It’s Visibility month you guys! We know it’s a bit terrifying to be the face and voice of your own business, but ultimately it’s what makes people trust you and want to work with you – so we invited the completely brilliant duo of Melissa Love and Vicki Farr to talk all things visibility for this month’s episode.
Meet Melissa
Melissa Love founded and runs The Design Space , website design and templates which are both beautiful and user friendly, plus the Marketing Fix, which is a fantastic membership for small business owners with a huge amount of content, live coaching and co-working sessions.
Meet Vicki
Vicki Farr has her own social media management company, called We Are The Social, and is also part of the Marketing Fix team – she’s the wonderful community support and “kick up the bum” person (which is one of our favourite job descriptions ever!).
They’re also friends outside of work and have even been snowboarding together, so buckle up for a fabulous four-way conversation!
What we talk about
From changing your Facebook profile banner to reflect your professional identity to managing your digital footprint across all platforms, we talk through the importance of visibility in today’s interconnected world. Melissa shares her insights on using social media to gauge interest and gather feedback on new ideas, while Vicki offers valuable advice on attracting and engaging an audience for your business.
We tackle questions about choosing and being active on social media channels and the pressure of maintaining a presence on multiple platforms. We’ll also delve into the transformative power of oversharing and the lessons learned from failures and setbacks in the entrepreneurial journey.
Additionally, you’ll learn about Vicki’s upcoming product launch and how beta testing and user feedback contribute to creating successful and in-demand offerings. There’s also discussion of the importance of building and leveraging mailing lists (always!), the value of accountability in marketing, and the exciting new mentoring and accountability space our speakers are working on.
What we also talk about
Working alone as creatives. Normalising success. Creating something that didn’t exist when you started your business (but you really wish it had). Making it your normal to have people at all stages of business around you.
Accountability and how gamechanging it can be. Hiding from the spotlight. Being the face and voice of your business, and thinking you have to do it all by yourself.
Foundations of visibility and using personal profiles – and your whole digital footprint and how people might find, see and perceive you. Facebook’s “professional” mode – we’ve now come so far into the future that they want you to use your personal profile to promote your business! (Showing our ages there, we know).
A wonderful sneaky trick of adding an image to any comment you make, if you want a nice big photo to accompany what you’re saying.
Consistency (yep, that again – but bear with us, this is a different and important take on it). Keeping your social profile pictures same and recognisable, building that recognition. Not waiting for a particular stage of your business to start doing this stuff, but just get on it as soon as you can and keep doing it. And keep an eye on it so it stays up to date and current – so many of us are ever-evolving in what we do and offer.
Whatever you put out can be imperfect – that’s ok, you will update it constantly if it’s a website and it’ll disappear down your profile if it’s social media. Getting it out there is far more important than perfection.
Validation and minimum viable products – getting visible before a product is finished can be a brilliant way to make sure you’re actually creating something people want. Beta testers and feedback.
The three ways of building a mailing list. Ways to be visible that don’t include social media. Making sure you have a strategy, whichever way you lean on the social media front (it’s not the be all and end all, but it is a cheap and convenient way to get in front of your audience).
Figuring out where your audience is so you can target them appropriately.
Being authentic, in a way that actually lets people connect with you. Stories. Protecting your sanity and privacy while also being open with your audience. Building that audience to be the people who will connect with the stories you tell.
And finally
Don’t wait around to go viral – create a simple system with a freebie to build your list. Crack on and just be you – don’t look at what everyone else is doing and don’t force yourself onto platforms you don’t feel comfortable on.
Get more Melissa & Vicki in your life
Melissa
The Marketing Fix – and a whole free month using coupon REBOOT45
You can also find her on Facebook (feel free to friend request her!)
And follow the Design Space on Facebook and Instagram
Vicki
Find her at We Are The Social
Hanging out on Instagram (send her a DM!)
7 Days of Social – sign up for a week of “done for you” posts to adapt to your brand