The Joys & Challenges of Creating Social Media Content

Episode 57: The Joys & Challenges of Creating Social Media Content

In this episode, Holly Hibbard - Social Media Consultant & emotional intelligence nerd - shares with you...

• how posting social media content helped her become the woman she is today (and accidentally launched her business in the process)
• her story of how organic content creation became her marketing strategy for business
• reasons why people should use social media for more than just friends, family, and entertainment

If you like what you've read so far, I’d love it if you’d SUBSCRIBE to the show, and TURN ON your notifications so you don’t miss a future episode.

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WORK WITH HOLLY IN OCTOBER, 2024 //

• Ready to launch your social media brand quickly and finish your 2024 with elevated impact? Hire Holly as your social media strategist and coach!
• Book a quick call with me here: https://tidycal.com/thehollyhibbard/quick

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#socialmediastrategy, #contentcreation, #digitalmarketing, #clientattraction, #communitybuilding, #onlinebusiness, #coachingbusiness, #serviceproviders, #businessgrowth, #podcastforentrepreneurs, #elevateyourimpact, #expertpositioning, #buildyouraudience, #worklifebalance, #timefreedom, #entrepreneurlife, #onlinecoaching, #womeninbusiness, #podcastmarketing, #authoritybuilding, #thehollyhibbard

Transcript

Hello everyone, and welcome to the holly Hibbard show. My goodness, this is the first episode that I am recording with video. I think ever, ever, and if you're listening to the audio, you're not going to miss out on anything special because you're not seeing it on video, aside from the fact that, if you are on video, by the way, you can see my dog sleeping behind me. So I guess if you're on audio only, you're missing out on watching my dog sleep. But if you are here period, I'm grateful for you. I'm so glad today, I want to chat with you about the joys and the challenges of creating social media content. And if you've been listening to the show for a while, you might be wondering, why is she talking about this? Because if you've listened to my podcast at some point since 2021 or so, when I started it, you'll know that I have chatted about numerous things on this show. I have chatted about relationships. I have chatted about parenting teens. I have chatted about leadership. In fact, all of my season five that I just completed this year, in the year 2024 when I'm recording this, has been about leadership topics, leading yourself and leading others, whether that look like in your home or in your career. But today, I want to talk about social media content creation and the joys and the challenges of it, because so much of my time creating social media content specifically Since 2014 so going on 11 years now, it has really supported me in becoming the woman that I am today. It's really supported me in getting more and more clear over time in what is it that I want to do with my life in so many different aspects of it. And I want to start out all of this by saying, Today I'm saying that this is season six of the show, not because I have some strategic plan. This is how many episodes are going to be per season of the holly Hibbard show, but rather because I am doing this live in real time for all of you to see meaning. Ever since I decided I'm going to start a podcast, ever since I started putting content out on social media, it has been an imperfect process. It has also been a process where I started from zero. I didn't know what I was going to talk about, I didn't know who would listen, and frankly, I didn't know if I trusted myself to show up consistently, but what I did know is I wanted to make my presence on social media about supporting other people, teaching other people, giving you something new to think about, that you could then implement if you wanted to, In your relationships, in your leadership, with your emotional intelligence, or whatever it is that I'm talking about at the moment. If it wasn't for my commitment to creating social media content, oh my goodness, I don't think my brand would not exist. My career as a coach and a teacher would not exist. And even the kinds of best friendships that I have, and even my marriage and and the life that I live now probably also are highly influenced by the fact that I started showing up on social media in a positive, consistent way since 2014 so where did this all come from in the first Place? Because if you heard me about a month ago, as I was wrapping up season five of the holly Hibbard leadership podcast, I did an episode called, here we go again. So I will put the link in the show notes to that episode if you did not get a chance to listen to it that one is not on video, but in that episode, here we go again. I was laying out for all of you that I was feeling a certain way about having my content be quote only about leadership. I'm a very creative person. I have ADHD. I was not diagnosed with it until about two or three years ago as an adult, and that was so freeing to find out, because now I know why creativity is one of my superpowers. That is part of my neuro divergence, and when I would say I'm going to teach about leadership, I'm going to coach people on leadership strategies, or come up with a strategy. I do love all those things, but I am multi passionate. So why am I a multi passionate person? Pigeonholing myself to one topic? And so that's what episode 56 of the holly Hibbard leadership podcast is, was about. So go back and listen to the story, if you want to, and then really, the last month or so, in addition to making the decision that I'm calling this the holly Hibbard show,

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that's about as far as I've Oh, no, I've gotten farther than that. I don't want to say that's all I've gotten done the last month. That is not true. But what I have come to realize is I don't want to be pigeonholed to one topic, even though I do tend to talk about the same gamut of topics here and there. But what I've come to realize is I love teaching. Duh. That's why I have video content. That's what I have podcast content. I love teaching. I have loved teaching ever since I was a classroom teacher from 2006 those 10 years I was doing that, I just switched it over to personal and professional development. Okay, I love teaching. So why am I not teaching? Why am I telling myself I must only be coaching people, day in and day out and listen. I love my coaching clients. I love all my one on one private clients I've ever had. I love the group clients I've ever had. I love my students and the courses that I've taught before, live and online. I love all of it, and also it doesn't fit my life now, as much as it did a few years ago, when I was single and didn't have a family and a home, and all of that that I had to take care of on a day to day basis. And now I want to give my energy and my creativity and my love, yeah, to my career, but to my family. So I've had to rework a lot of things. So what I think about is I've always loved learning about how to market and create content for social media. I love it. I find it so interesting, probably because everything I've done has been self taught. I'm learning for myself how to create live streams on a certain platform. I've learned for myself how to record and put out there a podcast. I've learned for myself certain hashtag strategies. I've learned for myself how to make a carousel or a reel, or how to use chat GPT in an ethical way. I've learned how to use Canva like everything you see has been done by me over the last 10 years with my brand, and then, anytime I learn something cool, the first thing I do is find somebody who loves this stuff or has their own business or just as a hobby, puts out social media content, and I talk to them about it, and I teach them about it, and I Want to show them how they can implement these social media creation strategies in whatever it is they are passionate or multi passionate about. And so I am taking a pivot here in my career, switching from only talking about leadership and relationships and emotional intelligence and switching into the realm of teaching people how to get their digital presence out there. And why do people want to do that anyway, if you're only utilizing social media to keep in touch with friends and family or exes or the people who bullied you in high school, because we know that's a real thing, too cool. That's great. But there are people out there much like I was when I was a classroom teacher, when I started to have this feeling in 2013 or so that I knew I was having an impact with what I did in the classroom, but I knew I could have an even greater impact if I just expanded the audience. I wanted to elevate my impact, and the way that I knew that that could begin to happen was through social media, because it's a numbers game, it was also an opportunity for me to have self expression, which also came with a lot of challenges, because it required me to put myself out there, not like open my heart and pour out my guts and talk about the really difficult things that wasn't a requirement of me, but literally, to show up and get on camera, or show up and use my voice and say something out loud that I believe in on a consistent basis. That was not always easy for me. It is now many, many years of experience later, but when I first started, it was overwhelming. I doubted myself. I thought to myself, no one's going to want to listen to this. I didn't believe that I had what it took to create something as good as everybody else was creating, that I was watching online. And this is a different environment, 2013 2014 compared to 2024 today. So I bring all this up so that you know why I'm creating. This pivot, I want to teach people how to get their digital presence going, how to create a personal brand online, and if you want to use that to expand or enhance your influence, if you want to use it to promote something that you are passionate about, or promote a product or a service that you offer if you want to have a strong social media presence, so that you can interview for jobs that are the actual level that you want to be at right now, everyone goes to your social everyone, and I'm not just saying, look at your LinkedIn and make sure your LinkedIn is updated. Although that is important, I'm saying people want to know, not just professionally, what you do, but they want to know who you are. All those years I was single, you better believe people were looking at my social media like when I was dating, same thing. And for some people, they would probably look at my social I know some people looked at my socials. And when I was dating and single and had thoughts on it, they didn't like that. I was so vocal about whatever the topic was I was chatting about in that season of my life, well, that helped me to erase them from the possibility of ever being in a relationship with me, because if you don't want to be with somebody who has a voice and uses it well, then we're not going to get along right. But I also would do the same thing. I would go looking to see if this is a person I want to spend time with, if you're looking to make decisions in business or entrepreneurship. If you're looking to hire a coach, if you're looking to find a nanny for your kids or a babysitter, you're going to be looking at their social media. If you have not yet realized that your social media presence or lack thereof says a lot about you. I'm here to help you and tell you that it matters. You can be a person who doesn't utilize social media. I'm not saying you have to be a Kardashian and put every little detail about your life out there in this world. You do not have to do that, but I need you to at least acknowledge that having a digital presence in today's day and age is more important than ever if you want to create the life that you want to create. So here's what I I talk about the joys and the challenges. So back in 2014 when I made the decision that I was going to start putting my messaging out online. I have an episode that I already recorded called how I became a better a public speaker, and I'll link that in the show notes as well. And I want you to if you if you're interested in that, I talk a lot about in that video, about the first time I went live, when I was going through and it was not ideal at all. It was I looked terrible. I felt terrible. I was running late. I was flustered. I didn't know what I was talking about, but I had to follow through on a promise I made to myself. So I will let you go back and listen to that episode from the previous season. But as a result of showing up consistently and challenging this belief that I have at times of you have nothing to talk about. You have nothing of value to say that will help anyone who do you think you are all of those things that cross my mind still to this day when I show up and create a piece of content, even right now as I'm doing this episode of the show with video, this is weird. I'm used to just talking into the air when I'm doing podcasts, but I've decided, I've made a decision that I want to show up face to face. This is awkward. Very awkward

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for

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me, but the joy of it is I know. I know, and I feel it in my heart and my soul and in my bones, who I want to become in my life. I know the kind of leader I want to be in the space that I'm working in. I want to be a voice for people who are passionate, to encourage them, to empower them, to get their messaging, get their expertise, get the things that they know really well out there in the world, because that is how they can help lift others. We have a platform, tons of platforms, to do that nowadays. So the joy is I get through the awkwardness, and I know I'm making a difference. And there's so many times with my show, with my episodes here, my my podcast, people like six people will listen to an episode. Oh my god. Gosh, and I think, why did I do all that for six people?

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But the reality is,

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it all adds up in time, because I can come back to that episode in a year and it'll say 80 people listen to it. And when you have that reel after reel, or video after video, live stream after live stream, it does add up, and your following will grow, and you will start to hear the feedback from people that what you had to say, encouraged them, educated them, entertained them, taught them the thing that they've always wanted to learn in just the right way that they wanted to learn it. That's the power of social media. It isn't just for stalking your exes and looking to make sure your high school bully is not as good as you anymore. Like there's so much more to it than just that. And so that was one of the joys of creating social media content is actually doing the thing I said I was going to do, showing myself that, yes, I can trust myself to show up. And also, as I highlight in the episode I just mentioned, becoming a better public speaker, and that segued into opportunities to lead trainings and workshops for local organizations is also supported me in creating online courses and delivering online courses. So it did turn into a business in time. That wasn't my initial reason why I went into this. My initial reason was to make an impact. Was to help people by just sharing the stuff that I was learning about, really, whether I had implemented it yet or not. So those are the joys for me and seeing that it can have an impact. And the challenges are things like, sometimes I'm going to have an episode that has six people listen to it and it's crushing, or sometimes I'm going to create a live I'm going to go live on, you know, Instagram or Facebook, and sit there and chit chat, and I'll be so excited about the topic, and not a single person shows up for the entire live. That hurts. It hurts. But then I have to remember why I'm doing this, why I started all of this, and it was to mentor people on a bigger scale. And so I see there is joy in social media content. There are challenges in it. Another joy is, oh my goodness, Facebook groups.

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Can I tell you that

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the Facebook groups I created have not only changed my life, but I have been told they've changed the lives of other people as well. I know that there was a group that I created of women back in, oh gosh, 2016 2017 I don't remember, and I challenged myself to make this Facebook group and to have 100 women join this Facebook group, women who wanted to have authentic conversations, not the small talk stuff. Because if you know anything about people with ADHD, we don't like small talk, you had to go beneath the surface, right? And my goal was 100 women, and I would go live in that group, or I would ask thought provoking questions about pretty easy going topics that weren't so surfacey. And I just showed up committed to allowing women in this Facebook group to share about their lives. And as a result, three or four years later, it had grown to 6000 women all over the United States. And that resulted in so many connections, digital connections, also people who live near to one another, people deciding, oh, we're going to start this project or this business together. It went into so many different connections, and I ended up closing the group a few years ago because the that my my values and also the priorities that I had at the time just didn't really line up. But then recently, when I in 2020 not even recent anymore. Geez, in 2020 when I moved back to Michigan, my home state, from Florida, I made a Facebook post in like a local community group where people are looking for lawn service. And I said, you know, I'm 40 and single, and I don't have kids, and I like to make some friends, and I live in the Midwest, so like, everyone's a parent, it feels like, like everybody had a partner. And I was just, I don't know what to do, and I said, I want to make some friends. I'm looking for women who, you know, around my age, or just women who want to make some friends. Anyone here looking to. Make a new girlfriend, you know. And as a result, there were so many comments on that post, which I was shocked by. Had no idea that was I thought maybe like two people, meet someone for coffee or lunch, have a, you know, acquaintance, just somebody. So I didn't feel so alone being new in town. And to this day, I shoved them all into a Facebook group, all the people who were replying, because I'm like, um, I didn't think this is going to get any responses. And clearly, I hit something. I struck something. So I threw them all in a Facebook group, and didn't know what to do with it. The world was shut down. We couldn't have done anything anyway if we wanted to, but I just made the Facebook group and today going, you know, again, we're at the end of 2024, that group is well on its way to 2500

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women locally,

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just locally in the city that I live in. I

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don't even live in that city anymore.

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I got married and moved

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like I'm still a part of that, like, I started that by accident, because of social media, because I was the one that made a post, and that was scary, and that was awkward, like I said, but I made that, and then as a result, all these events started happening, and women were planning events and luncheons, and they're finding their best friends. They're finding the people they have been wanting to find. They're they're meeting the people that they have been hoping to meet in business networking events that suck, and now they're like, Oh, I like this person a lot better, and I met them through this friendship group of women who just want to make some friends.

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So I have so many examples you guys,

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of where social media has helped me to hone my message, become who I am, create the friendships and find the friends that I love and adore and are I'm so close to, it's also supported me in growing through some of those really tough, limiting beliefs that I still have to work through. Everything from I have nothing to say, like I said a little bit ago, but even now, as I'm doing this episode with video. I'm thinking, nobody's gonna Well, this is not entertaining. It's not entertaining to listen to me. And just as I sit here at my desk and stare at my computer screen and camera whatever, I just gotta do it anyway. I gotta do it anyway. I'm taking this really great course right now, I love Amy Porterfield so much. If you know, you know, if you don't know, that's totally fine. But she was saying that one of her mindset coaches taught her to do something different, and that became a mantra for her, do something different, do something different, do something different. And so each week, I'm thinking to myself, Okay, I'm not gonna reinvent the wheel with how I show up on social media too much, but I am going to do something different this week. And so today it's recording this on video and still posting it in several places. And we'll see, we'll see if people like it better with video or not. Maybe there will still be six people. Maybe there will be two people who listen to this, but I don't know unless I do it, but what I can say is social media content creation is so powerful when you use it for good, it is so powerful it can really transform your life, elevate your impact, expand your reach, bring people into your world that you are praying for to show up. It has all that possibility, and I want to show my audience how they can do that and not feel so overwhelmed by it, or not feel like they're not ready yet for it, because I see how it's impacted my life and how it's impacted the lives of people that I've made points of contact with over the years. And it's worth it. It doesn't take a special person to do what I do. It takes a commitment. It takes a willingness to say, Okay, I'm going to give it a try if you need a hand to hold during that process, I'm going to be here to do that with you too, but that's what I really want to teach about, is how to elevate your impact and expand your reach using social media. I'm still refining my audience. I'm still refining the course that I'm going the digital course that I'm writing that's going to come out early next year, I'm still working all that out, so you're going to listen to me in my content. You're going to watch me in my social media content evolve in real time, like I've said before, and that's a little nerve wracking for me too, because I'm thinking. And I mean, even right now, as I'm watching myself on screen, as I film this, I'm like, gosh, I need my hair, my hair colored like it's so, you know, all the stuff comes up. It's the vein stuff and the deep stuff. It is real. Okay, 11 years of doing this, and it's still very real. So if you are on day zero, or you're on day negative 10, and you think you want to have social media presence and you know that it matters, please know I can pull you through that, and that is what I'm gonna be talking about with the holly Hibbard show. I will likely still be talking a lot about relationship building community, your emotional intelligence, because all of that ties into your content and who your content is speaking to, who it's for. How are you going to hone in on your self expression? How will you position yourself as a leader, for people, for humanity, for your community, for your family, whatever you're utilizing it for, all the things are just going to tie together. And as much as I wish i This episode was perfect, and I wish I had had an outline of this is exactly what I'm going to talk about, I figured it was just best for me to come on and say there are joys with social media creation, social media content creation, and there are challenges, and it's all part of it. And it's just time to do something different and put this episode out there. Say this is the start of the holly Hibbard show. Say this is the start of season six, whatever that means, and just do it. There's not going to be a perfect time, there, isn't it. I think this is just an episode to pep talk myself. Maybe that's what this is. I should just call this the pep talk episode, and you just get to listen to it live. So, Holly, you're okay. There you go. I'm like, gonna like, you're my mirror on my computer at this point. I hope this was supportive in some way. Will you please do me a favor and leave me a comment on this episode? Please, please, please send me a comment. Just let me know what you thought of this episode. What stood out to you? Was it something about mindset? Was it something about strategy? Was it something about do something different? Maybe it was something I will not expect at all, or just leave me a message or your favorite emoji and say, Hey, I was here and I was listening, because that will just make me feel good too, just to know that I have some level of engagement. All right, that's all I have for now, until next time.

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I will talk to you next time, and

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you know, I love you, and I mean it.