December 17, 2024 • 38 mins
I'm excited to share my guest episode on the BS-Free Business Podcast (now Staying Solo Podcast) with Maggie Patterson.
I love Maggie's no-fluff approach to building service-based businesses and in this episode, we tackled a topic that's near and dear to my heart—the evolution of social media and how to use it more mindfully.
We dug into some really big questions around setting boundaries, maintaining privacy in this digital world, and how to show up authentically online without falling into the performative trap. We also talked about my journey from solo social media freelancer to leading an agency.
If you ever feel like social media is running your whole freaking life or if you've ever wondered about how to make it work for you instead of against you, give this episode a listen.
In this episode of the podcast, we talk about:
- The preference for meaningful interactions over short, surface-level content
- Showing up authentically online without feeling performative
- The importance of tailoring marketing strategies to strengths and capacities
- Balancing transparency with maintaining privacy boundaries
- Normalizing the slow, uncomfortable process of business evolution
…And More!
Special thanks to:
Maggie Patterson, host of Staying Solo Podcast
Listen to the original episode here: https://bsfreebusiness.com/mindful-marketing/
Website: http://www.bsfreebusiness.com/
Connect with Maggie on social media:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bsfreebusiness/
Threads: https://www.threads.net/@bsfreebusiness
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@bsfreebusiness
Go to the show notes for all the resources mentioned in this episode: https://onlinedrea.com/336
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to episode number 336 of the mindful
marketing podcast. In a continuation of my series this
month for sharing episodes that I was a guest on, I'm excited to
share an episode of the BS free business podcast with
Maggie Patterson. I always love Maggie's no fluff approach
to building service based businesses. It's just so refreshing. And so I was
(00:22):
honored to be back on her podcast. And in this episode, we tackled a
topic that's near and dear to my heart, the evolution of social
media and how to use it more mindfully. In this episode, we dig
into some really big questions like, how do you set boundaries and maintain
privacy in this digital world? Or why does social media sometimes
feel like a never ending situationship? And, how can you show up
(00:44):
authentically online without falling into the performative vulnerability
trap. I also talk about my journey from solo
social media freelancer to leading an agency as well as my
thoughts on moving away from hustle culture to a more intentional
and balanced approach, not just to social media, but to business. So if
you ever feel like social media is running your whole freaking life or
(01:07):
if you've ever wondered about how do we make it work for you instead of
against you, this episode is for you. Listen to
my conversation with Maggie on the BS free podcast and let me know
what resonates with you the most.
(01:29):
Social media is evolving quickly, and many of us have a love hate relationship with
it. But what if you didn't spend your energy worrying about the
algorithm and instead found a way that works for you? One that helps you
connect it all together in a way that feels good. In this episode, Andrea
Jones, a mindful marketing strategist, discusses her evolving approach to social
media and her desire to have deeper conversations about its impact.
(01:51):
Hey, Andrea, welcome to the show. Hey, Maggie. Thanks for having me on the
show. I'm excited to have you back. We've had you talk about a lot of
different things. Last time you were on, you were talking about LinkedIn,
but I wanna chat about how your business is evolving
and how you're looking at social media now. So for those
of the listeners that don't know you, can you introduce yourself and your business?
(02:15):
Yes. So I now consider myself a mindful marketing
strategist with a focus on social media. And my business,
I have an agency where we deliver social media services. And then I
also teach social media in our kind of like education arm of the
business. I love it. Okay. So the reason I invited you
to be on the show is because I love you and you always have something
(02:36):
insightful to say. But back in the fall, you started sharing about how you
want to evolve your business and you really weren't
sure what was next. So can you share a little bit of what was
going on that prompted that kind of like, oh, interesting. I
wanna look at what I'm doing and think about this a little differently. Yes. Well,
I've been feeling a little bit of dissonance with social media for
(02:58):
a while because there's this perception when I say
I'm a social media strategist. Yep. That people would have.
They would expect me to be, I don't know, maybe, like, someone like
Gary v who posts a 1000000 times a day and moves on the Internet.
And that's not my vibe at all.
And I was feeling bad because some of my favorite people would feel
(03:20):
apologetic about things like, yeah. I decided to close my
Instagram or, you know, I haven't posted in 6 months,
and I'm like, good for you. I love that for you. You know?
And so I I was feeling a little bit of dissonance with, like, perception
on what I do versus what I actually do because that has been
changing for quite a long time. I mentioned Gary v earlier, but he
(03:43):
was one of my early, like, people I look to for marketing because I did
find his concepts interesting and the strategies interesting.
But I realized very quickly, it's not for me. I am introverted. I
need my books and my crochet and, like, leave me alone, please, moments.
And while I do love peopling, I do it in a way that works
for me, and the Internet actually makes that easier for me.
(04:06):
So this whole transition kinda culminated in
a live event I hosted that you were at in November of 2023
where we were having conversations that were the conversations I
so desperately wanted to have more regularly. It
was beyond, like, how many times should we post on
TikTok? And it was more like, how is TikTok
(04:28):
affecting the way we do business? What if we
decide not to be on TikTok? Or, you know, let's zoom out and,
like, really figure out how social media fits into our marketing ecosystems.
How do we balance this? And, like, people had aging parents or
young children or a full time job. And and so those are
the conversations I want to have. And so a lot of
(04:50):
this switch for me is leaning into,
like, my desire to to have those conversations instead of
being so surface level or tactical focused.
Okay. And I think here's the thing that we get so trapped in,
I love the word tactical, with social media. When the conversations are
happening, a lot of time it was always like, what audio should I be
(05:12):
using? And I'm sure when you are working with your clients on a strategy
level, like that's not the conversation. The conversation is,
should you be using TikTok? How does Instagram fit in your business?
Is this the right platform? What is gonna work for you as a human?
I mean, those are the types of conversations that have to go
ahead of any tactic. Exactly. And it it
(05:34):
goes far beyond, like, oh, I should post 3 times a week
on Instagram. And so I'm already having these
conversations with my clients and with my members in my program.
And it it felt a little bit like I was always redefining myself with
people. It's like, I'm a social media strategist, but here's my asterisk.
Here's the, you know, footnote. And I'm like, I want the footnote to be the
(05:57):
main thing now. So Yes. That's where a lot of this came from
because it's the tactics are so easy to focus on. There is a
point in business where that is necessary, especially when you're learning something
new. But I've been doing this for 10 years, and it feels like it
is time to evolve. Yeah. Especially too when so
much of the conversation now is about, like, what is social media doing to our
(06:19):
brains? How does it impact us on a personal level? And I
know you've been very vocal with your kiddo, just being like,
I don't wanna live out my kid's life on social media, and that's a choice
we've made as a family. So, I mean, there's really kind of bigger
existential questions at stake. Exactly. And it goes beyond
my kid too. Like, a lot of my family makes that decision too. My dad,
(06:41):
my brother, both of them are people who are like, I don't want to be
on social media. And if there is a photo of me, like,
let me have a look at it first, because they they're very private people. And
I a 100% respect that and admire that.
And so but to me, it's like it's such a deeper question around
boundaries and privacy and
(07:04):
preference. There's this assumption, in
2024 that everyone is, like, it's open season to put everything on
the Internet. And that that's a conversation I wanna have. Like, okay. But where's the
line? You know, I say this a lot of times with people, like, filming other
people in public and posting. Oh my gosh. Right? Yeah. Usually, this
happens in, like, a shaming way, and I'm like, oh, this is so I don't
(07:25):
want this to be the society I live in. Let's talk about it. Let's talk
about why we shouldn't do this. So my gym actually
has signs up about filming everywhere. And, you know, obviously, there's one
in, you know, the main area because they're having so many problems with, let's just
say, the younger folks, you know, taking pictures, and I bless them. They're
taking pictures of their booties and, like, look at me. Alright. I got my
(07:47):
like, it's good for them. They're feeling good about themselves. But I actually
watched 2 women get in like an altercation in the
change room over there was a woman taking a picture of herself in the mirror,
which seems really harmless, but it's
in the mirror, so you could see the person behind. What?
Oh, my gosh. Yeah. So they've kinda getting into it, and I was like, if
(08:09):
it didn't escalate, I was just like, they just kinda started and they, like, resolved
it fairly quickly. But I was like, no. Actually, the policy is you
can't do that in the change room. Like, the person raising the issue is
right. But, also, I don't wanna have to be worried about that all the time.
I just wanna get changed and go where I'm going in peace.
Exactly. Exactly. And so, like, I think that your
(08:30):
gym putting up signs is a beautiful thing. I hope more places do
that because it it feels invasive.
And even for stuff that I voluntarily put out there, like, for example, my
my dog, Gibson, I talk about a lot. He's like a little bit of a
crutch for me because he's so cute and everyone loves him. But I have
people I don't know ask me about Gibson by
(08:52):
name, and that freaks me out. It freaks me
out. And so if it's just with my dog, I can't imagine
what it would be like with other things in my personal life that actually not
that you don't matter, Gibson, but that actually matter. Well, it goes
to the whole and we just talked about this on a recent duped episode, Michelle
and I, about the parasocial relationship. Like, people get this
(09:13):
lens into your world, this like, they can glimpse of things and they
start to feel like they really know you. Mhmm. Yes.
And I mean, going to what, you know, your father, your brother, like, I
don't share my partner. I don't share my like, on Facebook
occasionally, but that's different because I have control of who's seeing that.
But I mean, otherwise, I have so many people be like, I didn't even know
(09:35):
you were married. I didn't know you had a kid. I'm like, excellent. My job
here is done. It's working. Yeah. I feel
the same way too. I think if my husband weren't what I would
call, like, a local celebrity I don't know if celebrity celebrity. He's he's
a locally known person. Like, he's also very private. Even though we met
on the Internet, he's also very private. And so same thing with him.
(09:57):
A lot of times like, we don't post when we go on vacation. We don't
post Yeah. What we're doing on a day to day basis. Like, if I happen
to go somewhere, that picture may show up months from now if I
decide to even to ever post it. And so there are
very strong boundaries around that, and that's kind of I don't know. To
me, it's not what people assume when they look at me and they see social
(10:20):
media strategist. Not at all. So one of the things that
really caught my attention is you started doing you called it, what was it, thinking
out loud, and you were really doing this in public. Like, you were and I
wanna be a little nosy. Like, what inspired you to do it in public, and
what was the reaction to that? So part of the reason I
wanted to do this in public was because I actually saw quite a few
(10:42):
people pivoting. I think you also talked about this on the
duped podcast, where all of these celebrity entrepreneurs
Oh. Are trying to make their pivot seem like something,
like, they just dreamed up, and it's so easy to make this decision, and they're
just deciding to do it. And I didn't wanna be grouped in with
those people. I wanted to be like I wanted to be
(11:04):
very publicly, like, I don't know what I'm doing here, but I'm feeling pulled into
a different direction. And so I wanna talk about it a little bit.
I also wanted to be very open about the
changes that are happening in social media because a lot of
people are blaming the algorithm. They're blaming your
content. They're blaming, I don't know, Elon Musk. They're they're
(11:26):
blaming everyone. And I think this is
a challenge in social media that is actually echoes of a challenge with
digital marketing in general. Yeah. That as
a marketer, I feel very uncomfy
about it. And it goes back to that whole, like, is this
right? Are we doing the right thing here? Like, that big question. And so
(11:49):
all of this came at a time where my business was
slowing down. I'm not gonna say descaling. And, again, people romanticize
this right now. I decided to romantic in the least.
Yeah. I decided to, like, make my business cozier. You know, the
market changed how, like, how many clients I
have at the moment. I had to let go of some of my team.
(12:11):
I just had this amazing retreat, and I was feeling really
inspired at the time to talk about, like, the
challenges of thinking about marketing here now and today.
And so the first part of the series, I just
was I think I wrote, like, 5 emails all at once because I was like,
this is not gonna fit into 1. And then I was like, oh, this feels
(12:32):
really good. And I shared it with my email list, and then a
lot of people responded to those emails confirming what I
was already thinking. And so I kept going with the series. I think I ended
at 18 or 19. And then at that point, it felt too exposed because I
was like, oh, I feel like I'm getting closer to where I wanna go, and
I'm not yet ready to share this part yet. So I ended the series and
(12:53):
entered into, like, a more reflective moment. But it really came
from, like, I don't wanna be, like, the celebrity
entrepreneurs who are like, yeah. I just woke up and felt inspired. I wanted to
show, like this took months of feeling very
uncertain about everything, and I just wanna share with you how uncertain I
feel right now. And this is why it really caught my
(13:15):
attention because it normalizes the
fact that these evolutions and leaving things behind in our
business take time. And that's a big reason I wanted to have these conversations with
people because what I see a lot of, and you you've really picked up on
this, is that people are literally like, they show
up, they have totally changed their business or totally
(13:37):
changed direction. They're like, it took me 2 weeks and I'm like, woah, woah, woah.
That's not in line with reality. And It really does people a disservice of thinking
they should be able to evolve or pivot that quickly. Like, I think of my
own evolutions. They're very slow, and there's a lot of
I'm very uncomfortable for quite some time as I'm going through them.
Yeah. And for me, this is probably the biggest
(14:00):
evolution I've made in my business. So to be doing the same thing
for 10 years and then to change,
I felt like a fraud for half of it. I was like, I don't know
what I'm doing here, and I feel like I should. And then let's
talk about that. And, again, this came from the retreat too because I felt like
there's something that happens when you actually
(14:21):
admit out loud to a collective
feeling. And I really felt like there were more people feeling
this way and not enough people talking about it, and so I really wanted to
reflect that. Well, you touched on the fact that, you know,
you will use descaled because of the way the economy is and
just, like, the realities here in 2024 as we've been through I don't
(14:43):
know if we're in a recession or a market correction or, like, I'm not an
economist. I don't wanna play 1 on this podcast, but
you had to make some choices. And I feel like collectively, a
lot of people have made those choices. A lot of people had very
not great years in business last year, but people are
turning it into like, like you said, I want my business to be more cozy.
(15:05):
I want this, I want that. Not picking on anyone who's uses the term cozy.
There's a few people that use it that I I absolutely adore. But at the
end of the day, I don't know, people want, like, the applause of all the
good things, but they don't wanna talk about the messy things. And I'm not like
you have to put it all out there, but I feel like we have a
duty to if we're gonna build a community around our business,
(15:25):
to not do them a disservice by misleading them.
Yes. Exactly. And especially since I
do feel the responsibility of
also reflecting what this means for social media itself.
Yeah. I don't want to be the person who's, like,
anti hustle. Right? Like, I don't think that's my vibe, but I'm also
(15:47):
not hustle. It's like, okay. Let's find the middle ground or you
know what I mean? And I feel like it felt right. It felt like the
time. I wanted to be public about it because transparency is one of
my values, and it didn't feel like a boundary to be crossed until
it did. And then I stopped posting the series. Okay. So, I mean, you've gone
through the process here of kinda publicly sharing. You've kind of
(16:09):
pulled back. So you've had some time to think about it. So and, you know,
you don't have to tell us all the things. We're all about, you know, keeping
what you need to keep to yourself. But what does the future of your business
look like, and how does that play out for you over the next little
while? For the first time ever in my business, I have, like, the 10 year
goal, and I have no idea how am I gonna get there. I'm usually like
(16:30):
a, I know what I'm gonna do for the next 6 months or 1 year,
but after that, who knows? You know? Kind of a I was gonna say,
that is impressive. I have never had a 10 year goal. I don't know
if it's just how my I literally can't conceptualize it. I could write it down,
but I'd be like, yeah, I I can't even get like, I can't even think
about my brain's melting thinking about you having a 10 year goal. You
know? And maybe it's 5 years, maybe it's 7. I don't know. But it's like
(16:54):
there is this future goal where I'm not
the person with all the tactical knowledge, and maybe I make
an exit out of my agency and I'm not offering services anymore.
Or for me, it's more about the conversation in the community.
That's where I'm headed, but I have no freaking clue how to get
there. So that's part of where I'm like, I don't know. We're just gonna try
(17:16):
a bunch of stuff. And, also, I'm having a baby, so this
timeline is delayed because of that as well because I am very
consciously choosing to spend time with my kids at this moment in my
life. So that's kind of like the future vision is more maybe
facilitated conversations. I would love to be, like, a
panel host. Like, let's bring people together and talk about this.
(17:38):
The podcast plays a huge piece into this. I have always said
I wanted to be more like the Oprah of marketing, where it's
like, I don't wanna have all of the ideas, but I'd love to be able
to shine a light on the people who do. And so that's the
future goal. Well, I think what's interesting is, you know, you were talking about this,
and I think someone we both know, Avery Schwartz, has done a really good job
(18:00):
of being like a go to facilitator, being an expert,
amazing community builder. I really see that
as very aligned for you. Yes.
Avery's a great example of that. I think that's exactly the
direction I'd wanna go. It's, like, let's bring the smart people together. And I
have my own lane in social media, and I still think social media will play
(18:22):
a huge part in this. And it's definitely
one piece of the marketing puzzle. But for now, for today, I
mean, the biggest change I'm making is I'm changing the name of my podcast.
Oh, that's exciting. Yes. So the podcast is
called the Savvy Social Podcast. And, again, people have an
assumption about what it's about. Yes. And I do talk about tactics.
(18:45):
I've already been over the past 2 to 3 years moving more towards
the conceptual topics, more towards, like, why are we
even doing this in the first place kind of thing. And so the podcast
will be renamed to the Mindful Marketing Podcast, if it hasn't
been already by the time this episode comes out. We have a little bit of
insider knowledge. Yes. So mindful
(19:08):
marketing, I've owned the domains, and I have several
ideas about what to do with this concept. I've owned the domains for 4
years. Oh, wow. Okay. So this is this is evolution's been
like you're moving real. Like, you were like, I have an idea,
but how does this become a thing? And I think that we so glorify
the I had an idea on Friday, bought the domain on Saturday, launched it on
(19:30):
Monday when that's not the reality. No. It's not the reality. I own
mindful marketing mastermind, mindful marketing marketing
hub, school, academy. Like, I I just own this mindful marketing
name. I own a lot of domains, basically, and I have a
search in my, Google Keep notes as I was exploring this, and I was like,
I've been making little notes about this since 2019.
(19:53):
I love it. And and just, like, so everybody knows, I bought the domain b
s free business a bazillion years ago, but it took
me so long to realize, like, oh, that's actually your brand,
Maggie. Mhmm. Yep. And, you know, I
hesitated so much in switching it because it felt too
soft. It felt too it didn't feel
(20:14):
like what people actually wanted. And if I look at my
stats, my data, that proves it to be true. Like, my
most watched YouTube videos, my most watched Instagram reels, they're they're
usually always very tactically driven. And so I've stayed
in that lane for so long because I look at the data, and I'm like,
well, that's what people wanna hear. But I'm tired of talking about it. And
(20:36):
so part of this is, like, I may lose my
bragging rights of saying I'm in the top 100 podcasts. I may not get
win awards for the podcast anymore or anything like that. And I'm at the point
now where I'm beyond caring because I wanna have the conversations I wanna
have, and it fits in line with my now clearer
future vision of where I wanna go in my business, which isn't tactically
(20:57):
focused. I love it. Okay. So you mentioned
the agency and, you know, maybe a potential exit, but in the time I've
known you, like, I watched you go from solo business owner to agency
owner. And this is something a lot of people that are listening, they do struggle
with, like, should I have an agency? Should I stay solo? Can you talk a
little bit about what that journey was like for you of really going from,
(21:20):
I am a solo social media person to
having that team and stepping into leadership? You know,
I called myself a freelancer who just happens to have a team for so
long. I did not use the word agency because I personally still don't
like the name, the word. I don't know if it really describes what we
do. Again, I there's, like, that dissonance there.
(21:41):
But I hired my first team member because I tried to go on
vacation, and I was so freaking stressed out because social media doesn't
stop. And I wasn't sure if our, like, scheduled posts were gonna go out. Or
what if someone, like, left a comment and there was no response for a week?
So I really started out of, like, necessity. Like, I wanna go on a
vacation and have someone cover my back. Like, this
(22:04):
is where this all started. And then this was
2015 when I hired my first person, so just a year into
business. And then I started building out a team, still calling myself a
freelancer who just happens to have a team, although Resisting in the
title. Existing all the way to 2019. And then I started owning the
word agency. And that journey
(22:26):
was really challenging for me, the hiring the team part, because it's
really hard to find good people to do virtual work.
I really struggled with that. My leadership skills desperately
needed help. I was not a great leader in those early days.
And so the journey has been bumpy. I'm very
glad now though that I went through it because I can be more
(22:48):
hands off. There's not an expectation of me to be more present,
especially now that I have kids. My team handles all of our
client calls, all of our client communication. I get to focus on high
level strategy, and they do all of the implementation. And so
for this stage of my life, I am very happy that I have a
agency because if I had a freelancer model, it'd be very challenging
(23:12):
to take 3 months off to, like, have a baby.
And so that yeah. But that journey was like, o m g, so hard, so
hard. So I understand why people stay, you know, freelancer and and don't shift
into agency mode. Well, I think something you said about the social
media, like, every time I have had a client who
social media is a big part social media management ongoing, it
(23:34):
never ends. How do I leave? Mhmm. I mean, if I was doing social
media at all, I would 100% need, like, a team of people. Otherwise, I would
lose my mind. Yeah. And it's so repetitive too. I
mean, even just think about your own marketing for anyone listening.
It's like you post every day forever.
It's like doing laundry. You just there's always more laundry to do. Now do
(23:56):
someone else's laundry? It's like, ew. No. Having
having the team helps break that apart a little bit so that you
can at least maybe do the part that you enjoy a little bit more, and
there's less pressure on everyone to show up every day all the
time. True confession about my social media. I'm more organized
about my laundry. I have an entire, like, schedule and system. Social
(24:19):
media, I'm out here, like, just winging it. Yeah. And see
wait. So, Maggie, these are the conversations I wanna have. I feel like that
confession that you made is literally what half of the people do. And nobody
wants to talk about it because all the social media strategies say you gotta have
a schedule. You gotta do this, that, do that. And I'm like, but what if,
like, just winging it is the plan? Like, what if that winging it works for
(24:40):
you? I think that's great. I love it. Winging it does
like, if I had a client on the agency side who was trying to do
their content, like winging it, I would be losing my mind. I would be
like, what's wrong with you? We can't do this. But for me,
so much of what I'm doing is commentary. So it needs to be timely. So
if I did one of these, oh, my biggest pet peeve, write a year of
(25:02):
social media post with AI in an hour things, it
would be flaming hot garbage and
totally irrelevant. It would not be doing what I need my
social media to do. It would not support my business. It would just be
noise. Yes. A 100%. And I think
this is where this nuance of conversation is that I wanna have
(25:24):
is that there are certain types of business owners that were, like,
the reactionary, the commentary content. That
is the content. And it to me, it's actually easier to make. It's easier to
make because you don't have to plan it. You just have to be observant and
then say what you're gonna say anyways. And in case anyone's wondering, in
human design, I am indeed a generator. I need to react to
(25:47):
things. And I mean, it doesn't mean I react in the moment, but I
observe, I look at patterns, and then I'm like, okay,
interesting. There's this pattern of people talking about descaling
their business. What does that mean? Let me analyze it. I'm going to research it.
Like, it's thought out, but, I mean, I do need time. I can't do it
a year ahead. I just can't. I can't even do it 6 months ahead. I
(26:07):
have a loose plan of what I'm gonna talk about, but it always changes. Yeah.
And, see, I'm the opposite. Like, I can do some reactionary content, but I
find it very exhausting. And so I have to wait for the moments
where I feel energized, and then I batch create a bunch of content, and then
I don't create content again for, like, another month. And so
that's what works for me. And so, you know, finding what
(26:29):
works for you, I think, is a beautiful thing. Exactly. Like, I don't know. I'm
supposed to post on social media today. Like, I have a couple
posts. I don't know which one I'll post. We'll see in a few hours what
comes out. So you did
mention, you know, kind of it's come up throughout the the interview. You said, you
know, how you're thinking about social media is really evolving. So
(26:50):
can you share a little more of kind of what you're thinking about? Because I
know we're all kind of feeling this. We love social media, but we hate
it too. Like, I feel like our relationship is a situationship at this
point. Yeah. The situationship thing is solely true. I think I
was talking about situationships and workshops, like, 5 years ago
too. Like, I've been Yeah. It's just a feeling we have. It goes back
(27:11):
to, like, the history of social media.
Bear with me for a sec. But, like, 10, 15 years ago, we
were not on our phones this much. No. We were
not consuming this much content. Even if we wanted to watch
Netflix, we'd have to order the DVDs and they were mailed to us. Unless
you're in Canada. I think my Canadian friends, we missed out on that. But not
(27:32):
when I lived in the US. Like, it was not a thing. Right? We weren't
spending this much time digitally consuming content. And so
fast forward to today, we consume so much content
online from streaming services all the way to,
like, watching TikTok series to
like an edit. Yeah. And to, like, scrolling through
(27:54):
threads or Facebook or whatever. Like, we just spend a lot of time on our
devices. So then combine that with the
amount of content we're consuming and how
particular we can be about it, it's reflecting back on
us as content creators in a sense. As business owners, we're
creating content. We feel like our content doesn't
(28:15):
match what's happening, and so we we try so hard
to, like, be something that we're not. And then combine that with
because there's so much content, it's so competitive.
If I had a decision right now to pick up my phone and watch a
piece of content, I don't know if I would necessarily go
for the 10 second Instagram reel that says read my caption
(28:38):
for 3 tips on how to blah blah blah blah. Like, that's not
that's not how I'd wanna spend my time. Give me the
drama or give me the, like, highly produced or give me the,
like, person who's making a funny about the state of pop
culture. I, like, I want something a little bit different. And so all
of that combined has made business owners on social media
(29:01):
like, running a business on social media very challenging when it comes to
creating content. So my thoughts around creating content on social
media have changed, and this has been a very slight boiling the
frog situation. Like, it's very been very slow.
And I recognize it's not about the content. And so I'm producing less
content myself. We produce less content for our clients. To me, it's more
(29:23):
about conversation. It's about, like, DMs. It's
about social media being maybe a catalyst. Like, maybe you found someone on
LinkedIn, but then you went to their website, and then you had a Zoom call
with them. And now you're meeting them for coffee. Like, it almost has nothing to
do with LinkedIn itself. LinkedIn was just, like, maybe where you happen to see
that person. And so my thoughts on, like, how powerful
(29:45):
social media can be or how much of a difference it can make have changed
because it the content itself is rarely the thing that's gonna
make the huge big deal difference. Instead, it's like the 1 on
1 conversations that have made the biggest difference for myself and for
a lot of my clients. Yeah. And that I mean, I would a 100%
echo that, especially because of some of the content I share.
(30:07):
Like, I have people who literally will not like it because they don't want people
to know they're consuming it. Like, I've had these, but they will DM me.
Absolutely. Like, the and you and I have talked about dark social before, like, dark
social is where the activity is for me. Yep.
Yeah. And even to me, dark social too is becoming so much
broader. Like, around the time we're recording this, a platform like
(30:30):
Substack now has DMs. Is that social media?
So you and I are in a few, like, private communities
together. Is that social media? Like, it it feels very
social. There's there's a feed. There's DMs. There's groups of people
having conversations. We're creating content. We're collaborating. And so,
like, my definition of social media itself is changing,
(30:53):
and I don't wanna be, like, put in a box of, oh, you talk
about Instagram and TikTok. It's like I mean, that's one
thing that could maybe be helpful, but let's, like, zoom out a little bit and
think about the bigger picture. I love that because for me, I always and I
think this comes from, like, I'm, like, a blogger from way back in the
day. Right? I was at some of the very first conferences
(31:15):
where they were talking about social media when Gary Vee was doing, you
know, wine TV. Yes. And he's on stage, and I,
like, set up my Twitter account. It's, like, 2,007. Right?
So, I mean, I've been at this stuff a long time. So I think for
me, I always has been social media is like an extension
of the content I'm creating on my platform, and I feel like right now we
(31:37):
see a lot of people really struggling with they've been creating for TikTok
or Instagram, and they have not they're not creating that
longer form content. So now they're, like, trying to reverse. I feel like it's a
much harder evolution to go back, you know, from short to long.
I've been I've always done longer form stuff, always. To me. Like,
social media is that amplification. It's not the platform. It's
(31:59):
not the the core of my work and never would be. A 100%. And
I feel like this is where some of my fraud y feelings come from because
my email list has, like is way larger than any social platform. Then we
have, like, 18, 19,000 subscribers.
Podcast, I think on a good month, 15,000
downloads. On a normal month, 8 to 10000. So it's like,
(32:21):
that's more than most of my social media platforms. Like, I am a long
form content. Yeah. And so it's like, part of me is like, I know
social media is my thing. I love social media, and it's
still not in the top 2 of my strongest marketing platforms.
That's email and my podcast. And so You know what's just to interject here, what's
been shocking to me is I actually sent an like, a one question email to
my list as part of my semi positive. Like, so many people find me
(32:44):
from Instagram now.
Yep. That was shocking information. Sorry. Continue. Yeah.
No. It's the same. People do find me on social, and it plays a huge
role in growing my email list and growing my podcast. And
they may also find me from someone else's social. They may find me from a
(33:06):
collaboration. They may find me from this podcast. Like, it just
like, the bigger picture is so important there.
And, like, yeah, social media plays a huge role in that, but it's not the
only role that's available. And and I don't want people to think that that's what
I believe. Yeah. And I think that this is really in the
spirit of, like, evolutions and exits. And I think for everyone
(33:28):
listening, really thinking about for you, is there something you need
to be changing up how you're doing it? And it's okay to evolve and it's
okay to do it slowly, being mindful of your capacity as a service business
owner because you've got client work and other things on the go. And please, we
want you to go have a life. Mindful marketing is what Andrea is all
about. So, like, we want you to be mindful of those things and really thinking
(33:49):
about, like, there is no one size fits all in any of this. And I
think this is why the conversations like this are so so important because at the
end of the day, everyone's kinda got their own path to go on here.
Mhmm. Yeah. And I think, like, if I could
share one good thing that happened in this
very slow pivot, which I'm usually a very fast action
(34:11):
taker. So to be able to to have an idea and, like, wanna
change it, I would have renamed the podcast months ago once I
decided to do it. But I was like, you know what? We're gonna sit with
this for a little while and think out loud. And that thinking out loud series,
I had a client who booked a discovery call, became a client. And then on
their first call with the team, they said, you know what? Your
(34:31):
transparency in that series and they quoted something I said about
being mindful. They were like, that's the reason we decided to work with you. And
I was like, oh, so they came in through a referral. They looked at
my social. They signed up for my email newsletter, and then we're quoting something back
to me. To me, that, like, that's just an example. Like,
this is working. Even though I'm changing things and it's super scary, it's super uncomfy,
(34:54):
I can see that it's working. That is the best example because the
reality is for us as humans,
we want that behind the scenes. We want that transparency. And not
in this celebrity entrepreneur, you know, very, like, curated vulnerability.
Like, we want the real deal, and I think that that was something you were
able to do is, like, hey, I don't have the answers. Like, it's scary to
(35:16):
admit you don't have the answers, but incredibly powerful
because people trust you more when you're being truthful.
Mhmm. Yep. In the world of all these Internet
marketers who promise the moon, I'm like, how what else can I say to
to make sure that I'm not lumped in with those people?
True story. I feel like that is literally my gig on the other hand.
(35:38):
Right? That's it. Exactly. It's like, how can we make sure
it's for sure for sure? There's no confusion here. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I am not
one of them, please. No. Absolutely not.
Alright, Andrea. Where can people learn more about your school? I
think that that would be great for some of the listeners, your agency services. Fill
(35:58):
us in. Yes. So my website, onlinedrea.com. That's
d r e a. So onlinedrea.com has everything. And then
check out the podcast, Mindful Marketing Podcast. It's coming
soon. Formerly Savvy Social Podcast. If you put that in,
we SEO ed it. You'll still find us. Those are the 2 places where I
hang out the most. And, yeah, feel free to send me a DM anywhere because
(36:21):
I love conversation. Awesome. Thank you so much, Drea. Thanks,
Maggie. There are so many things that I was furiously
writing notes when I had that conversation with Andrea. But there's
2 things for me that I really just wanna drive
home to wrap it up. I love what she said about setting
boundaries and privacy in the digital age. That's since something that's really, really
(36:42):
important to me. And as people always talk about being authentic or vulnerable
online, they feel like they have to perform in a way that is
not in service of their boundaries or their privacy. And I don't want
anyone ever to feel like they have to do those things to be relevant.
The other thing in conjunction with that is she talked about
how we can be transparent and authentic to build
(37:06):
trust with our audience without having to do those things.
We, I think, underestimate how
people can really sniff out the BS. So you
showing up on social media, you showing up from a business perspective
really relies on you keeping it real. And just, you know,
really embracing the BS free way of doing things.
(37:28):
And finally, I did appreciate her candor about
going from a solo business owner to an agency because
of the nature of social media. And I thought that that was a really interesting
part of the discussion. So with that, if you wanna learn more about Andrea and
everything she does, you can find all the links to all her
social media platforms and her school, her website, everything else,
(37:51):
her podcast atbsfreebusiness.com/blog.
I would love to hear from you. What did this spark from you? Hit me
up on Instagram with threads atbsfreebusiness. I love to hear those
takeaways. And as always, please share this
podcast with friends, rate or review us, give us some
love if you've been enjoying listening, because that will help us get in front of
(38:13):
more people. And my theme for 2024 is
amplify. So if you can help me amplify this podcast, I
will very much appreciate.
Welcome to episode number 336 of the mindful
marketing podcast. In a continuation of my series this
month for sharing episodes that I was a guest on, I'm excited to
share an episode of the BS free business podcast with
Maggie Patterson. I always love Maggie's no fluff approach
to building service based businesses. It's just so refreshing. And so I was
(00:22):
honored to be back on her podcast. And in this episode, we tackled a
topic that's near and dear to my heart, the evolution of social
media and how to use it more mindfully. In this episode, we dig
into some really big questions like, how do you set boundaries and maintain
privacy in this digital world? Or why does social media sometimes
feel like a never ending situationship? And, how can you show up
(00:44):
authentically online without falling into the performative vulnerability
trap. I also talk about my journey from solo
social media freelancer to leading an agency as well as my
thoughts on moving away from hustle culture to a more intentional
and balanced approach, not just to social media, but to business. So if
you ever feel like social media is running your whole freaking life or
(01:07):
if you've ever wondered about how do we make it work for you instead of
against you, this episode is for you. Listen to
my conversation with Maggie on the BS free podcast and let me know
what resonates with you the most.
(01:29):
Social media is evolving quickly, and many of us have a love hate relationship with
it. But what if you didn't spend your energy worrying about the
algorithm and instead found a way that works for you? One that helps you
connect it all together in a way that feels good. In this episode, Andrea
Jones, a mindful marketing strategist, discusses her evolving approach to social
media and her desire to have deeper conversations about its impact.
(01:51):
Hey, Andrea, welcome to the show. Hey, Maggie. Thanks for having me on the
show. I'm excited to have you back. We've had you talk about a lot of
different things. Last time you were on, you were talking about LinkedIn,
but I wanna chat about how your business is evolving
and how you're looking at social media now. So for those
of the listeners that don't know you, can you introduce yourself and your business?
(02:15):
Yes. So I now consider myself a mindful marketing
strategist with a focus on social media. And my business,
I have an agency where we deliver social media services. And then I
also teach social media in our kind of like education arm of the
business. I love it. Okay. So the reason I invited you
to be on the show is because I love you and you always have something
(02:36):
insightful to say. But back in the fall, you started sharing about how you
want to evolve your business and you really weren't
sure what was next. So can you share a little bit of what was
going on that prompted that kind of like, oh, interesting. I
wanna look at what I'm doing and think about this a little differently. Yes. Well,
I've been feeling a little bit of dissonance with social media for
(02:58):
a while because there's this perception when I say
I'm a social media strategist. Yep. That people would have.
They would expect me to be, I don't know, maybe, like, someone like
Gary v who posts a 1000000 times a day and moves on the Internet.
And that's not my vibe at all.
And I was feeling bad because some of my favorite people would feel
(03:20):
apologetic about things like, yeah. I decided to close my
Instagram or, you know, I haven't posted in 6 months,
and I'm like, good for you. I love that for you. You know?
And so I I was feeling a little bit of dissonance with, like, perception
on what I do versus what I actually do because that has been
changing for quite a long time. I mentioned Gary v earlier, but he
(03:43):
was one of my early, like, people I look to for marketing because I did
find his concepts interesting and the strategies interesting.
But I realized very quickly, it's not for me. I am introverted. I
need my books and my crochet and, like, leave me alone, please, moments.
And while I do love peopling, I do it in a way that works
for me, and the Internet actually makes that easier for me.
(04:06):
So this whole transition kinda culminated in
a live event I hosted that you were at in November of 2023
where we were having conversations that were the conversations I
so desperately wanted to have more regularly. It
was beyond, like, how many times should we post on
TikTok? And it was more like, how is TikTok
(04:28):
affecting the way we do business? What if we
decide not to be on TikTok? Or, you know, let's zoom out and,
like, really figure out how social media fits into our marketing ecosystems.
How do we balance this? And, like, people had aging parents or
young children or a full time job. And and so those are
the conversations I want to have. And so a lot of
(04:50):
this switch for me is leaning into,
like, my desire to to have those conversations instead of
being so surface level or tactical focused.
Okay. And I think here's the thing that we get so trapped in,
I love the word tactical, with social media. When the conversations are
happening, a lot of time it was always like, what audio should I be
(05:12):
using? And I'm sure when you are working with your clients on a strategy
level, like that's not the conversation. The conversation is,
should you be using TikTok? How does Instagram fit in your business?
Is this the right platform? What is gonna work for you as a human?
I mean, those are the types of conversations that have to go
ahead of any tactic. Exactly. And it it
(05:34):
goes far beyond, like, oh, I should post 3 times a week
on Instagram. And so I'm already having these
conversations with my clients and with my members in my program.
And it it felt a little bit like I was always redefining myself with
people. It's like, I'm a social media strategist, but here's my asterisk.
Here's the, you know, footnote. And I'm like, I want the footnote to be the
(05:57):
main thing now. So Yes. That's where a lot of this came from
because it's the tactics are so easy to focus on. There is a
point in business where that is necessary, especially when you're learning something
new. But I've been doing this for 10 years, and it feels like it
is time to evolve. Yeah. Especially too when so
much of the conversation now is about, like, what is social media doing to our
(06:19):
brains? How does it impact us on a personal level? And I
know you've been very vocal with your kiddo, just being like,
I don't wanna live out my kid's life on social media, and that's a choice
we've made as a family. So, I mean, there's really kind of bigger
existential questions at stake. Exactly. And it goes beyond
my kid too. Like, a lot of my family makes that decision too. My dad,
(06:41):
my brother, both of them are people who are like, I don't want to be
on social media. And if there is a photo of me, like,
let me have a look at it first, because they they're very private people. And
I a 100% respect that and admire that.
And so but to me, it's like it's such a deeper question around
boundaries and privacy and
(07:04):
preference. There's this assumption, in
2024 that everyone is, like, it's open season to put everything on
the Internet. And that that's a conversation I wanna have. Like, okay. But where's the
line? You know, I say this a lot of times with people, like, filming other
people in public and posting. Oh my gosh. Right? Yeah. Usually, this
happens in, like, a shaming way, and I'm like, oh, this is so I don't
(07:25):
want this to be the society I live in. Let's talk about it. Let's talk
about why we shouldn't do this. So my gym actually
has signs up about filming everywhere. And, you know, obviously, there's one
in, you know, the main area because they're having so many problems with, let's just
say, the younger folks, you know, taking pictures, and I bless them. They're
taking pictures of their booties and, like, look at me. Alright. I got my
(07:47):
like, it's good for them. They're feeling good about themselves. But I actually
watched 2 women get in like an altercation in the
change room over there was a woman taking a picture of herself in the mirror,
which seems really harmless, but it's
in the mirror, so you could see the person behind. What?
Oh, my gosh. Yeah. So they've kinda getting into it, and I was like, if
(08:09):
it didn't escalate, I was just like, they just kinda started and they, like, resolved
it fairly quickly. But I was like, no. Actually, the policy is you
can't do that in the change room. Like, the person raising the issue is
right. But, also, I don't wanna have to be worried about that all the time.
I just wanna get changed and go where I'm going in peace.
Exactly. Exactly. And so, like, I think that your
(08:30):
gym putting up signs is a beautiful thing. I hope more places do
that because it it feels invasive.
And even for stuff that I voluntarily put out there, like, for example, my
my dog, Gibson, I talk about a lot. He's like a little bit of a
crutch for me because he's so cute and everyone loves him. But I have
people I don't know ask me about Gibson by
(08:52):
name, and that freaks me out. It freaks me
out. And so if it's just with my dog, I can't imagine
what it would be like with other things in my personal life that actually not
that you don't matter, Gibson, but that actually matter. Well, it goes
to the whole and we just talked about this on a recent duped episode, Michelle
and I, about the parasocial relationship. Like, people get this
(09:13):
lens into your world, this like, they can glimpse of things and they
start to feel like they really know you. Mhmm. Yes.
And I mean, going to what, you know, your father, your brother, like, I
don't share my partner. I don't share my like, on Facebook
occasionally, but that's different because I have control of who's seeing that.
But I mean, otherwise, I have so many people be like, I didn't even know
(09:35):
you were married. I didn't know you had a kid. I'm like, excellent. My job
here is done. It's working. Yeah. I feel
the same way too. I think if my husband weren't what I would
call, like, a local celebrity I don't know if celebrity celebrity. He's he's
a locally known person. Like, he's also very private. Even though we met
on the Internet, he's also very private. And so same thing with him.
(09:57):
A lot of times like, we don't post when we go on vacation. We don't
post Yeah. What we're doing on a day to day basis. Like, if I happen
to go somewhere, that picture may show up months from now if I
decide to even to ever post it. And so there are
very strong boundaries around that, and that's kind of I don't know. To
me, it's not what people assume when they look at me and they see social
(10:20):
media strategist. Not at all. So one of the things that
really caught my attention is you started doing you called it, what was it, thinking
out loud, and you were really doing this in public. Like, you were and I
wanna be a little nosy. Like, what inspired you to do it in public, and
what was the reaction to that? So part of the reason I
wanted to do this in public was because I actually saw quite a few
(10:42):
people pivoting. I think you also talked about this on the
duped podcast, where all of these celebrity entrepreneurs
Oh. Are trying to make their pivot seem like something,
like, they just dreamed up, and it's so easy to make this decision, and they're
just deciding to do it. And I didn't wanna be grouped in with
those people. I wanted to be like I wanted to be
(11:04):
very publicly, like, I don't know what I'm doing here, but I'm feeling pulled into
a different direction. And so I wanna talk about it a little bit.
I also wanted to be very open about the
changes that are happening in social media because a lot of
people are blaming the algorithm. They're blaming your
content. They're blaming, I don't know, Elon Musk. They're they're
(11:26):
blaming everyone. And I think this is
a challenge in social media that is actually echoes of a challenge with
digital marketing in general. Yeah. That as
a marketer, I feel very uncomfy
about it. And it goes back to that whole, like, is this
right? Are we doing the right thing here? Like, that big question. And so
(11:49):
all of this came at a time where my business was
slowing down. I'm not gonna say descaling. And, again, people romanticize
this right now. I decided to romantic in the least.
Yeah. I decided to, like, make my business cozier. You know, the
market changed how, like, how many clients I
have at the moment. I had to let go of some of my team.
(12:11):
I just had this amazing retreat, and I was feeling really
inspired at the time to talk about, like, the
challenges of thinking about marketing here now and today.
And so the first part of the series, I just
was I think I wrote, like, 5 emails all at once because I was like,
this is not gonna fit into 1. And then I was like, oh, this feels
(12:32):
really good. And I shared it with my email list, and then a
lot of people responded to those emails confirming what I
was already thinking. And so I kept going with the series. I think I ended
at 18 or 19. And then at that point, it felt too exposed because I
was like, oh, I feel like I'm getting closer to where I wanna go, and
I'm not yet ready to share this part yet. So I ended the series and
(12:53):
entered into, like, a more reflective moment. But it really came
from, like, I don't wanna be, like, the celebrity
entrepreneurs who are like, yeah. I just woke up and felt inspired. I wanted to
show, like this took months of feeling very
uncertain about everything, and I just wanna share with you how uncertain I
feel right now. And this is why it really caught my
(13:15):
attention because it normalizes the
fact that these evolutions and leaving things behind in our
business take time. And that's a big reason I wanted to have these conversations with
people because what I see a lot of, and you you've really picked up on
this, is that people are literally like, they show
up, they have totally changed their business or totally
(13:37):
changed direction. They're like, it took me 2 weeks and I'm like, woah, woah, woah.
That's not in line with reality. And It really does people a disservice of thinking
they should be able to evolve or pivot that quickly. Like, I think of my
own evolutions. They're very slow, and there's a lot of
I'm very uncomfortable for quite some time as I'm going through them.
Yeah. And for me, this is probably the biggest
(14:00):
evolution I've made in my business. So to be doing the same thing
for 10 years and then to change,
I felt like a fraud for half of it. I was like, I don't know
what I'm doing here, and I feel like I should. And then let's
talk about that. And, again, this came from the retreat too because I felt like
there's something that happens when you actually
(14:21):
admit out loud to a collective
feeling. And I really felt like there were more people feeling
this way and not enough people talking about it, and so I really wanted to
reflect that. Well, you touched on the fact that, you know,
you will use descaled because of the way the economy is and
just, like, the realities here in 2024 as we've been through I don't
(14:43):
know if we're in a recession or a market correction or, like, I'm not an
economist. I don't wanna play 1 on this podcast, but
you had to make some choices. And I feel like collectively, a
lot of people have made those choices. A lot of people had very
not great years in business last year, but people are
turning it into like, like you said, I want my business to be more cozy.
(15:05):
I want this, I want that. Not picking on anyone who's uses the term cozy.
There's a few people that use it that I I absolutely adore. But at the
end of the day, I don't know, people want, like, the applause of all the
good things, but they don't wanna talk about the messy things. And I'm not like
you have to put it all out there, but I feel like we have a
duty to if we're gonna build a community around our business,
(15:25):
to not do them a disservice by misleading them.
Yes. Exactly. And especially since I
do feel the responsibility of
also reflecting what this means for social media itself.
Yeah. I don't want to be the person who's, like,
anti hustle. Right? Like, I don't think that's my vibe, but I'm also
(15:47):
not hustle. It's like, okay. Let's find the middle ground or you
know what I mean? And I feel like it felt right. It felt like the
time. I wanted to be public about it because transparency is one of
my values, and it didn't feel like a boundary to be crossed until
it did. And then I stopped posting the series. Okay. So, I mean, you've gone
through the process here of kinda publicly sharing. You've kind of
(16:09):
pulled back. So you've had some time to think about it. So and, you know,
you don't have to tell us all the things. We're all about, you know, keeping
what you need to keep to yourself. But what does the future of your business
look like, and how does that play out for you over the next little
while? For the first time ever in my business, I have, like, the 10 year
goal, and I have no idea how am I gonna get there. I'm usually like
(16:30):
a, I know what I'm gonna do for the next 6 months or 1 year,
but after that, who knows? You know? Kind of a I was gonna say,
that is impressive. I have never had a 10 year goal. I don't know
if it's just how my I literally can't conceptualize it. I could write it down,
but I'd be like, yeah, I I can't even get like, I can't even think
about my brain's melting thinking about you having a 10 year goal. You
know? And maybe it's 5 years, maybe it's 7. I don't know. But it's like
(16:54):
there is this future goal where I'm not
the person with all the tactical knowledge, and maybe I make
an exit out of my agency and I'm not offering services anymore.
Or for me, it's more about the conversation in the community.
That's where I'm headed, but I have no freaking clue how to get
there. So that's part of where I'm like, I don't know. We're just gonna try
(17:16):
a bunch of stuff. And, also, I'm having a baby, so this
timeline is delayed because of that as well because I am very
consciously choosing to spend time with my kids at this moment in my
life. So that's kind of like the future vision is more maybe
facilitated conversations. I would love to be, like, a
panel host. Like, let's bring people together and talk about this.
(17:38):
The podcast plays a huge piece into this. I have always said
I wanted to be more like the Oprah of marketing, where it's
like, I don't wanna have all of the ideas, but I'd love to be able
to shine a light on the people who do. And so that's the
future goal. Well, I think what's interesting is, you know, you were talking about this,
and I think someone we both know, Avery Schwartz, has done a really good job
(18:00):
of being like a go to facilitator, being an expert,
amazing community builder. I really see that
as very aligned for you. Yes.
Avery's a great example of that. I think that's exactly the
direction I'd wanna go. It's, like, let's bring the smart people together. And I
have my own lane in social media, and I still think social media will play
(18:22):
a huge part in this. And it's definitely
one piece of the marketing puzzle. But for now, for today, I
mean, the biggest change I'm making is I'm changing the name of my podcast.
Oh, that's exciting. Yes. So the podcast is
called the Savvy Social Podcast. And, again, people have an
assumption about what it's about. Yes. And I do talk about tactics.
(18:45):
I've already been over the past 2 to 3 years moving more towards
the conceptual topics, more towards, like, why are we
even doing this in the first place kind of thing. And so the podcast
will be renamed to the Mindful Marketing Podcast, if it hasn't
been already by the time this episode comes out. We have a little bit of
insider knowledge. Yes. So mindful
(19:08):
marketing, I've owned the domains, and I have several
ideas about what to do with this concept. I've owned the domains for 4
years. Oh, wow. Okay. So this is this is evolution's been
like you're moving real. Like, you were like, I have an idea,
but how does this become a thing? And I think that we so glorify
the I had an idea on Friday, bought the domain on Saturday, launched it on
(19:30):
Monday when that's not the reality. No. It's not the reality. I own
mindful marketing mastermind, mindful marketing marketing
hub, school, academy. Like, I I just own this mindful marketing
name. I own a lot of domains, basically, and I have a
search in my, Google Keep notes as I was exploring this, and I was like,
I've been making little notes about this since 2019.
(19:53):
I love it. And and just, like, so everybody knows, I bought the domain b
s free business a bazillion years ago, but it took
me so long to realize, like, oh, that's actually your brand,
Maggie. Mhmm. Yep. And, you know, I
hesitated so much in switching it because it felt too
soft. It felt too it didn't feel
(20:14):
like what people actually wanted. And if I look at my
stats, my data, that proves it to be true. Like, my
most watched YouTube videos, my most watched Instagram reels, they're they're
usually always very tactically driven. And so I've stayed
in that lane for so long because I look at the data, and I'm like,
well, that's what people wanna hear. But I'm tired of talking about it. And
(20:36):
so part of this is, like, I may lose my
bragging rights of saying I'm in the top 100 podcasts. I may not get
win awards for the podcast anymore or anything like that. And I'm at the point
now where I'm beyond caring because I wanna have the conversations I wanna
have, and it fits in line with my now clearer
future vision of where I wanna go in my business, which isn't tactically
(20:57):
focused. I love it. Okay. So you mentioned
the agency and, you know, maybe a potential exit, but in the time I've
known you, like, I watched you go from solo business owner to agency
owner. And this is something a lot of people that are listening, they do struggle
with, like, should I have an agency? Should I stay solo? Can you talk a
little bit about what that journey was like for you of really going from,
(21:20):
I am a solo social media person to
having that team and stepping into leadership? You know,
I called myself a freelancer who just happens to have a team for so
long. I did not use the word agency because I personally still don't
like the name, the word. I don't know if it really describes what we
do. Again, I there's, like, that dissonance there.
(21:41):
But I hired my first team member because I tried to go on
vacation, and I was so freaking stressed out because social media doesn't
stop. And I wasn't sure if our, like, scheduled posts were gonna go out. Or
what if someone, like, left a comment and there was no response for a week?
So I really started out of, like, necessity. Like, I wanna go on a
vacation and have someone cover my back. Like, this
(22:04):
is where this all started. And then this was
2015 when I hired my first person, so just a year into
business. And then I started building out a team, still calling myself a
freelancer who just happens to have a team, although Resisting in the
title. Existing all the way to 2019. And then I started owning the
word agency. And that journey
(22:26):
was really challenging for me, the hiring the team part, because it's
really hard to find good people to do virtual work.
I really struggled with that. My leadership skills desperately
needed help. I was not a great leader in those early days.
And so the journey has been bumpy. I'm very
glad now though that I went through it because I can be more
(22:48):
hands off. There's not an expectation of me to be more present,
especially now that I have kids. My team handles all of our
client calls, all of our client communication. I get to focus on high
level strategy, and they do all of the implementation. And so
for this stage of my life, I am very happy that I have a
agency because if I had a freelancer model, it'd be very challenging
(23:12):
to take 3 months off to, like, have a baby.
And so that yeah. But that journey was like, o m g, so hard, so
hard. So I understand why people stay, you know, freelancer and and don't shift
into agency mode. Well, I think something you said about the social
media, like, every time I have had a client who
social media is a big part social media management ongoing, it
(23:34):
never ends. How do I leave? Mhmm. I mean, if I was doing social
media at all, I would 100% need, like, a team of people. Otherwise, I would
lose my mind. Yeah. And it's so repetitive too. I
mean, even just think about your own marketing for anyone listening.
It's like you post every day forever.
It's like doing laundry. You just there's always more laundry to do. Now do
(23:56):
someone else's laundry? It's like, ew. No. Having
having the team helps break that apart a little bit so that you
can at least maybe do the part that you enjoy a little bit more, and
there's less pressure on everyone to show up every day all the
time. True confession about my social media. I'm more organized
about my laundry. I have an entire, like, schedule and system. Social
(24:19):
media, I'm out here, like, just winging it. Yeah. And see
wait. So, Maggie, these are the conversations I wanna have. I feel like that
confession that you made is literally what half of the people do. And nobody
wants to talk about it because all the social media strategies say you gotta have
a schedule. You gotta do this, that, do that. And I'm like, but what if,
like, just winging it is the plan? Like, what if that winging it works for
(24:40):
you? I think that's great. I love it. Winging it does
like, if I had a client on the agency side who was trying to do
their content, like winging it, I would be losing my mind. I would be
like, what's wrong with you? We can't do this. But for me,
so much of what I'm doing is commentary. So it needs to be timely. So
if I did one of these, oh, my biggest pet peeve, write a year of
(25:02):
social media post with AI in an hour things, it
would be flaming hot garbage and
totally irrelevant. It would not be doing what I need my
social media to do. It would not support my business. It would just be
noise. Yes. A 100%. And I think
this is where this nuance of conversation is that I wanna have
(25:24):
is that there are certain types of business owners that were, like,
the reactionary, the commentary content. That
is the content. And it to me, it's actually easier to make. It's easier to
make because you don't have to plan it. You just have to be observant and
then say what you're gonna say anyways. And in case anyone's wondering, in
human design, I am indeed a generator. I need to react to
(25:47):
things. And I mean, it doesn't mean I react in the moment, but I
observe, I look at patterns, and then I'm like, okay,
interesting. There's this pattern of people talking about descaling
their business. What does that mean? Let me analyze it. I'm going to research it.
Like, it's thought out, but, I mean, I do need time. I can't do it
a year ahead. I just can't. I can't even do it 6 months ahead. I
(26:07):
have a loose plan of what I'm gonna talk about, but it always changes. Yeah.
And, see, I'm the opposite. Like, I can do some reactionary content, but I
find it very exhausting. And so I have to wait for the moments
where I feel energized, and then I batch create a bunch of content, and then
I don't create content again for, like, another month. And so
that's what works for me. And so, you know, finding what
(26:29):
works for you, I think, is a beautiful thing. Exactly. Like, I don't know. I'm
supposed to post on social media today. Like, I have a couple
posts. I don't know which one I'll post. We'll see in a few hours what
comes out. So you did
mention, you know, kind of it's come up throughout the the interview. You said, you
know, how you're thinking about social media is really evolving. So
(26:50):
can you share a little more of kind of what you're thinking about? Because I
know we're all kind of feeling this. We love social media, but we hate
it too. Like, I feel like our relationship is a situationship at this
point. Yeah. The situationship thing is solely true. I think I
was talking about situationships and workshops, like, 5 years ago
too. Like, I've been Yeah. It's just a feeling we have. It goes back
(27:11):
to, like, the history of social media.
Bear with me for a sec. But, like, 10, 15 years ago, we
were not on our phones this much. No. We were
not consuming this much content. Even if we wanted to watch
Netflix, we'd have to order the DVDs and they were mailed to us. Unless
you're in Canada. I think my Canadian friends, we missed out on that. But not
(27:32):
when I lived in the US. Like, it was not a thing. Right? We weren't
spending this much time digitally consuming content. And so
fast forward to today, we consume so much content
online from streaming services all the way to,
like, watching TikTok series to
like an edit. Yeah. And to, like, scrolling through
(27:54):
threads or Facebook or whatever. Like, we just spend a lot of time on our
devices. So then combine that with the
amount of content we're consuming and how
particular we can be about it, it's reflecting back on
us as content creators in a sense. As business owners, we're
creating content. We feel like our content doesn't
(28:15):
match what's happening, and so we we try so hard
to, like, be something that we're not. And then combine that with
because there's so much content, it's so competitive.
If I had a decision right now to pick up my phone and watch a
piece of content, I don't know if I would necessarily go
for the 10 second Instagram reel that says read my caption
(28:38):
for 3 tips on how to blah blah blah blah. Like, that's not
that's not how I'd wanna spend my time. Give me the
drama or give me the, like, highly produced or give me the,
like, person who's making a funny about the state of pop
culture. I, like, I want something a little bit different. And so all
of that combined has made business owners on social media
(29:01):
like, running a business on social media very challenging when it comes to
creating content. So my thoughts around creating content on social
media have changed, and this has been a very slight boiling the
frog situation. Like, it's very been very slow.
And I recognize it's not about the content. And so I'm producing less
content myself. We produce less content for our clients. To me, it's more
(29:23):
about conversation. It's about, like, DMs. It's
about social media being maybe a catalyst. Like, maybe you found someone on
LinkedIn, but then you went to their website, and then you had a Zoom call
with them. And now you're meeting them for coffee. Like, it almost has nothing to
do with LinkedIn itself. LinkedIn was just, like, maybe where you happen to see
that person. And so my thoughts on, like, how powerful
(29:45):
social media can be or how much of a difference it can make have changed
because it the content itself is rarely the thing that's gonna
make the huge big deal difference. Instead, it's like the 1 on
1 conversations that have made the biggest difference for myself and for
a lot of my clients. Yeah. And that I mean, I would a 100%
echo that, especially because of some of the content I share.
(30:07):
Like, I have people who literally will not like it because they don't want people
to know they're consuming it. Like, I've had these, but they will DM me.
Absolutely. Like, the and you and I have talked about dark social before, like, dark
social is where the activity is for me. Yep.
Yeah. And even to me, dark social too is becoming so much
broader. Like, around the time we're recording this, a platform like
(30:30):
Substack now has DMs. Is that social media?
So you and I are in a few, like, private communities
together. Is that social media? Like, it it feels very
social. There's there's a feed. There's DMs. There's groups of people
having conversations. We're creating content. We're collaborating. And so,
like, my definition of social media itself is changing,
(30:53):
and I don't wanna be, like, put in a box of, oh, you talk
about Instagram and TikTok. It's like I mean, that's one
thing that could maybe be helpful, but let's, like, zoom out a little bit and
think about the bigger picture. I love that because for me, I always and I
think this comes from, like, I'm, like, a blogger from way back in the
day. Right? I was at some of the very first conferences
(31:15):
where they were talking about social media when Gary Vee was doing, you
know, wine TV. Yes. And he's on stage, and I,
like, set up my Twitter account. It's, like, 2,007. Right?
So, I mean, I've been at this stuff a long time. So I think for
me, I always has been social media is like an extension
of the content I'm creating on my platform, and I feel like right now we
(31:37):
see a lot of people really struggling with they've been creating for TikTok
or Instagram, and they have not they're not creating that
longer form content. So now they're, like, trying to reverse. I feel like it's a
much harder evolution to go back, you know, from short to long.
I've been I've always done longer form stuff, always. To me. Like,
social media is that amplification. It's not the platform. It's
(31:59):
not the the core of my work and never would be. A 100%. And
I feel like this is where some of my fraud y feelings come from because
my email list has, like is way larger than any social platform. Then we
have, like, 18, 19,000 subscribers.
Podcast, I think on a good month, 15,000
downloads. On a normal month, 8 to 10000. So it's like,
(32:21):
that's more than most of my social media platforms. Like, I am a long
form content. Yeah. And so it's like, part of me is like, I know
social media is my thing. I love social media, and it's
still not in the top 2 of my strongest marketing platforms.
That's email and my podcast. And so You know what's just to interject here, what's
been shocking to me is I actually sent an like, a one question email to
my list as part of my semi positive. Like, so many people find me
(32:44):
from Instagram now.
Yep. That was shocking information. Sorry. Continue. Yeah.
No. It's the same. People do find me on social, and it plays a huge
role in growing my email list and growing my podcast. And
they may also find me from someone else's social. They may find me from a
(33:06):
collaboration. They may find me from this podcast. Like, it just
like, the bigger picture is so important there.
And, like, yeah, social media plays a huge role in that, but it's not the
only role that's available. And and I don't want people to think that that's what
I believe. Yeah. And I think that this is really in the
spirit of, like, evolutions and exits. And I think for everyone
(33:28):
listening, really thinking about for you, is there something you need
to be changing up how you're doing it? And it's okay to evolve and it's
okay to do it slowly, being mindful of your capacity as a service business
owner because you've got client work and other things on the go. And please, we
want you to go have a life. Mindful marketing is what Andrea is all
about. So, like, we want you to be mindful of those things and really thinking
(33:49):
about, like, there is no one size fits all in any of this. And I
think this is why the conversations like this are so so important because at the
end of the day, everyone's kinda got their own path to go on here.
Mhmm. Yeah. And I think, like, if I could
share one good thing that happened in this
very slow pivot, which I'm usually a very fast action
(34:11):
taker. So to be able to to have an idea and, like, wanna
change it, I would have renamed the podcast months ago once I
decided to do it. But I was like, you know what? We're gonna sit with
this for a little while and think out loud. And that thinking out loud series,
I had a client who booked a discovery call, became a client. And then on
their first call with the team, they said, you know what? Your
(34:31):
transparency in that series and they quoted something I said about
being mindful. They were like, that's the reason we decided to work with you. And
I was like, oh, so they came in through a referral. They looked at
my social. They signed up for my email newsletter, and then we're quoting something back
to me. To me, that, like, that's just an example. Like,
this is working. Even though I'm changing things and it's super scary, it's super uncomfy,
(34:54):
I can see that it's working. That is the best example because the
reality is for us as humans,
we want that behind the scenes. We want that transparency. And not
in this celebrity entrepreneur, you know, very, like, curated vulnerability.
Like, we want the real deal, and I think that that was something you were
able to do is, like, hey, I don't have the answers. Like, it's scary to
(35:16):
admit you don't have the answers, but incredibly powerful
because people trust you more when you're being truthful.
Mhmm. Yep. In the world of all these Internet
marketers who promise the moon, I'm like, how what else can I say to
to make sure that I'm not lumped in with those people?
True story. I feel like that is literally my gig on the other hand.
(35:38):
Right? That's it. Exactly. It's like, how can we make sure
it's for sure for sure? There's no confusion here. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I am not
one of them, please. No. Absolutely not.
Alright, Andrea. Where can people learn more about your school? I
think that that would be great for some of the listeners, your agency services. Fill
(35:58):
us in. Yes. So my website, onlinedrea.com. That's
d r e a. So onlinedrea.com has everything. And then
check out the podcast, Mindful Marketing Podcast. It's coming
soon. Formerly Savvy Social Podcast. If you put that in,
we SEO ed it. You'll still find us. Those are the 2 places where I
hang out the most. And, yeah, feel free to send me a DM anywhere because
(36:21):
I love conversation. Awesome. Thank you so much, Drea. Thanks,
Maggie. There are so many things that I was furiously
writing notes when I had that conversation with Andrea. But there's
2 things for me that I really just wanna drive
home to wrap it up. I love what she said about setting
boundaries and privacy in the digital age. That's since something that's really, really
(36:42):
important to me. And as people always talk about being authentic or vulnerable
online, they feel like they have to perform in a way that is
not in service of their boundaries or their privacy. And I don't want
anyone ever to feel like they have to do those things to be relevant.
The other thing in conjunction with that is she talked about
how we can be transparent and authentic to build
(37:06):
trust with our audience without having to do those things.
We, I think, underestimate how
people can really sniff out the BS. So you
showing up on social media, you showing up from a business perspective
really relies on you keeping it real. And just, you know,
really embracing the BS free way of doing things.
(37:28):
And finally, I did appreciate her candor about
going from a solo business owner to an agency because
of the nature of social media. And I thought that that was a really interesting
part of the discussion. So with that, if you wanna learn more about Andrea and
everything she does, you can find all the links to all her
social media platforms and her school, her website, everything else,
(37:51):
her podcast atbsfreebusiness.com/blog.
I would love to hear from you. What did this spark from you? Hit me
up on Instagram with threads atbsfreebusiness. I love to hear those
takeaways. And as always, please share this
podcast with friends, rate or review us, give us some
love if you've been enjoying listening, because that will help us get in front of
(38:13):
more people. And my theme for 2024 is
amplify. So if you can help me amplify this podcast, I
will very much appreciate.
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