E2: Social Media Strategy Deep Dive for crafters

Here is your crash course on Social Media Marketing! If you're a crafter and have decided you want to start a business, here is our introductory podcast on how to do it.

Listen to the Episode: 

Transcript:

Hey, guys! Welcome to the first episode of the Crafting of Business podcast. Sounds really exciting for me to say. I wanted to make this episode available for everybody, so it was originally shot for my course participants, so anybody that decided that they want to run a craft business from home and they have no idea where to start, this episode concentrates on social media marketing and social media strategy as a whole. 

But I wanted to make it available for everybody because, I see so many craft businesses that they buy this machine and they see the potential of making money from it, but they have no idea how to do it and no idea how to harness social media to grow their audiences and grow their business. So I wanted to do this deep dive into it and share this because it's really, really important and I see it all the time. 

People are starting up their cricut businesses, getting really excited, buying the machine, buying all the materials, and thinking that, yes, okay, I've opened my doors now and I've got social media, so therefore it will just work. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way, and I wanted to show everybody how to do it and how it is possible. So, here we go!

Hey, guys! So, I wanted to come on here and talk a little bit about social media and social media strategy in particular. So a lot of this was covered in the previous module, but I felt like I needed more time to explain to you guys the essence of figuring out what your niche is and also figuring out how to build a genuine connection with a lot of your audience and doing that at scale because when you do that and when you are genuine and transparent and all of that online, that's when you start to see growth, right? 

So, a lot of people, they ask me, “Debbie, how did you start a business?” And literally, my answer is, all I did was be genuine and all I'm doing is wanting to help people. And the entire reason why I have a business is because of that community. And every single thing that I put out there, there is a reason behind it. And that reason is, there has to be something in it for the receiving person. So, I give more than I take, if that makes sense. 

That is the essence of why I have a business and that is the essence of how social media should work, right? So, a lot of what I find is that people are using social media as a way to it's a loudspeaker for them, if you understand what I mean. When I say loudspeaker, I mean they have something to sell and they're going to stand there with a loudspeaker and shout at you until you buy, right? And that's not genuine at all. And also, people don't want to be sold to, right? 

And I know, say someone comes to your door physically, you know how door to door salesman's, right? They come to your door, they press your doorbell, and then you stand there until they finish their pitch. Some people treat social media that way, right? Until someone is standing there and shouting at you and pushing this product down your throat until you buy. 

Social should not be that way. Social really needs to be a conversation and really needs to be a community building exercise, right? So, when I put a piece of content out, there has to be a value exchange, right? So, when I say value exchange, it means there has to be something that the person gains from it, whether it's entertainment or something funny or something relatable or a quick tip or a hack. If you look at that lens on all of my social posts, you'll understand what my strategy is, right? Because every single piece has the purpose. And the purpose is not to sell. The purpose is to bring you along on my journey. Or the purpose is to show you how to make something or if I found a way to save two minutes, right? That is the purpose of that video. 

And every time I actually feel bad when I put up a sale or a message that say, I have so much stock, I actually feel bad when I have to write a message—like a call to action, they call it. I actually feel really bad when I say something like it's up on the website now. I feel like it's a hard sell and I feel like I'm invading the person's space that's receiving my content, right? So that's what I mean by value exchange. 

I feel like, especially with social media, when you're being genuine and when you're trying to build a community, that person that's receiving the content, they choose to spend their time with you right? I don't take that lightly. So when they choose to spend time with you, if I'm shouting at them, telling them to buy my product, that's not an efficient or a genuine use of the time, from the potential customers point of view, right? 

So that's why I wanted to spend some more time on social media strategy as a whole, because really, it's changing your mindset about that. So, yes, social media is a marketing tool, and if it's done well, yes, it could be really good for your business. I'm the perfect example but the key here is doing it well. And the key here is using social to bring a sense of community and growing that community. 

You almost have to forget that you have a product to sell, if you know what I mean. Like, forget about selling the product and instead, think about it as taking people along on the journey with you, right? Perfect example is I just got these new bookmarks and it's a pinkish color besides this one, this is the old one. So this is a oh, you can't really see the difference in the camera, but anyway, you can see once more pink and once more rose gold. 

I've updated the inventory on the site, but I haven't done any posts on it because I could easily just say, “Oh, new color, it's live on the website now.” But I'm not going to I'm going to do a video on this and I'm going to do like three ways to decorate your bookmark, right? And one might be engraving, one might be vinyl and one might be a name, a vinyl name, and one might be a pattern, right? So that's threeish ideas. So instead of the hard sell message of “Bookmarks are here, get one now.” 

It's about, “Oh, here are three ideas that you could make with your bookmark. What are your ideas? I want to know about it” and it's a genuine question. I want to know what you are going to create with this and these are just a couple of ideas to help start that process, right? So, in a personalized gift kind of way, like for example, my kids are going to daycare again next year and often I find that their bottle gets mixed up with everybody else, right? So, the value exchange would be, “Here's how I make a name decal for a daycare bottle” instead of “Deco bottles are here, get one now” see what I'm saying? 

Like I'm obviously choosing very obvious examples like the hard sell, but it could be something like, pressuring somebody to buy that product. And social doesn't work that way. I mean, you think about it, if you go through your feed and someone's like this, click this, buy this. I don't want to see that, I want to see what's happening with my friends, and I want to see what's happening, I don't know what's trending online. You see what I'm saying? 

So, I know I've rambled on it out a little bit, but I thought it was really important to have that mindset shift on this. And literally, this is what I tell my clients on the digital marketing side, and they don't understand it because a lot of these clients have their corporate hat on, and they're like, “I have to make sales, I have to make sales.” I'm like, yes, you will make sales, but you just have to change your mindset and think of it as a longer-term touch point, right? 

Longer term journey and process and it's not going to happen overnight. It's taken me a year now—my business is about a year or 18 months to build a community of people. To build a community of people that come to me first. Now, often, it's them just asking a question—they might ask, “Oh, how do you weed that all?”, “Or do you have this coming?”,  “Or have you seen something like this?”,  “Or what transfer tab do you use?” That's my number one question. 

But it's that community building, the fact that they are messaging me because they think of me in that situation, that's gold and that's community building. So, they're more likely to buy from me because I've put the time in and they've gained something valuable from the content that I've pushed out. So, I hope that helps. I don't mean to ramble, but I thought it was really, really important to do this. So, I hope that changes your mindset on it. Thanks. Bye.