In this final episode of Season 1, Dr. Barnes shares one thing that every business, nonprofit, or a personal brand must do to grow with social media. This episode is based on Dr. Barnes' book "5 Social Media Mistakes Your Business Should Avoid."

Season 2 of the Bricks-To-Clicks Marketing Podcast will explore the 7 Things Your Social Media Plan Should Include and will be available in July 2022.

Transcription:

James Barnes: (00:07)
Welcome to the Bricks-To-Clicks Marketing podcast. If you're a small business owner and you struggle with marketing your business, this podcast is just for you. I'm your host, James Barnes, and thank you for listening today. Let's get started.

James Barnes: (00:22)
Today, I want to share a story with you, a true story that happened to me when I was doing a workshop, a social media marketing workshop. And this last episode, I wanted to really be a word of encouragement to you about giving your social media a makeover to really grow your business. It's possible. Tons and tons of companies do it each and every day, and they grow their businesses with social media. But you got to do this one thing, and I'm going to tell you what that one thing is in just a few minutes, but I want you to know a story, something that happened to me that really gave me the reason to write the book and put together the content around five social media mistakes your business should avoid.

James Barnes: (01:04)
So I was giving this workshop, and the workshop started in the evening time, like five o'clock. So there was a meal that was provided and it was a group of business owners in a community. The next day, we were going to spend a couple more hours working on things in the morning for the social media marketing workshop, and much of what we've covered in season one, we went through during the workshop.

James Barnes: (01:25)
But at the very beginning of the workshop, we were going around the room and I was asking participants, business owners, "What are you expecting to get from this workshop?" They were there to give their social media a makeover. And I'll never forget this one guy, and I'm just going to call him Jim. When it got to him and it was his turn to speak about it. He said, "I don't have time to do social media. I'm too busy." Now, everybody prior to Jim had said, "Well, I'm looking to learn how to give my social media makeover. I want to get more engagement. I want to get more sales, more leads, build relationships." Lots of things, all positive outcomes, things of that nature you want to do.

James Barnes: (02:03)
But when it got to the Jim, it got really personal. And he just said, "I don't have time to do this. I don't have time to do this. I'm too busy." And it really changed the tone of the entire meeting that evening. You have to imagine, everyone's sitting around this U-shape table, beginning to eat. There are some still in the line getting food. I'm in the middle, talking with them. And he says this, and there's a couple of ways you could handle that. So I just asked Jim, I said, "Why don't you have time? Tell me more about it." And then I said, "Before you answer that," I said, "does anybody else feel like this?"

James Barnes: (02:42)
Every business owner in the room raised their hand. They said, "Yes, I struggle with this. I don't have time to do this." And for me, it was a moment of, okay, this is an opportunity I can help. This is a moment when they need the help of some kind. And so I was hoping that in the time we had left that day, and then the next morning, we could start to give them some help in the workshop. But Jim said that he didn't have time to resonate with everybody. And so we started talking about the reasons. Why don't we have time? And oftentimes, it's just we're so busy, we've connected with so much with our mobile devices to social networks, to so much that we're just really, really busy and running a business is a lot of work.

James Barnes: (03:33)
So, as we talked about those reasons and we started talking about, okay, which ones can we control? There's some of the stuff that we can control. There's some of it we can't control. But we can control a lot of our time and how we use it each and every day. So you've got one of two options. This is what we talked about there in the workshop that day. You can outsource someone to handle your social media management to get you started. If it's overwhelming, don't let it be. You can outsource to someone to start creating content, to get you up on the platform where your target market audience is at, where they're engaging that group of people. And just remember, this is not about just posting something. This is about how do you build community? How do you build a tribe engagement? How do you do that?

James Barnes: (04:16)
Think first about that. And one of the things that helped Jim that day, and I think all those business owners is that Jim hadn't yet identified the real problem that his business was solving for customers. Jim owned a small engine repair shop, a common small business in America. He worked on lawn equipment, all kinds of stuff people would bring him in. He was just a wizard. He could make anything run. He could make anything work. I don't know if he could work on the stuff that I tear up, but he might be able to. He was really good. So we used Jim's frustration and his business as kind of a case study for the workshop really. And I asked if we could do that and he was elated that we would do that and work through all the questions to give his social media a makeover.

James Barnes: (05:08)
At the end of the day, we had to come up with a strategy for content. I tell business owners all the time, "You have to come up with one thing that you're going to do frequently to help your customers somehow get to know you." One of the things you can do is give away a free piece of content that's going to help them solve a problem they have. You're not giving away the farm, so to speak. You're not just giving away what your services are, but you can do something. And so Jim really started to see that his purpose was to help his customers. And there's something that comes with clarity when you understand your purpose. And so that for Jim that day, that's what happened. So that evening, he just started to discover his purpose. That helped him clarify what he should be doing on his social media. And then he could choose whether or not he really had time to do it or not.

James Barnes: (05:59)
Because really the statement he made, "I don't have time to do social media," was just complete frustration. He does have time. He did have time. But he didn't know what to post. He didn't know why he should post. He didn't know when he should post it. He didn't know that like, "What's the core reason am I on this platform? Why am I here as a business?"

James Barnes: (06:18)
So for Jim, it was all about discovering his purpose. His purpose is to help his customers. And it's the same thing for any business. You want to be positioning yourself to help your customers solve some part of their problem, educate them, help them, and give them tips, practices, and things they could do. So we came up with a strategy for Jim. He's been following it ever since the workshop, where he would go live on Facebook and he would take a common piece of lawn equipment when it came in and he would show how it should be taken care of. He would show what happens when you don't take care of it really well. And he would have something that was broken or something that needed to be repaired and he would get tips. So he was giving away advice on how you can make your lawn equipment l...