May 20, 2025 • 33 mins
Threads isn’t just another X clone—it’s a community builder.
If you’ve been wondering how to use Threads to grow your business and actually connect with people, Laura Sinclair is here to share how she’s done exactly that.
We talk about how she approaches the platform differently, why her community keeps showing up, and how she’s built real relationships—all without the “salesy” energy we’re all so tired of.
Ready to use Threads to build real community? Start here.
In this episode of the podcast, we talk about:
- How Laura uses Threads to grow her community
- Why Threads is different from other platforms
- Creating low-pressure, high-connection content
- The secret to making real invitations that feel good
- How Threads led to 38 podcast invitations
…And More!
This Episode Was Made Possible By:
Riverside All-in-One Podcast & Video Platform
Visit Riverside and use the code DREA to get 15% off any Riverside individual plan. We use it to record all our podcast interviews: https://onlinedrea.com/riverside
About the Guest:
Laura Sinclair is a strategic business mentor, podcast host, and founder of This Mother Means Business. A former marketing agency owner turned mentor for entrepreneurial mothers, Laura helps women build profitable, fulfilling businesses without sacrificing their family—or themselves—in the process. Known for her no-fluff guidance, smart strategy, and deep belief that burnout is not a badge of honour, Laura is the go-to guide for ambitious women who want success that actually feels good.
Website: www.laura-sinclair.com, www.thismothermeansbusiness.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/itslaurasinclair, www.instagram.com/thismothermeansbusiness
Go to the show notes for all the resources mentioned in this episode: https://onlinedrea.com/358
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to another episode of the Mindful Marketing Podcast. And this one feels near
and dear to my heart because I met today's guests
on threads. And yeah, we're talking all about threads as a community building
tool. And Laura Sinclair and I, we're connected through threads. It
feels a bit meta, pun intended. So in this episode, we're gonna talk about how
Laura uses threads as a tool to grow her business. But first,
(00:23):
a word from our sponsor. Riverside is the all in
one podcast recording and editing tool that I use for this
right here show. I use it to edit not only the audio and the
video, it is like chef's kiss, magical, making the entire
process so so easy. Plus, I
love their magic AI clips. Their
(00:44):
little AI robot in the background pulls out the most impactful
moments of the episodes without me having to comb through and do it myself,
Resizes them for social media, so those vertical videos you see on
TikTok and reels, those all come from magic AI inside of
Riverside. It's literally one click. It spits out 10 clips.
I pick the best one and away I go. Saves me so much time. If
(01:07):
you wanna get on the Riverside train, check it out today, the links in the
show notes, and make sure to use my code DREA, d r e a, at
checkout to get 15% off your membership.
Okay. Laura, welcome to the show.
Hi, Andrea. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to pick your brain on all
things Threads and just your business in general because I love what you do. Like,
(01:30):
I feel connected to it now as a mom. So for those people who are
tuning in, they don't know who you are, give us, like, the thirty second elevator
pitch about who you are and what you do. Yeah. My name is Laura Sinclair.
I'm the founder of this mother reads business. I'm a business mentor for entrepreneurial
moms. How did you get into it? Like, was there a catalyst moment?
Oh my goodness. Like, how much time do we have on this on the show
(01:50):
on your end? Well, I have a corporate marketing background. I'm a marketer like you.
I started my career in PR. I worked in corporate marketing and left
the marketing world, left corporate actually in 2015. I ran a brick and
mortar CrossFit gym for five years. And then when the world shut down for two
weeks, I had an abundance of caution. I was eight weeks pregnant with my second
child. And we ended up closing that gym at the end of twenty
(02:12):
twenty. Fast forward, I was like, okay, now I have a three month old
and I have to figure out how to make money. And so I started my
online business. I started doing what was easy for me at the time, which was
teaching small business owners how to use social media better because I was
running social media and digital marketing for big brands
in my corporate world, my corporate life. And then I used
(02:33):
that effectively to build my gym business, which the pandemic
wasn't overly kind to, but I also had a small baby and
just didn't wanna didn't wanna do it anymore. And so I started
teaching people how to use social media, not dissimilar to the work that
you do, but it sort of snowballed away from that. I was starting having
conversations with women about motherhood and some
(02:56):
of the challenges that they were facing. And so many of the conversations I
was seeing about motherhood and entrepreneurship were really fluffy, really kinda like
cute, side hustley. And there wasn't a lot of people
standing up for these really ambitious women building
big businesses with big passion, have so much heart for it that are
also navigating motherhood. And
(03:18):
it kinda just started by accident. It started with my podcast, and then it
was a retreat, and it was another retreat, and then it was
a community and an event and sort of really leaning into growing this platform.
And so it kinda happened organically, but I'm glad that it did.
Yeah. I'm glad that it did too. And that's kinda why I connected with you
as well, because I feel like there's, like, there's, like, two sides of being a
(03:40):
mom in business. There's the one side where as soon as I was
announcing my pregnancy, a bunch of people assumed that I would shut down my business.
And I was like, oh, no. No. I'm not I'm No. I still am
working. And then there was the other side of people who were, like,
assuming that nothing would change. Right? And to be honest, I'm
somewhere in the middle. Like, I'm not shut down, but I'm definitely not running at
(04:02):
the speed that I was prebabies, especially, you know, with three year old and a
one year old. I just literally cannot. And so that's
why I connected with your post because I'm like, oh, this is someone who's, like,
really gets it. Like, it's real. It's not like I, you know, I wake up
and, like, we had, like, granola and then I, you know, run my business
during naps. And I'm like, that is not possible for a lot of people.
(04:23):
So, yeah, I love your post, around the real the rawness of
motherhood in business. Yeah. You know what? I I just I'm too tired to tell
anything about the truth. And so that's where it started on threads
truthfully, is it was like, you know what? Somebody
somebody's gotta be the person to talk about what this really looks like. And, hey,
if it's gonna be me, then so be it. Yeah. So what initially drew you
(04:45):
to threads? Like, are you an early adapter kind of person? Yeah. So I was
a big Twitter user in 02/2008. Huge Twitter user. I loved
Twitter. Before, you know, this is when I was in PR school working in PR.
We would do a lot of actually pitching media over Twitter.
It was something that we did back then. And I loved it and then
kinda got away from it as I was no longer in PR. And so when
(05:06):
threads first came out, I kinda jumped on it and was like, okay. This is
cool. But then I took a period of time where I was like, okay. I'm
actually, like, too busy for another platform. I can't I can't hack it right
now. And so I think that there was maybe like a six or eight month
window, and then I actually broke my leg at the beginning of twenty
twenty four. And I was like, okay, I'm bored.
(05:28):
I'm bored. And I actually have this capacity for something
else. Right. I'm literally stuck in bed. I can't, I broke my leg in two
places. It wasn't a good time. And so I found myself back on all
of a sudden I had this time and I had some problem myself back on
threads and I just started kind of using it. Like I
used Twitter and I would just think something and
(05:49):
post it. And that was sort of how it went. And it was just this
opportunity for me to share some of my
unhinged thoughts that didn't really make sense in any
other platform. And that's really how it started was for me with a broken leg
in bed, just posting my thoughts. I love
that. I feel like that's very much the vibe of threads, though. It's
(06:09):
it's a less it's less buttoned up. It's more casual.
It's it's, more approachable. So do you think that makes it easier for
especially moms to to jump on the platform? I think so. It's so
low lift. Right? When you think about what's required on some of these other
platforms, I mean, you and I are sitting here making long form content right
now. Like, we don't you don't have to do that on threads. You don't have
(06:31):
to create a video. You don't have to create a graphic if you don't want
to. And so there's something about how low lift it is that I think
is is really attractive to both me and a lot of my clients. And there's
also something that I'm seeing, Andrea, that I'm wondering if you're seeing too where,
for some reason, the filter has come off on threads. Like, people are
just so much more honest
(06:52):
on this platform. And it's like a fun place to try
things and see what lands and see, hey, if I say this, does
this offend people? Or if I say this, am I gonna lose a bunch of
followers? And not in a way to be offensive, but I think so many of
us play it really safe with some of our opinions and the things that we
believe. And so threads, I think, has been, like, a bit of a testing ground
(07:13):
for a lot of folks as well. Yeah. A %. I feel like so this
has been something I've been thinking about a lot, which is this idea of the
content calendar. I love it. Don't get me wrong. Especially as a business owner, it
can be very helpful. But also, I feels feels like sometimes it
goes too far. Like, my experience on Instagram and
Facebook sometimes is, like, too curated, too too
(07:34):
thought out, too, like, orchestrated. I'm like, the way waiting for them to sell
me something. Whereas it feels like on threads, it's just a
vibe. I'm like, I wanna see what I see. Like, what what's gonna make me,
like, hee hee today? You know? I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. And
I I will say that the really fun thing about threads is just how much
community it feels like is there. The level of support
(07:55):
feels really different. I mean, I'm engaging with folks on
threads that would probably ignore me on Instagram. You know, it's like
people that I would never get our DM response from on Instagram,
reply to my threads or I reply to theirs and there is a response there.
So there's there's sort of like, almost like an evening of the
playing field that's happened over on threads, which has been really cool too.
(08:17):
Yeah. That's what I love about it too. You your the community feels
more equal instead of, like, a hierarchy of, like, you know, oh, this
person has a million followers. I only have a hundred. You know? When you can't
even see it in the context of the what threads gives you. Right? It's just
like, here here's a person saying the thing. You either agree with the thing or
you don't agree with the thing, but it does. It really has taken away some
(08:38):
of that maybe hierarchy a little bit that might exist in other platforms. Yeah.
For sure. Well, I'm curious about, like, strategically how you look at
it compared to other platforms. So you talked about how you kind of
just post your thoughts as you think them. But how does
that strategically play in your business specifically compared to a platform
like Instagram? Yeah. When I started on threads, it was very there was no
(09:00):
strategy. It was just like, I'm gonna just say whatever,
because I'm bored with a broken leg in bed. And I'm gonna just share my
thoughts. And my community did grow on threads really fast, just because I was
unhinged saying the things that I think in my head that a lot of people
were like, oh, wow. I really feel the same. And like, good for you for
saying that. But as we you know, my leg's no longer
broken. I have to return to life
(09:24):
as as normal. I think for me, what's really changed is it's
a lot about having more conversation. I think it's opening up posts that
inspire conversation and also making invitations
of others to be a part of my community. And that's
a big piece of my strategy on threads is really anchoring
in the I the notion that threads does inherently build
(09:46):
community. My business is rooted in community. And so
really just making continual invitations of folks
to be a part of the things that I'm doing. And whether that's my spa
days, I do these local meetup spa days that have actually turned into other
women. Across Canada hosting their own spa days, own
spot networking days, which I am obsessed with that all just started on
(10:08):
threads. And I get women that are coming and meeting me in real life at
the spa or coming to my community connection call and really
just rooting in telling those stories and continually making those
invitations. That's been a big part of my strategy as far as, like,
moving people from threads into whatever else
I have for them, whatever email marketing or funnel that I have from them has
(10:30):
really just been about continually making the invitation and then
telling the stories and building up my personality and sharing what
I do and who I am in between. Oh,
okay. So I want some examples of this, just to give
context. So when you're talking about so let's start with, like, one of
your your, like, here's what's in my brain post. Like, do you have one
(10:51):
that stands out to you? Oh, gosh. That's a really great
question. I really put you on the spot too. Really I'm like, go back to
your thousands of threads and think about what that, no, I think
like for me. Okay. A great example of one is I really don't resonate
with the word mompreneur. I find it infantilizing. And
so I will post on threads often, like threads is
(11:13):
not a platform where I just post it one time and never post it again.
Like I'm, I'm going to post it and I'm gonna post it a different way,
a couple of weeks later at a different way, a couple of weeks, like that
is a big part of the platform, but really just leaning into my
opinions. Right? I don't like the word mompreneur. I don't relate to it. I
don't like mama. I just find them to be infantilizing. And so I
post on threads often about the fact that I don't relate to this
(11:35):
word. This is something that stirs up the folks. Right?
People have big opinions on that. Another big one is
talking about the fact that I'm sure you've seen this, that I
won't hire a business mentor that doesn't have kids. And I believe that
it is essential for a mentor to understand what it is
that a mentee goes through if they have children. I mean, you and I were
(11:57):
just talking about the chaos of having a one and a three year old. This
is another thing I love to talk about on threads and it pokes the bear.
They get angry. People get angry about this and it's
okay because the people that get angry are not my people and the people
that agree with it are my people. And then I start seeing the follows go
up and the connections. And then that translates into my Instagram
(12:18):
following actually has grown quite a bit since my threads following has grown and I'm
making these new connections. And so I think a lot of it is just, like,
anchoring in, like, these are the things that I believe. This is a space for
you if you if you believe the same. And if you don't, that's okay
too. Yeah. For those of you who can't see the video, I'm doing, like, a
massive head nods over here because I'm like, yes. I think that this is
(12:39):
so this is what I call contrarian content. Because
contrarian content serves a very unique purpose in that, yes, it gets people
heated, it gets people fired up. But it gets the other side of that
too. Like, when you say mompreneur, I'm like, yes. Like,
mompreneur to me does not fit who I would describe my like,
I think of and there's no offense to this, but to me, I think of,
(13:01):
like like, an Etsy account, like, kind of business. Like, a
little hobby, like, on the side. Yeah. And I'm like, this is I'm not
this is not a hobby to me. Like, this is my job. So I'm not
gonna, like, diminish that. And to me in mompreneur, it feels like it's,
like, oh, cute, like a little pat on the head. Like, look at her. Look
at her go. And I'm like, no. It's very pink. That's That's what I used
(13:21):
to say. It feels very pink. And not not because we don't like the color
pink. It's just like it's just cute. And there's nothing really cute
about what you and I are doing. We're No. Here to create
impact. Right. It's a actual business. And so, yeah, that that's the kind
of stuff that I love to see on threads too because I'm like, I found
my people. And I think this these signals that you're putting out there are
(13:42):
calling out your people, which I love, so you're bringing them in. And then I
wanna also talk about these invitation style posts because I think this is where
some people fumble on threads because it can
like, coming into the platform, especially as a business owner, we instantly go, like, how
can I make money? Like, that we're all thinking it. Right? We're all like, how
can I make money? Like, how can I sell something? But you there's a
(14:03):
delicate way to approach this, and so I wanna hear how you do
it on threads. Like, what do you say to, like, call people and to take
the step the the next step of, like, joining you somewhere? I
I'm probably, like, not the most professional about it if I'm being honest, And some
of that is my personality. I literally will say be like,
hey. If you're a mom and you wanna come hang out with other moms, like,
(14:24):
bring your chaos. It'll be fun. We're having this connection call. You should
come. Like, it's literally that. It's not, are you a woman
entrepreneur who is looking to connect with other women entrepreneurs at like minded
and heart centered values? Join us for our community connection
call. Like, I don't do that. I cannot do that. That's ridiculous.
That just doesn't align for me. And so all of the invitations that I've made
(14:47):
have, have, I mean, if you go back and search my thread, that's like, hi,
waving emoji. You know, I'm hosting a spa meetup on this
day. If you're in the Barrie area and you want to come hang out or
hi, if you're a mom who wants to hang out with other moms who
are like minded, like you, who wants a business help and like, feel free to
come in your pajamas, that's where we'll be. And so for me, there's like an
(15:09):
authenticity behind the cell that matters.
And I I also have a podcast. I I always promote my podcast episode
on thread as threads as well, and it's use the same thing. It's
not like, on today's episode, we are featuring guest Andrea
Jones, who is an expert. Like, no. It's not that. It's just like
you know, I had the opportunity to talk with the incredible Andrea Jones. It was
(15:31):
such a great episode. She shares this with us. If you're a mom who
has, you know, a similar experience or you wanna go behind the scenes of
someone who's made an incredible pivot, check out the episode. Like, it's just really coming
from a place that's conversational and honest
and making an invitation. It's like, hey. I have this sweet this cool thing. It's
like having a delicious cookie. You want the cookie? You don't wanna eat the cookie?
(15:53):
That's cool. I'm not gonna try to convince you to eat the cookie.
Yeah. Yeah. Do you think your marketing background has an impact on how you show
up on threads? Yes. 100%. Absolutely. And I think this
is the other, the other piece. And, people often say to me,
like, are you like your content really helps people feel seen. I really feel
seen in your content. Do you do that on purpose? Well, yes. You know, I
(16:15):
have a, I have a marketing background. I have a PR background, so yes, I
have an added advantage over the average person
that is, you know, learning to use it. But I think for someone that
doesn't have a marketing background or doesn't have that doesn't come
from that place. I think this is something that all business owners really need to
tap into. It's like, who are you and how do you want to talk to
(16:36):
people? And if you just lean into your humanness, the fact that
you're a human being, having a human experience, and
you wanna bring other people into your human experience, that makes
everything so much easier. So many times people say, I don't know what to
say. It's like, well, what would you say if you were to meet this person
on the street? If you're at an event and you were like, hey. I have
(16:58):
this thing. Do you wanna come? It's no different on threats.
Just be a human. Stop overthinking it. Tap into who it is
that you are the way that you wanna communicate. And I promise everything gets
easier when you just take the I'm supposed to's off.
Yeah. This is where I really struggle with the formulaic approaches
because, you know, as marketers, we learn the formulas. Right? And if
(17:22):
you're listening to this and you're like, Andrea, you taught me a formula. Yeah. I
teach the formulas. But in order for the formulas to work, you you still have
to bring you into that process. I do think this is why
some people also have a problem with, like, large language
models, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, because they're
not bringing them into the process. They're just copy pasting the
(17:43):
formula. And the formulas are helpful. Don't get me wrong. They do
help. They're they they're great. Like, Laura, you're talking about, like, the I
feel seen type of content, and I love that type of content because it's such
a a great powerful connection. And you know the formula of
that, and you're still doing it your way. And it's like marrying those two ideas
that's key. So I'm curious, like, when you think
(18:04):
about threads and specifically, like,
managing your time on the platform too because it sounds like you you you kind
of feel inspired and you go off your inspiration. But how do you make sure
you're not, like, either a, doom scrolling on threads all day, or b, you it's,
like, been two weeks and you never logged in? Yeah. So this is a great
one because I have definitely gone through seasons where I'm, like, posting on
(18:26):
threads four or five times a day because I have all the thoughts. And then
I'm actually just coming out of a season right now where I haven't been as
active on the platform because I ran my first event. I'm dealing
with, major health crisis in my family. Like, there's just so many things going
on. I have still have two kids. I have a partner, a ship working partner,
like, all of the things. And so for me, there are sort of milestones
(18:47):
and benchmarks that are required for me to show up on threads. So
there's there's sort of two threads of thought. Threads of thought. Wow. Pun not really
intended, but like, let's go with it. That's the role there. Good
job, Laura. The first one is that it's my responsibility to show up
for my business. Right. I have to, I just, my
job to show up and tell my people about the
(19:09):
podcast episode about the community connection,
call about the community, about like, that's my job. And
so there's that piece of it there that I'm able to like anchor in on,
or these are the things that are required. The things that I, at a minimum,
have to talk about across platform. I'm already creating this content, and it would
be a real shame for me to not take the ten seconds
(19:31):
and turn it into a thread. So there's there's that side of it.
The other side of it is that I know that I can't show up on
a platform and just talk about all my stuff. I can't just
sell all the time. And so there's a piece of it that there's like a
little bit of give and take required. It's like sending emails. Right? I can't just
send sales emails and hope that people are gonna want to read my emails.
(19:52):
It's not, it's not how it works. And so for me, it's like establishing what
that minimum is and that's part of my strategy. Right. And so if the
minimum is sometimes it might just be actually replying to other people's threads.
Cause I find sometimes my replies to posts do as
well as my sort of native posts on my own
page, my own site. So it's establishing for me.
(20:14):
Okay. At a minimum, I'm going to post. I know I need to post once
a day to talk about my things, my, my business things.
And then I'm also going to try to engage in the platform as well. And
then when I'm in the season where I feel inspired and I have a lot
to say that I'm going to go with that. But for me, it's sort of
setting the standard for myself of this is what the bare minimum is,
and I can commit to the bare minimum. And I think some of it is
(20:37):
reps too. Right? Like I've been doing this. I've been an entrepreneur for
ten years. I've been in the online space for four and a half at this
stage. And so, yeah, you just you make commitments and you
stick to them. Yeah. Yeah. I think that I love what you said
about it. It like, it is my responsibility as a business owner to do
this to my business. And I think there's a lot of
(20:59):
things that we do in our business where we we are kinda wishy washy about
it. And I think marketing your business is one of those nonnegotiables. And
if threads is your thing, like, it is your responsibility to to show up
there. I love that you said that. I still am curious, though, like, how much
time you're spending on the platform. Because when I first started on threads, I was
spending hours and hours on it. And now I probably spend, like, fifteen,
(21:22):
twenty minutes a day, outside of, like, creating content itself.
But I'm always curious, like, how much time other people are spending. I'm the same.
I'm probably fifteen, twenty minutes a day. I used to be hours. You can go
down the threads rabbit hole. Honestly, one of the things that's helped me a lot
is I try to go on threads on my desktop and not my
phone. I find if I'm on my phone, it's really easy
(21:43):
to get caught up. Now that said my following is not growing as fast on
threads as it was when I was spending hours a day on threads and responding
to absolutely everything and, you know, stuck in bed with a broken
leg, but that's okay. That's okay. For me, it's
like my not all of my eggs are in the threads basket. Right? Like, I
have other other things that help me grow my business and I'm in other places,
(22:04):
but I would say fifteen to twenty minutes a day is about what I spend
on threads on a day where I'm, like, really inspired and I maybe I'm in
a threads argument with somebody or someone's disagreeing with me and I'm, like,
gonna stand on my stand on my stuff.
Maybe like half an hour, forty five minutes, but most days I would say it's
probably, yeah, fifteen minutes, twenty minutes, something in there. Okay. Cool.
(22:25):
And are you repurposing any of your threads content? You mentioned kind of testing
ideas. Do you take those ideas into long form content? Like, what does that
look like? Yeah. So I absolutely repurpose my long form content
into threads. And one thing that I love to do on threads is if
I test an opinion, if it goes well, I'll turn it into like an Instagram
reel or I'll make it into a podcast episode, things like that. I'm often
(22:47):
inspired by some of the conversations. So I like to use it as a testing
ground that will then inspire some other content, but also I will take
my long form content and turn it into threads. Yeah.
Okay. Yeah. That's how I do it too. Either most of the time,
what you see on threads is, like, I probably set it in a podcast or
in a live somewhere, like a live class. And then, like, oh, that's a good
(23:07):
one liner, and I'll put it on threads. But I do test as well. I
call this that reverse content repurposing where I'm like, I don't know if I want
this to be ideal. Let's see. And then if you respond to it, I'll turn
it and expand it. So okay. Cool. And then how
do you how do you measure your own success on threads? So you mentioned
follower numbers. You mentioned replies and things. But I'm curious if you
(23:28):
have any more structure to measuring success, or are you more
so, like, feeling your way around it? I I would love to tell you
that I have a really good structure, Andrea, but I don't. I think I'm still
feeling just feeling into it. It's been I have not
given it enough time. I don't think, in my opinion, or
really enough effort, like, focus. This is my thread strategy that I'm gonna
(23:50):
focus on for this launch, for example,
that has felt like I've I really have enough data to even go on. I
will say that it's brought me the most incredible people, and I
think that's the metric of success that I really lean into and threads is there's
so many connections and opportunities for me even,
you know, being on podcast. There was a I posted
(24:12):
last year that I got, rejected for I think my post
was, and it was being a little sassy. It was to the effect of, you
know, I just got rejected for a podcast to be on a pod a guest
on a podcast you've never heard of because my social media following wasn't big enough.
And I think at the time I maybe had like 3,000 followers on Instagram,
but that wasn't large enough. And so that was the reason you don't. And I
(24:34):
was like, wow, since when do we, you know, gauge a person's
expertise or ability to be a decent guest on their social media
following Andrea. I was invited to be on 38 podcasts
from that one thread post. One post
38 people were like, come be on my show. Be on my show, come on
my show. And I did. I had a broken leg. So
(24:58):
perfect time for podcast guesting. I have, I was a guest on over
80 podcasts last year and a lot of those came from.
Being on threads, just connections on threads. And so I haven't looked at it
like in a, from, as a marketer and that really like data
point perspective yet. And I'm sure I'll get there. But for
me, what it's done is it's just brought some really cool humans into my
(25:20):
world. It's exposed me to new podcasts. I got
to meet you. So that counts. But I think that for me has been
like the measure of success on threads. And yes, some of it has turned into
clients and some of it, lots of people have come to my events and
and come to my connection calls and things like that. So for now, it
feels like for the fifteen, twenty minutes I put in a day, it feels well
(25:42):
worth it. Yeah. No. I'm so glad you said that because I low key love
data. Don't get me wrong. But and also, I think we
go too far. We go too far sometimes in the measuring of the metrics. And,
like, I do think it's good to, like, take a little pulse point check, see,
but not to get obsessed with it because, you know, we're we're at a time
in history where we've never had this much access to
(26:04):
information before, this much access to data. You know, go back twenty
years ago if you're running a business, you couldn't put up a billboard and
go, oh, I know exactly 3,463 people saw this
date. Like, you can't you didn't do that. You would just go, well, I hope
I hope people saw it. I hope they I hope they read it. I don't
even know how long they looked at it. And so I feel like we have
we have too much information sometimes, and then we go too far with it
(26:27):
where there is this, like, intangible metric of, like, man,
I met some really freaking cool people, and you can't
really put that in a spreadsheet or in your Airtable base. Right? And
so I love that. I love that. And like, like, we're proof we're proof
of it. Hello. We are. We could.
So I wanna talk ROI proof. I know ROI proof. I wanna talk
(26:49):
my last question is about boundaries. Because I do think that especially as
moms so sorry to non moms out there, but I know a lot of
people listening to this podcast, even if you're not a mom, you have other things.
Right? You're you're taking care of your aging parents. You have chronic illness.
You are going back to school. You have a full time job. Like, whatever it
is. We struggle with, like, the boundaries of it all,
(27:11):
and we can take this beyond threads too, and I'm curious about how you
place your own boundaries specifically when it comes to
sharing information online. How do you
make sure that you're not just like, here's my breakfast? You know, like, how
how are you how are you deciding what to share, I guess,
boundary wise? Yeah. That's a really good question. This is something
(27:33):
that I've been really I've I've played with over the last, you
know, ten years of entrepreneurship, four and a half years of being online. For me,
I only share the stuff that my audience needs to know. And so,
I mean, I haven't even talked. I mentioned that I, you know, I had a
family or an aging parent and my father had a medical
emergency. I haven't even talked about that online because it's, it doesn't, it doesn't
(27:55):
really matter. It It doesn't. I mean, it matters for me, but it doesn't
matter. To my audience. Right. Like, and I'm sure
there'll be people that would love to be supportive of me in that season, but
it doesn't matter for my business. It's not relevant. And so one of the
things I've learned is just like my, if I think about my
life as a big, beautiful cake, there is only a slice of the cake that
(28:17):
is really required to be online in my business. I don't talk about
my kids much. Right. If my daughter's going through
something, I'm not gonna go on my social media and be like, my seven year
old daughter came home and had this issue and that issue. Like, I it's just
not it's not required. It's not something that I desire. I'm actually
quite a private person. I keep a hold a lot of things to
(28:39):
the chest and with my close circles because that's how I prefer to be. You
know, I don't show my kids' faces online. For me, it's just really figuring out,
okay, what are the things that people need to know about me
to know, like, and trust? Right? We talk about that in marketing all the time.
Me enough to know that I am the right person for
them. And usually that has to do with my values. You
(29:01):
know, the the things that I do to take care of myself. I have a
horse. I I'll have to post about my horse. I post about a horse way
more than I post about my kids. But it's really just deciding, you know,
what are what are the slices of my life that are
relevant for my business? And yes, I'm building a
personal brand, but there's a whole lot of me as a person
that I get just for me. Yeah. Yeah. I love
(29:24):
that. That's beautiful. And I think the beautiful thing about it too is we get
to decide. Right? Like, I think the
in my opinion, the only way one of the ways that you can figure out
what a boundary is is sometimes it gets crossed. Right? And so for me,
I posted briefly my kids online. I when they were both
born, I posted their pictures. And I just
(29:47):
something about it, I was like, I don't wanna do like, I never wanna post
them online again. I just wanna protect their little preciousness. So don't I don't share
their pictures. I don't I don't share their full names. I'll talk about my girls.
I'll talk about their ages, generally speaking. But for me, that is one of my
boundaries is my kids, and nobody online knows nothing about my family.
Like, you'll you won't know my extended family. I have I have a family.
(30:09):
You won't know them. So My husband hates social
media. And I'll talk about it on the podcast a little bit, but he's not
on my social media to the point where I'll get messages from people that I
haven't seen in a while. And they're like, so are you still
me? Yes. I am. It's just my
marriage doesn't matter for the context of my business, my clients, and
(30:30):
those the people that are, you know, close to me know him and they,
you know, have that experience. But for my Instagram and
my threads, like, nobody needs to nobody needs to
know. Yeah. It's not it's not required. Yep. Same. And you can
always change your mind too. Like, my husband and I filmed
our honeymoon vacation. Like, oh my god. That sounded bad.
(30:52):
We we What did you do? Wait. Anymore. We we did a
road trip, and so we we were vloggers. We, like, vlogged the
road trip. Like, oh, we're in Montreal. Now we're in Ottawa. Now we're you know
what I mean? And now we would we would never do
that. Like, we he doesn't wanna be online. He does the bare minimum for his
business. I do mine for my business. And same people are like, you haven't
(31:13):
posted about your husband in a while. I'm like, oh, yeah. I mean, we just
don't we don't create that kind of content anymore. Right? Like, we used to put
our entire lives online, and now we're just very
private people. And so you you can change your mind too at any point. Like,
you're like, oh, I wanna do this or I don't wanna do this. Go for
it. I love it. I love it. Thank you for sharing, Laura. I think it's
really important, for everyone to get a sense of, like, what's really working,
(31:35):
what's actually happening with real, like, businesses that are active, that are doing
the dang thing on threads. So I appreciate you sharing that. And I know
there are some people listening who are like, o m g. I need more Laura
in my life. What are these community calls? Tell us about them.
Yeah. So every other Tuesday at 10AM eastern time, we host a community connection call.
It's just an opportunity to come and hang out with other like minded moms.
(31:58):
You wanna come and complain about your kids? You go for it. Yeah. This is
a safe place to do it. You're going through something. You want to just come
and have a laugh. We always laugh. Some of the women that come call it
the community hug, the biweekly community hug. And it's just a place to connect with
other women who are doing the thing and navigating this
intersection of motherhood entrepreneurship. And every other Tuesday at 10AM
(32:18):
Eastern, I think we have one today that this episode drops,
which is exciting. But if you head to this mothermeansbusiness.com, you
can learn more about those calls and I'll make sure I share a link with
you, Andrea. So if anyone's listening that wants to come and hang out with a
bunch of other mom entrepreneurs that are keeping it real, I would love to see
you there. Yay. Awesome. Yeah. I'm gonna put that link in the show notes. Y'all
can find it at onlandrea.com/35eight. That's
(32:42):
358. Laura, thank you so much for
being on the podcast today. Thank you for having me. This has been awesome.
Yay. And thank you, dear listener, for tuning in to another episode of the Mindful
Marketing Podcast. If you have more goodness, especially threads goodness, come on
in to the Mindful Marketing Lab. I have a course on threads, actually. We talk
about threads all the time. And, also, if you wanna just dive into some
(33:04):
of our resources, coming up tomorrow after this episode, I'm
doing a session all about AI. If you wanna learn how
to use AI ethically, mindfully, k, come to this
session in the lab and learn. I've also built a lot
of AI resources, custom GPTs, and things that you can use in your business to
be your shortcut to this all, but it only works if you do the groundwork
(33:26):
first. We're gonna talk about that and more inside of the lab. Coming
up next on the podcast, we're gonna have the amazing Maggie Patterson on the
show to talk about staying solo and launching her new book called staying
solo as well. So stay tuned for that. I'll see you next week. Bye for
now.
Welcome to another episode of the Mindful Marketing Podcast. And this one feels near
and dear to my heart because I met today's guests
on threads. And yeah, we're talking all about threads as a community building
tool. And Laura Sinclair and I, we're connected through threads. It
feels a bit meta, pun intended. So in this episode, we're gonna talk about how
Laura uses threads as a tool to grow her business. But first,
(00:23):
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Okay. Laura, welcome to the show.
Hi, Andrea. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to pick your brain on all
things Threads and just your business in general because I love what you do. Like,
(01:30):
I feel connected to it now as a mom. So for those people who are
tuning in, they don't know who you are, give us, like, the thirty second elevator
pitch about who you are and what you do. Yeah. My name is Laura Sinclair.
I'm the founder of this mother reads business. I'm a business mentor for entrepreneurial
moms. How did you get into it? Like, was there a catalyst moment?
Oh my goodness. Like, how much time do we have on this on the show
(01:50):
on your end? Well, I have a corporate marketing background. I'm a marketer like you.
I started my career in PR. I worked in corporate marketing and left
the marketing world, left corporate actually in 2015. I ran a brick and
mortar CrossFit gym for five years. And then when the world shut down for two
weeks, I had an abundance of caution. I was eight weeks pregnant with my second
child. And we ended up closing that gym at the end of twenty
(02:12):
twenty. Fast forward, I was like, okay, now I have a three month old
and I have to figure out how to make money. And so I started my
online business. I started doing what was easy for me at the time, which was
teaching small business owners how to use social media better because I was
running social media and digital marketing for big brands
in my corporate world, my corporate life. And then I used
(02:33):
that effectively to build my gym business, which the pandemic
wasn't overly kind to, but I also had a small baby and
just didn't wanna didn't wanna do it anymore. And so I started
teaching people how to use social media, not dissimilar to the work that
you do, but it sort of snowballed away from that. I was starting having
conversations with women about motherhood and some
(02:56):
of the challenges that they were facing. And so many of the conversations I
was seeing about motherhood and entrepreneurship were really fluffy, really kinda like
cute, side hustley. And there wasn't a lot of people
standing up for these really ambitious women building
big businesses with big passion, have so much heart for it that are
also navigating motherhood. And
(03:18):
it kinda just started by accident. It started with my podcast, and then it
was a retreat, and it was another retreat, and then it was
a community and an event and sort of really leaning into growing this platform.
And so it kinda happened organically, but I'm glad that it did.
Yeah. I'm glad that it did too. And that's kinda why I connected with you
as well, because I feel like there's, like, there's, like, two sides of being a
(03:40):
mom in business. There's the one side where as soon as I was
announcing my pregnancy, a bunch of people assumed that I would shut down my business.
And I was like, oh, no. No. I'm not I'm No. I still am
working. And then there was the other side of people who were, like,
assuming that nothing would change. Right? And to be honest, I'm
somewhere in the middle. Like, I'm not shut down, but I'm definitely not running at
(04:02):
the speed that I was prebabies, especially, you know, with three year old and a
one year old. I just literally cannot. And so that's
why I connected with your post because I'm like, oh, this is someone who's, like,
really gets it. Like, it's real. It's not like I, you know, I wake up
and, like, we had, like, granola and then I, you know, run my business
during naps. And I'm like, that is not possible for a lot of people.
(04:23):
So, yeah, I love your post, around the real the rawness of
motherhood in business. Yeah. You know what? I I just I'm too tired to tell
anything about the truth. And so that's where it started on threads
truthfully, is it was like, you know what? Somebody
somebody's gotta be the person to talk about what this really looks like. And, hey,
if it's gonna be me, then so be it. Yeah. So what initially drew you
(04:45):
to threads? Like, are you an early adapter kind of person? Yeah. So I was
a big Twitter user in 02/2008. Huge Twitter user. I loved
Twitter. Before, you know, this is when I was in PR school working in PR.
We would do a lot of actually pitching media over Twitter.
It was something that we did back then. And I loved it and then
kinda got away from it as I was no longer in PR. And so when
(05:06):
threads first came out, I kinda jumped on it and was like, okay. This is
cool. But then I took a period of time where I was like, okay. I'm
actually, like, too busy for another platform. I can't I can't hack it right
now. And so I think that there was maybe like a six or eight month
window, and then I actually broke my leg at the beginning of twenty
twenty four. And I was like, okay, I'm bored.
(05:28):
I'm bored. And I actually have this capacity for something
else. Right. I'm literally stuck in bed. I can't, I broke my leg in two
places. It wasn't a good time. And so I found myself back on all
of a sudden I had this time and I had some problem myself back on
threads and I just started kind of using it. Like I
used Twitter and I would just think something and
(05:49):
post it. And that was sort of how it went. And it was just this
opportunity for me to share some of my
unhinged thoughts that didn't really make sense in any
other platform. And that's really how it started was for me with a broken leg
in bed, just posting my thoughts. I love
that. I feel like that's very much the vibe of threads, though. It's
(06:09):
it's a less it's less buttoned up. It's more casual.
It's it's, more approachable. So do you think that makes it easier for
especially moms to to jump on the platform? I think so. It's so
low lift. Right? When you think about what's required on some of these other
platforms, I mean, you and I are sitting here making long form content right
now. Like, we don't you don't have to do that on threads. You don't have
(06:31):
to create a video. You don't have to create a graphic if you don't want
to. And so there's something about how low lift it is that I think
is is really attractive to both me and a lot of my clients. And there's
also something that I'm seeing, Andrea, that I'm wondering if you're seeing too where,
for some reason, the filter has come off on threads. Like, people are
just so much more honest
(06:52):
on this platform. And it's like a fun place to try
things and see what lands and see, hey, if I say this, does
this offend people? Or if I say this, am I gonna lose a bunch of
followers? And not in a way to be offensive, but I think so many of
us play it really safe with some of our opinions and the things that we
believe. And so threads, I think, has been, like, a bit of a testing ground
(07:13):
for a lot of folks as well. Yeah. A %. I feel like so this
has been something I've been thinking about a lot, which is this idea of the
content calendar. I love it. Don't get me wrong. Especially as a business owner, it
can be very helpful. But also, I feels feels like sometimes it
goes too far. Like, my experience on Instagram and
Facebook sometimes is, like, too curated, too too
(07:34):
thought out, too, like, orchestrated. I'm like, the way waiting for them to sell
me something. Whereas it feels like on threads, it's just a
vibe. I'm like, I wanna see what I see. Like, what what's gonna make me,
like, hee hee today? You know? I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. And
I I will say that the really fun thing about threads is just how much
community it feels like is there. The level of support
(07:55):
feels really different. I mean, I'm engaging with folks on
threads that would probably ignore me on Instagram. You know, it's like
people that I would never get our DM response from on Instagram,
reply to my threads or I reply to theirs and there is a response there.
So there's there's sort of like, almost like an evening of the
playing field that's happened over on threads, which has been really cool too.
(08:17):
Yeah. That's what I love about it too. You your the community feels
more equal instead of, like, a hierarchy of, like, you know, oh, this
person has a million followers. I only have a hundred. You know? When you can't
even see it in the context of the what threads gives you. Right? It's just
like, here here's a person saying the thing. You either agree with the thing or
you don't agree with the thing, but it does. It really has taken away some
(08:38):
of that maybe hierarchy a little bit that might exist in other platforms. Yeah.
For sure. Well, I'm curious about, like, strategically how you look at
it compared to other platforms. So you talked about how you kind of
just post your thoughts as you think them. But how does
that strategically play in your business specifically compared to a platform
like Instagram? Yeah. When I started on threads, it was very there was no
(09:00):
strategy. It was just like, I'm gonna just say whatever,
because I'm bored with a broken leg in bed. And I'm gonna just share my
thoughts. And my community did grow on threads really fast, just because I was
unhinged saying the things that I think in my head that a lot of people
were like, oh, wow. I really feel the same. And like, good for you for
saying that. But as we you know, my leg's no longer
broken. I have to return to life
(09:24):
as as normal. I think for me, what's really changed is it's
a lot about having more conversation. I think it's opening up posts that
inspire conversation and also making invitations
of others to be a part of my community. And that's
a big piece of my strategy on threads is really anchoring
in the I the notion that threads does inherently build
(09:46):
community. My business is rooted in community. And so
really just making continual invitations of folks
to be a part of the things that I'm doing. And whether that's my spa
days, I do these local meetup spa days that have actually turned into other
women. Across Canada hosting their own spa days, own
spot networking days, which I am obsessed with that all just started on
(10:08):
threads. And I get women that are coming and meeting me in real life at
the spa or coming to my community connection call and really
just rooting in telling those stories and continually making those
invitations. That's been a big part of my strategy as far as, like,
moving people from threads into whatever else
I have for them, whatever email marketing or funnel that I have from them has
(10:30):
really just been about continually making the invitation and then
telling the stories and building up my personality and sharing what
I do and who I am in between. Oh,
okay. So I want some examples of this, just to give
context. So when you're talking about so let's start with, like, one of
your your, like, here's what's in my brain post. Like, do you have one
(10:51):
that stands out to you? Oh, gosh. That's a really great
question. I really put you on the spot too. Really I'm like, go back to
your thousands of threads and think about what that, no, I think
like for me. Okay. A great example of one is I really don't resonate
with the word mompreneur. I find it infantilizing. And
so I will post on threads often, like threads is
(11:13):
not a platform where I just post it one time and never post it again.
Like I'm, I'm going to post it and I'm gonna post it a different way,
a couple of weeks later at a different way, a couple of weeks, like that
is a big part of the platform, but really just leaning into my
opinions. Right? I don't like the word mompreneur. I don't relate to it. I
don't like mama. I just find them to be infantilizing. And so I
post on threads often about the fact that I don't relate to this
(11:35):
word. This is something that stirs up the folks. Right?
People have big opinions on that. Another big one is
talking about the fact that I'm sure you've seen this, that I
won't hire a business mentor that doesn't have kids. And I believe that
it is essential for a mentor to understand what it is
that a mentee goes through if they have children. I mean, you and I were
(11:57):
just talking about the chaos of having a one and a three year old. This
is another thing I love to talk about on threads and it pokes the bear.
They get angry. People get angry about this and it's
okay because the people that get angry are not my people and the people
that agree with it are my people. And then I start seeing the follows go
up and the connections. And then that translates into my Instagram
(12:18):
following actually has grown quite a bit since my threads following has grown and I'm
making these new connections. And so I think a lot of it is just, like,
anchoring in, like, these are the things that I believe. This is a space for
you if you if you believe the same. And if you don't, that's okay
too. Yeah. For those of you who can't see the video, I'm doing, like, a
massive head nods over here because I'm like, yes. I think that this is
(12:39):
so this is what I call contrarian content. Because
contrarian content serves a very unique purpose in that, yes, it gets people
heated, it gets people fired up. But it gets the other side of that
too. Like, when you say mompreneur, I'm like, yes. Like,
mompreneur to me does not fit who I would describe my like,
I think of and there's no offense to this, but to me, I think of,
(13:01):
like like, an Etsy account, like, kind of business. Like, a
little hobby, like, on the side. Yeah. And I'm like, this is I'm not
this is not a hobby to me. Like, this is my job. So I'm not
gonna, like, diminish that. And to me in mompreneur, it feels like it's,
like, oh, cute, like a little pat on the head. Like, look at her. Look
at her go. And I'm like, no. It's very pink. That's That's what I used
(13:21):
to say. It feels very pink. And not not because we don't like the color
pink. It's just like it's just cute. And there's nothing really cute
about what you and I are doing. We're No. Here to create
impact. Right. It's a actual business. And so, yeah, that that's the kind
of stuff that I love to see on threads too because I'm like, I found
my people. And I think this these signals that you're putting out there are
(13:42):
calling out your people, which I love, so you're bringing them in. And then I
wanna also talk about these invitation style posts because I think this is where
some people fumble on threads because it can
like, coming into the platform, especially as a business owner, we instantly go, like, how
can I make money? Like, that we're all thinking it. Right? We're all like, how
can I make money? Like, how can I sell something? But you there's a
(14:03):
delicate way to approach this, and so I wanna hear how you do
it on threads. Like, what do you say to, like, call people and to take
the step the the next step of, like, joining you somewhere? I
I'm probably, like, not the most professional about it if I'm being honest, And some
of that is my personality. I literally will say be like,
hey. If you're a mom and you wanna come hang out with other moms, like,
(14:24):
bring your chaos. It'll be fun. We're having this connection call. You should
come. Like, it's literally that. It's not, are you a woman
entrepreneur who is looking to connect with other women entrepreneurs at like minded
and heart centered values? Join us for our community connection
call. Like, I don't do that. I cannot do that. That's ridiculous.
That just doesn't align for me. And so all of the invitations that I've made
(14:47):
have, have, I mean, if you go back and search my thread, that's like, hi,
waving emoji. You know, I'm hosting a spa meetup on this
day. If you're in the Barrie area and you want to come hang out or
hi, if you're a mom who wants to hang out with other moms who
are like minded, like you, who wants a business help and like, feel free to
come in your pajamas, that's where we'll be. And so for me, there's like an
(15:09):
authenticity behind the cell that matters.
And I I also have a podcast. I I always promote my podcast episode
on thread as threads as well, and it's use the same thing. It's
not like, on today's episode, we are featuring guest Andrea
Jones, who is an expert. Like, no. It's not that. It's just like
you know, I had the opportunity to talk with the incredible Andrea Jones. It was
(15:31):
such a great episode. She shares this with us. If you're a mom who
has, you know, a similar experience or you wanna go behind the scenes of
someone who's made an incredible pivot, check out the episode. Like, it's just really coming
from a place that's conversational and honest
and making an invitation. It's like, hey. I have this sweet this cool thing. It's
like having a delicious cookie. You want the cookie? You don't wanna eat the cookie?
(15:53):
That's cool. I'm not gonna try to convince you to eat the cookie.
Yeah. Yeah. Do you think your marketing background has an impact on how you show
up on threads? Yes. 100%. Absolutely. And I think this
is the other, the other piece. And, people often say to me,
like, are you like your content really helps people feel seen. I really feel
seen in your content. Do you do that on purpose? Well, yes. You know, I
(16:15):
have a, I have a marketing background. I have a PR background, so yes, I
have an added advantage over the average person
that is, you know, learning to use it. But I think for someone that
doesn't have a marketing background or doesn't have that doesn't come
from that place. I think this is something that all business owners really need to
tap into. It's like, who are you and how do you want to talk to
(16:36):
people? And if you just lean into your humanness, the fact that
you're a human being, having a human experience, and
you wanna bring other people into your human experience, that makes
everything so much easier. So many times people say, I don't know what to
say. It's like, well, what would you say if you were to meet this person
on the street? If you're at an event and you were like, hey. I have
(16:58):
this thing. Do you wanna come? It's no different on threats.
Just be a human. Stop overthinking it. Tap into who it is
that you are the way that you wanna communicate. And I promise everything gets
easier when you just take the I'm supposed to's off.
Yeah. This is where I really struggle with the formulaic approaches
because, you know, as marketers, we learn the formulas. Right? And if
(17:22):
you're listening to this and you're like, Andrea, you taught me a formula. Yeah. I
teach the formulas. But in order for the formulas to work, you you still have
to bring you into that process. I do think this is why
some people also have a problem with, like, large language
models, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, because they're
not bringing them into the process. They're just copy pasting the
(17:43):
formula. And the formulas are helpful. Don't get me wrong. They do
help. They're they they're great. Like, Laura, you're talking about, like, the I
feel seen type of content, and I love that type of content because it's such
a a great powerful connection. And you know the formula of
that, and you're still doing it your way. And it's like marrying those two ideas
that's key. So I'm curious, like, when you think
(18:04):
about threads and specifically, like,
managing your time on the platform too because it sounds like you you you kind
of feel inspired and you go off your inspiration. But how do you make sure
you're not, like, either a, doom scrolling on threads all day, or b, you it's,
like, been two weeks and you never logged in? Yeah. So this is a great
one because I have definitely gone through seasons where I'm, like, posting on
(18:26):
threads four or five times a day because I have all the thoughts. And then
I'm actually just coming out of a season right now where I haven't been as
active on the platform because I ran my first event. I'm dealing
with, major health crisis in my family. Like, there's just so many things going
on. I have still have two kids. I have a partner, a ship working partner,
like, all of the things. And so for me, there are sort of milestones
(18:47):
and benchmarks that are required for me to show up on threads. So
there's there's sort of two threads of thought. Threads of thought. Wow. Pun not really
intended, but like, let's go with it. That's the role there. Good
job, Laura. The first one is that it's my responsibility to show up
for my business. Right. I have to, I just, my
job to show up and tell my people about the
(19:09):
podcast episode about the community connection,
call about the community, about like, that's my job. And
so there's that piece of it there that I'm able to like anchor in on,
or these are the things that are required. The things that I, at a minimum,
have to talk about across platform. I'm already creating this content, and it would
be a real shame for me to not take the ten seconds
(19:31):
and turn it into a thread. So there's there's that side of it.
The other side of it is that I know that I can't show up on
a platform and just talk about all my stuff. I can't just
sell all the time. And so there's a piece of it that there's like a
little bit of give and take required. It's like sending emails. Right? I can't just
send sales emails and hope that people are gonna want to read my emails.
(19:52):
It's not, it's not how it works. And so for me, it's like establishing what
that minimum is and that's part of my strategy. Right. And so if the
minimum is sometimes it might just be actually replying to other people's threads.
Cause I find sometimes my replies to posts do as
well as my sort of native posts on my own
page, my own site. So it's establishing for me.
(20:14):
Okay. At a minimum, I'm going to post. I know I need to post once
a day to talk about my things, my, my business things.
And then I'm also going to try to engage in the platform as well. And
then when I'm in the season where I feel inspired and I have a lot
to say that I'm going to go with that. But for me, it's sort of
setting the standard for myself of this is what the bare minimum is,
and I can commit to the bare minimum. And I think some of it is
(20:37):
reps too. Right? Like I've been doing this. I've been an entrepreneur for
ten years. I've been in the online space for four and a half at this
stage. And so, yeah, you just you make commitments and you
stick to them. Yeah. Yeah. I think that I love what you said
about it. It like, it is my responsibility as a business owner to do
this to my business. And I think there's a lot of
(20:59):
things that we do in our business where we we are kinda wishy washy about
it. And I think marketing your business is one of those nonnegotiables. And
if threads is your thing, like, it is your responsibility to to show up
there. I love that you said that. I still am curious, though, like, how much
time you're spending on the platform. Because when I first started on threads, I was
spending hours and hours on it. And now I probably spend, like, fifteen,
(21:22):
twenty minutes a day, outside of, like, creating content itself.
But I'm always curious, like, how much time other people are spending. I'm the same.
I'm probably fifteen, twenty minutes a day. I used to be hours. You can go
down the threads rabbit hole. Honestly, one of the things that's helped me a lot
is I try to go on threads on my desktop and not my
phone. I find if I'm on my phone, it's really easy
(21:43):
to get caught up. Now that said my following is not growing as fast on
threads as it was when I was spending hours a day on threads and responding
to absolutely everything and, you know, stuck in bed with a broken
leg, but that's okay. That's okay. For me, it's
like my not all of my eggs are in the threads basket. Right? Like, I
have other other things that help me grow my business and I'm in other places,
(22:04):
but I would say fifteen to twenty minutes a day is about what I spend
on threads on a day where I'm, like, really inspired and I maybe I'm in
a threads argument with somebody or someone's disagreeing with me and I'm, like,
gonna stand on my stand on my stuff.
Maybe like half an hour, forty five minutes, but most days I would say it's
probably, yeah, fifteen minutes, twenty minutes, something in there. Okay. Cool.
(22:25):
And are you repurposing any of your threads content? You mentioned kind of testing
ideas. Do you take those ideas into long form content? Like, what does that
look like? Yeah. So I absolutely repurpose my long form content
into threads. And one thing that I love to do on threads is if
I test an opinion, if it goes well, I'll turn it into like an Instagram
reel or I'll make it into a podcast episode, things like that. I'm often
(22:47):
inspired by some of the conversations. So I like to use it as a testing
ground that will then inspire some other content, but also I will take
my long form content and turn it into threads. Yeah.
Okay. Yeah. That's how I do it too. Either most of the time,
what you see on threads is, like, I probably set it in a podcast or
in a live somewhere, like a live class. And then, like, oh, that's a good
(23:07):
one liner, and I'll put it on threads. But I do test as well. I
call this that reverse content repurposing where I'm like, I don't know if I want
this to be ideal. Let's see. And then if you respond to it, I'll turn
it and expand it. So okay. Cool. And then how
do you how do you measure your own success on threads? So you mentioned
follower numbers. You mentioned replies and things. But I'm curious if you
(23:28):
have any more structure to measuring success, or are you more
so, like, feeling your way around it? I I would love to tell you
that I have a really good structure, Andrea, but I don't. I think I'm still
feeling just feeling into it. It's been I have not
given it enough time. I don't think, in my opinion, or
really enough effort, like, focus. This is my thread strategy that I'm gonna
(23:50):
focus on for this launch, for example,
that has felt like I've I really have enough data to even go on. I
will say that it's brought me the most incredible people, and I
think that's the metric of success that I really lean into and threads is there's
so many connections and opportunities for me even,
you know, being on podcast. There was a I posted
(24:12):
last year that I got, rejected for I think my post
was, and it was being a little sassy. It was to the effect of, you
know, I just got rejected for a podcast to be on a pod a guest
on a podcast you've never heard of because my social media following wasn't big enough.
And I think at the time I maybe had like 3,000 followers on Instagram,
but that wasn't large enough. And so that was the reason you don't. And I
(24:34):
was like, wow, since when do we, you know, gauge a person's
expertise or ability to be a decent guest on their social media
following Andrea. I was invited to be on 38 podcasts
from that one thread post. One post
38 people were like, come be on my show. Be on my show, come on
my show. And I did. I had a broken leg. So
(24:58):
perfect time for podcast guesting. I have, I was a guest on over
80 podcasts last year and a lot of those came from.
Being on threads, just connections on threads. And so I haven't looked at it
like in a, from, as a marketer and that really like data
point perspective yet. And I'm sure I'll get there. But for
me, what it's done is it's just brought some really cool humans into my
(25:20):
world. It's exposed me to new podcasts. I got
to meet you. So that counts. But I think that for me has been
like the measure of success on threads. And yes, some of it has turned into
clients and some of it, lots of people have come to my events and
and come to my connection calls and things like that. So for now, it
feels like for the fifteen, twenty minutes I put in a day, it feels well
(25:42):
worth it. Yeah. No. I'm so glad you said that because I low key love
data. Don't get me wrong. But and also, I think we
go too far. We go too far sometimes in the measuring of the metrics. And,
like, I do think it's good to, like, take a little pulse point check, see,
but not to get obsessed with it because, you know, we're we're at a time
in history where we've never had this much access to
(26:04):
information before, this much access to data. You know, go back twenty
years ago if you're running a business, you couldn't put up a billboard and
go, oh, I know exactly 3,463 people saw this
date. Like, you can't you didn't do that. You would just go, well, I hope
I hope people saw it. I hope they I hope they read it. I don't
even know how long they looked at it. And so I feel like we have
we have too much information sometimes, and then we go too far with it
(26:27):
where there is this, like, intangible metric of, like, man,
I met some really freaking cool people, and you can't
really put that in a spreadsheet or in your Airtable base. Right? And
so I love that. I love that. And like, like, we're proof we're proof
of it. Hello. We are. We could.
So I wanna talk ROI proof. I know ROI proof. I wanna talk
(26:49):
my last question is about boundaries. Because I do think that especially as
moms so sorry to non moms out there, but I know a lot of
people listening to this podcast, even if you're not a mom, you have other things.
Right? You're you're taking care of your aging parents. You have chronic illness.
You are going back to school. You have a full time job. Like, whatever it
is. We struggle with, like, the boundaries of it all,
(27:11):
and we can take this beyond threads too, and I'm curious about how you
place your own boundaries specifically when it comes to
sharing information online. How do you
make sure that you're not just like, here's my breakfast? You know, like, how
how are you how are you deciding what to share, I guess,
boundary wise? Yeah. That's a really good question. This is something
(27:33):
that I've been really I've I've played with over the last, you
know, ten years of entrepreneurship, four and a half years of being online. For me,
I only share the stuff that my audience needs to know. And so,
I mean, I haven't even talked. I mentioned that I, you know, I had a
family or an aging parent and my father had a medical
emergency. I haven't even talked about that online because it's, it doesn't, it doesn't
(27:55):
really matter. It It doesn't. I mean, it matters for me, but it doesn't
matter. To my audience. Right. Like, and I'm sure
there'll be people that would love to be supportive of me in that season, but
it doesn't matter for my business. It's not relevant. And so one of the
things I've learned is just like my, if I think about my
life as a big, beautiful cake, there is only a slice of the cake that
(28:17):
is really required to be online in my business. I don't talk about
my kids much. Right. If my daughter's going through
something, I'm not gonna go on my social media and be like, my seven year
old daughter came home and had this issue and that issue. Like, I it's just
not it's not required. It's not something that I desire. I'm actually
quite a private person. I keep a hold a lot of things to
(28:39):
the chest and with my close circles because that's how I prefer to be. You
know, I don't show my kids' faces online. For me, it's just really figuring out,
okay, what are the things that people need to know about me
to know, like, and trust? Right? We talk about that in marketing all the time.
Me enough to know that I am the right person for
them. And usually that has to do with my values. You
(29:01):
know, the the things that I do to take care of myself. I have a
horse. I I'll have to post about my horse. I post about a horse way
more than I post about my kids. But it's really just deciding, you know,
what are what are the slices of my life that are
relevant for my business? And yes, I'm building a
personal brand, but there's a whole lot of me as a person
that I get just for me. Yeah. Yeah. I love
(29:24):
that. That's beautiful. And I think the beautiful thing about it too is we get
to decide. Right? Like, I think the
in my opinion, the only way one of the ways that you can figure out
what a boundary is is sometimes it gets crossed. Right? And so for me,
I posted briefly my kids online. I when they were both
born, I posted their pictures. And I just
(29:47):
something about it, I was like, I don't wanna do like, I never wanna post
them online again. I just wanna protect their little preciousness. So don't I don't share
their pictures. I don't I don't share their full names. I'll talk about my girls.
I'll talk about their ages, generally speaking. But for me, that is one of my
boundaries is my kids, and nobody online knows nothing about my family.
Like, you'll you won't know my extended family. I have I have a family.
(30:09):
You won't know them. So My husband hates social
media. And I'll talk about it on the podcast a little bit, but he's not
on my social media to the point where I'll get messages from people that I
haven't seen in a while. And they're like, so are you still
me? Yes. I am. It's just my
marriage doesn't matter for the context of my business, my clients, and
(30:30):
those the people that are, you know, close to me know him and they,
you know, have that experience. But for my Instagram and
my threads, like, nobody needs to nobody needs to
know. Yeah. It's not it's not required. Yep. Same. And you can
always change your mind too. Like, my husband and I filmed
our honeymoon vacation. Like, oh my god. That sounded bad.
(30:52):
We we What did you do? Wait. Anymore. We we did a
road trip, and so we we were vloggers. We, like, vlogged the
road trip. Like, oh, we're in Montreal. Now we're in Ottawa. Now we're you know
what I mean? And now we would we would never do
that. Like, we he doesn't wanna be online. He does the bare minimum for his
business. I do mine for my business. And same people are like, you haven't
(31:13):
posted about your husband in a while. I'm like, oh, yeah. I mean, we just
don't we don't create that kind of content anymore. Right? Like, we used to put
our entire lives online, and now we're just very
private people. And so you you can change your mind too at any point. Like,
you're like, oh, I wanna do this or I don't wanna do this. Go for
it. I love it. I love it. Thank you for sharing, Laura. I think it's
really important, for everyone to get a sense of, like, what's really working,
(31:35):
what's actually happening with real, like, businesses that are active, that are doing
the dang thing on threads. So I appreciate you sharing that. And I know
there are some people listening who are like, o m g. I need more Laura
in my life. What are these community calls? Tell us about them.
Yeah. So every other Tuesday at 10AM eastern time, we host a community connection call.
It's just an opportunity to come and hang out with other like minded moms.
(31:58):
You wanna come and complain about your kids? You go for it. Yeah. This is
a safe place to do it. You're going through something. You want to just come
and have a laugh. We always laugh. Some of the women that come call it
the community hug, the biweekly community hug. And it's just a place to connect with
other women who are doing the thing and navigating this
intersection of motherhood entrepreneurship. And every other Tuesday at 10AM
(32:18):
Eastern, I think we have one today that this episode drops,
which is exciting. But if you head to this mothermeansbusiness.com, you
can learn more about those calls and I'll make sure I share a link with
you, Andrea. So if anyone's listening that wants to come and hang out with a
bunch of other mom entrepreneurs that are keeping it real, I would love to see
you there. Yay. Awesome. Yeah. I'm gonna put that link in the show notes. Y'all
can find it at onlandrea.com/35eight. That's
(32:42):
358. Laura, thank you so much for
being on the podcast today. Thank you for having me. This has been awesome.
Yay. And thank you, dear listener, for tuning in to another episode of the Mindful
Marketing Podcast. If you have more goodness, especially threads goodness, come on
in to the Mindful Marketing Lab. I have a course on threads, actually. We talk
about threads all the time. And, also, if you wanna just dive into some
(33:04):
of our resources, coming up tomorrow after this episode, I'm
doing a session all about AI. If you wanna learn how
to use AI ethically, mindfully, k, come to this
session in the lab and learn. I've also built a lot
of AI resources, custom GPTs, and things that you can use in your business to
be your shortcut to this all, but it only works if you do the groundwork
(33:26):
first. We're gonna talk about that and more inside of the lab. Coming
up next on the podcast, we're gonna have the amazing Maggie Patterson on the
show to talk about staying solo and launching her new book called staying
solo as well. So stay tuned for that. I'll see you next week. Bye for
now.
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