Episode 75 transcript:
This week I want to talk about social media platforms. What might work really well for your business, which platforms you might want to be on based on your digital doula framework type.
If you missed that conversation, I'll refer back to which episodes I kind of break down the three different digital doula framework types, and I'll touch on it throughout this episode as well.
Okay. So stick with me here to start. I want you to know that you don't have to be an all of the places online all the time and right away, it can be overwhelming, especially when you're just getting started.
You're just, you know, getting your business off the ground. You're maybe brand new to starting a business page. And there's this pressure that tells us we have to be an everywhere, all the platforms to not miss anybody, but that's actually not true.
Um, and it can lead to you feeling too much pressure overwhelm and burning out. And if you burn out, you're not going to stay in the game.
And what we really need is for you to build a sustainable business, to do it the easy way is that that you're in this for the long run and you can help your community and your people for the long run.
Right? Okay. Remembering our goal is for you to build a sustainable business. So when you're just starting out, you might choose just one platform, one social media, or other type of platform platform to share your message and get the word out and connect with your ideal clients, potentially meet clients.
Um, and then over time, your bandwidth will increase and you might add more. Right. And if you think about it, the example that comes to mind is it's kind of like Parenthood.
When we first, at least for me, when I first got started, I was handed that first baby. And I'm like, Oh my God, this is so much, this is so much work.
This is, you know, it's overwhelming. And then over time I was like, I think I could handle a second. Right?
And then they handed me my second and I pushed her out and brought her home. And I was like, my bandwidth increase, you know, I can juggle this.
And then obviously I went on and have a third and not everybody does that. That's just my story. But it's an example.
I think about, if somebody handed me three kids on day one, it would have been too much, you know? And so that, that's kind of where I'm going.
The same thing applies to you getting started on social media for your business. So before we get into the different, um, frameworks for a digital course, um, you know, digital, sorry, digital Dulo frameworks, let's do a brief overview of the main platforms and their pros and cons.
And some of this, obviously you, you might know if you've been in the business for a while. You've been using social media for awhile, but stick with me because you might pick up something new.
Um, the first one is Facebook because obviously Facebook is like probably the biggest or a top, two of the biggest social media platforms in the world.
It is owned by Mark, which, you know, whatever your beliefs are on that, the pros to having a business page or running your business on Facebook is, are one it's easy for beginners to get started, right?
So like everybody can easily use Facebook grandmas or using Facebook. Grandpa's my dad uses Facebook. So like anybody can easily make their way around Facebook.
Number two, it's free unless you're running ads. Right? So basically to get started, it's free. Number three, you don't have to have pictures with your posts.
So you can type, you know, you can use gifts and things like that. And you don't always have to have photos for your posts.
Number four, it's easy for you to share links in your call to action. So what I mean by that is, let's say you write a blog post, or you have a sales page to something that you sell.
Let's say you have a birth course or a postpartum course. And there's a particular page on your website where that sales page lives on Facebook.
If you're talking about the course and you're inviting people to join you or to buy it or to get started, it's really easy to include the link at the bottom of each one of those posts.
So at the end of the post, your call to action, which if you're not doing that highly recommend adding a call to action at the end of the post, your call to action will say something like click here to check it out or click here for more information.
Right? I think that was for number five. If you're on the wordy side, you can write in long form. So Facebook has, I don't know the character limit, but you have a lot more space to write long posts.
So if that's your jam, that is a space that you can easily do that. Uh, number six also, in terms of more space, your bio, so on your Facebook business page, there's a section where you can describe yourself and tell your community, you know, how you can help them.
And please, by the way, please, don't put, I provide physical, emotional, and informational support to birthing people. That's not really telling us anything, but your Facebook bio has a lot more space.
So you can go into more detail than some of the other platforms that we're going to talk about. All right, I forget what number we're on, but let's just keep going.
It's easy to create community on Facebook. And I'm going to dive more into that a little bit later. And then the last point with Facebook pro with Facebook is that everybody is on Facebook.
Like I said, grandmas, grandpas, my dad, like everybody has a Facebook account, right? Unless they're very anti social media. Now the cons to using Facebook, it's owned by Mark.
So we have to play by Mark's rules and we rent on the space. We actually run on all of these platforms, but here we're playing bar Mark by Mark's roles.
And he's a little bit, it's not everyone's cup of tea, right? So it's owned by Mark, you know, we're subject to his, his decisions for his company, really.
Um, that's number one, number two. Some people really feel pulled away from Facebook after the crack show. That was 2020.
There was just a lot happening in 2020 that, um, I found a lot of people checking out and just really not enjoying being on the platform.
So that's something to consider too. Number three, Facebook business pages. Don't always get a lot of love. Like you don't always show up in the algorithm.
In fact, unless you're running ads, like even my Facebook pages, the reach is minimal and I do run some ads and the ads get reached because I pay for it.
Right. But if you're not paying to play Facebook, isn't really great about, you know, prioritizing your Facebook business page posts.
You can see the reach. And it's usually not very far. Now there have been posts that I've made that really resonate and people are sharing it a ton.
They're commenting a ton. Those make their way around. But like most of mine are not like that. I'm just an FYI.
And then the last thing is that creating ads, right? So if you want to pay to play, if you're like, I'm willing to do that.
I have some money for ad spend. I have a budget. I want to get my stuff in front of people more easily.
That's great. But Facebook ads can be a little bit complicated, um, for newbies, if even for me, and I've been running ads and testing ads for some time here and there I take breaks where I don't do ads at all.
And then I did my toe in and things like that. The thing about running Facebook ads though, is that they make changes all the time.
So unless you are constantly staying on top of what's happening with the Facebook ads world, it's really easy to, in my experience kind of pour money into the Facebook drain.
Um, you know, so you, my suggestion would be, if you have that kind of time and bandwidth, maybe hire somebody, um, or seek out, you know, a professional Facebook ad strategist, but it gets costly.
You know, it does get more expensive. So that's something to consider. And then, especially with the most recent iOS 14 updates and changes, if you're running Facebook ads, it's even more complicated.
I've noticed like right now I'm running ads, right? I've been running and I'm having major ad issues because of the iOS 14 updates.
I get it. Things like this happen. It's not the end of the world. It's just something that as business owners, you can't put all your eggs in that basket, right?
Knowing that any little thing that changes can impact your bottom line. So what I mean, if you're not familiar with what's going on with iOS 14, in a nutshell, Apple and Facebook did not really see eye to eye on some things.
Apple wanted its users to be able to have more privacy, basically when they use Facebook. And when they're off the platform, as my understanding, and I'm not an expert at this, but I've been trying to understand it because I'm trying to get a grip on what I need to do with my ads, right?
Facebook of course, because this is how they make money off of ads did not want to play that way. They did not want to allow, as I thought the right word, they didn't want their users to be able to opt out of that tracking because Facebook makes money by tracking what we do on the platform.
And a lot of our activity off the platform, which is a little bit frightening as a business owner. It's a tricky thing, right?
Because I want the right people who need the thing that I'm offering to be able to see the ad and the best way to do that is to know what kind of things they're clicking on, what kind of things they're interested in, you know, and so it's, it's complicated, but I also don't want to interfere with their personal and their privacy, personal rights, private rights, privacy rights.
Right? So it's complicated. So what happened was, I don't even know how interested you are in hearing this, but basically what you'll find is some of it's coming up is Facebook did not want to comply.
Apple said, well, if you want to be on our iPhones on the iPhone, you have to comply. So they had a major butting of heads and there are some chains, so they are complying reluctantly, but it means there's a lot of changes happening to Facebook ads.
And it's complicated. Even the Facebook ads, experts that I know they're having to do a lot of digging and research to figure out collectively, what's this going to mean for people who run ads on Facebook?
So even the experts don't have a hundred percent grip on it yet. And that's what I wanted to the point of this, for me sharing this part with you is because we don't own it.
Right. And so ads can be really cool and a great tool to use, but they can be costly and complicated.
Okay, let's move on and talk about Instagram. Instagram is a visually centered platform, social media platform. That's also owned by Mark.
So if you didn't know, Mark Zuckerberg also owns Instagram. So again, here we are playing by his rules on his platform, but there are people who prefer it.
Let me get into the pros and cons before I kind of give my personal 2 cents. So pros for using Instagram one, it's not as easy necessarily to navigate at first as Facebook, but it is a quick learn for intermediate peop you know, tech users, um, or even newbies.
It's a, it's a pretty quick learn. Number two, it might be easier for your community to find you on social media platforms because of things like hashtags, right?
So hashtags don't really work on Facebook, but on Instagram people, users, you and I can search hashtag. So here's what I would say, go to Instagram and search the hashtag, um, digital doula.
You'll find a lot from me. I, I hashtag my posts with digital doula, virtual doula, online doula, doula, business coach, um, hashtag doula podcast, uh, birth nerd.
So if you're following any of these hashtags, you'll more easily find the type of companies, organizations, and people that you want to connect with.
And the same goes for the pregnant community, right? So if the pregnant community follows hashtag maternity shoot, then they're more likely to see hash, you know, photos, um, posts that are hashtagged with what they're following.
Right? And so it can be a really great way for you to find people easily using very specific. Like I wouldn't use the hashtag hashtag pregnancy.
It's too broad. Um, there's probably way too many followings, unless you are a massive account. Like you have millions of followers.
It's probably really tricky to be able to, you know, be seen with that hashtag. So I would try to find hashtags that are much more specific to your niche and what specific thing you're doing.
Right? Like doula business coach is pretty niche or doula marketing, or doula business, um, doula, marketing tips, virtual doula, things like that.
Right. Okay. So I think that was number two, is that it's easier for people to find you using hashtags. Also, if you, number three, it can be easy to find easier to find you using some of the features new features as Instagram rolls them out.
So Instagram has basically, when they introduce new features, they prioritize people's posts. If they're testing out these new features, the one that comes to mind right now, that's new is Instagram reels.
And so if you're not using IgG reels and it's something you're interested in, maybe we should have an episode about it.
Cause I think they're pretty fun. Um, so an Instagram real is kind of like a tech talk video. Um, it's basically Instagram's version of a tech talk video.
They're very easy to create 15 to 30 seconds of information of, you know, something tips, whatever, and you can have music or voiceover, um, there's, you know, limitless opportunity possibilities when you use reels.
But if you're creating reels, it can be easier for people to find you because bonus you can hashtag the comments of your reel or the, um, the caption and your priority in the, in their feed or in their search.
Um, yeah, the search where you go to the search button and scroll, um, I forget what that's called, but you show up as priority.
So Instagram will prioritize your content. If you're using new features. Like I said, right now, that's real. So that was number three.
Number four, the con sorry, pros about using Instagram is that imperfect content is increasing in popularity. So Instagram reels are not perfectly, usually they're not perfectly curated, you know, filmed with all this great editing systems and software.
Like some of the ID rules I make. I'll show you, I use this. If you're listening to this, I'm recording on video and you know, we're doing the audio, but if you are listening, I have like this little wooden box that I use to prop up my phone so that I can record an Instagram real.
It's not fancy at all. You could get fancy, but the point is imperfect is gaining popularity, which is nice people I don't think are searching for like perfectly curated aesthetic on Instagram feeds like, yeah, it's nice to have some feel for what a person, you know, their energy and maybe colors that represent the feelings that you want to feel.
If you heard Shelby's episode a couple of episodes back. Um, but sometimes my selfies that I take a selfie of me or a family photo or something like that, something that's not necessarily professional and perfect quote, perfect, um, performs really well because people connect with real people.
Okay. So I think that was number four. And then number five, much of the pregnant community is on Instagram. It's a pretty popular platform for the age group of people who are currently pregnant.
And then the final pro here, number five, is that the features of Instagram, I feel they really allow you to show your personality, right?
So like, IETV is a great way to have a deep dive in a conversation. I'm talking about things that are important to you.
Um, I Instagram stories, right? If you ever use Instagram stories, that's a great way to show like behind the scenes, you know, what you do during the day, like what you're doing in your business, or as a parent, I sometimes will share little pieces of my motherhood journey with the kids.
Cause some people who have been hanging out with me on Instagram, they've known me since I was pregnant with Amani.
And now she's two and a half years old. So like they've kind of watched her grow up, which is really cool.
So Instagram stories allow me to kind of show my personality, right. Um, and reels too. If you're into reels, they can be a really fun way to let your personality come through.
I really liked music. And so that gives me an opportunity to show, to share music, to connect my message with song.
So that's the final one. And then constant Instagram, like I said, in the beginning, um, Mark also owns Instagram, right?
So again, we're subject to his decision. So that's number one. Number two, it can be a little tricky, especially in the beginning to find images and graphics to use for posting.
So if you're just posting to your feed and you want to write something, you need either a photo or a graphic.
I mean, you could post video, but right now I'm talking photo graphics and written posts. So that can be a little tricky at first.
I remember it in the beginning thinking, Oh my gosh, like, how am I supposed to possibly have all these photos?
Right? Like, especially if people are telling you post every single day, there's no way I could've come up with, you know, 30 pictures every month to reflect what the messages I'm trying to get.
It was a lot, right? Because we don't have licensing to just use any pictures off the internet posting all graphics is not personal enough.
So that can be a little tricky for people at first. Um, I get it right. And my tip for that would be take a selfie, you know, or take a photo of something on your iPhone and try that or go to Canva and grab Instagram templates.
And you can customize them with colors that represent what you're trying to portray and quotes that you want to use.
And by the way, um, the digital doulas content tool kit is a great resource for this. Um, not for photos necessarily, but for captions that and affirmations and quotes that you can use in those Canva templates.
Okay. So that was two number three. Your Instagram bio only allows for one website link, which can be a little tricky.
If you have multiple things that you want to show people and multiple pages that you want to refer them to.
So a little tip I have for that is to create a page on your website platform. So I use Squarespace, uh, in the beginning, I used to use link tree, which is like a free, a free service software that you can use that gives you that when you click the link in your bio, there's like multiple buttons that people can click on and you can include several links.
But then I decided to transfer that and bring all that traffic to my website. So I created a page on my website.
That's got all of the buttons that I want people to go to. And then that page is what I put on my Instagram link in my bio.
Right. And then the benefit to that and go to the link in my bio on Instagram and check it out for an example, if you click that link, it'll take you to, I think it says IgE more or something, and then there's whatever I'm talking about at the moment.
So right now you'll probably see, I think the first link is course creation for doulas. And then you'll see click here.
If you're pregnant, click here, if you're a doula and that way you can navigate to different sections to find what you need.
Okay. And then the final while there's two more, two more. Okay. I think that was number three and then limited profile space for your bio.
So on Facebook we talked about, there's more space on your profile to talk about who you are and how you help on Instagram.
That bio is really short. You are very limited with space, so you have to shrink who you are and what you do and how you help into a very, very small, small number of words.
And for me, that was very tricky because I'm wordy and I want to explain everything and I want to talk about everything.
So that is one of my biggest, you know, with Instagram. So you have to get very clear and concise, um, side note about your ID bio.
This is another place please don't say birth doula, Tampa. And that's it. That's just not telling us enough. Who do you help?
How do you help them? Okay. The last con to Instagram is very similar to Facebook. That ads are complicated and ever-changing because it's the same platform.
When you run Facebook ads, it's on the same platform. Uh, like you set it all up in the same place as Instagram ads.
So they're all doing the same thing. And sometimes this word can't be used and that word can't be used. And this thing can't be, and you can't talk about this or you can't phrase it like that.
So they're just really complicated. Um, so that's something to consider. The third platform that I want to talk about a little bit is clubhouse.
If you haven't yet learned about clubhouse, let me just give you the quick and dirty clubhouse is an audio based platform.
So think talk radio style, and to use it, you need to have an iPhone and an invite, which is really annoying.
Um, and if you don't, if you do have an iPhone and you don't yet have an invite head to doulas going digital, the Facebook group and post that you needed to invite, there are almost always people in there who have an extra, um, so we can send you an invite.
Then you'll go to your app store and download the capo clubhouse app and set up a profile just like you would any other platform it's free.
And then you can start following other people in your industry. You can search find me, follow me. If you like, I'm under Nicole joy, then you can join rooms, host your own rooms.
And a room is basically like, like a talk show, right? And you can host your own show basically. Um, Delete that.
Okay. The pros to being on clubhouse are that one it's not owned by Mark. Just kidding, but no, not really.
Number two, if you get into clubhouse start feeling around, I think what you'll find is that it was designed with, to allow space for everyone to be heard, literally number two, there's no visual component, right?
So that takes away that pressure of having to be on video or what am I going to wear or are people going to be looking at something?
What if I look funny or what if my hair is not blow dried? Because right now mine is not. Um, it takes away that pressure number three and kind of related assist super casual and laid back, right?
Because we're all just hearing each other. I mean, people could be sitting on the toilet on, in a clubhouse room, just listening in, like, there is no visual, so you can be living life, doing other things while you're listening.
Um, and you don't have to have your entire life pause so that you can create content and connect with your community, right?
If you want to host rooms because it's all, well, yeah, let's get into that in a second. Number four on clubhouse.
When you have a profile, you have long form. So there's plenty of space on clubhouse profiles to put whatever you want to put in there.
I don't even know what the limit is, but I've seen some pretty long profiles. Don't go overboard, right? We don't want to see a research paper, but there's lots of space to include fun things about you and how you help and all that good stuff.
Um, and then number five, because of the way it's designed with being a voice and audio only format clubhouse allows you to build a stronger connection to people on the platform.
This is my opinion, is that when you're online, looking at a picture is not as strong of a connection as seeing hearing someone's voice.
Right? So that's how I think of it. I see a picture I re I read their writing. Some writing really captivates me.
Um, but generally hearing somebody's voice really takes it to the next level. And it allows you a stronger, energetic connection of course, higher than that as video.
But here in clubhouse, we're talking, um, we're talking audio. And then the final pro is that because it's a newish platform there's major potential to stand out and be a leader in your industry and with your specific community.
Okay. The cons, as of right now, like I said, it's limited to iPhone users, um, and invite only, which is really obnoxious.
But I do know that it's going to be released on other platforms really soon. I think Android is coming next and I know they're going to put it out soon.
So be patient it's coming. Uh, the second con is that rooms or conversations or your shows they're gone after the room.
And so when you're done having the conversation and you click, you know, I think it's end room or leave room or whatnot, um, that conversation is over.
It does not automatically record anywhere. Now, if you do want to record it, I recommend letting people know that they're going to be recorded when they come up to speak or when they're asking questions.
Um, so the way you do that is when you title the room, you put the record, um, icon in the title.
And I would let people know as they're coming into the room or something like that. Right? So, because we don't want people to feel like we're using their information without letting them know, because that just doesn't feel of high integrity.
And then the last con number three is that you may have some jitters at first, which is totally normal. And I create podcasts.
I create video, I go live on Facebook. I do all of these other formats, but when I first started hosting clubhouse rooms, I got the jitters.
I was like, what is going on? Like, this should be the easiest. But for some reason I felt jittery. Um, it has been awhile since I've hosted a clubhouse room because of my surgery and recovery.
Um, and I just didn't have the bandwidth or the energy to do it, but I'm feeling a lot better. And I'm feeling like I'll probably make a return on clubhouse.
Cause I did find it really fun. Okay. The fourth platform that I want to talk a little bit about is Pinterest.
So Pinterest is not actually a social media platform. Pinterest is a search engine and the way people use Pinterest is also very different, right?
We don't browse Pinterest to socialize. We go to Pinterest and search, looking for solutions to a problem that we have now, the pros to being on Pinterest are that it has the potential to drive a lot of traffic to your website for free.
Pinterest is also a free platform unless you're running ads or promoted pen set, separate conversation. Um, the pregnant community at large is on Pinterest, especially first-timers even second and so on are using Pinterest for things like maternity shoot, inspiration, nursery boards, um, hospital bag checklists, uh, you know, they're prepping for motherhood and Parenthood on platforms like Pinterest, right?
They might be going to Facebook groups to ask opinions on things, but the pregnant community at large is absolutely using pictures.
Uh, number four, Pinterest is great for longer form written content. Now you don't go to Pinterest and just like type in a blog, but if you have a blog on your website, it's easily shareable to Pinterest with, um, pin images and things like that.
So the final couple points, number six, six, five, yeah. Long-term sustainability with evergreen content. So what I mean by that is generally the information that we are providing the type of content that we are creating, what we're talking about, um, packing hospital bags, you know, planning a nursery or breastfeeding tips, things like that.
It's usually evergreen. And what I mean by evergreen is that it's not seasonal. You know, so Christmas recipes is seasonal.
Come January. Nobody's really looking at that right now. That's not going to be popular again for another year, but breastfeeding supplies or tips or something like that is kind of forever, you know, and you can, you might need to update old blog posts and things like that with current research, current statistics or information, but that's evergreen content.
And so putting content like that on Pinterest will continue to serve you and bring people back to your website forever.
Those pens are searchable forever. Um, and so it can continue to build that long-term sustainability train. And then the final one is that my little bit of understanding of promoted pins and ads effectively on Pinterest is that your dollar tends to go further.
And I've started to explore a little bit of pen ads, um, because I do have a pretty solid Pinterest game going, but I've been working Pinterest for years, really.
Like I started building Pinterest early, early on and DIY and yet for a very long time. And it wasn't until like a year and a half ago, a year and a half ago, I built it up really solid that I hired somebody to help me, um, move my pins to Pinterest.
So the cons with Pinterest are that it can take some heavy lifting upfront. It's not a super easy thing to jump in and figure out right away as a user, on a personal level.
You know, if you're going to search and doula, business tips and things like that. Yeah, totally easy. And I highly recommend that I'm on Pinterest, please come follow me.
I do pen my doula, blog posts like business tips for doulas and things like that. I do pin those to my Pinterest.
So go there, check out that board, click follow that's another place that you can get written content from me. Um, but if, if it's for your business and you're setting it up, it can be a little bit tricky to set it up at first.
You know, it's, it's not super, it's not the easiest one to figure out. And the second con is that it is a longer term strategy.
So Pinterest is not usually the place that you'll pin something today and somebody will buy it like today, right? So let's say you have a, um, a course on the importance of stretching during pregnancy.
Maybe you are a chiropractor or a pelvic floor, physical therapist, um, or a yoga, prenatal yoga instructor. And you create a course, a workshop teaching people about this thing and your workshop is X amount of dollars, and you want to pin it to Pinterest.
You can, but know that it's not the place where short term performs the best. We're thinking longer term when we come to Pinterest.
So when I have worked with Pinterest experts in the past, they always recommend, you know, giving yourself six months, nine months before you expect to see some real results.
It's one of those long-term sustainability building things. Okay. The last two that I'm not going to touch, I'm not going to touch on too much.
I'm not going to go deep on Tik TOK and YouTube mainly because I don't use those apps on those platforms.
Very much. YouTube is not a social media platform. It's a search engine. I see major benefits to using it. I'm just not really big on YouTube right now.
I use YouTube to host certain videos and then I can share the embed links to my website and things like.
So I have a lot of unlisted videos on YouTube. Um, and then tech talk, I just, I just don't really enjoy, but I can see that if you enjoy creating Tik TOK videos, it can be a great platform for exposure and for really educating and raising awareness.
So if you enjoy tech talk, go for it because there are some people on the birth world who are rocking Tik TOK and what a great way to do it.
I just personally don't love it. Um, side note, if you do like using TechTalk and you like using Instagram, you can share your Tik TOK videos to Instagram, but I also know I've heard that Instagram prefers for you to create your content, your videos, or reels within the app.
Nothing you can't share tech talk. It's obviously easier if you're already making Tik TOK videos. But if your primary goal is to create, you know, build momentum on Instagram, you might want to create within Instagram.
And it makes sense, right? Because Mark and whoever else, like they want you on their platforms creating. Okay. So how do you know which is best for you?
Um, first what platform just feels the easiest we're talking about in everything that we do, the path of least resistance.
So start there, and then are there any platforms you're already using that you're already familiar with? That might be the easiest one to move with?
Where are your ideal clients hanging out? LinkedIn was a platform for example, that I used to use back when I was in the corporate world and whatnot.
But since I've transitioned, transitioned to working with pregnant people, other doulas, my LinkedIn is like dead zone, mainly because that's just not the platform that's conducive to like what I'm doing and who I'm trying to connect with.
So I don't spend any time on my LinkedIn, to be honest, I don't even know what's on it anymore. Um, the other question I'd ask myself is what's your goal for using social media to connect?
What's the goal? What do you want to do? What's the journey you want to take people on and that might guide you.
And then here is where I want to go into what might work, what might, what might work best for you?
Okay. If you are depending ending on your digital doula framework, if you are a digital course creator, you are a digital course, creator refer back to episode 58 where I kind of broke down, um, the ideal framework, right?
And so if that resonates with you, then you might enjoy using multiple platforms. Actually you might have the bandwidth or the desire to actually be in a lot of places and creating pillar pieces of content that you can repurpose in all the places or in multiple places I should say is probably something that feels not that difficult to you and kind of easy.
Right? So what do I mean by that? I mean, pillar content is like your big, you know, deeper, longer richer piece of content for my business.
When I work with doulas, the podcast episodes are my pillar pieces of content. So this recording is a pillar piece of content from which I can repurpose and create multiple smaller pieces of content.
So I can take the transcript and create individual posts. I can create shorter videos, you know, video clips or audio clips and things like that.
So if you are a course creator, digital course creator, you might find that to be pretty easy too. You might make a long video or a long blog post and then segment it and repurpose it.
And if you have the digital doulas content toolkit, refer to the list of ways that you can repurpose, um, various pieces of content for inspiration.
So you might be a repurposing unicorn and Pinterest actually might be a great long-term option for your business because you probably enjoy building structure the behind the scenes, building the structure, building the foundations that allow you to ultimately reach a lot of people.
And at once and work with groups of people like one to many, all at once and drive a lot of traffic back to your website to check out your digital courses right now, if you're a small group facilitator, the second style, the second category is a small group facilitator, and you'll want to check out episode 59, where I break down the framework for a circle facilitator or a small group facilitator, if that was you and you resonated with that style, you probably enjoy platforms that are more conducive to building community, right?
And it makes sense, right? So like Facebook is a really great one, or I'll talk about the others in a second, um, platforms that allow you to go deep with your people, with your community, with your clients either way, and that are conducive to longer form content, because you're probably somebody who likes to go deep with people.
You might not be posting every single day, but you might be the person that posts once a week or twice, maybe three times a week.
But when you do, it's an experience, it's a deep, rich experience. So think blog posts that you can share places, um, Facebook, cause that has a great community component to it.
And you can create long form or deeper content or other new-ish platforms that maybe aren't social media, um, that are off social media, like mighty networks or Patrion, which I'm not super familiar with.
Cause I don't use those right now, but I do know that, um, people who tend to like that intimate small group, small community feel and vibe and working style really, um, especially if you're being turned off by Facebook, they're really migrating towards places like mighty network and Patrion.
The tricky thing to those, to those, uh, platforms is that it can be a little difficult to move people off of platforms that are just so easy.
You know, um, social media, you know, Facebook is just an easy place to log in and see the notifications go to the community and talk and ask questions.
It's just easy. So getting people to navigate off is it might be a little tricky, but don't let that stop you.
Um, if you are somebody who feels like you're a small group or S or circle facilitator, how you might best use a platform like Instagram, if you like to be on Instagram, a couple of things you could do is share your long and deeper content pieces in a series of posts with multiple parts.
So let's say for example, and I did this last week, I'll explain how I did it. I wrote a long blog post about my journey to breast implant removal.
It took me a while because my brain was still kind of foggy, but I wrote this long post. I wanted it to be on the blog so that it was, it would live forever on the blog, right?
It's not necessarily something that has anything to do with doula business or with pregnant people. But this is that trust part of the know like trust journey that you may have heard me talk about letting people in and letting people get to know me.
And this is just a part of my life. This is a part of my journey that I felt comfortable sharing.
So that blog post, I can't really easily share the whole post to Instagram because I didn't want to, it's just not an easy thing to just share a whole blog to Instagram, right?
You are limited with your captions on individual posts. So what I did was split it up in multiple pieces. So I took the Google doc and I separated the sections, how I felt like they would make sense in parts.
And then I numbered them. So part one of five part, two of five, part three of five. And so on that way, when people were scrolling or reading, they're like, Oh, there's five parts of this.
You know, so that's a way for them to, if they're interested and they want to read the whole thing, they can see that it's broken up that way.
Um, and that way they don't miss part of the, that particular story. Uh, and then of course you do have to pick, you know, however many photos that correspond to the number of posts that are in that long form content.
Um, but that's something that is a great way to, to share a longer form. You can also put the link to your blog post in your bio.
If you're using a page from your website or even link tree or whatever you're using, you can share the blog link to the link in your bio and just invite people through Instagram stories, through posts, through video, whatever format you're using to talk to people through Instagram, invite them to the link in your bio.
They can click there and read the full post, right, to get the full experience. Um, also if you don't mind being on video or you have that, this is kind of scary, but I think I need to do it to video IETV is a great option.
Last time I checked, I think you're allowed up to an hour for an IGT V I G T V video.
So you can film an entire video along video and upload it to Instagram video, which is really cool. And then the nice thing about that things that I want to live that are easier for me.
I don't have the, uh, how do I explain this? Okay. When you go to Instagram stories, you know how some big accounts have the swipe up functionality.
So if they're talking about something, they're like, Oh, swipe up here to check out this, um, mug. I don't have that yet.
Cause I don't have 10,000 people in that, in my Instagram community, but I can swipe up to an IGT video.
So if it's something like I've done, Oh, here's an example. So right now I'm in the middle of promoting course creation for doulas.
We have a special bonus going on right now that everybody you've heard me talk about it, who joins course creation for doulas in the month of March, uh, can join me for a private pop-up Q and a call in April.
And so when I start talking about it on Instagram, I can share an IGT video that I filmed like last year at this time, this has, seems to be the time of year that I'm launching course creation for doulas.
And I can reshare that old video with the swipe up because it's, it's, um, the same, you know, the same relevant information, giving people an idea of what is included in the course, right?
So that's something that you can do. Um, and then also you can have posts that link people to, you know, refer people to the link in your bio for either other sources too.
So if you are somebody who let's say you're, um, you're creating long YouTube videos, you can share it to Instagram TV, and you can link to YouTube and your bio if they prefer to be on YouTube and then post something with the bottom of the caption, the call to action.
The CTA says head to the link in my bio to go to the YouTube video or, you know, wherever it lives, maybe you embedded on your website.
That would be ideal cause that's a blog video blog, and now they're spending time on your website. Okay. And the last thing to know, if you're a small group facilitator and you're hanging out on Instagram as you probably don't love reels, you probably prefer to go way deep and it's hard to go deep with rails.
You have 15 to 30 seconds and they're not really conducive to that deep experience except the one reel that I did last week, where I was kind of, um, talking about my journey of X plant.
That one was a little bit of a deeper, more connected, 32nd, I think it was clip. Okay. And the third framework that I want to talk about is the private intimate experience or the one-on-one type of digital doula.
So refer to episode 60 for a breakdown on that one, this person, if that resonates with you, you're probably very much like everything that I just said for the small group facilitator at all probably resonated and felt like, yeah, that's, that's that's me.
You know, that all feels really good to me. So you're probably leaning towards platforms that are conducive to letting people really connect with you.
Right? So like Pinterest is probably not your favorite because Pinterest is a very cold connection. Um, it's not a place where you can really go deep with people, you know, um, the difference between the small group and this particular thing, and you might do both, but if you're leaning more towards your one-on-one right now, and by the way, all of us can do all of these, all of us have all of these potential within us.
We can just lean into different frameworks at different seasons of life. Like for me, there's times where I really want to work one-on-one with more people there's times that I really want to spend more time in my small group in the mastermind.
And then there's times that I really dive into being a digital course creator. It just really depends on where I'm at in different seasons of my own life, too.
Right. So if you're leaning into the one-on-one right now, um, the one shift that I might make based on everything I just said for a small group, facilitator is your call to action.
Might be inviting people to book a one-on-one call with you. So that way you're going direct to book a call with me.
Let's get on the phone. Let's connect privately let's talk. Okay. So I hope this has been super helpful. My one request to you as you listened to this episode, or if you catch the video, um, is, can you please share this with new doulas, aspiring doulas communities that you're in because when you're brand brand new, it's so easy to get overwhelmed by being on social media, but this is where we are at in not just the birth business world, but every business world is the importance of being online and that's really not going to go away.
So sharing is caring. Okay. Have a beautiful week and I will talk to you soon.