Hey there, my friend, welcome to episode 315 of the Small Business Made Simple Podcast.

Thanks for leading me your ears right now – I know you have lots of other things you could be doing or listening to – so I appreciate you.

Today I had a whole other episode planned but Meta (Facebook, Instagram etc) had an update overnight and we REALLY need to talk about.

So much so, that I am going to skim through the usual business at the beginning of my podcast.

One – go back and listen to my chat with Emma last week – it’s soooo worth your time.

Two – buy my book – Small Town Big Impact – if you haven’t got a copy – what are you doing?!?!

Three – no time to give you a throwback Thursday episode – just randomly scroll where you are listening to this and choose that one. Today we just have to get into it!

Okay, okay? Fabulous.

So, back story. Meta dropped a HUGE hint to us at the beginning of our Winter – they said that there were big changes coming in their summer- which for those playing along at home was about 4 months ago.

Actually, that’s a lie. They didn’t say they were making big changes but hinted to it and you had to read between the lines. Which I did and you may or may not heard me talking about it before today – my thoughts on what they said.

I’ve been talking to my private clients about this for months. Warning them what was coming and warning them to start looking at their social content differently.

Why? Because Meta hinted that it wanted to be “google”.

Yep, that’s right one big unmoraled tech giant was going to take on another and honestly, my boots shook. People this is huge.

Huge for us, as content creators and as marketers. And yes, you are a marketer – if you’re in business you are in the business of marketing.

I’ve been crowing about how we need to change the way we create content – especially for social media and especially if your social media strategy involves predominantly Facebook and Instagram.

In short, your social content was now going to have to be created in the same manner you create google content.

Why? Because META wants you to use social media like you would google. So, it wants to train you, and don’t worry they will, we are all little meta sheep, to head to meta with your questions and to solve your problems and NOT go to google.

I cannot express how big this is.

And overnight Meta has played it’s first massive “stick it to google” card.

Which is why this podcast had to be done today. You need to sit up and take notice of the changes meta made and have some understanding of what that means for you.

And be willing to listen and learn what it means for your business and your content.

Today, I am just alerting you to what’s happening. I’ll have to do another WHOLE podcast and what it means for you and your business.

Your takeaway from this episode is to be curious – get curious. Do research, look at the content you write on social media in the context of what’s happening here.

Okay, so, what’s actually happened to bring this episode to the forefront – what have Meta done today that’s got my nickers in a knot?

Well, my knickers aren’t in a knot but what they have done is proved my theory – that they are making a play for google traffic – not just social media traffic.

Here’s some of the updates that are just reinforcing my thinking.

• You can talk to Meta AI, and it will talk back – remind you of anyone? Siri? Hey Google? Meta says you can ask it advice or hear a story …. Very google right?
• Meta has an AI search function that is called Llama, using Bing (yep, I said Bing and I told you they were going up against Google) and when I ask it how do I find a good business coach it gives me answer based on information found on it’s platform or Bing and recommends businesses to check out and directs me to a Bing link to find more. Like wtaf ….

Some of the other updates are taking on Canva actually – which again is super interesting. How much power and monopoly does one person need!?!?

Meta can now help you edit your photos, remove backgrounds, change backgrounds, and for goodness’ sake, Meta is encouraging us to share our AI generated selfies with friends (by making it easy!).

Video dubbing and lip syncing – although feature.

Want to join me with my tin hat in my cellar under my house?!? Yes, I really do have a cellar!

No, it’s okay. Meta isn’t really doing anything new – all their updates have been done by other before – they are really just copying (which is one of their anti-superpowers!) – so no need for tin hats!

But there is a need for us, you, me, to sit back and think … Okay, if my Instagram content is being used as content that is potentially coming up in searches (and not just your headline and hashtags, like in the past BUT your ENTIRE caption) what does that mean for the way you create content and captions? What does that mean for the way you upload your photos without alternative tags and so forth.

Those questions, just those two, is what I want you to think about today.

We have all heard, for years and years, about keywords and key phrases on google, it’s now time to think about it for our social content.

You may not have to do a thing – you might already have the mindset of being found on Instagram using keywords and so on …… which is fabulous – go you.

But if you are listening to this and you are the person who uploads a photo of you riding a giraffe and writes the caption “me on a giraffe – then you my best podcast friend, need to up your ante and improve your captions.

I will do another episode shortly to deep dive into your 2025 strategy for social media. It needs to change for most of us. But for today, I will just leave you with the thought that Meta is not going to just be a social media platform anymore, they want you to use them as a search engine too.

Magic? Or …… what’s the opposite to magic? Indulgence?

Let me know in the Like Minded Business Owners Facebook group your thoughts and feelings on all this – where you feel you need to most help and so on – because I want to help, I really do. I promise not to try and sell you a tin hat! You can join the group here, if you haven’t already:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/LikeMindedBusinessOwners

If you really want help planning for 2025, consider coming along to my Women in Business 2025 Planning Retreat being held in December 2024 in Yarrawonga – my hometown. Link is in the show notes at www.socialmediaandmarketing.com.au/315

Link: https://bit.ly/2025retreatjenn

That’s all folks.

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. And do you have a friend who might like to listen in too? Can I ask a favour, and have you share this episode with them? I’d love that and appreciate it SO much.

See you next week on the podcast for episode 316.

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!