When posting on social media how many times have you paused before pressing the send button? Not because you don’t like the content you have created, but because your inner critic is telling you to think twice. Thats you inner mindset talking you.
All too often I hear new business owners tell me that they fear social media. What will people think of me? Am I good enough? Will ex colleagues think I’m a fraud? Do I sound as good as my competitors? All these questions act as obstacles in our quest to grow our businesses with the help of social media.
Here’s two things you need to know. Firstly, you are not alone, it’s incredibly common to feel this way and secondly, you can change your mindset and by thinking differently you can grow your confidence on social media
Creating a positive mindset on social media
To talk about a healthy social media mindset, I invited Jo Killgallon from Orchid Coaching and HR to my Monday livestream.
Jo was a Senior HR Business Partner for 25 years in the corporate world. Her strength was to help senior leaders be the best versions of themselves. Three and a half years ago Jo left behind this career and trained to be a coach to help people achieve a positive and growth mindset. This is where Jo’s passion lies and what she enjoys doing the most.
“With a positive and growth mindset we can achieve anything, even when our own challenges try to get in our way”. Jo emphasises the word ‘own’ as it is us that puts inner, intangible’ obstacles in the way of our own success.
Just like so many other new business owners Jo found it nerve-wracking when she launched her own business. She’d not had to ‘put herself out there’ before or had to use social media for business purposes. Using her own techniques, she overcame her inner fears and learned how to confidently post on social media.
Overcoming social media confidence
It’s all about overcoming your inner critic on social media. Running our businesses isn’t the problem; the problem is putting you and your face out there!
So, what is our inner critic and what part does it play when it comes to us being confident on social media?
Jo explained that it is true that everybody has an inner critic. Those nagging feelings of ‘shall I’ and ‘what will others think?’ aren’t unique.
But we also have an inner cheerleader, this is the voice that tells us to ‘go for it’ and makes us feel confident.
Our inner critic exists to protect us. But the problem arises when we focus on our inner voice and don’t listen to our inner cheerleader. It’s pretty common that the voice of the inner critic is way louder!
Finding a balance is key to success. We must tune in to our cheerleader more and know that what we have to say on social media is worth listening to, and that we do have the skills and expertise to improve the lives of others. But we should still listen to our inner critic and understand that its voice is there to remind us to consider our actions.
But focussing purely on your inner critic will massively hold you back.
Confidently posting on social media
Business owners, like us, set up on our own because we can offer a great service or have a great product. We know our stuff! Sadly, it’s only our nagging inner critic that prevents us from sharing what we have to offer on social media.
Marketing yourself on social media is crucial if you want to grow and succeed.
Inner critic and social media
Social media can exaggerate feelings of doubt as it’s common for us to compare ourselves with others who are running similar businesses.
What if I told you that your followers are unlikely to be seeing the posts of your competitors? Does that make you feel any better? The social media algorithms will show you your competitors posts because it thinks that because their content is on a subject you are interested in, you’ll like to see more of them.
Your followers follow you because they DO want to hear from YOU!
Overcoming a negative mindset on social media
What zone are you in? If you don’t change what you do, you’ll always remain in your comfort zone. This isn’t the place to fulfil your maximum potential.
Comfort zones are quiet, safe places; we don’t feel any pressure here and we don’t get challenged.
Putting yourself out there on social media and doing livestreams moves you away from your comfort zone and into the fear zone.
When we try even more new things to help our businesses thrive, this could be standing up to do a presentation at a networking event for example, you move from the fear zone and into the learning zone, and eventually into the growth zone
The growth zone is the sweet spot for business owners to be in. This is where you experience the most growth – it’s where the magic happens.
Jo recommends that we embrace the fear zone, push ourselves into the learning zone and then into the growth zone and repeat our actions turning them into habits. The more we do something the more comfortable we become doing them and you build in confidence. The rushes of adrenaline that you feel when you overcome something you were afraid of tells you that you have the capability of being so much more!
Be clear about your client
This has to be one of the best social media tips. Understanding your customers and knowing what their pain points are allows you to focus your social media content on what they want to hear and how you can help them.
So what if your friends, family members or ex colleagues see these posts – they don’t matter when it comes to your business. The only people who matter are your clients / potential clients!
Jo recommends that you just be you. Be authentic. This is what makes you unique and the reason why your followers follow you.
It’s not a numbers game: likes and comments don’t pay the bills!
Another thing about social media that inner critics love to grab on to is the number of followers, likes and comments that your competitors get on their posts. So what!
It’s a fact that some business owners love to have huge followings, they may have run a lot of competitions to get them, or even bought them! As only a small percentage of followers ever get to see posts, this is actually very bad practice – I bet most of their followers are not interested in buying from them and are just there for the occasional freebie
And it’s OK if your posts don’t get many likes or comments. A lot of people don’t engage – but they are watching! You have to remember that quite often, people don’t want to be seen to want a certain service, in this case they’ll never engage but more likely to private message instead.
Concentrate on building your own community with people you want to work with. These are the people who value your service and who are genuinely interested in your social media posts.
Jo’s biggest challenge
I asked Jo what her biggest challenge was when she walked away from the corporate world to set up her own business.
Jo said that when she left her 9-5 career, she was experiencing burnout with low self-esteem and little confidence. Her biggest fear was what her ex colleagues were going to think of her when she posted about her services on social media. She believed that they would think her to be a fraud – not because this was true but because she was listening to her inner critic who didn’t want her to experience any more pain.
Once Jo turned her mindset to a more positive, healthy one and pushed herself further into the zones she realised that not only was she very capable, but that her ex-colleagues didn’t matter. What they think is irrelevant. She was to focus on giving her clients the best service. And this is what she did.
Jo was true to herself and showed her personality on social media – she urges you to do the same.
Worried about your competitors?
Every business has competitors. And that’s OK. It’s actually a good thing.
Jo tells her potential clients to look at other coaches before making up their minds on who to turn to for support. The ones who decide that they want to work with Jo, do so, because they can relate to her and feel comfortable talking openly to her. These are the clients she loves working with. When the connection and chemistry is there, great things can happen, and Jo can help her clients achieve anything.
If someone wants to go to a competitor, then that’s because they are a good match. We can only be our best when it’s a good fit!
Key takeaways
- People buy people.
- Nurture your inner cheerleader.
- Know your ideal client.
- Know that you cannot give your services to everybody. And know that’s for the best.
- Remind yourself how good you are. Stand in front of a mirror and tell yourself what you excel at.
- Do listen to your inner critic but never let its voice be louder than your inner cheerleader.
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about Jo and take on board her advice. If you’d like to learn more about how to confidently post on social media or any other aspect of your business head to her website: Orchid Coaching and HR.
Now you have the confidence to post, start planning your social media content for the year ahead. If you need a simple social media content planner for 2021, full of lots of advice and tips on what to post then my new Social Media Planning tool will help. Plan your social media for the whole year in one place!
What’s coming up?
My next online workshop is all about Pinterest for Business. It starts on 23 February and will be run over four days, for just one hour a day.
I’ll show you, step by step, how to use Pinterest to increase your customer base and grow your business. It’s limited to 10 people and is only £99 for all four sessions, so please book early.
To book a place head to Eventbrite today!
Bye for now,
Becs
Becs Bate, Social Media Executive
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