Episode 001: Making the switch from Social Media to Podcasting
Taking Back Joy Podcast • Episode #001:
Making the switch from Social Media to Podcasting
Ever started a project, or an idea for your business, and it just fizzled out? Life got in the way and it joined the pile of other ideas on the floor of your office?
Well, I'll admit this is my third crack at starting a podcast. But this time, something's different. I feel like I finally have something of greater value to share, and in this third crack at my first episode, I'm going to share with you where I'm headed and why I want you to come along for the ride.
I'm going to talk about big bold boundaries, my social media switch and where to next.
As me and my kids love saying, let's rock and roll.
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Show Notes: Links & resources mentioned in this episode
Some necessary viewing if you’ve been questioning your social media habits - Netflix’s ‘The Social Dilemma’
Episode Transcript
Download: Episode Synopsis (PDF) | Episode Content (PDF)
Synopsis
Meredith Paige 00:01
Are you running a small business in a regional or rural area? And you starting to wonder when this marketing thing is supposed to get fun?
Meredith Paige 00:08
Are you trying to do all the things - show up on social media, send emails, get your website together, get through local marketing channels - Do you feel like you're doing all the things, chasing your tail, and not only getting nil result, but sacrificing way too much of your headspace, your boundaries and your family time?
Meredith Paige 00:28
Well you're in good company. Welcome to the first episode of what I hope to be a huge number of episodes talking about that delicate balance between raising people, running a business, real boundaries and really good mental health. In this episode, I want to share with you what's prompted me to start this podcast on this particular intersection of themes and how that over the course of the coming episodes, I can share with you what I've learned about really powerful boundaries and how they can have such a big difference on how you can run your business sustainably, successfully, and spend more time with your family, your friends or just by yourself without being stuck to your screen.
Episode Content
Meredith Paige 00:01
As a small business owner, have you ever stopped and started and stopped and started a new project? Well, you're in good company. This is the third first episode I've recorded for a podcast. Yep, this is my third crack at running this thing. But this time, it feels a little bit different. And I'll explain why. So the first time around, was just pretty much testing infrastructure. I am a website designer. And I love the Squarespace platform. And I was setting up a podcast to see what it would look like to run a podcast through Squarespace and do the setup from start to finish. So that first episode was a bit of a dummy episode, just so I could sort of see how the system worked. The second time around, I thought, I hit the nail on the head with the kind of content I wanted to create on a bit of a guest bag. Anyone who knows me will be thinking a bit of a guest bag.
Meredith Paige 00:56
But suffice to say, I enjoy chat. So I thought a podcast would be perfect for me. Except a, I didn't really have anything super valuable to contribute to the conversation that is small business marketing podcasts. For me, the motives weren't right, I was looking at it as a way to get my content out there, get people to listen and drive traffic to my business. And as much as that is a good reason to start a podcast. Now that I feel like I have a better reason, I don't think that reason was quite enough, and hence the wheels fell off. So this is the third time around. And like I said, this third time feels different. I'm at a very interesting point in my business where I feel like I'm at the intersection in business and life of small business, family marketing, and actually mental health. And I feel like there's something at this intersection that makes me want to stop here and chat to you guys a bit more about it. Because recently was post semi recently, I've started establishing some really healthy boundaries in response to my understanding of my own mental health. And that's a resulted in some massive benefits both professionally and personally, I've always had to have a bit of a juggle between spending time with the family spending time in the business spending time on the business, which I'm sure you can all relate to.
Meredith Paige 02:27
But in doing all that better in getting in the constant pursuit of better quality family time, better quality work, better quality, business growth and better quality mental health, I've established a really strong set of boundaries and habits, that now I practice them, I kind of look around me and see a lot of businesses that would benefit from practicing the same. So first and foremost, I feel like I have something of more value to contribute to you, whoever's listening. And I feel like I have more to add to the conversation around small business marketing now, rather than just marketing strategies and tips. Like for goodness sake, you could go through Spotify or Apple podcasts. And you could find a bajillion marketing podcasts, they're all going to tell you the best, the latest the fanciest tricks to do. But as a marketing person, myself, who's also an avid learner from others, I'm starting to sense that the things that people and I say people, I mean, the experts, the marketing experts out there in internet land, the things they want us to do, and the things that they're preaching us to do, in order to grow our businesses and market effectively, are actually connected to good mental health. And smart marketing practices that give us more time, give us less time stuck to our screens, and just make us generally more productive and more for lack of a better term balanced. And this is probably the second reason why I wanted to start a podcast. This is about me in myself establishing better marketing habits. So you see along the way, as far as content creation goes for my business. And if you're not familiar with the buzz word content creation, it's basically the marketing stuff you make regularly to get your business name out there, but in most genuine way by like offering help and tips and tricks and stuff like that. So I've been doing that for a while now. And originally I was blogging way back in the early days, I was blogging because I do enjoy writing. And I think I'm quite kind of good at it. But I realized that my inner perfectionist was often getting in the way of me being a bit more productive. I would agonize over posts then end up being short novels, I tend to waffle in print and in real life. So blogging started to chew up all my time, and I realized I needed a more efficient way to get my messages out there. And so then I tried video, I wanted to try and do some trainings and some walkthroughs and also make it a bit more engaging. So I moved to video,
Meredith Paige 04:54
and please for the love of God. Don't go looking for the first ones unless you really need to feel better about your videos. They were shocking, like the lighting was bad. I think every second one was, um, or I for some reason I got the sniffles when I'm nervous. They were just dreadful, really, really dreadful. But and I'll address this in another episode, you got to get started to get better. So first videos were awful. And these were intended to be pre recorded training sessions. And again, my inner perfectionist decided to crash the party. And I spent way too much time editing reshooting just agonizing over these things that were meant to be 10 minute little tips, tricks and sound bites, and are taking hours. So once again, I found myself in the position of, I'm spending way too much time doing this. So I switched gears again. And I actually took the leap and started doing Instagram lives, which were a bucket of fun and really pulled me outside my comfort zone. And we're a lot closer to the mark in terms of efficiency, because they will live. Once they were done. They were out there in the ether and there was nothing I could do to take them back. And they were great, and have been great for a really long time they've got the visual component, video tends to do really well on both Facebook and Instagram, as well as elsewhere, I was able to do like walkthroughs and diagrams, I got myself a fancy white board for very schmick.
Meredith Paige 06:17
And so it was really good for a while. And more recently, if you're listening to this podcast, it's now August 2021. So I would say to the start of 2021, or more. So the end of 2020, I started diving more into marketing coaching around social media, and how other businesses can craft their messages on social media. And so I did a cut I did a lot of one on one training with businesses were really productive. They really enjoyed it because they thought it was really grounded in reality and not too abstract and algorithm gamey.
Meredith Paige 06:53
And so it was great for a while. But then the more I tried to expand my knowledge, particularly when it comes to maximizing social media, so I could then pass it on to my clients. The more I realized that a lot of these tricks and tips and things required you be spending way more time on social media than
Meredith Paige 07:13
I felt was healthy for me. So I wasn't interested in trying to pull people into my dams, and have a one on one conversation I might have been happening back and forth at 11 o'clock at night, just a secure sale, I was not interested in doing that. I'm only interested in pulling people into my DMS and texting backwards and forth like we're teenagers in high school, that's just not me. And if that works for you, that's fine. So going backwards and forwards between people, potential customers in DMS and instant messenger was just not for me, because the way I'd sort of set my business boundaries up is that I had allocated work time, and allocated family time. And the two were very distinct times. And so if I was in business mode, my head was all in and I wasn't going to be distracted by messages and texts and things like that, because, and again, I'll address this at a later stage, but man it eats in your productivity. If you constantly stopping what you're starting to go and check a text message because it fires off, and you think it requires immediate attention. I don't like working like that. So already, I didn't want to be jumping every time a message came through. So it felt kind of counterintuitive for me to be establishing marketing habits, which encouraged people to send me a DM whenever the heck they happened to be watching my video, and then putting the implication out there that I would respond. As soon as they messaged me, I did not want to set that precedent. And that's something my dad taught me a long time ago was this concept of setting precedent. If you're not willing to do it, in 20 years time, 10 years time, two weeks time, don't do it today. And it made me realize that a with Instagram lives as much as they put me out of my comfort zone and they were efficient and effective. I was a spending more time than I wanted to on social media. Well, then I thought it was healthy for me to be spending on social media, not only putting the content out there, but then trying to garner responses. I was also expecting other small business people to sit there glued to their screen for 1015, sometimes 20 minutes watching me. And they might have better things to do. In fact, I can almost guarantee they had better things to do. What if they felt obligated to watch that while they're spending time with their kids, or trying to get work done, or trying to spend some time to this sell themselves. So came to a point where I didn't want my marketing to encourage someone to perpetuating bad habits. I didn't want my marketing to be forcing someone to sit on social media glued to their phone for 5, 10, 15 minutes if I didn't want that for me. I didn't want my marketing forcing someone else to do that just to absorb it.
Meredith Paige 09:52
And not only that there's been a few things that have happened on social media lately that make me believe that we need to try and make our businesses autonomous of it. mean mental health and unhealthy usage habits aside. For those that are in Australia, you may recall that in early 2021, Facebook actually blocked our access to all our local news sites. So all the ABC News, nine news, SBS, or their Facebook pages got essentially wiped out, in response to Facebook, negotiating with our local government about how they scrape our new sites for information, but don't actually send the traffic through. It's a little bit of a technical conversation. But basically, the government, I believe, was trying to enforce legislation that required Facebook, Google all these different platforms to actually compensate our new sites for the information that they were taking off them because the new sites will lose in traffic. And the traffic is how they gain ad revenue. I'll try to throw a link in the show notes that explains that situation a bit more, mainly. So I know you're getting the correct information. But that was a situation as I understood it, but the fact remains that Facebook made it very clear that they're not a democratized space, they're owned by a very limited group of people that can do pretty much whatever they want with that platform. And profiles of the people that live for lack of a better term on it. They can do whatever they like, whenever they like, and they don't really have to be accountable, because they're kind of as single entity. Whereas things like websites, for example, which is my area of specialty, they live in a more democratized space in the broader internet, where the work suppose I would describe it, it's like paying rent versus owning a home. So when you pay rent, you have very limited rights. And the person who actually owns that place that you're living in, can make very dramatic changes at the drop of a hat that actually have a lot of impact on you, and there's not much you can do about it. Whereas a website is actually more like owning a home, where Facebook is like paying rent. If you have a website, you own your own home. And it's very hard for someone else to affect what happens on that turf. It's your space, your messaging, your design, your layout, it's all you your turf, your terms. And website providers out there, my personal choice is Squarespace, their sole purpose is to try and get you to do more with the platform to grow. Whereas I feel like Facebook and Instagrams main motivator is to get you to stay on the platform, to the detriment of what happens everywhere else.
Meredith Paige 12:25
So there's a lot of things I'm starting to feel a very unhealthy about social media. And so I feel like it's incumbent upon me to try and stay ahead of the curve in terms of where marketing's going next. So this isn't to say that I want to rip everything off social media and go incognito. But by the time I sort of digested all this, I realized that I wanted my core content to not live on social media, but rather than just be replicated there. And that's when I thought about my own habits, and what marketing content or content in general, did I actually enjoy absorbing, and I felt it was a habit that I would love to sustain. And that's when I came to podcasts. I love podcasts. And one of my favorite, here's a buzzword, self care habits. One of my favorite self care habits is to take my dog for a walk late in the evening, listen to a podcast. And that's just how I wind down. I'm moving. It's I'm outside, it's quiet, it's peaceful, it's exercise, and I'm learning something. That's something I would love to do in perpetuity. And I imagine if you're another small business owner listening right now, you might have your own podcast listening habits, it might be while you're cooking dinner, washing the dishes driving into town. So I feel like a podcast for me is a much more healthy marketing habit that I can sustain. But also, then I'm happy encouraging you to buy into, I would be happy if all my small business friends spent 20 minutes listening to a podcast that made them feel better, and gave them some value. So they can market their businesses better, while spending less time stuck to their screen. And so while I'm creating this podcast, I would like for it to show up on Facebook and Instagram. And that's the intention is I'll share that it's there. So people can be directed to it. But I feel like it's a better marketing content platform for me. Because once it's recorded, it's out there for you to enjoy at your leisure. There's no need for me to encourage engagement. You can engage with it as little as you like. But the value is there regardless of whether you like comment, share, or otherwise I'm not in this for comments, likes and shares. I'm in this purely to get value while you're taking a walk or doing the dishes or looking after yourself. And there's no inference for you to engage back with me. There's no need for this to go any further than you listening to me right now. And that's, that's okay. And that's sustainable. And that's how I want to make it work.
Meredith Paige 14:56
And that's kind of the whole purpose of why I'm putting this podcast together is I want to do All together everything I've learned about smart, efficient marketing strategies that also align with really healthy habits. I'm kind of tired of the sense that when you're in small business, it's just assumed that it consumes your life. What if it didn't? What if it didn't consume your life? What if you can have a small business and still have a really healthy family life, really good quality, may time, quality time with your loved ones, and good marketing habits that you could do consistently and sustainably. I believe that all that is 100% possible. And that's what I want to share with you here. I want this podcast to be all about that mix of smart strategies for marketing, for business growth, for smart boundaries, and for good mental health.
Meredith Paige 15:45
Because I feel like they're the four things we need to get right to make all this feel good. And to work well every day. I'm still learning how to get better, all these things. But there's things I've picked up along the way too, that I want to share with you right now, that can make a difference to your day to day, week to week business and home life. Now, as for the name taking back joy. For anyone that knows me, this might sound way too woowoo for what I normally roll out. But it's actually based on something that my dad, who you're going to hear a lot about, over the course of this podcast, me and my dad are very similar, very close. And he's left me with a lot of gems over the years that have really stuck with me. And one time and was just once. This isn't something he said to me often. But one time he said to me, Meredith, make sure you're not so busy that it steals your joy. And I think he could see my very ADHD tendencies from a very young age. And that one hit me right between the eyes. Don't be so busy that it steals your joy.
Meredith Paige 16:45
And I think that's another thing that has made me want to start this podcast and start this working towards this four way balance between family, small business, mental health and boundaries is because I was starting to feel like I was so busy, it was stealing my joy from what I love to do. So thank you for joining me for Episode One, Mark three of taking back joy. I really hope that we can continue to get together and I can share with you stuff that I'm learning that's hopefully going to make your life. I don't want to say more balanced because balanced is, I think an ideal that no one can really achieve. But I just want it all to feel better. I want you to feel better about what you've done each day, for your business, for your family, for yourself and for your mental health. I'm hoping to bring on boards and fantastic people that I work with that I look up to whose intelligence and experience and expertise I respect so they can join in this conversation about taking back joy, and making sure that we're not so busy that it steals joy from us. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time.
