Navigating social media & networking
While this article was originally written in January 2023, I still find these things to be true!
After my first year in business, my biggest takeaways were learning how to navigate social media and networking, and understanding how each of those play a role in growing my business.
Honestly, I’ve never much cared for social media; like, I enjoy it and find it fun and silly, but that’s the extent of it. This past year, however, I have gotten very familiar with Canva (which I love and am absolutely obsessed with!), reels, videos, boosted posts, ads, analytics; all the things! For the first several months, I was very caught up in having to post all the time, having to stay on trend, yadda yadda. But after some recent reflection, I have decided that I’m just going to do what feels authentic to me in this area. What feels good. What feels right. What feels genuine. That’s it. I understand that social media can be a valuable platform, absolutely, but for me, I feel best when I use it more to educate, share and engage with my community. Not try to make sales. This kind of thinking has allowed me to be at peace with the social media frenzy and not feel the need to keep up with the ever-changing trends. I’m going at my pace, pushing consistently (I do think consistency is key above anything else) and putting out content I feel really good about. I would encourage you to do the same.
As far as networking goes, I was fairly anxious about it in the beginning, but I’ve adapted and gotten much more comfortable with it. I’ve started to narrow down what kinds of events I like to attend, where I feel most comfortable and which events I will establish the best connections and relationships. I will also say, this has been the most beneficial way to grow my business. I've been able to make connections and have great conversations with like-minded individuals. I've learned that your relationships matter so much more than a lot of the other stuff we're told we should be doing. So, keep that in mind as you're growing your business. If you’re new to networking, I would encourage you to try a bunch of different types of events and figure out what feels good for you. Where do you feel comfortable? What types of people are you looking to connect with? Are you looking for business leads, relationship building or both? Do you like large groups where you can meet a lot of people? Or do you prefer smaller, more intimate settings where you can establish a connection with a couple people? And where are your ideal clients showing up? Think about these questions and start planning your networking as appropriate. And if you want some help - I have people I can connect you with!
So, there are certainly many other aspects to running a business, but these were the two areas I really felt I had to get kind of obsessive with in order to better understand how they worked and how I felt about them. Ultimately, now a year later, I know what feels true to me and can navigate them accordingly.
