Welcome to the Mindful Marketing Podcast. I'm your host,
Andrea Jones. Tune in every week as
we redefine marketing playbooks to break free from what we should
do so that we can scroll less, connect
more, and grow together.
I've talked about this before on the podcast, but social media is becoming
a search platform. SEO, search engine
optimization, is becoming even more important. Yes. And our favorite
social platforms like TikTok. And today I have Erin
Alilla on the podcast to talk all about it. Let's get into
it. Before we get into it, this episode is sponsored by
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show notes and get started today. Hey. Thanks so much for having
me. I'm so excited, Erin, because I know you
you're you come from a copywriting expertise. You have
this beautiful background in storytelling. You're
also a podcaster. You have so many, like, creative modalities
that you play in. And so I'm really excited to just, like, pick your brain
today. And I know that you actually this
goes way back. Like, you started your I shouldn't say
started, but you have a career in this because your
PhD thesis, right, was in
social media. Can you tell us a little bit about it? Okay. So for
I'm gonna correct you a little. Yeah. Not that I don't want to have a
PhD because I've been dying to add the word doctor to my name, but it's
actually an MFA. So I cannot claim the
full PhD. Although if anyone wants to call me doctor Alola, I will
happily answer. You are right, though. Overall,
though, my MFA program was a
really full term long study of the idea of writing.
And instead of just writing a thesis of a body of work for our
own creative writing, we actually had to spend an entire semester doing
a critical thesis and study something that was important
to both our genre and my genre was creative
nonfiction, which is essay and memoir, and something
about the world around us. So at the time, and I'm an old
lady here. So at the time, this was in the early 2000s, I think
maybe 2010 ish. It social media
was definitely a public thing. It wasn't just, you know, for
college students anymore. But it wasn't used for
business. It wasn't used in the ways that we use it these days. So
what I did was for my critical thesis, I studied
how the what we post on social media is
actually writing our own mini memoirs for us.
So it was the idea behind, like, what are you sharing?
And the statuses, the post, the
now what you'd call, like, things like stories and reels that we're sharing
very often have a backstory to them. So what you
may see in someone's, text post, let's say, now on
threads or previously on Twitter and Facebook, there's usually a story that
influences what gets shared, and you don't get the whole story. So how
does the sum of all these statuses kind of, build into a
larger story about who a person is? Yeah. Fast forward
to today, how does what we share for our business and our
personal lives build this fuller autobiography,
I guess you can say now, of who we are as individuals and what we
stand for in our businesses. Yeah. Oh, that's such a
fascinating take because I do think sometimes as business owners, we
think very short term. Like, this is what I have to promote
right now or this is what, you know, the message that I wanna share
today. When really what you're doing is you're building a body of work
digitally online even outside of social media with your blogs and
your podcast and your YouTube videos. Like, you're building
a history there, right, that people can go back and, like,
peruse and look at. No pressure though. No pressure. And they do if
you think about it. You know? So, like, we're we're talking today more
about, like, how how to get found using social, for your
business and obviously, ideally, how to convert with the social that you're creating.
But we so we have to think that like, this cannot be
something that's like, subconsciously done or
unconsciously done this creation of content that we're doing because
people in your audience who you do not know at all have found
you, and they are 100% judging you and your
business on what you have shared. So there's that body of work that
you've created, right? So all of these people that you're hoping to
attract, you have to convince them that you are the right person for
them. And not that I say this as in like, you know, the pressure is
there, do a good job. It's that we have to make decisions
about, like, what do we want to stand for? What do we want to showcase?
How do we want our expertise to come across? And I
think where people go wrong so often on social media is that
they share reflexively, you know, like, trending topics are great.
They actually do help in some ways when it comes to SEO on social
media. But if a trending topic is not
related to your overall business, your
overall way that you want to show up and
brand yourself, I guess I'd say, then it's not going to be
beneficial for you. Right? Like, it's the idea of viral- vivality?
How do you say that word? You definitely call it Deborah, like, Alright, I definitely
was thought I was butchering it. But it's the idea of why do you want
to go viral? And how could it potentially help your business goals?
The exact same thing implies for search. So
why do you want to be found? And what are both your long and
short term goals on getting found on social
media? Yeah. It's really important to consider that before you start deciding
what content that you're going to use to do that job for
you. Yeah. Oh, that is so so spot
on. Because it's so easy to get caught up in those trends,
you know, in the like, what's the flash in the van popular thing
today, when in reality, you can leverage them
to be found, but you wanna do it strategically in a way that still makes
sense for your business. I there's so many stories I've
heard over the years of people who go viral for something silly that they
posted, and then they come to me and my agency going, okay.
I went viral, but none of these people matter to my business. Now what? And
I'm, like, well, basically means nothing. Like, you know. And it's
kind of harder then because, you know, we like, we talk about algorithms. Right?
And one of the things when it comes to SEO specifically on social media is
that while the algorithm does not appear
to be something that you can influence as the the
person putting in the effort to optimize things, the algorithm
plays a large role, because what all of the social platforms are
doing is paying attention to who's plant
propagations on my desk around me, and I went I have a couple plant
propagations on my desk around me. And I went viral for
maybe let's say a really funny container that I put my plant propagations
in. And I gained, I don't know, let's say 10,000 followers
from this. The algorithms now think I'm a plant
lady. Lady. They don't recognize me for content. So
I have to put a massive amount of of work in to
remind the algorithms that those 10,000
people are not getting what they want, which is already making
me look bad in the like, quote unquote algorithms eyes, which is the best way
to describe it, because I'm not giving them that gardening content
now. And for all of those people, I kind of need to get it to
the point where they're not seeing me anymore. So I can get into the
eyes of the people who want to see me for copy and content. So
being viral needs to be strategic or even just kind of,
like, gaining traction, gaining followers needs to
be strategic. It's why all of these, like, follow for follow
things never work when it comes to people, like, posting in groups. Like, oh,
follow me, and I'll follow you. Well, if you're, let's say, someone who helps
teachers leave their jobs and start their business, and I am like,
someone who has a construction company, how are we benefiting each
other? Like, how are these following things working unless we
both can find a common ground and, like, actually want to work
together? It it just never works. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it just feeds into
that, like, ego piece that we have as business owners where we go,
oh, the just the pure number of followers matters.
Totally. We all we're all there. We're all there. So I wanna dive deeper
into search on social. You know, my
platform of choice right now is a tie between
Instagram and LinkedIn. The threads is like making me really happy.
But TikTok, I spent like an egregious amount of time there
because I'm studying it and it impacts so much of the other
platforms. And they're actively branding themselves
as a search engine. Talk to
us about, like, what does this even mean? Yeah.
Well, they're rightfully branding themselves as a search engine. I I
don't know the exact stat at this point in time of like, when we're recording,
but in the end of 2022, I think the stat was that,
Gen Z, like individuals
went like, I think it was like almost 50% of Gen Z individuals went
straight to TikTok to search things out. And they're not just
searching like, t shirts and clothes to wear. They're searching location
based things, which I found incredibly
interesting. Meaning, let's say you have like,
early adult late teenager is going on vacation with their family. They would
search like restaurants, the location they would search like
activities, the location. So they would find
results from average individuals, what I like to call it micro
influencers myself, let's say if I'm posting about my town, and
they'd really get the like 411 on what's happening
because they're not technically being served branded
content. If you think about it, it's not the brand saying, oh, come to my
restaurant, come to my restaurant. It's the average individual posting about
their meal, posting about their experience. So the social proof
element to this is ginormous. Yeah.
And the reason I I'm not a Gen Z er, but the reason I specifically
bring them up first is because there are there are entering
newest, people who have money to
spend, right? So they have and they're young,
so their brains are still forming, which means they're being
conditioned completely to search in this manner.
If you are a millennial and you or even Gen Xer and you grew up
with the transition of, like, the telephone book to
the Internet, or one thing I like to talk about very often is, like, the
encyclopedia to Google that you can
understand this transition is pretty massive. Yeah. So instead
of using a glossary like approach to search,
they're using a user formatted,
larger search serve. Meaning, instead of
just going to that encyclopedia and saying, taco restaurant,
they're well, let's just say restaurants, and then they get a list of all the
restaurants in that potential city. They type in restaurant with
the location and they get served things like the taco place, you know,
the sushi place, They can take it a step further and put in tacos,
and then they can get served the the food,
the food trucks and all of these different things that they might not have found
in their glossary approach that older people take when it comes to
search. So they're really getting a more dynamic,
result to their search. And really,
TikTok was the leader in that because that's where the younger people were spending their
time. And they're not only getting text based content, they're getting that
very visual, very social proof related content.
But because video really did become massively so huge in the
last decade, people are able to get those same or
similar results on many different social platforms, Facebook,
even LinkedIn, which LinkedIn has had quite
a branding change in the last decade. Oh, yes. So people
are actively using it to search for things
instead of search for individuals and jobs. So
anything that has a bar with that little magnifying
glass where you're able to input a term,
whether or not it is a true search platform,
like Google would be, or YouTube would be, or
Pinterest. It is still a search platform, and
people are very much using it as such. So we,
as business owners, have to adapt to that and and
kind of decide, well, how am I going to adjust what I share, how I
share, and where I share it so that I can get found by all of
these individuals who now have spending budgets, and who are
searching in this very specific manner to
to find my business. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. I find this so
fascinating because I do think there's this like, generational,
like, ego thing that happens where we're like, oh, Gen z is changing
things. Whatever they're doing, it's terrible. Yeah. Like, we just, like,
instantly assume that it's not for us. But
I think so I just spent time with my mom this weekend, and I was
trying to convince her to get Netflix. And it's
like, even that shift for her is Yeah. Challenging.
She's so used to, like, TV guide. Like, if it's on the TV, she'll
watch it. If it's not on there, she doesn't even think about watching it. I'm,
like, trying to convince her, but Netflix, you could watch it Netflix, you could watch
it anytime, and there's no commercials. And she's like, I don't wanna fiddle around with
that. You know? And so it's that generational shift that's
happening with the next generation with Gen z. And then as
business owners, you know, most of my audience, 35
plus. Right? So, like, we are not Gen z.
And then we're business owners looking at these shifts going, you
know, well, it may not matter to me, but ultimately,
they're shaping how we're going to use these tools.
So as a business owner too, I think one of the
things that comes up a lot with my clients and my students is
what to tell the search. And I'm always
recommending people, you know, we like the
cutesy titles. We like the like, like, if you if you're a
financial adviser, we like the, like, you know, wealth
generational manifester. And it's like, that's not what they're looking for. They're literally
typing in financial advisor. Am I wrong in that?
Like No. You are a 1,000,000 and 25 percent right
here. You are people stop being clever. Clever
will never get you where you need to be in business. And it's I think
that sometimes people hear it a little bit better when it comes from someone like
me, a copywriter, because I think that they imagine, you know, as quote
unquote word unicorns or word ninjas, they imagine
that we're so clever, and the way that we attract people
is using our cleverness. Clever is not
going to get you found. It I think I'm so passionate about it because I
have the SEO background, whereas some other copywriters, sure, they
might like clever words. No offense, other copywriters, bad idea.
But when you're searching for anything, like, let's talk
about the idea of a taco truck. Like if you're going to a location and
you type in like location name tacos, you're not
typing in like, location name and then
like ceviche wrapped Like, right? You're not
being like, you're not describing something. Like, you're just typing
in t a c o s, tacos. That's it.
So you don't have to suddenly describe the way like a taco is
wrapped or like anything like that, because
a taco is a taco is a taco. And a
financial advisor is a financial advisor, and a copywriter
is a copywriter. So if you did put thing like word
unicorn, what's happening is, and and this is a very practical, like, I'll
go from my rant to very practical advice. If you're searching for a
copywriter for your business, and you type in word unicorn
into Google, or TikTok, What
the, let's just use Google because I always call everything Google. What
Google is gonna do is it's going to say, okay, here are two
words. This person wants me to present them with results about
these two words. One of those words is word.
There's a lot of things to do with words here. It could be
books, it could be like stuff that had to do with school, it could
be, instructions for
ninja or unicorn or whatever I had used. Those are
magical creatures and individuals with
insane ability. How do I then take these two words
and give them the best results? They're not going to give you
a copywriter because copywriters can't do stunts like
ninjas, and copywriters are not literal like
mythical beings. So you're
you're making, Google put in so much more effort to serve you
up to the people you want to be, served to. And I love to
tell people, I truly think of Google as the wingman.
If you make your wingman's job easy, your wingman
will totally make you look good. Like they are going to
like, get you like found and give you the
people that you want to attract. If you don't give the
wingman anything to work with. Your good luck. Who
knows what they're gonna say about you? Like my friends, if they were trying to
introduce me to like, like dating someone when I was younger, they
would be like, oh, Erin's so funny. She wears really big
earrings all the time. She sleeps in them. She loves candy.
Like, none of that's gonna help me find a date. Yes. It's true
to me. I did wear really big earrings and ate a lot of candy, but
that's not gonna convince someone to go out to dinner with me. So now bringing
it into the business age, if you want, like, Google
or any of the social media platforms to show you in
those, like, results pages or or anywhere where you're going to
have, like, a search capability, you need to only can
I give them the information that is very clear and
precise to how you can help the end end user?
Because bottom line is people care what's in it for
them, even if they are selfless, kind, lovely
individual. We're, we're all given too
much content on a daily basis, whether it's the news, the TV,
Netflix, our social media feeds, there's an
insane amount of content that people really want to
know like, well, how does this benefit me? Like, and why would I spend my
time consuming your content? And and that's really
the the benefit they get from you. Yes. Oh my gosh. I
love all of this, and it reminded me of, so I like, cooking.
It's like my and I'm not really that great at it, but I love doing
it. It's my, like, decompression at the end of the day of, like, looking at
all my devices. I want something tactile, you know. So I stopped
looking for recipes on Google because these bloggers have,
like, a freaking novel before I get to the recipe.
Now I'm on TikTok, like, bookmarking recipes because
Yeah. It's just the recipe. Like, there's no see it.
And I can see it. I can see what it's supposed to look like. I
can see as they're making it. There's one
creator who I follow who's always like, measure with your heart. I'm like, that's the
kind of cooking I do. Yes. GM, sign me up for that
one. Sign me up. And so I I think about this
shift away from, like, trying to check all the boxes, trying
to, you know, do too much towards, like, give the
people what they want and then the algorithms will reward you
for it. So when I start to think about this too actually, we'll take a
quick break and then I will ask my next question when we get back. What
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Okay. We're back. As you're talking through these
things, one of the resistances that comes up
for me as a business owner, and I'm sure that comes up for our listeners,
is, oh, no. Now we have more work to
do as we're creating content. So
what are some of the ways that we can factor in, you know,
search SEO as we're creating our
social media content? Yeah, that is that is
a great question. And that is the biggest hurdle that people kind of have to
work through when they decide they're gonna commit to SEO. 2
things to say about this. 1, you don't have to do anything extra if you're
already being strategic. Like, if you're creating content, let's
say that is like themed or category based or
has a role to attract people about like services
or offers or products that you have, you've already done the work
of optimizing things for your business. That's
the Oh, and SEO. Now, I know that
doesn't kind of allay everyone's fears, because there are a few
things that take a little bit more effort that everyone skips. And
I will raise my hand and say, I skip these things all the time even
though I preach about them, so I get it. And that's things like making
sure the titles of your videos 20,399.
Like that's gonna do nothing for
you. You can 20,399.
Like that's gonna do nothing for you. If you very simply change like
a video title to like, Erin Olilla, SEO
and Copywriting, or something to that effect, that is
so much more helpful because now the social
platforms are recognizing the video by the title that you
have. And it's making it stand out from all of those other videos that
have very strange titles. And because a lot of the
times we're using our phones now we're not just uploading content.
The other way to think of it when you're not titling the actual video
is to title the title with keywords.
So like if you're posting something, and it's like, the
cooking show, for example, and it's like, how to make chicken cacciatore.
Chicken cacciatore is your keyword because you're not suddenly gonna
start talking about like pancake batter within the chicken cacciatore video
that you're doing, or even if you're just using still images.
So having that as your title, using it in the
description, they really should be natural processes,
whereas it's not extra work. Right? It's just making sure you're
actually doing the thing. Because it's so easy to just say
something like for myself, I do a lot of talking on social about my podcast.
So like, on this episode of the podcast, we're talking about storytelling.
Well, that's not exactly like if I could be a little bit
more specific about the type of storytelling we're saying we're talking about.
That's what I need to do a little bit better. Or maybe instead of saying
on the podcast, I say the name of my podcast, right?
So it's the littlest tweaks to be more detailed,
will absolutely help serve you up in in search a lot
easier. So number 1, it is not
really anything different from what you're currently doing. And number
2, I always I think earlier when we first started talking,
I mentioned what are your long and short term goals.
If you can relate you the content that you create for social
media or any off platform, SEO efforts like
podcasts, for example, or YouTube channels. If you can relate it back to
those short and long term goals, it's going to help you
identify whether you're creating the right type of content or not.
Again, you know, the the viral real idea of like picking
like a trending topic, and just going with it if it's not related at
all. That's not helping you get to that long and short term goals of
getting more customers for your business. Whereas if you
were to do, like, videos that you talked about,
like how you've helped clients, social pro proof, all of
these things, they're going to benefit any of the shorter
or long term goals. So when I say short term, maybe you're in a launch
for Black Friday, or for a new product you're doing at the
beginning of the year or a summer slump type of activity. If
you're talking about the SEO related things,
you do get the short term impact and social is where
short term impact really is. We're so conditioned,
like our literally our dopamine in our brain has been changed
by social media. We're so conditioned to want an immediate
result and expect that from our social
efforts. If you kind of adjust and realize
that SEO everywhere is a long term
process that gives you long term
and short term results, meaning the work you do now could benefit you
tomorrow or it could benefit you a year and a half from now.
Yes, even on social media, it can benefit you that long in the
future. If you adjust that and realize you may
not get immediate results, but the efforts that you're doing are compounding
upon each other. I think it's so easy at that point to then see that
like, that tiny effort of making sure you're using keywords
within your copy is going to benefit you so much more
in in short and long term ways. You're so right in this. It's it's
one of those things that I talk about to newer business owners a lot because
we assume, like, we've said it once. We don't need to say it again. But,
like, that repetition helps the algorithm categorize you. I see this
a lot with events. Like, sometimes I see events pop up, and it's the first
time I'm seeing it. But the person posting it is, like,
reminder, here's the event. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Where is it? When is
it? What is it about? Like, you know, the basic information is
helpful. And, this is honestly how I found
my, bookkeeper. Because I was looking for a bookkeeper
that work in Canada. I'm in Canada, but also is
familiar with the US and, you know, working across the
border, currency conversions, all of that. And also is
familiar with online business. And it's so, like, I kept looking
at people and because I'm in social, if I find someone's website, I'm going
directly to their social to see what's up. Like, I don't wanna have
to explain to them, like, what's Instagram? You know what I mean? Like, so I
want them to, like, get it. She has a podcast. She has all
these resources where I'm like, oh, I now can consume all of her
content and understand that she understands the nuance of my business and now I
wanna hire her, you know? And that just comes from her
long term goals. I'm assuming. I've never actually asked her, but that comes from her
long term goals of continuously talking about
those topics and repeating herself enough so that
her account is categorized under the umbrella of
topics that I would want for, you know, in a bookkeeper that I was looking
for, which is so beautiful. Yeah. I think it I I
just wanna add to that to say that I think this is probably the biggest
misconception about content and social media is that people feel
like they cannot be repetitive. And what they don't recognize is
social media is the biggest gift when it comes to marketing
for repetition. Because our clients and customers, our
leads, our audience members that we don't even know about yet, they
need repetition before they can make a conversion based
event. Like, this is psychologically proven through decades
decades of studying marketing and sales that repetition is
the key to conversions. Now, that's
why sit long sales pages have become such like a rage
in the past like 10 years, because you can repeat, repeat,
repeat. Yes, they're annoying as heck. But it's a
sales like method that is proven to
work. Now take this to social media where we have these tiny
posts that people only see for like a second on
their feed that they may or may not click on. And their
feeds are moving at the speed of lightning, especially at
places like Twitter or threads, where it's a
massive amount of content that just kind of gets shared and shared and shared.
Alternatively, compared to like an Instagram where you it is a visual based
platform. When so much content is being shared,
your people may never see that post. For
example, if you go away for for work or to a conference, let's just say
because I know that you just had an event. If you are there for a
couple of days, you are immersed in that experience.
Whether or not you you do social media, you know everything about
social, you might not be paying that close attention to your social because
you're immersed in your experience. So if you're away for 2
or 3 days, and and someone you may wanna work with post about, like,
an offer that they have, you won't see it. That's so it
does not mean that your offers aren't
good, that your products and your services aren't good. You have the
ability to share over and over and over
again, about the products, the services, the brand
story, any of those things, because that's the
benefit of social compared to things like blog posts,
like email newsletters. Imagine sending an email newsletter
3 times a day for a week about the same topic.
Everyone would unsubscribe because it's too much in that
place that they consume content. But on social,
you're potentially not even going to be served up to the majority of the
people who see your content just based on algorithm things.
So why not use that space to continuously share
things so that your audience can receive your
message when they are available. And when they're checking their
social. Yes, it's it go for it. Like, if
anyone's asking to give you more promo time or
more PR in one spot, you accept it, and social's doing
that. I love that advice. Y'all know
I'm a huge fan of, like, repurposing your content. It's
beautiful thing to see. Beautiful thing to see. Mhmm. I'm curious, like, your own
approach to social because you're a business owner yourself and you do this
for yourself. So when it comes
to your social, just my quick peeks observations from
following you, a lot of it comes from your podcast.
Right? So what's your strategy there? Yeah. That I
would say to, disclaim on this conversation. I'm not the
best social media user because I tend to catch myself in
the, cycle of consumption versus creation,
specifically when it comes to social. But the reason why I started
sharing more of my podcast on my show is I really had to kind of
check myself with the effort that I was putting in for both long and short
term goals. So when I could step out of that
cycle of consumption, I found I was still sharing
things that were not aligned. It was more of that,
like, oh, here's a fun reel, like, I'm gonna do that too. But it's
still, how did that relate to my business? How did that relate to my
goals? So for me, in order to stay visible,
to stay consistent,
and to point the direction in where I
wanted people to go, It was focusing on making
my podcast more present on social media. So it
gave me the ability to do that repurposing, I didn't have to recreate the wheel
on everything, I could take
I could also promote the guests that I have on my show because it was
really it's always been very important to me to make sure that my guests feel
like they were supported because they support me on my podcast.
And it also for me in particular,
when I did my last round of voice of customer research, I
was shocked because I found out that from, client
interviews, that the reason people went ahead to hire me and these are some of
my highest priced packages was because they liked me
once they got on the discovery call. I didn't have a podcast at the time.
I very rarely posted video. And they said that, you
know, like, yes, we had interviewed a few people who are very similar in
experience to you. And they were way better at sales than you were,
which is probably true, because all I want to do is like be friends with
people. But the second you started talking, it was
extremely clear that you were enthusiastic, that you were
experienced, that you were strategic, that you cared about
my business. And it made me think like, this is pretty shocking
because I hadn't necessarily thought about those things. You
know, like, again, I have an MFA, I've got like over a decade of very,
very hyper niched marketing experience. So as the
business owner, it kind of just feels like well, duh, like hire me, obviously, right?
And I don't mean that to sound conceited. But I mean, like, I think people
in especially in the online world, they might, have
different jobs as they're testing things out. And that's great. But I just
kinda fell into it, and I've done the same thing. So I always thought, well,
experience speaks. Right? No. Not for my clients. The
number one thing that spoke to them was an interaction with
me, or at least, being able to witness
the experience of Erin or Lila, right? And then once they did,
they liked me and that liking is what really,
really made them choose me over a different person that they could have worked
with. So when it comes to marketing, socially
specific, in this case, having something where people could hear
me and see me was way more beneficial
and also way more aligned with me as a
salesperson, than trying to use social to
convince people why they needed me. And there's nothing wrong with that. Like, it is
very, very smart and strategic to talk to
your audience about their pain points and their needs to present
yourself as the expert. But for me, that's in
my business, I would say that the way that I like to use social, and
the way that I think it's been most beneficial is truly the
idea of connection. And
like visually being able to like make me a real human and
not just like a logo and a business name.
Yes. A 100%. You know, it's it's
so interesting because I feel like oftentimes as online
business owners, we discredit that piece. But I do think we have
a unique challenge because we're not typically,
like, the, you know, the local person who you see all the time
because you're you walk by their office. Right? Like, we're
in this digital world, and the level of
trust that's required from our clients and the people who
purchase products from us is extremely high.
And so the way that we can kind of build trust with them is just
to show them a little bit about what it's like to work with us. And
the biggest compliment is when someone gets on a call with you and they're like,
oh, you're exactly like you are on social media. You know? You're exactly like
you are on your podcast. When I was at my event this past weekend,
people kept saying that to me, though, you you're exactly like you are on the
Internet. I'm like, thank you. I really hope that's the
case. Yes. I just show up as me. So,
I do think that is very valuable and it's a powerful
tool. And, I know sometimes we shy away from it a little bit. I know
early on in my business, I did this thing where I tried to like,
like, puff up a little bit, you know, like, because you see other
people like, you know, peacocking here on the Internet.
And it first of all, it's exhausting to try to do something that's
not natural to you. But then second of all, it was
a disconnect between when it's like to actually work with me, which is, you know,
sometimes I mix my words up. Sometimes I'm a little bit silly.
So so I laugh when I'm nervous. Like, it just it just comes
out. That's just how I am. So I love that you did that for your
business as well. And I think I think based on
our conversation, though, this is the key of why social media and
SEO really need to work together. Because, like
if you've take anything from this conversation, remember that social
proof sells. And in order to present social
proof to anyone you need to that for them to find you like you
need to show up in a way that you can
be your content can be consumed. And I know that sounds so basic and
easy, but it really is that simple. If you are
creating content, whether that's trending
topics, whether that's pain point driven content,
or sharing case studies or
anything like that, regardless of what you're creating. If you put
it out there with the latest touch of optimization
using keywords in the title, and people find you
on their own without you having to do a thing. We're talking
no advertising. We're talking not forcing yourself
into people's feeds and their communities and having to be
visible and present and extroverted every single day.
They see you as that human, they see you as that business,
they see you as the person or the business with expertise
that can help them with their individual needs. So if you put the
effort in to get found, and you've created good
content, you have done every single step in the
selling journey from from having an individual who does not know who you
are to suddenly having a primed and warm lead for
a potential client or customer. And again, I don't wanna
oversimplify it and act as if there's no effort that needs to go in
on any of this. But if you can take a very simple
strategic approach to content creation and implementation,
you are doing everything that you need. And I like how you mentioned
earlier that like, you know, we all like to puff up our
feathers or like, or we feel like we have to at least you should say
because while I am absolutely confident, again, that
the way that my conversions happen is from people feeling comfortable
with me and feeling like I'm accessible, that does not mean that I
don't look at my competitors on social media and think like,
like, why am I not doing that? Or like, they're being so loud.
And what I mean by loud is like they're presenting their offers, they're
presenting themselves as a solution. But it really truly is
the fact that there's a lot of people who need copywriters,
there's a lot of people who need SEOs, and I cannot serve
everyone in the world. So why not instead
truly put myself out there as the way that I want to show up with
my clients and serve that smaller batch of people
in a way that feels super good for them and super good for
me. And that means that I don't show up in the same ways that
my competitors do. And when they show up in the ways that they do,
they're attracting those ideal clients for their ideal
business. And everything's harmonious if we look at it that way. Like,
we're all being our true selves and serving the people that would really be
right for us if we don't try to force something
that's not right for us. Yes.
And 2, you never know what's happening
and things aren't doing great even though online they are. Right? They look
like they are. Right? So, yeah, that comparison I mean, social media
makes it so easy to to compare. But, you know, leaning
into you is the superpower there. So, Erin, what's
next for you? I know you're thinking about leaving x formerly known
as Twitter. Yes. Oh, yeah. This
is like, this is such a, like, sad moment for me.
Like, I am a Twitter user since Twitter started, literally
since Twitter started. I have had a couple different usernames in, like,
in those early, early years, but I think that my current account's probably 14
years old. And what I loved about Twitter, or what I love
about social media, for me particularly, is that I show up
differently on every single platform. So I
have been able to show up on Twitter in 2 ways very
specifically one in the literary world. In addition to my
business, I also have a online literary journal, that
has won awards we have been publishing now for almost
over 11 years, depending on when this episode goes live. And
we we've built up such a beautiful community of people who
are so so supportive of each other's work.
And it feels like a really safe and wonderful space. But
in addition to that, it's also where I can react to things like
TV shows or political events or, like, very
non business errant. So once
Twitter really has changed so much in this past year,
I've kind of been more watching like what's going to happen.
But, we we started this episode by talking about like the
story behind the status like this mini memoir we've created for ourselves
and I don't like what has happened on Twitter or x and I
don't support it. And this is the first time in my
history that I've had to truly say to myself, I'm going to leave
a platform that was once a truly a joy
in my life. A quick tiny backstory even to to know
how like important Twitter really has been on a personal level is,
I had a friend who was killed in Afghanistan in
2,011. And the way that we used social media back then
non business related was also search related. It's so funny that I think of this
at the end of the episode, because it was so news
specific. Twitter has really been the, a changing
moment in our history on how individuals and and people
consume the news and consume political events specifically.
And at the time, I just remember being like, oh, I think I
said 2011, but they definitely died before that. I'm sorry. So
at the time, I remember going to Twitter immediately, the second that
one of my friends called me and they said, I think that Robert's passed away.
I don't have any details. I don't know what to do. I went to Twitter
to search if there were any bombings in Afghanistan.
And like I really did dig into this
news area, didn't find what I was looking for at the time. But it is
one of those core memories where like, the immediate thing that I did was
that. And then when I think back on his death, and you know, the
the time, like very shortly after, it
stands out to me that I used social media to kind of like
process what was happening as I was trying to sort out the
details. So now here we are in 2023.
And, you know, privacy rates have been stripped and
certain things are being like shared in the algorithm that really
aren't related to my type of search, and I see a lot of hate on
the the platform. I had to make the decision to
truly step away. But the idea that I'm, I've left this place that I've
created, And I've left that memoir, like the
history of my time there was, and
is hard to kind of move through. Sure, I can download my
Twitter history, but we don't consume,
digital files in the same way that we consume
content that's shared online. So while I can
choose to open my archives and to sort through
a decade, plus of things that I've shared,
I have to kind of also be comfortable just letting it go. And
like, you know, what did they say release and bless? Like, that was a big
part of my life. It served me really well. But it's
hard. It kind of feels like losing something that was once important.
And while this is obviously, you know, a very personal experience, I
think any of us can understand that from the way the places that we like
to show up. And it really goes a long way to show you
that these platforms, which may drive us a
little nuts sometimes. Sometimes I'm like, why am I doom scrolling? Like, this is bananas.
Aaron, put down the phone. It goes to show you that like, they're such
an present part of our life, oftentimes in a very
good way. So determining how you show up
and determining how you most importantly are social
on the platforms can really be like an asset to
your life or your business. Yeah. That is so beautiful. Such
a beautiful story to tell too. And you're right. It
social media isn't all bad. And this decision, while it was difficult
for you, hopefully, will open up new avenues and new,
you know, digital journals online. And
honestly, I'm thrilled with threads. Like, you can be like, the second thread
started. It was that was that was really the push of my decision making. I
would have stayed on Twitter much longer. But
I think just having a text based platform allows
people to show up differently. Again, I said I show up very different
on all the platforms. And there are pros and cons to
that I would say of how I present myself. But it's
so nice to like I think on threads recently, I was just like,
alright, everyone, the temperatures dropped. It's freezing and my
car, heat just died. Like, they're like, but
it was it felt so important to me in that moment. And I didn't know
where to say it. And I could not go and take a picture of like
the heat button on my car and Instagram, right? I could like
LinkedIn does not care about how my heat is working. However,
I had friends reach out to me privately, and be like, Oh, no,
you're heat on Voxer. And the funniest thing was, I think it was a fluke.
My heat's fine now. I'm just gonna keep my fingers crossed on that. But it
sparked multiple conversations with people who are
my business friends, like in this world that I've created of
colleagues. So I say if you're listening to this,
you haven't tried out threads yet, you never really were a big Twitter user, test
it out because it's not just you know, heat dying in cars. There's
really great intellectual conversations I've been
in. And this the beginning of a new platform is
the perfect time when bringing back our
conversation to search, it is the perfect time to align yourself with
new people new to you, let's say, or people you've always wanted
to know, or your ideal clients because everyone
is creating something new. And I think that if you're listening
and you haven't done it yet, like that could be my little like,
test to you homework assignment assignment to you. Go on threads
and just play around and see, like, what new
content you could create and what content you like to consume.
Yes. I'm I'm I'm living for threads. It's so, so fun.
So I will put the link to Erin's threads account and
all the links that we talk about today, so you can connect with
Erin in the show notes. That's onlinedrea.com/303.
And there's also a little freebie in there, an SEO website
checklist, a gift from Erin. Definitely wanna check that
out as well. Erin, thank you so much for being on the
show. This is great. Yeah. Thank you for having me. I had a great time
talking to you today. Yay. And thank you, dear listener, for tuning in to another
episode. Make sure you leave us a 5 star rating on Apple
Podcasts and Spotify. Helps keep us in the top 100
marketing podcasts. That's all because of you. Yes.
And I'll be back soon with a new episode. That's all for today. Bye for
now.