, so many of us are trying to make content for everybody. And you can't make everybody happy. Our job is not to be like, right, our job is to become known. So if everybody likes us, we're not really working hard enough. I want to encourage you to really think about who is that one person that I can be of service to and make content for that person. Because that person needs the thing that you have. Right if you want to check out and download my free roadmap, this is totally free and super fun. It's how to help you build a brand that you love, and how to create some new habits. You can go to the imposter to influencer map.com Just go I'll put the link down in the description below totally free. It'll help guide you through how to build some habits. And if you want to see more videos like this, you want more content like this. Let me know what questions you have about building your brand, becoming known and making money online doing what you love. I'm so happy to have you here. Please stay tuned. Have an awesome awesome night. Bye
