What are we doing this month? We’re doing the #PinterestChallenge!
Those of you who’ve been in the Circle for over a year may remember this from last year. The Challenge helped many of you grow your Pinterest accounts – and therefore, your website traffic.
Pinterest is one of the top drivers of traffic to my own businesses, and if you’re not already using it – or not using it to its full potential – this month’s Project aims to help you up your Pinterest game, and drive more people to your online store.
What is the #PinterestChallenge?
Start by writing down your current Pinterest stats (boards, pins, likes, followers, following) as of today.
Commit to spending 10 minutes per day Pinteresting… (i.e pinning, re-pinning, liking, etc.)
At the end of the month, come back and write down your stats again – and share your results with the Circle!
Leave a comment under the Project post in the FB group if you’re committing to the challenge!
This challenge will run the whole month of August, 2017.
We first did this back in June 2016 – here is the original Workshop video (you can see the whole workshop post here.)
I’m going to do this alongside you to see if I can get some more growth on my own account.
Happy July 🙂 This month, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to make a video for your business!
You can publish a quick vid on instagram. You can do a facebook live (look out for a podcast on that this month). You can record a how-to. You can do an ‘about’ video.
Long, short, impromptu, planned – it doesn’t matter. The goal is simply to get comfortable with the idea and process of using video to market your business.
If you want royalty-free music for your video, try using JukeDeck.
Once you’ve made your video, share it with us in the Circle! Either upload it directly, or post a link to it elsewhere online. Make sure to tag it #JulyProject17.
If you missed the announcement on the switch from Workshops to Projects, you can read it here.
This month, our project is: To update our FB business page, and actually USE it a minimum of once a week.
I can already hear you saying ‘but I don’t like Facebook’! And you know what? I hear you. Many of us prefer to hang out on Instagram these days, right?
BUT – where are your CUSTOMERS spending their time?
From the 2016 Sensis social media report (based in Australia)…
Whoa. 95% of surveyed users and businesses used Facebook. Only 31% are using Instagram!
What does that tell us? It tells us that Facebook is, by far, the most active social media platform – it’s where most ‘regular people’ (i.e. non-biz-having folk) spend their time. And if you’re not there, or totally neglecting your page, people will judge your businesses based on this.
At this time, in our industry, there is definitely an ‘Instagram bubble’. That is – makers love Instagram. We hang out there, chatting to each other, sharing with each other. And sure, sometimes we also buy from each other. But what about all those customers who are NOT makers, who are not in a visually-based field, and who spend their leisure time on Facebook?
You want to be communicating with those people. People expect to be able to find a Facebook biz page for your business. They expect it to be up to date.
Oh, and don’t forget the power of stats. If you have a biz Instagram and a FB page, the demographic information about your followers can be super-helpful when it comes to knowing who they are, what age/gender they are, where they are, and whether or not they are engaging with your page.
So, no matter how you feel personally about Facebook, I strongly encourage you to at least keep an eye on your FB page, and keep it relatively updated.
That is what this month’s Project is all about!
You are going to give your FB biz page an update, and you are going to instil the habit of checking in there at least once a week.
Below is a video I created for you to give you a tour around your FB biz page (as it looks currently – if you are watching this in future, chances are FB have changed something about the layout since I recorded this – they like to mess with things!).
In this video, I highlight some things for you to focus on, as well as giving you some tips to make your page shine.
The hashtag to use when you are discussing this project in the TC FB group is #JuneProject17.
Action Steps
Watch the video – take notes! Or even update things as you watch it…
Update your FB page where necessary – business hours, banner, avatar, links, ‘about’ section etc.
Set a day and time on your calendar (if you have a calendar on your phone with reminders, set it there) to remind you to go to your FB biz page and update it a minimum of once a week for the whole month of June.
At the end of the month, have a look at your stats and see if you’ve improved your engagement/follows!
I’ll be popping questions and reminders in the FB group throughout the month to help keep you on track.
P.S. I know many of you will have this question, so I’m answering it now. Yes. You should be pushing your IG posts through to your Facebook Page. You want that content to work for you in both places! Just remember – FB doesn’t really like hashtags, so don’t be hashtag-heavy in your caption on IG – put those hashtags in your first comment on IG so they don’t get pushed through to FB. If you’re still using a personal IG page, you can always automatically save your IG photos using IFTTT and then manually upload them to your FB page. Or, if they save to your phone, do it that way.
After considering it for a few months, and chatting to a number of Circle members, I have decided to make a shift in one aspect of your membership.
As you know, there are currently 29 (soon to be 30) workshops available in the Circle. From my conversations with you, it’s become clear that most people don’t do the workshops as they come out – and that many of you haven’t done all of the workshops (yet!). And, I know that many of the workshops cover a lot of information, with many, many possible actions/outcomes.
I feel like there is already a huge amount of content here for you – and that, combined with the YYTT lessons, is a lot to keep you busy!
I would also like to foster more focus and collaboration in the group… while still giving you something fresh each month.
And so, the idea of monthly Projects was born.
(Please note, though – if you’re not in the FB group, or you are a quiet member, you are absolutely NOT required to participate – you can always do the Project on your own.)
The idea is this.
Instead of me just creating a ‘workshop’ every month, where I teach via a video, I will run a Project for the community.
This will be a small, important business task that you can get done within a month – with my guidance and the help of all the other Circle members who are also participating in that month’s Project!
Some examples of possible projects are:
Create 3 new products this month, and get them in your online shop
Overhaul your social media profiles
Send 2 emails to your mailing list
Improve your website SEO (via a few key tasks)
Update your About page
Focus on your Facebook biz page for a month and post at least 2 times a week
Pitch your business to 3 bloggers/media outlets
Some of you may remember the #PinterestChallenge we did a while back – it will be a little like that!
What will this actually look like?
Well, I’ll create a banner for the FB group each month, highlighting the monthly project (with a hashtag you can use to talk about it). I’ll give you links to resources (mostly mine, but also other people’s that I think are relevant) that will help you with your Project.
This might be past workshops, podcasts, blog posts, etc. It might also mean some months that I DO create a new video workshop, if I feel it’s necessary for that Project!
I’ll do a little intro video, as well as a post here on the site – and send it out in the monthly email, and share it in the FB group.
I’ll ask you questions during the month to encourage you and help keep you on-track to complete the Project.
Basically, the idea is to help and support you on taking one concrete action step that will help to move your business forward – with my help, and the support of the Circle.
So, what do you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
I am, of course, open to suggestions – so if you have any ideas for Projects we could do, please leave them in the comments below!
P.S. As it’s almost June, I am going to do a ‘combo’ Workshop/Project this month on Facebook Business Pages, to give you an idea of what this is going to look like.
(i.e pinning, re-pinning, liking, etc.)
