Ep 154: Confessions of a Rule Breaker

I'm not your average social media coach...

I break a lot of the "rules" and cringe at about 90% of the strategies that I see circulating on social.

In this episode, you'll hear why I've decided to break away from the pack and my unique approach to showing up on social media.

You'll hear me speak about:

• the importance of being self-aware
• why posting on my feed every day isn't for me and what I do instead
• how relevancy is a game changer 
• why I choose not to batch content
• my approach to metrics
• how I decide where I show up and how

Obviously, these are my opinions and the personal approach to social media but I hope that this episode inspires you to create your own strategy and release the overwhelm that you feel when showing up on social. 

Enjoy!

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Transcript

[Chelsea Peitz]: 0:24

Hey everybody, welcome back to the show. I'm excited to talk about some content rules that I break as a social media coach. And this could probably come as no surprise, but I am a little bit of a of a unpopular opinion slash controversial slash do things my own way kind of person. I guess I'm sort of a social media coach unicorn in that way. But I'm a big believer in embracing what works for you and not everything is going to work for you. not everything that you pick up at a conference or a podcast, you're going to apply and feel like it is a good fit. And so one of the things that I keep seeing across my socials are tips and hacks and tricks that you must do in order to X, Y, and Z. And some of the posts that I hope I never see again are things like how I got 50,000 new followers in 10 days. And I'm just like, but why, why, what is your goal? And all of us have different goals. Some people's goals are to amass the largest audience that they can get. Some people's goals are to maintain their sanity and mental health while they're also running a household and a full-time business and whatever else it is. So I made this real recently and I wanted to dive into it in a little bit more detail. And I want you to know that you have the permission to make the decisions that you know are right for your business. An example of this is I was just doing a project and I was trying it a different way than I normally would have gone at it. What I found was I should have just trusted my gut. I should have just trusted my gut. I should have said, you know what, this is not how everybody else does it or how I'm seeing other people do it. But when I saw the finished product, I was like, oh, this doesn't even feel like me. So I am a big believer in following your gut. You know what is best for you. And trusting myself and self-awareness are two goals that I have on my list for 2023 to really hone in and understand and be self-aware and trust myself that I can make the right decisions for me and my business and what feels good at that season of my life and time in my business as well. So let's get into it. There are a few things that I mention in this reel, and these are content air quotes rules. I put air quotes around the rules because let's be honest, I mean, who made these rules? Rules that I break as a social media coach. Number one, I don't post daily. And this is still a question that I get very often in the majority of my classes that I'm hosting either on Zoom or live is, do I need to post every day? In fact, I met someone at a conference in the last week and this person said, I thought I had to post every day and I thought I had to post this specific way because someone told me that's what I was supposed to do. And so I don't post daily. I never have. I should put an asterisk by this. I post daily on stories, specifically Instagram stories, and I do that because I love it. And if you have something that you love, absolutely lean into it. If it is fueling you and firing you up, and giving you life, then I love that for you. Stories give me life because I do not have to come up with captions, I don't have to have a starting and ending a hook, nothing, it's just me. And I love the ability to just be me. That is sort of my creative outlet. For other people, it's writing, it's podcasting, it's creating hooks, that is not me. But I don't post daily in the feed. I don't create videos daily, I don't create podcasts daily, I don't even sit down and create content ideas daily. And I've tried that. I really have. I've tried all of those things. And the reason that I don't post daily is mainly because I don't have the capacity. I don't want to. I don't want to. The funny thing about this reel is when I was listing out all the things that I don't do, after the reason why I gave each one, I also put PS, I don't want to. So if you don't want to do something, then let's find a different way for you to engage with your community, for you to connect with other human beings, because there's more than one way to do something. So I don't post daily also because of the recommendation algorithm. And the recommendation algorithm, in my opinion, is one of the best things that's ever happened to our content in ages because it's no longer a chronological feed, meaning it's in order. So you see the most recent thing at the top. And what people would do is keep posting again and again and again and again and again to make sure that they were at the top of the heap. And now it's about relevancy. It's like, what am I interested in? If I'm interested in this particular topic, then I'm going to see that content because I'm likely searching for that content or I've consumed that content in the past or the people that I'm connected with, I'm going to see their content, the people that I engage with, because they want to serve me content. That is going to keep me on the platform and keep me interested so they can keep me happy and let's reset so they can also make more money with their ads. But I don't post daily because number one, I don't want to. I know that I would burn out, again, talking about self-awareness. And I know that consistency matters. And I also know that the algorithm isn't ranking me against someone else because somebody else is posting five times a day or once a day. That's great for them. And they are going to grow faster. They are going to get more reach. And that's OK, because that is likely their goal. And they're probably enjoying the process. I do not enjoy that process. And I do also wanna say that I don't enjoy that process right now. This could change in a year. Like you can change your mind. You evolve as a human being and so does your business. And so does things going on in your life. You might be caring for a sick parent. You might be unwell yourself. You might be going through a pandemic, whatever it may be. It's okay for you to change your mind. If you're like, I'm gonna be posting every single. week, once a week, I'm going to do one video, I'm going to post it on my YouTube, I'm going to do one video and I'm going to post it in the feed. Great. Maybe next year you're going to want to do three times and that's okay. What we want to do is be consistent, which means if I'm going to do three times a week and I'm going to up that, I need to stay at that rate for a good amount of time. And so that consistency is really what is driving the algorithm. They're looking at your sort of baseline. And so I'm not going to be punished because somebody else that I know in my industry is posting every single day. Are they going to grow faster, get more reach and visibility? Yeah, sure. And that's okay too. So I don't post daily because the recommendation algorithm is going to also make sure that my content is being sorted and served and appropriately to the right people. So that's kind of a relief that you don't have to post daily. I do love posting daily in my stories and I love talking to people daily. So I am a big believer in still going on the platform and engaging. and connecting with people because even 23 years ago, when I started in the real estate business, my broker would always say, how many people did you talk to today? And a really busy day was like three or four, because you had to see them in person. And now I can talk to three or four people in less than a minute, which is pretty awesome. The next content rule that I break as a social media coach is I don't batch create content. Ooh, I know. I know. I don't know if Katie Lance is out there listening, but... Uh, she always is like, wait, you don't batch create content. She is the queen of batching content. This amazing human actually can batch content for an entire year at one time. I love it. I love that for her. And, you know, for a long time, I was really jealous of people that can do that. And if I'm being honest, I probably still really am jealous of people that can do that. It's just my brain doesn't work that way. And so I've tried all the things I've tried once a month, once a week, once every day. And again, I just go through like seasons in life and just everything. And so I have now given that up. I've given up the batch creating content. I will tell you that it is absolutely something that I think everybody should try and if you can implement it, it is better. I don't do well with sitting down to record five things at a time. I wish that I did. I don't know if it's my energy level that I get to like number three and I'm like, Oh, I can't do this anymore. I don't know. But I don't batch create content. And you know what? I still make content. I am a content creator. And so I've honored the way that I create content and I, I'm still figuring out. What the right cadence for me is. Is it recording a short podcast every day? Is it recording podcasts just on Friday? There absolutely is a massive value in batch creating your content. being smart with your time and productivity and efficiency. So I'm not saying that batch creating content isn't a possibility for you. What I am saying is you should try it, you should try different things, and you can be super successful by just having inspiration strike. There's something for me about having an open mind and sort of this open vibe for content to strike me. And when I'm stressed and thinking, oh, tomorrow I have to come up with these five things, it doesn't happen. For me, that forcing it does not work. So the next content rule that I break, I don't look at metrics. I do not look at metrics. In fact, sometimes when these new metrics come out in measurements, I'm like, oh, I don't even know where that is because I don't go look at my metrics. And listen, I believe that like what you measure, you know, expands, what you focus on expands in a positive and a negative. And for me, I know that if I get trapped in the views or trapped in the in certain metrics, I will start to overanalyze. Here's that self-awareness again, and figure out what's going wrong. And I'm going to think I'm the thing that's going wrong. And then I'm going to spend days and hours figuring out different hooks and all that. It's kind of a conundrum, if you will, because we do need to know what's working. We do need to look at our content and figure out what's going on. So I think what I would do is to back up a little bit is that at some point, you do need to look at metrics. At some point in your content creation career, you need to figure out is this working? OK, people aren't watching past. two seconds. All right, well, we need to adjust our hooks. People are not engaging. Okay, I need to figure out is there something that I do? Did I have a call to action? So I'm not saying to just give up like looking at your content and any kind of metric, but I'm also here to tell you that if you're in a specific season of your business in life, you can make up your own metrics. Your metrics might be how many people did I proactively talk to today? Maybe your metrics are only focused on what you can control. Did I meet my content creation batch creating content day? Did I sit down and do my three videos? Did I talk to people today? And I definitely would encourage you if you are a metrics person to look at your shares and your saves and your watch time on TikTok and on Instagram so that you can see is this content that's resonating. And I will tell you that if you're like me and you get super wrapped up in the views and even though I know, like I know they're just views, like there's no bearing on the value of that video related to views. But I will tell you when I post something and I'm like, oh wow, it only has this many views and it's been posted for an hour. I still get it in my head. Okay. So I'm being transparent and I'm being human. There's only been one time that I've deleted a video for that. And then I immediately was like, why did I do that? Why did I, I shouldn't have done that. Right. So I don't look at my metrics all the time. Should I get to my metrics and start looking at some things and maybe making some smart, smart choices about how to test and how to rearrange things? Absolutely. Or maybe I should have my assistant do that. for me and help me with that and sort of assess. I mean, and that's something that you could do as well. But I don't get too wrapped up in the metrics about my content because I know that I'll just stop posting it. So I'm just going to keep going. The next content rule that I break as a social media coach is I don't post everywhere. I don't because I don't want to. And I don't have the time. And certainly, I could come up with a system and streamline it. And I'm not there yet. What I'm doing is that right now, I'm actually creating that right now. And I just haven't had the capacity and the space to do it before. So what I am going to do is now that I do have an amazing assistant, I'm going to create a system where I take this podcast, we turn it into a blog, we post it to different things. And creating that system or having someone or another human that can help you with that is absolutely key for some people. It's key for me. I don't know how individuals post all the things, all the places everywhere. And I just know myself and I know that what I focus on expands and if I focus on too many things, nothing's going to expand. So I don't post everywhere. I focus on Instagram and there's a lot of things within Instagram to focus on. I focus on my email list and sending out and committing to a monthly newsletter. I focus on my podcast. And by the way, I didn't do all of those things at once. I started with Instagram. Then I went to my email list, which I just started building two years ago, friends. I had zero email lists two years ago, so it is not too late. I have not done YouTube seriously and I am now just starting. It is not too late. So know yourself and know that you can layer in these things, but I don't post everywhere mainly because I just didn't have a system nor the bandwidth to create that system. And now that I have help, I am going to start posting in more places, but I'm going to put the system in place first. All right, next rule I break. I don't post it specific times and days again, because of the recommendation algorithm and also because I don't want to, because I know myself, I'm like, Oh no, it's 12 o'clock on Wednesday and I'm supposed to be posting at 12 o'clock on Wednesday and Fridays and Sundays. And I'm just, I've got all these things going on and I'm either just going to post something to post it and I'm not going to be happy with it or I'm going to be so stressed that I'm just going to do nothing. So again, with that recommendation algorithm, you can just post when you want. And it's going to end up in your content library, which is the goal. And the recommendation algorithm is also gonna help people to see it who are interested. And also because you're engaging with people that you wanna be seen by in the future, that algorithm is gonna make sure that your content gets into their feed, which is a great thing. Um, generally speaking, I like to post during the daytime hours. I find that at least my audience, generally speaking, Monday through Friday is like before 3 PM. If I can get it in the morning, morning, like before noon, I find that that's even better mainly for me, because then I have time to go in and comment and engage. So again, I'm choosing when can I be more available to comment and engage. And if I post something at night, I'm just gonna fall asleep because I fall asleep by like eight o'clock. So those are some of the reasons that I have made that choice. And last but not least, the content rule I break as a social media coach is that every time there is an Instagram update or an update to whatever platform, I do not change my strategy. I test things. And listen, I've fallen into the trap when Instagram was like, Oh, we're going all reels. I was like, well, I have to do all reels. And you know what? I don't like making reels. I like making stories and I like making carousel posts and I had gotten away from writing and telling stories. And I was like, you know what, what am I doing? Right. So it's really easy to get wrapped up, especially when that platform is like, Hey, we're this is we're doing all this. Right. When they tell you just use three hashtags. And I know like you're like, but this is the actual platform telling you. But my question is why, why are they telling us to do X, Y, and Z? And so I just have to remember that this is me. This is my strategy and it's worked for me and it's, it's a long term strategy. And my strategy is to show up as me authentically and to help people. and have some fun while I'm doing it. And so I like to mix up my content mainly because I get bored. I like to do a photo, then a carousel, then a reel. I get bored, okay? And so if I'm getting bored, I figure, well, other people might get bored too, so I'm just gonna make different content things. So as those strategies change, as they're trying to push out their newest and latest shiny object, just know... that you're not a shiny object, your strategy is not a shiny object. This doesn't mean you shouldn't evolve and grow and change. It just means that we don't have to abandon everything and do what everybody else is doing. And in fact, if you do the opposite of what a lot of people are doing, that's one way that you're going to set yourself apart from people whose content is going to start looking all the same. And every content goes through trends. We're all going to start doing more edited content and then that's going to get you know, to the point where everybody's doing it. And then you're like, OK, let's go over to the opposite and let's do unedited story focused content. OK. And then so it's a fluidity. You always want to remain the same. You are always your brand. You don't change your brand. Even if you change your hair color or hairstyle, it's still you. So think of that when it comes to trends and content and what the apps are pushing and get. I get it. I understand I'm using trending songs on some of my reels because I know that it'll get shown more. So you've also got to weigh that as well. So those are some of the rules that I've been breaking and will likely to continue to break. If you have some questions about some of the rules that you've been hearing, I would love to take those questions. You can send me a direct message on Instagram. That's where I hang out the most. You can find me at Chelsea.Pyte's. I would love to hear from you. Let me know that you came from the show. And thanks so much for listening. I'll see you next time. Bye.