Hey there, my fabulous listener, welcome to episode 267 of the Small Business Made Simple Podcast.

Thanks for lending me your ears today – I know you have lots of choices, so I sincerely appreciate me being one of them!

Guess what? Oh my giddy aunt, I did a pre-launch of my brand new book this week! I am so freaking proud of this book and the impact it’s going to have on regional small businesses (or really any small business). The book is called Small Town Big Impact and has 107 Simple Marketing Strategies for Regional Business Success.  If you’d like to check out the book, share it link with a hundred friends (or maybe one or two!), or get yourself a copy, head to: https://socialmediaandmarketing.com.au/product/small-town-big-impact/ (link is in the shownotes). I would love any and all support for this book at this stage.  It is on pre-sale with books being sent out from 1^st December (or earlier if possible).  Thank you for supporting my book – any support!

If you’re enjoying this podcast – I’d love you to take a screen shot and share it on your socials and tag me in it.  How cool would that be!

Don’t forget you can get the show notes for this podcast at www.socialmediaandmarketing.com.au/267

Did you have a listen into last week’s episode? On the episode I had Kristy Robinson as my special guest and we talked about a lot! Burn out, create a business that services the lifestyle you want and much much more. Great episode, so, if you haven’t already listened in, to and do so after this podcast! www.socialmediaandmarketing.com.au/266

This week I’ve decided to take the “ask me anything” questions from my Facebook Group – Like Minded Business Owners, and answer them here as well.  Because if my community online has them, you probably do too! Are you a member of Liked Minded Business Owners? If not, go join, I’d love to see you there.

So, first question was about blogs and their use for SEO – does Google like loads of them?  This question came from Michael.

Firstly, I love that Michael is thinking about blogs and how they can help with searchability and where you rank in your ideal clients google search.

My understanding is that Google is looking for quality over quantity.  So if you have 30 blogs on your computer that you haven’t uploaded for some reason, uploading them all at once isn’t necessarily going to help you be seen quicker.  Again, Google is looking for quality over quantity.  You are better off scheduling them to go live over a series of months and repurposing them as part of your social media and email strategy to push readers back to your website for more google love that way.

Interestingly, and not really related to this question, but I was on a webinar a few weeks ago and the question asked was “Does Google punish AI written content” and the answer was no.  Which isn’t surprising because Google punishes BAD content and although some content written by AI is not that crash hot, there’s a lot of human content that’s not much better.  So AI or human written, just make sure it’s good content to get the google love.

Second question was from Emily and I love this one.  Emily said “I schedule my social media every month for about 3 posts per week however I’m not really seeing an increase in engagement. Should I continue, cut back or stop all together?”.

Here’s my reply:

I think you are doing great scheduling 3 posts a week. My suggestions are firstly to check your insights and see what’s working and what’s not. And take into account that people do a lot of scrolling these days and not much liking or commenting – so take your reach into consideration. But strategically look at your content and question whether it’s about you and your offers constantly and not about showing up with value. Secondly, I’d say you might need to put some social into your social media. I’d recommend 10 minutes x 3 times a week (at least) where you go to your Facebook Page’s feed and scroll down liking, comment and sharing other people posts that you follow as your business. If there’s not many, take some time to like some pages – especially those of your ideal client or people who might spend money with you one day. I’d recommend you do this for all your social media platforms. It’s called my Hansel and Gretel strategy – sprinkling those breadcrumbs around as your business name because if you want to be engaging, be engaging.

Do this for a month and see if your enquiries increase and your reach/engagement increases too. I guarantee it will. Hope that helps. Jenn x

And the third question I thought would be great to answer here on this podcast was from Amanda and she asked about social media vs email marketing and what time to be allocating to what strategy.

Now this question I love because if you are spending all your time doing social media and spending no time building your email list, you are not only leaving money on the table, but one hundred per cent not future proofing your business.

I think you should be sharing equal time between social media and email marketing. The number one reason for being on social media should be to get people off it and onto your email list. True fact!

Here’s some stats: the average open rate for email around 21%, whereas the average engagement rate on Facebook is around 0.17% (yep, that’s what I said – less than 1% for most because they don’t have a strategy in place to grow a community)

Email marketing has a higher conversion rate – 4.29% as opposed to social media 0.59%

The ROI for email marketing is $42 for every dollar spent, on social media it’s $17 for every dollar spent – and that’s if you are good at content marketing and/or ads.

And according to MarketingSherpa over 72% of consumers would rather see your promotional content via email than on social media where they are just trying to be social – not sold too.

So, if you are spending ALL your time on social media and NO time list building and email nurturing your community, then business must be pretty tough at the moment.

Amanda, thanks for the question, thanks for letting me get on my high horse about email marketing again! The answer is equal time – spend equal time doing email marketing and doing social media marketing.  And then see which one is bringing in more quality leads and sales and then spend more time there. And it’s going to be email (for most generations of consumers).

Now if I’ve piqued your interest and you’re like – Jenn, I really need to do something about this email stuff now you’ve put those stats in my ears – then there’s a few spots left for my email marketing 4-week program but it starts Monday 6^th November – so be quick.  The link is: https://bit.ly/EmailMasterclasswithJenn

So there you have it.  3 Ask Me Anything Questions from my Facebook group Like Minded Business Owners. Again if you aren’t a member, come join in the fun over there.

I have a “Ask me Anything” post each week and you are welcome to ask any of your marketing or business burning questions and I will answer them – it’s not just exclusively for the podcast!

Before I go, just a reminder that the show notes for this episode can be found at www.socialmediaandmarketing.com.au/267

But, that’s it for episode 267. If you loved this episode and found it valuable, please take 30 seconds out of your day to leave me a rating and review if you want where you are listening.  One more goal of mine is to reach more people with this podcast, and you can help me achieve that, by leaving me a review!  Thanks in advance.

See you next week on the podcast for episode 268! 

But in the meantime, let’s hang out on social and get social on social – you’ll find me on Instagram, Facebook and my fav LinkedIn.

But whatever you do,

……..remember small business peep, as my opening song says, there’s no point in dreaming small!