Ep. 3: Social Media Boundaries & Metrics with Andrea Jones

Meg Casebolt 0:01
You’re listening to Social Slowdown a podcast for entrepreneurs and micro businesses looking for sustainable marketing strategies without being dependent on social media. Social media is a double edged sword. It’s a wonderful way to stay connected. But it also can feel like an addictive obligation. And it’s even more complex for businesses, your audience might be right there, but you’ve got to fight with algorithms to maybe be seen by them. So whether you want to abandon social media altogether, or you just want to take a month off, it’s possible to have a thriving business without being dependent on social media. This podcast is all about finding creative, sustainable ways to engage with your audience without needing to lip sync, send to call DMS, run ads or be available 24/7. Let’s get started. Andrea, I am so so excited to have you here on the Social Slowdown podcast. Thank you so much for being here.

Andréa Jones 0:55
Thank you so much for having me on the show. I’m excited for our conversation.

Meg Casebolt 0:59
Yes. And I wanted to have you as my first guest, specifically, because you are such an expert on social media, you’re the person that I go to, for all of my questions about social media for small businesses. So I wanted to have you on to talk about how it can work in your business, but also how you can make sure that you are utilizing social media in the most time effective way, and also protecting your mental health should you choose to use it. So without further ado, I would love for you to kind of introduce yourself, tell us what OnlineDrea is, and how you work with your clients and students?

Andréa Jones 1:36
Yes, so I’m a social media strategist. I live and breathe social media all day, every day. And I do it in two ways. So I have an agency where we offer done for you services, usually for people who are service based or in the coaching industry. And then we also have a membership program for those who want to learn how to do it themselves. More DIY, lots of coaching and hands on support that way. So those are the two ways that I help people with social.

Meg Casebolt 2:03
And do you find that the people who are learning from you how to DIY eventually grow into being your clients? Or are they really two separate audiences?

Andréa Jones 2:13
Sometimes they do. So we’ve gotten a few clients who have gone through the membership, they’ve done it themselves, they got to the point where they’re like, I don’t want to do this. And they do eventually hire us. But most of our members do it themselves and either hire a virtual assistant or social media manager or that they’re just a personal brand. And so they want to continue doing it themselves. And they end up outsourcing other things in their business. But it is the same client, but they’re at different stages in their business journey.

Meg Casebolt 2:45
Right, they may not have the capacity or the line item in their budget to be able to outsource their full social media. So they can learn it until they grow to the point that they can then outsource it. But there may just be some people who are like, I never want to learn to do this.

Andréa Jones 3:01
Yeah, exactly. And I do feel it’s like sometimes we guilt ourselves into, you know, oh, I have to be on social and I have to be the one doing it. But that’s not true. It’s just like anything else in your business. You know, for me, it’s bookkeeping. I like if I have to match receipts and reconcile my QuickBooks I, it’s just not for me, it’s not for me, someone else can do it. And so it’s just like outsourcing anything else in your business, you can outsource social media, it’s fine. It’s actually great for a lot of people, because they can put their energy into the core business offerings and really have more impactful way of showing up in their business rather than being on social media all the time.

Meg Casebolt 3:39
So how do you as a service provider help people to feel like they’re not letting go of this platform where they’re supposed to show up authentically? Like how do you extract the information from your clients in order to make it still feel like it’s them?

Andréa Jones 3:56
Yeah, and I think this depends on the type of business that you have. Some businesses have bigger personalities. So if your business has a big personality, whether that’s you or whether that’s a company, I’m thinking of someone like Ben and Jerry’s ice cream has like a big personality, they probably have a brand guide with like describing what that personality is like, they definitely have a team that’s not just been or Jerry, they have a team but that that sort of specificity requires guidelines. And so when you are bringing on team members, even as a small business, providing them with guidelines is really helpful. So that they know what to post what does it look like? What should it sound like, or you can co develop it with that person, you know, create something together. Most businesses don’t have that big of a personality. So you’re really then focusing on the customer. So instead of focusing on like the business and what it sounds like, mostly focusing on the customers and what they need, what do they need to hear? And I like the bookkeeping example, because I personally have a lot of feelings about it. And if The bookkeeper on social media was talking about reconciling QuickBooks and you know, end of your tax like I’ve already zoned out. But if they said, Do you feel anxious looking at your QuickBooks? I would go yes, I don’t need the details. That’s how I feel. And so talking about that in consumer, the end customer client, and how they feel is typically the best way to approach it. And you can get around the idea of having like this big specific personality on social.

Meg Casebolt 5:27
Yeah, I know a lot of people who come to me they say, like, I have written all these blog tutorials about how to do the things that I do. And I’m like, Well, then why wouldn’t people hire you to do with them? You know, if you’re a designer, and all that you’re writing are DIY design tutorials, then you’re not going to attract the people who want to hire a designer. Instead, make some time whatever you’re creating, whether it’s you know, blogging, or video or social or email, and talk about what are the things you need to have in place before you hire a designer? Or what are the reasons you should outsource your bookkeeping? Or why is it important that your bookkeeping is really clean? And hiring somebody can save you money long term, really leaning more into the why, than into the how to?

Andréa Jones 6:08
Yeah, absolutely. And it really does depend on your end consumer like, and the type of business that you have. So I use books, we use bookkeeping as an example. But another example is, I’m learning to crochet, I can do like blankets, that’s about it, square things. But for me, if I find a free tutorial, and then someone’s like, hey, this tutorial is free. But if you also want to buy these resources, I am an affiliate, I get a kickback, I’m going to use their link, because they provided a lot of information. For me, that’s a totally different business model. And so when you’re thinking about social media, when you’re thinking about how to show up, it really has to match kind of the kind of business that you have.

Meg Casebolt 6:50
Right. And I think that that’s something that a lot of people think that the rules are the rules for everyone. And the way that that person who has the freebie download, and then an affiliate link off the end of it, the way that they position their offers, has to be very different than the person who is actually creating the product that you are going to buy from them and your price point is going to be different, and your volumes going to be different. And the way that you interact with people is going to be different. So that should show up across all of your marketing, including social media. So are there any particular industries that you find that really excel on certain platforms? Or is it just kind of on a business by business basis?

Andréa Jones 7:31
Oh, yeah, there’s definitely industry specific resources or platforms that are best depending on what industry you’re in. So for example, if you are a career coach, you’re going to be on LinkedIn, like I can’t even suggest another platform for you. That’s your platform, like your people are there. If you are an interior designer, you know, think about Pinterest, or Instagram, it’s so visual people are actually participating in a different way on that platform. So it really does boil down to you know, your industry and thinking about where your potential client and customer spends their time and how they consume their media. caveat is if you are a career coach, and I said go on LinkedIn, and then you log in and you’re like, I don’t like it here, I hate the interface, never going to use it, then I would suggest a secondary platform for you, right? Like you can still find people, you can still use it as a tool to grow your business. So you kind of do have to enjoy some part of hanging out there. If you’re going to be doing it yourself. But that being said, there are platforms that just work way better for certain industries.

Meg Casebolt 8:36
And I think something that kind of extrapolates out of that is you don’t have to be on all of them. If you’re a career coach, and you’re you’re killing it on LinkedIn, you don’t necessarily also need to be on Pinterest. You don’t have to be everywhere.

Andréa Jones 8:51
Yeah, absolutely. And I think part of the challenge with that is social media has this like built in easy way to compare ourselves to other people. So we look at, you know, the top career coaches in the industry, and we go oh, they’re on Tik Tok. And they’re doing Instagram reels, and they’re on LinkedIn, and they’re on Pinterest, and they’ve got this whole podcast and we start comparing ourselves to other people when we think we should match up to that or meet up to that. And I like to use the analogy of working out like going to the gym, and let’s say you wanted to build muscle. You can’t compare yourself to like a CrossFitter, who’s been, you know, working out three times a day for 10 years, you’re just you’re not going to have the same muscles by even if you started now, it’s going to take a long time before you get there. And so it’s the same thing with social media. Sometimes we go in and we’re like, I’m gonna go straight for 200 pound deadlift and it’s like, well, maybe we want to start with like five or 10 pound weight, you are going to

Meg Casebolt 9:46
break your bones that is going to injure you a lot.

Andréa Jones 9:50
You’re gonna hurt yourself.

Meg Casebolt 9:53
So what are some ways knowing that there is this very strong feeling of comparison itis that hits us what are some ways to kind of protect your mental health around social media? And if you’re going to use it, how do you make sure that you’re using it in a way that isn’t harmful?

Andréa Jones 10:10
Yeah, and social media is designed to be addictive, the literally the people who created these apps are always looking for ways to keep you on there for longer, I so know that you’re going into something that could potentially be harmful. And as a business owner, we’re using it differently than the end consumer. So we do need to protect ourselves, I’ll share a few of my boundaries. But I think a lot of this comes down to really understanding the role that social media plays in your business, and how you want to show up on that platforms personally. So for me, social media tends to be a way to connect with people, it tends to be a way to nurture my current connections, okay, so it’s kind of like, middle of the funnel way for me to connect with people. So knowing that I’m not going to spend a ton of time trying to find new people. And I’m not going to spend a ton of time trying to convert current people, I’m just building relationships. That being said, I also get very drained by social media, and it’s my job.

Meg Casebolt 11:12
It’s so nice to hear that when you say like, I, this is what I do all day, every day. And it exhausts me, that is so refreshing to hear.

Andréa Jones 11:21
Yes, and I distinctly remember a moment in 2017, where I was having these very anxious feelings over it, even the thought of a notification on my phone. So something would happen, my phone would buzz or Dingle and I would just instantly like spiral into these anxious thoughts. And I had I realized then that I had to make some changes. So for me, I don’t have any notifications turned on, I don’t even have you know how on iPhone, it shows you like the number next to the app, I can’t do that either. No notifications. And I’m very intentional about the time that I spend on social media, and what’s work time and what’s like me just enjoying, like connecting with friends and family. So those two things are separate. And then when I’m on the weekends, I’m logged off, I’m not participating. And yes, I have missed a message like someone messages me Friday at seven o’clock, 7pm. I’m not seeing it on Monday, that’s just how it is, and the world hasn’t ended yet. So those are my personal boundaries. When it comes to social media, it makes it a lot more manageable for me, I think in

Meg Casebolt 12:27
that case, to you’re giving people a preview of what it would be like to work with you. So if somebody is going to email you, or send you a DM or something on a Friday at seven o’clock at night, and you respond on Friday at eight o’clock at night, and then they become your client, they’re going to expect you to respond within an hour to everything that they send you. And that might not be the precedent that you want to set for that relationship. Whereas if they sent you a DM, and then they can also go to your website and fill out your contact form, and you respond to the contact form first, then that is also setting a precedent for how you want to communicate with them and how you expect to be communicated with. And it’s important on us as the business owners and the service providers or the product creators, that we establish the expectations prior to exchange of money.

Andréa Jones 13:18
Yeah, and I think part of this comes into play with just how we use like all of these amazing technology, advancing tools like text messaging, and an email and being instantly available. That’s just not part of my, like, I just don’t do that. Anyways, if you if a friend text me, they know it’s gonna be 24 to 48 hours. Probably longer, I’m just not great at I just not great at texting and being instantly available. And so the same thing goes for my social if you send a DM or leave a comment, it’s gonna take a while to respond, and it’s okay. And even if I’m logged off for longer, I have someone on my team check my messages for me. If it’s urgent, they know how to reach me, it has never been urgent.

Meg Casebolt 14:04
I don’t know what an urgent like urgent conversation would happen in a DM because if somebody knows you well enough to have an urgent situations pop up, they’re probably a client, and they know how to reach you via email. Or you know, like, I just I feel like we have this culture of needing to be on all the time. And I actually started holding some pretty tight boundaries around my DMs and my response rate for things and people are thanking me for it when they like DM me about something and I’m like no, you need to email me and if they don’t email me then they don’t work with me like it’s just not I felt like a jerk for a while when I first started doing this where you know I would connect with somebody on social they would DM me and I’d be like no I don’t want this is not where I want to be having this conversation here book a call with me. Email me what but by establishing those boundaries for myself, it was huge in me also not feeling like that I need to be logging in all the time to make sure I’m not missing anything the fear of missing out got better as my boundaries got better?

Andréa Jones 15:02
Oh, yeah. And I think once you start establishing those boundaries, you’re right, we do feel guilty about it. But eventually you will feel the peace that comes with not being on demand to literally everyone else in your life first before yourself, which is very like, as a business owner, we put so much energy into the thing that we do, which is really great. And we shouldn’t let social media or the demands of other people take away from that.

Meg Casebolt 15:29
Yeah. So do you feel like you make the the work that you’re doing for your own business on social media and the ways that you’re talking about what you’re creating? Or how you can help people? Do you feel like you make a lot of sales directly from social or are most people finding you in other ways.

Andréa Jones 15:45
So most people find us in other ways, social media tends to be a relationship building tool for much of my business in different ways. So for my DIY membership program, users typically find us on places like YouTube through you know, searching for us, which makes a lot of sense for this podcast, Googling us, you know, finding us that way. But a lot of people find us through, you know, other opportunities. I was a guest on a podcast, I spoke in a community I spoke at a conference. So they find us that way, they follow me on social. And then they keep up with the things that we’re saying through social media, they typically then go through a funnel of ours and up on our email list. And that’s where the conversion happens. So social media is the middle of the funnel tends to warm people up. Before they sign up for our program. Our clients, on the other hand, move a lot faster, and they don’t have time. So typically, if they’re outsourcing social media, they’re literally out of time. Like they don’t have time to go through all of that. And they typically don’t even they may glance at our social, but they don’t really connect there. It comes through a referral,

Meg Casebolt 16:55
more of a verification of Oh, right. They do have a social media presence. They do know what they’re doing. But it’s not a game changer for them. It’s like a validation.

Andréa Jones 17:04
Exactly, exactly. So social media, not instance, ends up being more like a Yellow Pages listing. Yeah.

Meg Casebolt 17:13
I mean, I’m sure it does. Yeah, I don’t know, I think I got a yellow pages in the mail. And I was like, just toss it, then my kids won’t even know what Yellow Pages is.

Andréa Jones 17:22
No. So they tend to look at social media as proof that you know what you’re talking about. So I spend social media time that way, building my referral list up. So web designers, brand strategists, SEO experts, people who are service based companies that deal with the same clients that I interact with. And we can exchange clients back and forth. So ends up being more of a relationship building tool with the people on those teams. So two very different approaches for both of my clients. But social media tends to serve the same purpose, which is showcasing my expertise or my knowledge about social media, building up relationships with people and helping them feel comfortable and taking the next

Meg Casebolt 18:06
step. That’s awesome. So I know a lot of people who are listening to this podcast are thinking about how they can spend less time or less energy on social media. Now, some of them may just go, how do I replace those leads? How do I get traffic from other places, but if they’re thinking about, you know, I just don’t want to spend time on this anymore. But I know I still want that presence. I want people to be able to find me on those tools, and validate that I do know what I’m talking about. What does that look like? What does that transition from DIY in your social into outsourcing your social feel like?

Andréa Jones 18:43
Yes, and this is an important step for a lot of business owners, because they they’ve proven the social media has a place in their business, right? They know what it does, what its intentions are, but they don’t want to personally be in charge of this aspect of their business. So stepping away from that, especially if you’re feeling that consistent overwhelm, or being drained is definitely a good call. Few things to think about really understanding the ROI. So social media can be tough. It’s almost like hiring a virtual assistant to manage your inbox. It’s not a direct, like this, make me money kind of task. But it’s important, you know the value that it has, right. So kind of putting a value on that for yourself in your business. And then the second thing is really fully understanding how your business wants to show up there. So sometimes hiring an agency or a VA or social media manager, they’re going to bring their own knowledge to it. But you have to have firm boundaries on how you want to still show up or how you want to participate in working together with that person. That being said, when you’re kind of transitioning out. One of my favorite ways to do this is to still create core content pieces. So let’s say you’ve got the podcast you have a blog. The YouTube channel and then that new person can come in, take your concepts, your thoughts, your framework and kind of reproduce it in different ways for social media.

Meg Casebolt 20:09
And so you’ll find that when people are thinking about spending less of their time or their resources on social, one of the best ways to do that is to have that kind of authority platform that they’re creating for something once a blog, a YouTube channel, a podcast, and then repurposing and almost like extracting pieces of that thought leadership piece, or whatever their content creation is. And then just using social media as a distribution channel, as opposed to an engagement platform.

Andréa Jones 20:38
Yes, absolutely. So you’re really taking that core content piece, and giving yourself more opportunities for people to find it through social media. So you’ve built up the community, or even if you’re leveraging other things like paid advertising, or PR, you know, people can still find you and connect with that core content piece. And you make it really easy for a team member to then come in and replicate your business, like your framework, your knowledge on social media, as you as a business. And you don’t have to be, quote, unquote, on all of the time.

Meg Casebolt 21:14
Right? And so you personally, you have or not, personally, your business has a podcast with hundreds of back episodes, and you’re leveraging those into YouTube and you have YouTube tutorials. How are you taking that core content that you’re creating? And how are you using that to promote it on social?

Andréa Jones 21:34
Yes, so we do a few things. So the podcast is our main like our flagship content piece. Most people who come through our programs or even clients say, I’ve listened to your podcast. So a lot of people, all they do, they come through, they find us on social or they heard me somewhere else, and they listen on the podcast. So we take pieces of the podcast episodes and turn that into social content. So if it’s an episode, I recently did an episode on Tik Tok. So that’s going to be a Instagram reel where I’m going to talk about tick tock and say, Go listen to this podcast episode. That’s gonna be a carousel post. Maybe I’m gonna say go listen to that podcast episode. It could be a poll, maybe I’m doing an ABCD. Like, are you on Tik Tok? Aren’t you. So just conversation around that. And so people like I take those episodes, turn them into little pieces of content for social media, sometimes I link back to the podcast, sometimes I don’t. So it’s really just building up that awareness around that content.

Meg Casebolt 22:34
And using that content in order to drive people to your website, drive people to your YouTube channel, to take them from that social media place where they’re just kind of hanging out. And to remind them that you are in fact, the expert to stay top of mind by using social.

Andréa Jones 22:51
Yeah, exactly. So my content typically has one of two purposes. I do want content that engages people for the algorithms. And if I constantly send people away somewhere, I have found that you know, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, they’re like, Hmm, every time this person posts they’re leaving are going somewhere else, I’m going to show them other content that keeps them on our app. So yeah, I do like to mix it up with just content that engages, asked questions, that sort of thing. And then I also intentionally have content that is for conversion. So go do something. And that though, so my content typically serves one of those two purposes. And that’s probably

Meg Casebolt 23:29
the same formula that you’re also recommending for your clients, which is, you know, some of it is, I am the expert, come check out what I’ve already created. And some of it is, here’s how to engage with me or buy from me and having a solid mix of both of those in your social.

Andréa Jones 23:44
Yeah, both are important. And it’s important to note too, if I’m saying, this is information that’s in a podcast episode, go listen to it. I’m not then looking at if that post is successful, buy likes or comments. So sometimes we beat ourselves up because we go, man, I’m posting about my podcast, or I’m posting on my blog, and people aren’t liking it. Don’t look at that metric. Look at the podcast downloads, look at your website traffic, are people actually taking the action that you want them to. That’s how you can measure if that post is successful. And especially if you’re outsourcing that someone else now you can have them start measuring which posts are more successful or not. And you can double down on certain types of content, or certain pieces that you’re sharing, that really do help meet your expectations as far as social media goes.

Meg Casebolt 24:29
So when you’re looking at your social analytics, how, what are some other ways that you can know if your social is doing well? Because I know it used to be like, you could create an account and then you know, you’d get followers overnight. And it was really easy. And so people have these success stories of I got to a million followers in two weeks and you’re like, oh, but that’s not true anymore. So when we’re talking about what is the return on investment of the time that we’re spending on these, what are some of those things that we can be looking at to determine what Which are the best performing social media channels? Because each of them have different metrics in their insights. So how do you know if it’s working?

Andréa Jones 25:08
Yeah, that’s the biggest question on social media because it is so hard to track. But within social media, I like to think of it as its own sales funnel. So at the top of the funnel, we have awareness. So you want to look at things like reach and impressions. So how many people actually even saw this post? Yeah, and how many people how many times they see it, some people see post multiple times. So looking at that number, if if you’re not reaching enough people, then the rest of it doesn’t really make sense. So then you focus on improving that maybe with paid advertising, with PR with, you know, inbound traffic. And then in the middle of the funnel, we kind of have this like engagement and intent mixture, where we’re looking at things like profile views, we’re looking at likes and comments, we’re looking at, you know, if on Instagram, we’re saying go click the link in the bio, did they even go that far? Like, did they look at your profile? Right? So what is the intention of that user, and then we have conversions, which in this mini social media funnel, is actually going somewhere. So going to a website, going to a podcast page, those sorts of things. Most platforms, track link clicks, so you can see if someone clicked a link or visited somewhere, even Instagram tracks this as well. And so you can look at some of those things on social media. So you want to kind of take a look at that many sales funnel on a high level, and then look at a post level as well and see, you know, individual posts, how many people did it reach? And what was the intention of the post? Was it to get engagement? Or was it to ask people to go do something that should tell you if that post is successful or not?

Meg Casebolt 26:45
I come to this from the website perspective, which is once people get someplace from social after they have done that click through, how are they behaving? Once they get there are they spending time on the site and, and one of the things that I find is that different platforms have different amounts of time and engagement that people have there. So when you look at your social report in someplace like Google Analytics, what I find is that like, people coming from Facebook and YouTube, at least for my website, they tend to spend more time on the platform, whereas Instagram and Pinterest, they don’t spend as much time they have a much higher what’s called bounce rate, meaning they go back, they don’t stay on the page for more than one page, and they spend less time on the page. And so that’s not a you know, an indication of good or bad because there’s no good or bad metrics there. But being able to do an apples to apples comparison of when people hit the same landing page from different places, how do they behave differently. And then you can also take that on kind of a micro level to the social media channels, and figure out whether the time you’re spending on them is a good use of your time or the resources or spending on them. If you are hiring out, you know. And if you decide to outsource out your social media, then you can still have that person track some of these things for you. And say, Here’s how many clicks we got from LinkedIn versus tick tock. Not that there are too many people on both LinkedIn and tick tock, that would be a really interesting business model. And also, if you’re working with somebody on your social, they may have some industry specifics of oh, well, you’re a coach. So we typically expect people to be more engaging on the platform as opposed to clicking through. And they might be able to give some of those insights about what to expect a, you know, an E commerce e commerce business is different than a service based business is different than a course or influencer. So there are really no, totally, you know, this is how this platform works.

Andréa Jones 28:45
Right, exactly. It’s interesting that you mentioned Google Analytics traffic as well, because I think, you know, the, the idea of that conversion doesn’t stop with Oh, I got website traffic, it’s the quality of that traffic, right. So I’m with you, where Pinterest sends a ton of traffic to my website, hardly anything happens, nobody signs up for anything. I don’t even stay on the page long enough. For my business, it doesn’t really work that well for me. But actually Instagram traffic for me much less. But I can see that they’re on the page for longer. And I can see that they’re completing things, right? They’re filling out a form or they’re signing up for something. And so for me, I’m doubling down on Instagram, because that tends to work best for me and tripling down on someplace like YouTube where I just get the highest conversions out of any platform. So it you know, they each have their role and they each kind of play something different in my business, but it’s making sure that you’re paying attention to those right metrics and not just, Oh, it feels nice to have a lot of traffic from Pinterest. Well, what does that traffic actually doing?

Meg Casebolt 29:51
Especially when I look at like Pinterest metrics Pinterest analytics, and it’s like you have X amount of impressions and I’m like, Yeah, that’s just people who saw my pins. They did even click on it, they didn’t even click through. And they didn’t join my email list. So when you’re thinking about where you want to spend your time and your energy on social media, figuring out what the outcomes are that you expect from different channels, and how much time you can devote to those different places, you know, you and I are both saying that we don’t get a ton from Pinterest. But also, we’re talking b2b, you know, we’re business owners who are trying to reach other business owners, if we were in the food blogging space, we’d probably get a lot more clicks through from Pinterest. And potentially, our monetization strategy would be very different. Because instead of trying to get people to buy directly from us, we’re trying to keep them time spent on page so that way, the paid ads, the display ads, rather than are showing up on that page, or then paying through a, you know, something like Google Adsense or media vine, or E zoic, or one of those ad networks. So when you have different monetization strategies for different business models, the way that you get traffic should be different.

Andréa Jones 31:00
Absolutely. And this is where, you know, when when business owners are trying to analyze, and they’re thinking, Okay, I’ve got to cut something, because I can’t do everything, really diving into that specific thing. What is my business model? What is this social channel actually doing for my business growth? will give you your answer, get rid of the rest, and some people feel bad. They go, Well, I’ve been posting on Instagram, and I don’t just want to stop. Well, if you if it’s not working for you anyways, what difference does it make if you just stop posting, it’ll be okay. And you can always come back to it later if you change your mind.

Meg Casebolt 31:35
Yes. And you know, if nobody’s going to worry about you, if they don’t see you showing up in their feed, they’re just going to assume that it’s an algorithm thing, or you’re going somewhere else, like those followers aren’t just going to fall off the planet if you decide to take a break. And I know you feel pretty strongly about sometimes you just need to take a weekend off or shut down for a week or a month, and the world will not end if you do

Andréa Jones 31:58
guess I’m a huge fan of taking breaks from social media, I’ve done anywhere from a day to a month. And when we think about the breaks as well. It we feel invigorated when we come back, typically. And if we don’t, then we got our answer about where we’re spending energy and time. That’s not beneficial to us. But definitely take breaks, take lots of breaks, give yourself some boundaries, I at least try to do one day a week where I’m not even on my phone at all. That’s impressive. I’m really just watching reruns of law and order. Not doing anything super productive. But it’s really helpful for me to kind of have, it’s almost like doing a cleanse, I feel so much better. I don’t feel like I’m consuming so much of other people’s thoughts and feelings and opinions, which really weigh me down personally. And then I can show up with more energy and I can be more present on in the moments than I am on the apps, I

Meg Casebolt 32:53
guess. And I love what you said about like, if you don’t feel like you want to go back that gives you an answer to, you know, sometimes we feel pressure to be in a place that we don’t want to be because it feels like everyone is there. So I think if you take some time off from social media, and it feels like a relief, then that gives you valuable qualitative information that maybe you need to look at your strategy differently. But on the other hand, if you see a dip in sales, if you feel like you’re missing those conversations, it might give you kind of like an invigorating boost of like, Oh, right. That’s what I wanted from this. I took last summer off social media completely by accident. And for the first month I was like, feels good. You know, I got some time I got some space. And then within about six to eight weeks, I was like, wow, I miss my friends. And I remembered that that was where I was having conversations with people and finding out what was happening in their lives. I saw no change in my traffic, I saw no change in my sales. But I missed my friends. And that was the information that I needed to be able to figure out where I wanted to be spending my time who I needed to continue to be on social to connect with. And having that space. And that break was what gave me the data I needed to figure out what to do moving forward. Yeah,

Andréa Jones 34:12
absolutely. And it’s really it really does come down to figuring out, like, what do you want social media to do for you like as a human being? Because I think, you know, back to this idea of comparison, we look at other people and we go, oh, I want to look that way on social media. We don’t realize that there’s a team of people making them look that way. And that’s what we do. Like at our agency. We just did a whole round of posts for Christmas. So that means those like heartfelt Christmas posts were written a month ago. Oh, shoot. I mean, and so it’s not it looks instant, even Instagram Stories, Our clients pre record them and then we space them out and we upload them on their behalf. And so when you think about all of the instant and the fun and the natural innocence ganache leaking things that happened on social media. Many of the top people have teams of people helping them in this with this. So don’t compare yourself to that, figure out what you can do how you want to show up specifically, I actually think it’s a whole lot better for you and your business and kind of your business goals when you do this. And it’s just better for you as a human person existing in this

Meg Casebolt 35:20
world. It’s so true. So, Andrea, where can people find you if they want to learn more about both? How to do their own social media? How to outsource their social media? And how to have their social feel better for their mental health? How can people find you?

Andréa Jones 35:37
Yeah, so I have a free course, that walks you through the entire strategy that I like to apply to social media. It’s at online dre.com/free. And I like to think of it as the Costco sample version of what our program is like. So we’ll give you a little sample, we want you to buy the whole thing, but enjoy your sample. And it’s got tons of done for you things in there, which we’re huge proponent of so swipeable captions, where you can like Mad Libs style, fill in the blank Canva graphics where you just swap out the colors and post them on your accounts. So it’s things like that to help get you started. So that’s online trade, comm slash free, and then I’m everywhere online, at online Draya. All of the platforms, I’m the one exception because it’s my job.

Meg Casebolt 36:22
You have to be everywhere, I’m sorry. And also the podcast, you have a very extensive podcast that people can head over two, so we’ll make sure to include that in the show notes for those of you who love to listen. And thank you so much for being here today. I really appreciate your time.

Andréa Jones 36:37
Thank you so much for having me on the show. This has been fun.

Meg Casebolt 36:40
Talk to you soon. Thank you so much for listening to the social slowdown podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe or come on over to social slowdown.com and sign up for our email list so you never miss an episode. We’d also love if you could write a review to help other small business owners find the show you can head over to social slowdown.com/review Or grab that link in our show notes for easy access. We’ll be back soon with more tips to help you market your business without being beholden to social media. Talk to you then

Please forgive any typos or errors, as this transcript was automatically generated by otter.ai