Hey there, my fabulous listener, welcome to episode 242 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!

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/242

Did you have a listen into last week’s episode? Last week I had the three lovely ladies from The Time Fix on the podcast and they chatted to us about our relationship with time. If you’d like to hear their tips on improving your time and your relationship with time, after you listen to this ep – head back there and listen in to ep 241 – www.socialmediaandmarketing.com.au/241

This week on the podcast we are talking about to impress or to impact – how you should be using your social media (but all marketing really).

But before I get started, I wanted to give a shout out to this week’s podcast sponsor – Jo McKenzie of Call on Jo – the digital partner you have been looking for in your business.  Jo works with small businesses to reduce the tech overwhelm.  She’ll build your website, keep it updated and do all the trouble shooting.  Jo also does email marketing, social media and so much more.  So, if you need tech help, Call on Jo!  Get in touch via her website https://bit.ly/callonjo or check her out on Facebook and LinkedIn.  Those links are in the show notes at www.socialmediaandmarketing.com.au/242  –  If Tech is doing your head in, then Call on Jo!

Call on Jo Facebook: https://bit.ly/FacebookCallonJo LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/LinkedInCallonJo  

Today we are going to have a chat about whether you are using your social media to impress people or impact people.  We are, for the purpose of this podcast, talking about using your business profiles – not personal profiles, as this is a business podcast!

Depending on your business model, both ways can work for you and work to build a sustainable and profitable business – so I guess before you jump to whether you should be using your social media to impress people or impact people, think about your business model.

The reality is that it’s probably not either or – but both.

When you think about using your social media to impress people, you might, like me, think back to high school and trying to impress people!  But that’s not the “impress people” that I am talking about!  It’s not about impressing people with your looks or fancy clothing or your professionalism (unless your brand style is professional), it’s about impressing people with your knowledge, how well you know them and their problems, their pain points, their delightfulness points, and then on the other side of impressing people, you should be impressing people with feedback from past customers or clients, showcasing your problem solving skills and showcasing what you have done to help make other people’s lives more simple, easy, fun – whatever it is that you do!

So when I talk about using your social media to impress people – it’s not about popularity but perhaps more about thinking strategically about using your social media strategies like engagement and brand awareness to impress people.

But if all you are doing is using social media to impress people, then it’s time you thought about using it to also impact people. Most of us, if not all of us, want to impact the people we work with or sell to.  We want to impact the way they see their “castles” (homes) by selling them beautiful homewares that help them have the home they want or we want to impact them to build a sustainable and profitable business, or we want to impact them by bringing them joy by coaching them through their lives – how you want to impact your customer/client depends on your business model, obviously!

But when you look at your social media or your marketing in general really, how are you impacting your clients/customers and potential clients or customers? What part of your marketing strategy is about impact?

Out of the 5 marketing strategies that I talk about – engagement, lead generation, sales, growth and brand awareness, using social media or marketing to impact people probably falls into an engagement strategy, lead generation and brand awareness strategies.

You can have an impact on a prospect or a client by sharing your knowledge – and remember, never underestimate what you know that others would like to know.  Sharing tips, tricks, hacks, busting myths and sharing your experiences – all these things can have an impact.  Creating and sharing lead magnets as part of your lead generation strategy, can help solve a problem that your prospect has, therefore having an impact on them and their business – the size of that impact depends on the quality of the lead magnet but also how that advice is implemented by the people who downloads it or watches it etc!

Have a look at your social media from the last month or so, are you using it to impress or to impact – or a strategic mix of both?  Have a look at your past posts from a strategic point of view and especially taking into account the pillars of a good strategy – engagement, lead generation, sales, growth and brand awareness strategies.  Need help figuring all this out – get in touch!

And finally, whilst we are talking about social media, – stop comparing yourself to others, to other business owners on social media, because we are all aware that (a) most people only post the highlights of business and life and (b) they aren’t where you are right now.  It’s great to aspire to be like someone, but if you are comparing your 12 month business journey with their 15 year business journey, it’s not a fair comparison and you aren’t being fair to yourself.

Share your knowledge, your resources, and your stories and have an impact on your audience and impress the hell out of them as to what you can do for them to make their lives or businesses simpler, easier, more profitable or just more delightful.

Get in touch, let me know your thoughts around using social media to impress or impact.  I believe the right strategy is a little of both – what do you think?

Got questions or thoughts?  Get in touch or head to the Facebook group – Like Minded Business Owners and share with everyone over there.

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 243!

Thanks again to Call on Jo for sponsoring the podcast.  Don’t forget it you need tech help, Call on Jo!  Get in touch via her website https://bit.ly/callonjo – links are in my show notes of course.

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!