Hello, my name's Santasha Nabananga Bamblet. I'm a proud yr
the Order Kerni Whoalbury and a waddery woman. And before we get started on She's on the Money podcast, I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land of which this podcast is recorded on a wondery country, acknowledging the elders, the ancestors and the next generation coming through as this podcast is about connecting, empowering, knowledge sharing and the storytelling of you to make a difference for today and lasting impact for tomorrow.
Let's get into it.
She's on the Money. She's on the Money.
Hello and welcome Victoria Divine, the owner of several successful businesses. And I am joined by one of the hardest working side hustlers I know, miss Jesscurcci. Hello, how are you.
I'm good.
How are you?
We just had some talkers in the sun.
I'm feeling pretty good.
Yeah, me too, so Jess. This week we're going to be talking about something that's relatively familiar to both of us, and that is using social media to market your business. Now, Jess, tell me how important this is? Like a loaded question, obviously, do you think social media is for your side hustle or business today so important.
I know it definitely is for She's and the money, and it certainly is for my small business. That's how I find literally all of my customers or how they find me.
And then it's also the content that you create. Correct now, I was like, it's loaded, Sorry about this.
Yeah, without social media, I don't really have a job.
I would say that as well, like She's not. The money wouldn't exist without social media, Let's be honest. And there are obviously a lot of factors that go into social media and whether it is right for your business, But for the most part, social media has become our biggest customer generation tool. Honestly. Think about it now, Jess. Even with a cafe, how often do you head to their Instagram just to make sure the food looks okay? Like, I'm so guilty of even heading to their Instagram while
I'm sitting in their cafe. So I'm like, oh, hold on, let me just check their Instagram and see what those eggs look like.
It sounds bad, but I probably won't try a new cafe or restaurant if I can't have a look at the food first. Particularly because I'm fussy. It's so helpful. It's such a good tool to be able to see their photos and also the photos that people are tagging them in.
As much jit and as unfair as it may be, it is definitely something business owners need to really consider. So today we are going to be covering off exactly how you can get the confidence to show up and also the fundamental things that you need to be doing to get your social media off the ground.
Jess, So let's start with chatting about target markets, because if your business is targeted at the older generation, I'm assuming media might not be the best place to focus.
I mean, logically yes and one hundred percent correct. We of course need to start with actually figuring out what your best target market is. And we've done this before on the show. So go back to that episode we talked about customer avatars. Does your avatar even use social media?
Yeah?
Like if they don't, I know, it can be tempting because I feel like so many of us get I don't know fomo when it comes to like, oh, every other business is on you know, Instagram or TikTok, Like you really need to hone into what platforms are actually going to have the most impact for your community and show up on those and where your community are hanging out, because if you're picking a platform where a lot of your community aren't seeing you, it's such a waste of time,
energy and effort. And do you know how much confidence you need to show up to begin with?
Yeah?
It is wild. So for she's on the money. We already know that our biggest listeners are between the ages of twenty five and thirty four years old, so of course that demographic is really active on social media. Therefore, we actually put so much love and focus into our Instagram and our TikTok and our Facebook to make sure that we're giving our community the best content possible, but also giving them as many touch points with us as
possible in places that they already frequent. But Jess, on the other hand, if your business is obviously targeted and older demographic, you of course would be better off investing in more traditional marketing methods like maybe prints or thinking about radio. Really understanding, Okay, well, a lot of my older demographic are on Facebook. How are they interacting with Facebook? What types of posts? If I'm going to engage with them on social media? Would actually play well, because the
biggest demographic on Facebook right now is actually the boomers. Yeah, so if that is your community, Facebook might be great. And when you start to dive into it, like you look at Che's on the money, right, Jess. We don't do a lot of posting outside our Facebook group because our community don't look at that content as much as they do if it's inside a Facebook group. So I think it's important to not only understand does your demographic use this platform, but how are they using it? What
type of content are they absorbing? Are they, you know, wanting to interact with other people like in our Facebook group where they actually just want to have consistent conversation, or do you actually need long form video like what's that going to look like for your community? So it obviously doesn't hurt to have a social media presence in general. I sometimes call a social media presence a hygiene factor because it's kind of like social proof, even if you're
not trying to market on there. I do want to see that you have a website. I do want to see that you have a Facebook and it exists and you're a legitimate company if I've never engaged with you before, So obviously it doesn't hurt to have that social media presence. We just need to work out what is the best bang for our buck and where do we pour our energy and effort into because let's be honest, we are small business owners. We don't have unlimited time Jess.
No, not at all.
So let's say we've sat down, we figured out that our target demographic is heavily present on social media. They're our age, they live there. There's really liberius to entry, which is super appealing because if you're starting your small business, like you said, we don't have a lot of resources. We don't have a lot of cash, we don't have.
A lot of time. Sometimes we have zero dollars for our marketing budget and we have to just make it up ourselves.
So social media seems like an ideal place to do that because pretty much all you need to get started on the social media platform nowadays is an email address.
So we've found got one of those. Most of us do it.
If you don't, you can get one for free. Money win, money win. Indeed, So you've created a business page, it aligns to your business name or maybe the audience that you're trying to find. Where do you think that the most important place to start would.
Be bang on Jess. I feel like the best thing about social media is literally anyone can start up a business account on any social media platform. Some people are even starting you know, their platforms without even having a product or service, Like I've spoken about it on Shehees on the Money, one of my favorite instagrams, right millions of followers because they just are consistent with their content and it's kind of interesting. I've told you about this.
The goats. Yes, yeah, so on TikTok, there are these goats and they work and it is definitely for a business. Actually now I think about it because they do land clearing, but they bring in a bunch of goats to like clear all the shrubbery. And it's literally my favorite TikTok because I'm just like, go work a goat, go like it's so fun. But anything pops off on the Internet these days, so I think it's really important to go all right, clearly the I'm not going to be posting
about goats. Well maybe you are, in which case, like, please send me your link. I'm gonna follow you too. But there are such low barriers to entry and it's so cost effective to get your business out there. We obviously when we started Cheese on the money, I didn't have a lot of money. I really really didn't. Everything I had done was really DIY. Like I've spoken about
it before on the pod. Yes, so our logo I actually made on Microsoft PowerPoint and then I screenshot it Jess and I remember when she's on the then started to get big and I think you were around when this had happened, because, like guys, I had been able to employee my first employee, mister Scricci. She's still here.
It's a trap. But I remember we joined our first podcasting network, which was insane, right, Yeah, I remember, Yes, you came to me and you were like, hey, the network has asked for all of your like files and I was like files of what you were, you know, like your podcast artwork and stuff. And I was like, oh, oh, can I send them a power Point? And they laughed so hard. I was, honestly so mortified. Was like, oh, sorry,
like this is all I had. Anyway, I think we need to also celebrate those things because sorry, that was a big business we just built. You made up with Microsoft PowerPoint logos in free downloadable fonts but I think it's really important to also talk about the cost of social media, because we can spend as much or as little time on it as we want. But that's also the important thing to go, well, how much time should
I be dedicating to this marketing channel? You might not have a budget, so you say, I'm going to do it all myself, But at what cost? So what am I compromising to be able to create these posts? So how long are they taking me? Because I wasn't a graphic designer. Just every post used to take me one million years, and then I'd be heartbroken when it wasn't tracking well because I'd be like, oh, but that took
me so long. Now, just we have an in house content creator that does all of that for us, and I swear she's the speediest person I've ever met, one hundred percent. But we all start somewhere, So I think it's really important to understand where are we starting and what does that look like.
Absolutely, there are heaps of perks, I think with social with those low barriers to entry and the fact that it can be free depending on how you want to do it, which is all really well and good, But I think the toughest thing for a lot of people in the thing that stops a lot of people from jumping online is the fact that they have to show up on the socials and be consistent when doing it.
And we know that it's so important, but I want you to explain, maybe a little bit to the people who are just starting out, brand new and fresh, why consistency is so important.
You are one hundred percent right. Consistency is key, and it's not what you want to hear, because I think what you want to hear when we talk about social is Hey, listen to this great podcast episode of the Business Bible. Guys, everyone should listen. They talked about what would make you go viral and kick your business off? And in reality, yes, businesses can go viral, but it's actually few and far between. That's not actually, you know,
the common denominator of being successful online. Consistency is key for a number of reasons. So obviously we want our consumers to begin to know and understand us and our content. And if you are consistently posting, even if you are not getting heaps of views, that consistency does pay off. Because the algorithms on social media platforms usually play to that. They see that you're being consistent, and they are actually more likely to then put your future content at the
top of the feed. And if certain demographics have engaged with that, even if it's like five or six people Jess Instagram, se Ah, that type of person engaged with that content, next time it goes, you know, online, they might serve it to more consumers who look just like you.
So I think it's really important to just be consistent and how you know, at the end of the day, you could have the best product in the world, but if you're not showing up as much as your competitors, they're going to be the ones that are front of mind.
I think to me, the hardest thing about showing up on social media was actually showing up as me on social media, Like it's one thing to sit down and go, I'm going to make twenty text posts and that's my next month's worth of content, and Jess, how many times have we done that? A million times? But we know that the traction actually starts to come when I put
a face to a business. And we know from research that businesses that have a poster a person, or a poster a child or you know, an individual leading them grow ten times faster than businesses who don't have that. So if you're sitting there and you're just going, well, the I'm not very confident to show up online, So I'm just gonna do these text posts or use stock images, it's just not going to have the same traction. And in twenty twenty four, your community and your consumer, they
basically demand authenticity and transparency. They want to know the people behind the brand. They want to know that you're as passionate about your product as you're saying you are in these text posts. You're who they want to resonate with, and I think that we need to give it to them. And honestly, the only people that are going to judge you on this are the people who are doing less
than you. So like, show up as much as possible, And honestly, I don't think any small business owner to me, has ever looked silly for going, Hey, guys, just wanted to introduce myself. I'm always like, oh my god, that's who's behind that brand. Oh that's cool, and I feel so much more connected.
Yeah.
I think there's lots of conflicting opinions on the best way to grow on social media and whether that is just regular, consistent content regardless of what their output is, or whether it's high quality content and what you should prioritize, you know, it's that concept of do I pour my time into making one really good video a week that's super high quality, or do I just post to videos every day that are okay, They're nothing groundbreaking, and the
algorithm is shifting constantly your that's the audience shiftingly. I don't necessarily know that one or the other is guaranteed to work every time, But what I would say, as someone who has been doing the social media thing for a little while, is that if nothing else, putting content out as regularly as you can, prioritizing that consistency ahead of the quality sometimes is it gets you more comfortable
more quickly. Because if you're not used to jumping on and talking face to camera, or if you're not used to editing graphics in canvas, practice makes perfect. And anybody who's built a small business, anyone who started anything, was never as good at the start as they are a two years, five years in. And so I think, like when I look back on what I did at the start, when you look back on what you did at the stuf.
I'm so embarrassed. Please don't it's mortifying.
You know, those silly posts that maybe got one like or one view are what led you, you know, for She's on the Money Now we have two hundred thousand followers.
We just ticked over there.
We do very exciting, you know. But to get from point A to point B, you have to start at point A. And anybody who has a billion followers once started with none. And so I think it's important at the beginning to prioritize just doing it, just getting comfortable with it, just learning how to edit.
Thing grey and also trial and error, I think is a really big part of that. So, you know, talking about She's on the money again, I find it so interesting and I don't want people to compare to this. I'm not sharing it as a me goh, we post all of this and you should too. I am now at a point in business, and Jesse you already know this because you're part of the team. But like, we have a dedicated social media person, we have a dedicated graphic designer. I have a full time video editor that
works for me. So when I'm saying this is how much content we're pumping out. I don't when you to hear, oh my god, it's that the expectation. No, it's not, because historically I didn't even have the capacity for one video a week. I had maybe one video a month if best. And I tried to make like a text post every day, and even that felt like a stretch because that wasn't you know, what I was best at. And now we do a lot. But we post every single day, multiple times a day, on all platforms, right
and so on Instagram. It's always interesting watching what performs and what doesn't because sometimes the things that we go yeah, yeah, great, that'll be a good Feller post pop that up semi interesting, not as interesting as tomorrow's post. Yes, Then tomorrow's post gets like no views, and that post that we just thought was naff was super popular got shared heaps of times, like we're talking thousands. It is really good to keep your finger on the pulse there too, because if you're
creating content that you go, wow, that popped off. I didn't think about that. Yeah, change your strategy, try more of what is popping off with your commune instead of sticking to your guns and going well, actually, I had a plan for next week and I'm still going to facilitate it, but it might be more aligned to stuff
that wasn't engaging as well. The other thing that I find really interesting, and I know you do this as well with your socials, is when I post a video on Instagram, we posted at the same time on TikTok, and something that goes viral on TikTok might get like four views on Instagram. And I have had videos that I have posted on Instagram that have had millions of views and not even ten thousand on TikTok. So you literally can't predict it. You don't know what the algorithm
is doing. That's why when we say be consistent, it's really important. But with that consistency, have an eye on what is actually performing so that you can kind of go, ah, I see, you know my target market is Jess, and Jess is watching this. I didn't think she'd watch that. I'm going to make another one of what Jess is watching and see if we can get her to watch that again and maybe share it with her friends. So
I think it's about being smart. But let's go to a really quick break and when we get back, we're going to be chatting that why and when to start a website and how you can make your social media strategy seamless.
All right, we are back and we have chatted about figuring out if social media is right for your customers, the super low barrier to entry which is a huge perk, and how cost effective that it can be. But what comes next. Let's say our listener has done the fundamentals, they're showing up consistently, and they figured out that they've got a little bit of room in their budget to spend on social media.
And just give it all to jests to do it for you.
Oh come my way, friends, No, but what should they do? Let's say that that's happened. What's the next step.
I really feel like one of the most important steps is also pretty cost effective, and honestly it's super easy, and that is setting up a website for yourself. I know that that sounds overwhelming. It does because even way back in twenty seventeen when I was creating the Shees on the Money website on Squarespace, that was hard, like, don't get me wrong, a door square space. Still with the now today, our websites have just been redone with
them and I'm not going anywhere. But and I hope they don't hate me for saying this, but it was really clunky. It was hard, like the templates were more challenging to edit because they involved a deeper understanding of code and my I guess knowledge of coding. I don't know if this is going to resonate with anybody. Was coding glitter mice into my MySpace page when I was in high school and editing my top friends list, and
I could absolutely do that. I was genius at it. However, that was the extent, and that was MySpace, and that was two thousand and seven, so things have changed and updated. And obviously there are heaps of different website platforms that you could use, so obviously do your research work out what works for you. But we obviously are massive fans jest of square Space, not just for their ease of use, I think because I mess things up so much. The
twenty four to seven support really helpful. I sound like an ad. They are not actually paying me to say any of this. I'm just like, Hey, if I can do it, you sure as hell can too. But I think having a home on the Internet is so important, so personally I own the She's on the Money website. But then recently, Jess, I've also started Victoriadevine dot com, dot a U. And I always thought that was really self centered, so I really shied away from having a
personal website. Now I cannot think of a business without one because I think that now our brand and this is just me reflecting on it. We've got Shees on the Money, and yes, I run that, but I think that there's a lot more to what I do. I've obviously got the business Bible, and I own Zella Money, which is a wealth of mortgage broking company, and we've got the Property Playbook, and I have a number of
courses and all of that stuff. It didn't make sense to have that live on She's on the Money, but it also didn't make sense to have another quote branded website for it to live on. So for me, it's a way to educate my consumer on who I am and what I do and the breadth of that. Because you might have just been introduced to me through She's on the Money. I have no idea what I do, but if you're interested, here's this platform that you can
learn more about me. Yeah, So I think it's to me really important that that exists, and it obviously works really well because on social media, I can send you to those links to learn more about me and potentially become a consumer.
Yeah. I guess the other huge draw for a website. If you follow me on TikTok, you would have maybe seen that I did my twenty twenty three goals and I had make a website in my twenty twenty three goals, and I didn't. Literally I thought about it for the first three days of January and then I never thought about it again.
And you're like, oh, was that a goal of mine? Nope, not here, not today.
But I guess the reason that I was thinking about it, and the reason I would encourage small business owners to think about it is because you see a lot of people talk about you don't own your social media. At any point in time, Instagram could take your page down because they decided they don't like you. You couldn't be hacked, and your account could be removed. It's very much at the mercy of somebody else.
And we've seen it so many times where people use their Instagram for some reason, or it gets reported for absolutely no reason and Instagram's like, yep, cool, we deleted your account and you had ten thousand followers. Yeah, and it's such a struggle.
So I think the big draw beyond being able to be found.
Owning your audience.
Correct, it's all yours and it's all there.
That's why you want to direct them to your website.
Yeah, generate your email list, build up the people who know that that's your space where they can come and find you and everything that you do. But it is really cool how technology has made it so incredibly accessible for things like social media and building a website and creating your content because it can be really low maintenance.
It can be and once it's set up, I won't say it's set and forget. I look at it quite often, but it's not a task I have to do all the time.
Yeah.
With platforms utilizing AI and platforms like Canva, I think it's changed the way that social media can now be accessed and utilized, particularly by small businesses.
Yes, and I love Canva. I'm really glad you've brought it. If your name is Georgia and you work for Shehes on the Money, a full time graphic designer, I need you to turn this podcast off right now because I'm going to talk about Camber, and she's obviously well beyond that, but Camber is amazing, and I think for small businesses, creating templates is one of the easiest ways that you can make sure that your social media is consistent but also low maintenance, and it also gives you a base
to go, oh wow, it's a really cool quote. You can easily jump on in in a couple of seconds, pop that quote into a template that's branded for your community and your business, and whack that out instead of having to start from scratch each and every single time.
I think, at the end of the day, if social media isn't a designated job in your company, which if you're a side hustler or a small business, it's honestly likely that that doesn't exist, it can really feel like something that's time consuming and it ends up falling by the wayside and on canber. There are heaps of templates you can use. If you don't have heaps and heaps of budget, but maybe your budget's are macs of fifty dollars.
You can go to Etsy and buy a whole heap of templates from there and edit them into your colors, which is so easy because they opened directly to Canber and Canvra is usually friendly, or if you're stepping up and you have maybe the budget to engage your graphic designer once or twice, you can get them to build those custom templates for you to put into Canva for you to then implement. I think when it comes to social media, having access to just different levels makes sense,
but you often don't know unless you've been taught. And that's where I started. Right like, I literally was making my stuff on Microsoft power Point. Please don't talk about it. I can show you through so funny that template. At some point I had a page per template it was for and then I learned about Canber and I was using their stock standard templates and then I tried to make my own and that was a massive fail because I have literally no creativity in my entire body when
it comes to that. I also felt like I got analysis paralysis. So I bought a set of templates from Etsy and love that. I think they cost me like twenty nine something and I got like a hundred of them and I was like, Slagh, look at me. I have glown up. Then this would be like two years ago. Jes we engaged as social media like Graphic Designer as a once off, and they created us that suite of templates that you used to use, yep, and we thrashed them.
Now we've glown up again and we have someone full time. But I think it's important to also recognize the journey because I know that a lot of people look at she'es on the money and go, that's so polished. Now I'm like, that's not me though, Guys.
Yeah, there's a whole range of different options and there's some really good tips in there, and it is worth noting. Like you said that, there are heaps of people who do freelancing as well. So if you want to take it off your plate but you don't have the funds to bring it in house, you can look at outsourcing to people, which may be a worthwhile investment for free upit time.
Honestly, it's where I started, and freelancers are so fun and so dynamic, and also they're small business owners, and we want to be supporting small business owners. Yes, but I think you are absolutely right. One final thing with social media is, honestly, do not be scared to put yourself out there. I said before that the only people who have bad things to say about this, or like are going to look down on you? Other people doing less than you, nobody doing more than you will ever
look down on you. They'll be like, oh get it, queen, Like we love to see you put yourself out there, like ick if you are in a community where people are treating you that way. So I think one of the scariest things is genuinely putting your face to a brand. But at the end of the day, I feel like we need to remember that people love buying from people. They don't just love buying from brands, and they love understanding the people behind the brand, and that is really
really powerful. So if you can find your confidence to you know, put a face to a name, you might just start with photos, or you might just start with a little Hey, you just wanted to introduce myself. I'm new to this. Your community is going to love it, I promise so to me, that would be I guess my two cents.
Yeah, I totally agree. I think if you are really scared, look at ways you can start doing it without putting your face directly in front of the camera.
You can do point of view of my day or day in the life for something where you just film the stuff you're doing, not you exactly. There's lots of
little ways to build your confidence up. But I think if you go into it with the mindset of ultimately you want to show up for your brand, you want to show up for your community, because yeah, like you said, people want to buy from people and people that they like, and the best way to connect and find your ideal avatar and your ideal people is by showing who you are as well. I think people valuable and I think confidence,
at the end of the day, is key here. Like just being confident in your brand, your product, and the service that you're providing to consumers. It's something that will absolutely boom your presence online. And honestly, confidence is a bit like a snowball. You might not have anything really to start with, and you're so angsty start rolling down the hill, though it gets bigger and bigger, and then all of a sudden, you've got so much audacity that you buy your own personal name as a website, set
up a whole website on how great you are. And I'm not willing to admit that I would never do that. You know, it gets there, but that's what I guess brings the money in at the end of the day, Like, you've got to back yourself and if you want to be successful, that's what twenty twenty four is going to demand on you. Huge.
All right, well, I'm gonna go away and put together a strategy making a website. It's back on my twenty twenty four. Can I help?
I had so much fun doing that.
I would love nothing more.
Else so across it let me show you. But thank you guys for tuning in and taking in all our hot tips and I think here social media, it's a bit like the brand Nike. Just do it, like, just go do it, just do it. Have the best day, guys.
Bye.
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