In this episode of ‘Your Dream Business Podcast,’ I talked with Karen Cureton, a multi-award-winning social media trainer and speaker. We tackled the common dilemmas businesses face with social media, from engaging effectively to overcoming the fear of visibility. Karen shared her journey from corporate sales to helping women in business grow their social media presence, demystifying the process with actionable strategies. Tune in for insightful tips on building relationships online, maintaining authenticity, and consistently engaging your audience for business growth.
KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
- Overcoming the Fear of Visibility: Karen shared practical tips on how to conquer the fear of being seen online and why embracing authenticity is crucial for building trust with your audience.
- Building Relationships Through Engagement: The importance of genuine, consistent interaction on social media was emphasized as a way to foster meaningful connections and grow your business.
- Simplifying Social Media Strategies: Karen broke down actionable steps to demystify social media, making it easier for businesses to create a strong online presence and maintain consistency.
If you enjoyed this episode then please feel free to go and share it on your social media or head over to Apple podcasts or Spotify and give me a review, I would be so very grateful.
LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Connect with Karen Cureton on LinkedIn, Website, Facebook, Instagram
Connect with Teresa on Website, The Club, Sign up to Teresa’s email list, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter
Transcript
If you are in business, you know that social media is something that we have to do. Some of you might love it, and some of you might think it’s a necessary evil, something that we have to do. And some of you might feel like you’re not doing it at all, and you really should be. But you might be thinking, why do I go to all that effort of putting all those posts out when it’s just tumbleweed?
And people talk about getting clients from social media, but it’s never really happened for you. Well, today’s guest is addressing all of those things. How do you show up where you actually do engage with your potential customers and turn them into clients?
Hello, and a really warm welcome to this week’s episode of the podcast. How are you doing? I always love it when I can bring you guests that I know really well and today’s guest is no exception. Karen Cureton has been working with me for the past 12 months.
She’s actually been in my world a very long time as a voyeur and a lurker which you will hear more about people lurking on social media and she’s watched me for quite some time and about 12 months ago she started working with me and it’s just been an absolute pleasure to work with her. And as you’ll hear in the interview, one of the things that I talk about is that I encourage everyone [00:02:00] I work with to increase their visibility by getting on podcasts, by putting themselves in front of other people’s audiences and putting themselves out there.
And Karen obviously came to me and said, well, could I come on your podcast? And I was like, of course you can. So it’s really lovely to have Karen come and join us today. Karen is a multi award winning social media trainer and speaker, and she works with women in business to inspire them to grow through being visible on social media.
She is not your typical social media trainer. She is an ex pat Geordie with over 20 years experience in corporate sales. But for the last decade, she’s focused on helping women in business navigate the social media maze, where she is passionate about ditching the jargon and creating a safe space to learn.
Karen has a program called Social Media for Grown Ups because as Karen shares in this episode, she was not of an era where she grew up with the internet and therefore her passion lies in helping other women and people who have had the say, where social media [00:03:00] isn’t second nature, isn’t something that they grew up with, and help them demystify what it is like and get on it.
We have such a cool conversation with some really good actionable takeaways for you. So at the end of this episode, I summarize some of those actionable takeaways, but we’re talking about how to show up, how to get engagement, how to be proactive with your engagement and how to feel. like a real human being when you’re on social media and how to come across as a real human being so that the people you’re trying to interact with know that and they know that you’re not some spammy horrible salesperson who’s just trying to jump in their DMs and irritate them, which we’ve all probably had experience of.
Well, I certainly have had loads of it, but most of all, it was just a really lovely chat and so lovely to bring it to the podcast. So without further ado, here is The Awesome Karen. Karen, a really warm welcome to the podcast. How are you doing?
Karen: I’m really good. Thank you. The sun is actually shining, so I’m happy. I’m [00:04:00] happy.
Teresa: Actually, you’re not wrong. It’s, it’s a little bit, a little bit blue sky here. Obviously, if you’re listening to this and you’re not British, then you might find it weird that we just immediately talk about the weather, but that is obviously our MO, like, you know, we talk about weather. Karen, you have been in my world for some time, which is lovely.
And What was super interesting was we, one of the things I do with my students and clients is we talk about visibility and it’s what happens whenever I teach people the visibility strategy of getting in front of other people’s audiences, they then get really nervous to approach me because I’ve taught it and you sent me.
In fact, you had heard someone I’d interviewed and you were like, I’m never gonna ask to come on the podcast, didn’t you?
Karen: Yeah, true.
Teresa: But you did it and you’re here, which is great. I, because
Karen: no, I message to you and said, I’m putting my big girl’s pants on and I’m gonna apply.
Teresa: Yes. And look what happened. So
Karen: there you go.
Teresa: If someone is sat there thinking, oh, I’m too scared to do that, [00:05:00] just do it. You just never, never know. And actually, I. Love what you do. And obviously, I’ve been watching what you do for some time and even in my world for some time. And I think lots of people are going to resonate with this conversation. We are talking about social media, but you come at it from a different angle.
Now, obviously, if someone’s listening to this, they can’t see you, Karen. So maybe let’s start with why you come at the angle you come at.
Karen: Well, I come at the angle I come at because I didn’t grow up with the internet. I am a woman who grew up, I don’t even want to say what decade, that’s really scary. But I grew up, didn’t grow up with the internet.
I grew up when my old boss used to send me faxes on a Sunday night with my reports and stuff like that. So I came to social media, I was still a really early adopter. I was on Twitter, God forbid that, Ooh, don’t get me started on that, but Twitter was where I very first started [00:06:00] because I was in a sales role.
I was sales director for a national house builder. Absolutely loved what I did and then was stupid enough to have a kid, you know, who does that? And then I started looking at, I didn’t want to go back into the corporate world and I thought how can I attract new clients? Because I didn’t have a big budget, I didn’t have lots of money and I came at it from a perspective of, do you know what it is? everything that I’ve learned about selling high end properties. which is where I worked. It was about building relationships and social media is exactly that. People forget, like we just say, it’s, if you forget, it’s called social networking and you build relationships with your future clients. And so I started looking at it as a woman in business with very little budget.
It didn’t grow up with the internet and thought, do you know what it is? I [00:07:00] think this could be a goer. I think it could be absolutely a goer. And that’s what, 14 years ago.
Teresa: I think, I think this, I think my audience is probably a little bit split in a sense of, there are probably some people listening to this, like, yeah, I love social media.
I’m great. I’m good on it. It’s brilliant. And then there are some people who are like, I just can’t get my head around it. And how, If you deal with people who, like you said, didn’t grow up with the internet, didn’t grow up with social media, you know, we all know that when we look at, you know, your children are older than my daughter, my daughter’s 15, and how old are your boys?
Karen: My son’s come, he’s 19, he’s 20 in May.
Teresa: Well, it’s so second nature to them. That’s all they know. So how do you go about encouraging someone who didn’t, they didn’t grow up with it, they don’t even necessarily like it? Like, some people don’t, you know, it’s not their thing. Like, how do you encourage them to [00:08:00] actually even consider it in the first place for their business?
Karen: I think, I think there’s two things there that I want to address, which is I, I assumed because I’m the wrong side of 40 that it was just people who didn’t grow up with the internet. But I actually trained a young woman last year who was a personal trainer. and she said, I absolutely hate, hate social media.
I’m terrified of it. And I think whether you are her generation, younger, I’m actually coaching a young woman who’s 18. Who’s working at a dad’s business, doing the marketing, and I’m coaching her to do the social media for that business. She’s terrified. So I think. We almost need to swipe the age thing out.
I think it’s a thing where people lack confidence. They’re fearful of judgment. And then it’s the donor looks silly. [00:09:00] You know, I remember the very first time I went live. Back in the day, I went live on Facebook, I was absolutely bricking it. And I planned it all out and I did it and I thought I’d done a decent job.
Then this horrible woman messaged me and it’s the only time in 14 years somebody’s done it. And she messaged me, oh, I thought your lighting could have been better. I thought you could have done this, could I? And I just responded and went, thanks for your feedback and blocked her. But my point is, I said this to a lady, well, just before Christmas and she said, I really don’t like social media.
I know I need to be there. It’s a necessary evil. And I said, well, your options are you are the pay somebody to do it for you, which is never the same as your voice. No, never the same as your voice or you learn how to do it. So what I do is I bring in my old sales tools and I say, well, what if. You learned this stuff.
What if you then signed up, [00:10:00] say five new clients in the first six months, what would the value of that client being to your business? And how would that make you feel? Well, I’d feel great. And I think it’s that it’s like. You know, I’m an introvert extrovert. I know you. I’m quite comfortable chatting away and I will chat away, but I’m also the person that flew to Australia and didn’t speak to a soul.
Yeah. I’m not sociable in that way with people I don’t know. And, and in social media, I, I do that. I think I dress for work and I think I’m putting my, my work avatar on, which is confident Karen. And so I’ll say to, to clients and I’ll say to your listeners. Take a step back for it and think about how you’d feel if you get the results you want, but I think it’s, it’s take it to the point that what we want to do is build relationships first, because we forget if we walked into a really [00:11:00] smart shop.
for me, it would be a handbag shop. We walked in there into Mulberry and it would go, can I help you? And you go, don’t touch me. Don’t touch me. Whereas actually I went to Mulberry before for my birthday, I went to Mulberry and this lovely woman came up to me and said, she says, Oh, you’ve got a Daria. She says, Oh, she says, Oh, it’s one of my favourites.
And we ended up talking handbag. She built a relationship with me.
Teresa: Yeah. And I think. That’s the key thing. I think often when people are scared of social media or don’t want to do it, they’re not thinking of, which was always the problem in the first place, they’re not thinking of forget the Forget the, the actual, you know, platform itself, it’s about, that’s all it is.
Like it just happens to be a different way of doing it. It’s the, the essence of what you do doesn’t change the, the building, the relationships that have in the conversations that doesn’t change. It’s just the format in which you put that out, whether it’s in person, whether it’s something [00:12:00] else or whether it was on social media.
But I guess people really get hung up with the, the actual mechanics of using social media.
Karen: Yeah. Yeah. And I think, I think it’s about one of, one of the ladies I worked with about five, six years ago, she said, what I need is a workable way to do this stuff. And I think, you know, I, I have, I, I, in my head, which can be quite, crazy at times.
I have four things and I try and keep it really simple. I have four things that I think we need to learn and we incrementally, it’s a bit like, you know, when your daughter was learning to ride a bike, she wouldn’t get on that bike and go straight to the end of the street and back without falling off. We build up, we build up our learning.
So I’ll say to people, if you think about the foundation of your, knowledge starts with the plan because we still have a plan for our businesses. You know, I have my big flip chart in my office where I have what I’m doing month by month, what I want to do in my business, [00:13:00] what I need to do to get there.
Your social media activity should be just the same. So you start with your foundations, your planning, what, where do I want to be this time next year? What do I want to be doing? Then you build up by the next layer. It’s almost like a cake. Next layer of super chocolate icing, let’s call it chocolate icing.
And then that’s the juicy stuff. That’s your content, that’s your imagery. Maybe creating reels, going live. Some gorgeous branded imagery. Understanding that and then building up again by then starting to build your audience and then engage with them because that’s the piece every time I go to a networking event, somebody will say to me, Oh, I’m paying my VA to do my social media, do my social media.
And I said, well, what’s she doing? Yeah, well, she’s posting. I said, and who’s engaging, who’s talking to your audience and, and it’s a bit like if we [00:14:00] shouldn’t just hit a tennis ball at a wall, it would be very exciting that’s posting on social media, not actually, let’s get to be hitting that ball back to us and talking.
Teresa: That’s a great analogy. The whole, you know, the difference between playing tennis with a partner and just banging it against the wall. Like, you know, you’re not getting anything back, you know,
Karen: like boring. It’s boring. You know, I remember when I very first started on social media. I was in selling mode. I wasn’t, I was in almost in that panic, you know, that fight of like, just sell to them, just put stuff out about how you can work with me.
And then I took a step back and, and I’ll do this now. I would actually urge your listeners to do this. Do an audit of your last 20 posts. How many of them are building a sense of your personality? How many of them are authority positioning you? How many of them are talking about your pedigree? And what your clients say about [00:15:00] working with you, how many of them give you a sense of what results you can achieve and the difference you make and your differentiation.
So I’ll say, take a step back, have a look, because actually quite often when we all start, we all start with selling because that’s the easy thing to do.
Teresa: Yeah. So, okay. I’ve got questions coming out of my head. Okay. So. Firstly, what if you are literally getting tumbleweed? So what if? And I think this is the mistake that you kind of touched on and, and, and we can talk more about is that just the posting thing that I’m posting, I’m showing up and doing the thing and I’m getting nothing. Let’s talk about that first.
Karen: I would strip it all back to basics. So I would say, okay, who do you want to attract? Because majority of us, a lot of us offer services. And I think there’s a thing around positioning our expectations. How often does somebody need what we offer? [00:16:00] Now, if somebody was buying the pen.
That’s really easy. You know, I buy loads of stuff on Instagram for the cats, you know, it’s what I do. It’s, it’s an easy quick sale, isn’t it? Yeah. But if you have a service, I would take a step back and think about, are you clear about who you want to work with? And will your profile Your bio resonate with them, regardless of platform, and my ethos is very much around, it doesn’t matter which, you said it before, it doesn’t matter which platform.
Mechanics are different, but actually the principles are the same. Your bio, your profile. needs to be something that’s going to resonate, it’s going to talk to that person. So I would say if you’re sitting there and you’re getting nothing happening, do a bit of a family and friends test with your bio, ask people, your friends, people that you trust, what do you think I do?
Who do you think I help?
Teresa: Because no one would have a flipping clue in my [00:17:00] case, not even me half the time.
Karen: But I was used to say did, you know, it’s like the Chandler from friends test. Nobody really knew what Chandler did. And I still feel sad when I say that. And you know, nobody knew what he did. So have a look, you know, get some, get an independent review of your bio, but then have a look at.
Are you following the right people, and are you starting to engage with them? So last night, really oddly, this woman followed me on Instagram last night, and I’m a polite girl, and I had a look at her profile and thought, Yeah, she works in PR, there’s some synergy there. So I followed her back, and I instantly got a DM trying to sell to me.
Oh, man. So I’ve blocked her
Teresa: and I think that’s everyone’s fear that engagement like how many times on LinkedIn seems to be the favorite. Although I have say Instagram is just as bad for me. There are my two main platforms where I’ll get a DM going, Hey, [00:18:00] I really want to talk to you about this. Do you want to jump on a call?
And it’s like, no, I don’t even know you, but like, how do we engage so that we. are showing up genuinely, we are growing our account, we are connecting with people without feeling like I need to shower in bleach.
Karen: And I, and I, I think what we need to do is make sure we’re building a tribe of the right people, because if your bio is written in the right way, then you’re following the right people, they land on your profile and they go, Oh yeah, they sound like my sort of people, I’m going to follow them back.
So I think there’s an element of that, but also, you know, we don’t have to do that dirty salesy thing. I think what, what I like to do is keep it really simple. So what I might do is if I’m following somebody on Instagram, I will make them a favorite, which is really easy to do. I will favorite them on Instagram and I will engage in their posts because we want to build that [00:19:00] relationship.
We can’t just click like that takes zero effort. But what I. Oh, often think, and I’m very much about chunking bits of time and I’ll say once a week, why don’t you set aside half an hour, have yourself a list of the accounts of people that you’d like to work with. And I call it helping, you know, I reframe it as a salesperson, I’m helping you.
I’m providing you with a solution to a problem, whether it’s visibility, whether it’s knowledge, whatever you’re selling. And then I will spend half an hour. Um, with my hot list, people are favorited. So it’s really easy to find them. Or as we’ve said before, as I said, before we came online, double belling them on LinkedIn, I don’t know if that’s what it’s called, but that’s what I call it.
Because if you’re connected with somebody on LinkedIn, if you’re first connections, you can click a bell on that profile and you get a notification. Every [00:20:00] time they post. How cool is that?
Teresa: How do you manage that notification? Because I have to say, I have turned off every notification on every social media platform that I have. And I just go in and look, so I no longer have it on my phone.
Karen: No, me neither. If I showed you my phone now, I have zero notifications.
Teresa: But also I get lost as in the notifications show up a load of stuff that I’m like, what even is this? I don’t understand. Like, how do you manage that side of it?
Karen: So I do it by first job of the day, because I do manage a few accounts as well as my own.
So first job of the day, I literally almost not set a time, I’m not that sad, but I literally go into my phone, swipe through. Is there anything here? Because you can see at a glance, if you leave it too long, then it becomes overwhelming. But you know, I’m not, I’m not famous. I don’t have hundreds of [00:21:00] notifications and most of us normal human beings, you know, I’m not like the Amy Porterfields of this world that will have so much going on in her world.
But for me, in the morning, I check my account. I’ve got four clients accounts that I check. Takes me ten minutes. Right. It takes me 10 minutes. And actually, what the algorithm will do, regardless of platform is, especially on LinkedIn, you can, you can click on the three dots to the right of the notification and say, I don’t want to be notified about this.
So it will tell me, oh, such and such was speaking at events. And you can click on those dots and it’ll, it’ll say, I don’t want to be notified about things like this. And it’ll learn, but it’s up to us to teach it. But I think it’s almost, I often use the phrase. It’s almost about finding the rhythm. So if you, if you put aside time once a week to engage with the people you want to work with, that’s valuable.
I call it, don’t call it sales, [00:22:00] I call it business development time. . Business development time to engage with the people that matter to you.
Teresa: And your engagement looks like going and liking and commenting on their posts rather than sending 20 cold spammy ordeals.
Karen: Oh God, no. I mean, I want, I want to, I’ll usually like it like straight away, but then I’ll go back in and put something meaningful.
And the other thing I’ve actually started since the beginning of December, a bit of a new strategy, which is all my clients are favorited on Instagram. And I re share this stuff to my stories, which I think is going to give it more lifestyle.
Teresa: Yeah. And that is a, a really, Always a great thing to do from because our whole point of anybody posting anything on social media is that we want eyes on it.
And by doing that, by sharing someone’s staff, like if someone shares something of mine, that’s the notification that I pay attention to. And I think that’s [00:23:00] the other thing, isn’t it? It’s like, what is it that is the biggest bang for the buck? And what is it that someone who you’re trying to build a relationship with is like, Oh, wow.
Okay, cool. That’s brilliant.
Karen: Can I tell you a really quick, funny, true, absolutely true story, Stacey Solomon, right? Last February, I was at the Theo Profita’s Small Business Sunday event. If you’re a listener, any of your listeners in the UK, get on Instagram, find Theo, enter it, it’s awesome. But Stacey was the keynote speaker.
at the ITC Exhibition Centre in Birmingham last February, and she was brilliant. She was, I mean, she’s not sort of top of my list of people. I like Davina at Atomicon, she was amazing. But Stacey was very genuine, very down to earth. And they did a Q and a at the end of our session. And this woman said, can I just say to you that I want to give you an enormous thank you.
Earlier this year, you shared one of my posts to your [00:24:00] stories and it crashed our website overnight. She says, that is the impact you made to my little business. And Stacy Solomon stood there and started crying, got off the stage and came and hugged this woman. And apparently that’s a thing that she does and she’s got loads of followers.
So I think, and the other thing is when you do little strategies like that. Your perfect customer, the people you want to support knows that you’ve done that. So I do it with my clients and they’ll DM and go, Oh, Karen, that was really nice as well. I thought it was a good post. I wanted to share it. I want to support your business.
And I think it’s that thing. I love the word reciprocity is that I give with no expectation of getting back. And I think people buy into that. Whereas if you go in all guns blazing, Oh, I’d really like to sell you this. Yeah. We’re just going to run and hide, aren’t we?
Teresa: Yeah. Yeah. And it is. It’s having that kind of [00:25:00] no expectation. And I think that’s really important because that’s the problem with the stuff I hate on social media. When someone DMs you or someone comments on something and you know, the only reason they’re doing it is to get some, because I get this a lot where people will reply to a story and be like, Oh, awesome.
Or something very generic. And I try to always reply to anybody that’s messaged me. So I’ll reply. Get off. Thanks. And then they jump in with the kind of, okay, now I want to get you on a call or now have you seen this thing or whatever. And it just feels horrible. And then it kind of puts a really bad taste in your mouth about anybody doing that.
But like you said, it’s that kind of showing up regardless with no expectation of if something comes of this great, if it doesn’t, it doesn’t.
Karen: Do you know, I think it is too. I think if you, you, you have some fundamentals in place and you have little tactics to engage and almost. Stick your head above the parapet a little bit to your audience, the people you want [00:26:00] to help, and you do it consistently.
I always say six months of consistent activity, you should see results. If you’re not, then there’s something, there’s a disconnect somewhere, but I always say, if you have a process like that and you stick to it, and I, you know, I go, I mean, I’m, for somebody who didn’t grow up the internet, I’m somebody who absolutely loves technology and I have lots of prompts and things to, you know, I use it.
Lots of tasks and stuff, so I don’t forget things and I block out the time in my phone. My former business coach years ago used to say to me, you need to block out time to develop and grow your business. And for most of us, social media is a big part of our marketing. That’s how our audiences get a sense of who we are.
Yeah, I think that’s where it becomes. That’s why, like, when you did all your lives, all your. Lives in the garden. . [00:27:00] You know, people love that because you look back. I looked at my, I did an audit the other day and I was showing a client how to look at her insights. And I said, look at what my best poach post was for reach in 2024 on Instagram.
It was me in a cocktail bar in Newcastle. And I wasn’t even in the photo.
Teresa: Brilliant. I don’t think you should read too much into that, Karen.
Karen: No, I don’t think you should. But it was, it’s a really unusual cocktail bar because it’s what used to be a listed building and it’s some underground toilets, men’s, former men’s toilets.
They’re Victorian men’s toilets and they’ve been made into a cocktail bar.
Teresa: Crazy.
Karen: But personality, people get a sense of who you are, what sort of person you are away from your business. And I think Instagram is amazing for that.
Teresa: And so I want to touch on something that, uh, you mentioned about going live.
And I think there’s, there’s many [00:28:00] reasons and we can’t get into all of them here, but why people have this block with social media. One of them is technology. What the hell do I post and I am posting and it’s not working. So we touched on the engagement. What about the whole showing your face?
Karen: Oh God. I, I absolutely, I go live. Simultaneously on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook, or FaceA because I like to call it, every single month. Every single Monday.
Teresa: The tech sounds, that sounds horrible anyway, right, that’s all I’m going to say.
Karen: The reason I do it, all those three, is I use a third party tool which integrates with all three.
Teresa: What tool do you use?
Karen: I use StreamYard.
Teresa: Okay.
Karen: So StreamYard integrates with all three. So it’s one piece of work and I’m a big fan of that. Let’s do the work once and get as much traction as we can from it. I never watch myself back. I can’t bear [00:29:00] it. I am the woman who has self view switched off on Zoom because I can’t bear to look at myself.
Teresa: team. That’s so funny. I always, every time I’m on zoom, like as we speak now, I’ve got a gallery view. So I am the same size as you. Like I can’t even do it. So I do speak of you. So I’m tying it up. What does that say about me?
Karen: Well, no, I think, I think, I think For me personally, I think it’s too much. It’s too much information, but I want to get my teeth done.
I want to get my teeth. I want to get braces on my teeth. So every time I see myself on Zoom, I think, Oh, I should have got that appointment sorted.
Teresa: I have never, ever looked at your teeth. And we’ve been on Zoom many, many times and thought.
Karen: I know. And it’s just, it’s a self conscious thing.
Teresa: Totally.
Karen: I think the key thing is what I would say is if you’re nervous about being on camera, I think firstly, If you go on Instagram, there’s so many ways you can do reels that you don’t have to be on camera.
You could be doing, um, an [00:30:00] unpacking of something. It could be behind the scenes. You don’t have to be on camera. However, what I will share is when I used to first go live and used to be absolutely terrified . And then , will then anybody watch? anybody engange? what I do is I have a bunch of Post it notes that I sit along above my screen with the key.
I always have three things that I want to sort of focus on. So I’ll do my intro, who I am, what I offer, and then I’ll do a topic of the day. And then I’ll wrap it up with, if there’s anything you’d like me to talk about next time, any questions you’ve got, just DM me and we’ll, we’ll add it into a future live.
And I think it’s that thing, and it’s a bit like the posting. If you did it, if you do it once, I’ve got clients I work with. In fact, she emailed me today. She’s a trainer. She’s an improver of people. She stands up and does lots of senior leadership training, and she’s frightened of going [00:31:00] live with me. And I said, George, think of it as like loose women.
It’s you and I just having a chat. You know, it’s, it’s just, it’s just a chat. It’s like, think of yourself, you know, if you’re in the States, you’re, you’re, you’re on a, just a Saturday night live chat show. And you’re just, just having a conversation. I used to say to people. When I very first used to go live and if you are brave enough to go live, I’d urge you to do it is I used to trail it like a new TV show.
So, because people need to know you’re going live. So what I used to do until I got people turning up, I used to do the night before I would say join me live tomorrow morning at 8am and I’m going to be talking about X. Whatever topic, then half an hour before I went live, I would do another post and then go back in and take them down because it looks rubbish at newsfeed.
Then you’re sort of telling people, cause you know, it’s like, we’ve just [00:32:00] watched the new Harlan Colbin thing on Netflix. It’s all over buses, TV, being trailed everywhere. If you’re going to want people to show up for your live. You always need to trail it, put it in your newsletter, make sure that you’ve got people that you communicate with people is join me live this week when I’ll be talking about X this particular topic.
And I think that’s the other thing.
Teresa: It’s the, you’ve got to put a bit of effort in. In order to get people to turn up live, you can’t expect just to go live and suddenly people to be there. But the other thing that’s so fascinating is that people are so fearful of other people seeing them, but the truth is, you’re lucky if that’s the case.
Karen: Oh God, yeah.
Teresa: Because you’ll go live and no one will be watching and that’s devastating.
Karen: But what I’d also urge your listeners to think about is don’t ever be disheartened. No. I’ve worked out it’s seven years that I’ve been gone live. Wow. Seven years since we were away for my dad’s [00:33:00] birthday and I thought, you know what it is, I’m just stuff it.
I’m going to be, dip a hero pants and go live. And I’ve had nobody show up multiple times. Yeah. But I then get private messages and people say, I watched your live a couple of weeks back and you were talking about something and it really resonated with me. That’s the thing that we all need to remember is you never ever know who’s watching and who’s going to put their head above the parapet and go, because they might not want to put in the comments.
All that’s a really interesting subject. And they go. No. They don’t want to do that. They don’t want to, not everyone wants to do it. So I think it’s really important, you know, I encourage people not to be disheartened. If you’re going to commit to going live, or even if you want to do pre record so you’re in control of it, don’t ever be disheartened.
But it was like, I said to this lady yesterday, they have serviced offices and they’re really struggling with their marketing. [00:34:00] And I said, well, you should be doing your social media from somebody’s account. It’s not going to engage from a company page. And I said, what other marketing are you doing? It says, well, we’ve got a website and the website looks like it’s 20 years old.
And I said, well, you’re going to have to make an investment at some point. Yeah. You need to think about where’s the best investment. And I said, and I actually suggested hard copy advertising in a local community magazine. So really well subscribed to one. And she said, oh, we did that before and didn’t work.
I said, do you mind me asking how many times you tried it? And she said, once I said, well, that’d be a bit like me posting once on social media and expecting to get results. And I think we need to recognize that social media is a busy place, but if you’re authentic and I know that’s such an overused word, but if you’re real,
Teresa: yeah, totally. And this is the, you know, one of the things that you talked about was, you know, showing up going live and, and what people are [00:35:00] going to think and how do you, you know, manage it and whatever. But actually the more real you are, the more people like it. I’ve got this brilliant story from years and years and years ago.
So obviously when I started in my business, I did social media. I talked about social media and there was a guy local to me who was a photographer and he was like, yeah, I’m gonna, I’m gonna do it. I was like, you know, you could do social media. You could do this, this, this. And he wanted to go live. And I was like, you should go live.
And he was having a new branding and he’s like, I might go live about that. Anyway, so he sets up to go live and I’m watching it. It comes up and I think it was back in the days where it was easy because no one was on it and he went live on Facebook. But what happened was he set up his camera. He went back to the seat that he was doing this live in and to the left of him was his laptop, right?
So obviously when you’re live, there’s a delay. And, and back in the day, there was even more of a delay than there is now, and there was a delay. So he’s obviously logging in to see himself to make sure it’s set up. But what he doesn’t [00:36:00] realize is as he’s doing this and he’s talking to the camera is his camera is the wrong way.
So he’s side on, so he’s sat there going, welcome to my life. Thank you for being here. And he’s talking away. And while he’s doing this, he’s like, I’m just checking I’m live, which is fine. That’s fine. But of course he’s side on, so we’re all messaging him, you’re side on Steve, you’re side on Steve. Anyway, he sees it, oh, oh gosh, hang on a minute, so he gets up, he turns his camera, it turns him upside down, but of course he doesn’t realize because there’s a delay.
Oh, that was a nightmare, I’m so sorry, that should be better now, because it’s not better, he’s upside down. I am howling, literally howling. That is awesome. It’s the funniest line I’ve ever seen in my life. But of course, I’m hooked, right? Because it’s just brilliant. And then eventually, he notices again.
He’s like, Oh my God, I’m upside down, I’m upside down. It’s crying. I love it. I love it. It was brilliant. But that’s the thing. We’re humans. But people love it. Let us. And nobody, and this is the [00:37:00] thing is, nobody is really honestly going to judge you. No. I go live and I sit here when I go live. I’ve got, you’ve seen her, I’ve got a huge cat, she’s incredibly nosy and she sometimes will just come and join me and people, and then, and then what happens, really interesting, the lurkers, because I always say there’s two different kind of people.
when you’re on camera like this. They’ll either be the people who are live and will engage with you as it happens, but then you have lurkers who won’t show their head. They won’t comment or do anything. They’re just quietly watching.
Karen: You don’t know when that lurker is going to turn into a client. That’s the key thing is just because your idol lady came and joined one of my LinkedIn workshops last year.
First time I’d run any A in person workshop since COVID and she’s been on my mailing list for six years. She’s lurked on my mailing list for six years. [00:38:00] And it’s exactly the same on social media. Lulu comes out and walks around in front of the camera and then decides to give me a kiss. And people start commenting and going, Oh my God, what sort of trait you got?
What’s she called?
Teresa: Yeah, totally. It’s unreal. And no one’s going to be like, I’m not working with Karen. She’s so unprofessional. She had a cat come into the shot. Like, and this is the thing I for flipping ages used him as an example, because every time I talk to anybody about going live, I was like, watch this, this is brilliant.
And I would literally send them the link to his live. In fact, I dug it out not that long ago and it’s still there and it’s still brilliant. But like, it’s for me, it was like, no, one’s going to think, oh, you’re a terrible photographer or, oh, you’re so awful. And if they are. I don’t want to work with them.
Like, I don’t want to vote with people who judge me like that. So just being human and just showing up. And I think we fear that people will say stuff. We fear that people will judge us. And like you said, in the time that you’ve done [00:39:00] what you’ve done in the number, like how many gone is years you’ve had one person go.
You’re lighting could be better. Well, as you’re lighting, like,
Karen: and it was, it was the first time ever. And since then I’ll have, I, you know, I, I will, if I meet people when I’m at events and with clients, I’ll say, would you like to do a live with me? Cause it’s much more interesting to me just talking to myself and they always laugh and they go, I’m really nervous.
And then they’ll say, No, it was just like we were sat having a coffee and a chat, it was really nice. And I think, I think that’s the key thing with social media. We also forget. It’s called social networking, but the word social’s there. The more real we can be and down to earth and honest, I remember when Joe Wicks spoke and he said that he replies to all his DMs.
And when, when I interviewed his brother, he said the only two people who have access to his DMs are him and his, and Joe and his brother. Which is an, an doesn’t it? [00:40:00] Their kudos goes like,
Teresa: totally, totally, because you’re not. You wouldn’t feel like you’re a number, you wouldn’t feel like you’re just lost.
Now, it’s not to say he’s going to respond to everybody, but to know that he’s the person that then responds if someone does respond, there’s a lot of, like, I take my hat off to that sort of stuff, especially like you said, with accounts the size of his. If you’re not from the UK, Jay Wicks is a, is a business guy here in the UK and very famous in the UK.
But. I think that’s really important. And I remember being at a social media marketing world years and years ago, and Jasmine Starr was on stage and she was talking about the engagement bit, and she was basically saying that, you know, when you run a business, you outsource the stuff that you don’t have to do.
And someone came up at the end and they did a Q and A and she’s like, and I have to say this person was a little bit arrogant. I don’t know who they were, but they got on the mic and they were like, I have a really big account. My account is really busy. Can I outsource my DMS to my assistant? And Jasmine went, no.
And she’s like, yeah, but [00:41:00] I’m really busy. And Jasmine’s like, So, and, and she said how many followers she had, and Jasmine had considerably more. And she’s like, no, that’s what I do. Yeah, but it takes ages. Well, yeah, but that’s you, like, you’ve got to, you’re the one who should be interacting with them. And I think it’s so important.
Karen: It’s crazy, but I also think, I think, you know, a great engagement strategy on Instagram is actually using voice DMs. So last summer, you would see her as well. Jen Gottlieb spoke and I, she walked on stage and I instantly went into a imposter syndrome cause she’s. Skinny as anything. Oh, she’s stunning. And she’s very American.
So she’s so perfect looking. She was just immaculate. Yeah, she was. And I immediately went, I’m just going to go into a room and hide. But then she opened her mouth and she started talking. And I was transfixed by this woman. And I took a picture. put it in my [00:42:00] stories, tagged and went, wow, you’ve really blown my mind today.
What a fantastic talk. And I’ve still got the DM. She sent me as a voice note one. Hey, Karen. Hey, thanks so much. I’m really pleased you enjoyed it. And I knew that was her voice because I’d just heard her speak that day. And, and that, and that reality check. that if you send somebody a voice note, you know, you do it with a voice note, I use voice notes on LinkedIn.
People love it because you can get personality because, you know, the written word is a wonderful thing, but you don’t get that emphasis. You know, what is it to say? Only 7 percent of communication is the written word. Yeah. 55 percent body language. We lose that unless you don’t see that. Yeah. 38 percent is the pitch, pace, and sorry, it’s my sales training.
38 percent is the pitch, pace, and tone. So if [00:43:00] you were sending a voice note going, hi, thank you so much for following me. It’s great for you to have you in my social media family. I’m looking forward to reading your posts. not selling.
Teresa: And you know, the other thing that’s so good with the voice notes is not only do you hear someone’s voice, it feels so much more personal, but you can’t see what they’re saying on a voice note, right?
So on, I use Slack and on Slack, when you do a voice note, it types it up for you. So you can see what it says in the voice note on Instagram. It’s not doing that on LinkedIn. I don’t think it does that. And Therefore, my curiosity can’t not listen to that voice note. Like, even if I don’t know the person, like I said, I try and reply to everybody all the time, but you want to know what they’re saying, because it’s a voice note and you can’t, you don’t know what they’re saying unless you listen to it.
Karen: Of course, and actually a really exciting new feature on Instagram, I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but you can schedule your DMs.
Teresa: No, I didn’t see that.
Karen: No, that’s okay. I’ve just created a post [00:44:00] about it. Actually. Yeah. You can schedule your TMS.
Teresa: So almost going back to one of your other earlier points, I’m going to wrap up in a second and do a few actions.
But what’s the fact of spending that time doing that engagement, you know, booking 10 minutes in your diary every day, spending 30 minutes once a week doing it. So if that’s what you want to do, then you could technically. schedule all those DMs to go out.
Karen: You could block do them. You could block them because the benefit of scheduling, you know, I, I plan my content around 10 days ahead.
I plan around 10 days ahead because I sort of know where I’m going to be, what I’m going to be doing, what the focus is. And I love the fact that I can now sit and almost batch my DMs to say, thanks so much for following me. Please reach out if there’s anything that you need any help with and hey, jump over and follow me on my other platforms.
And there’s loads of free collateral, you know, that you can access. And, and I think being able to schedule that, [00:45:00] and it was something I only brought in last month. Literally just a month ago, I just spotted it last Friday and you can schedule your DMs because actually if you’re scheduling them, you might know what time zone your audience is in.
So you can schedule a time of day they’re most likely to see it or read it. Or if it’s say, you’re doing one of your events, your webinars. Yeah, you could say,
Teresa: I’m going to go out before it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So many good things. I love it. Okay. So I want to recap a couple of the points because I think they were really good.
And I’m obviously super conscious of time. So. First one action that I wrote down was updating your bio and looking at your bio and having someone maybe like sense check it. Would someone know what I do by just reading my bio? I have written that actually down as an action for me to look at my bio because I haven’t looked at it for ages.
So God knows what it says. The other one that you talked about is scheduling time, you know, whether it’s 30 minutes a week and. 10 minutes a day, the first [00:46:00] thing you do is go in and you look at those notifications and do that bit of immediate engagement work. Um, also you mentioned, which I think is so important to remind people of, is six months.
Consistent six months. Consistency is the thing, and I have been the person, and on occasions liken it to gardening, because you know I love gardening, but it is. you know, hopefully soon because I’ve been really busy and I’m a bit late, but hopefully in the next few days, as we record this at the beginning of Jan, I will be planting my peppers and my tomatoes, getting the seeds off going.
And I have to do all of the bits and bobs and I have to put them under the lights and put them on the heat mat and give them the water and give them the love that they need in hope that literally in six months time. No, it’ll be even after that, probably more August, September time, but I will actually have the fruit, but I need to do all that work.
or otherwise I’ll never get there and it’s kind of the same if we’re not consistently doing the things we can’t expect to get the result.
Karen: Sowing the seeds for [00:47:00] social media success. I love it. There’s your next, there’s your next. That’s my next talk.
Teresa: And then, oh man, I just, I wrote down something as my last note and I can’t even read where I’m writing.
So that is brilliant. But anyway, I’ve, I can’t remember what my last note was, but it was great. It was really, really good. So, Karen, thank you so much for coming and talking to us. I do think lots of people resonate with what you said and about, oh, did I, was it being brave?
Karen: Yeah, I think, I think it’s feel, it’s, what is it? I remember just really quickly, Mary Portis. I love Mary Portis. She did this TV show in the UK where she went into struggling retailers. Give them lots of advice, and this guy was resisting it, resisting it, resisting it. On the last day, he got it, and he made the change. And I feel about it, like with some of my clients, when they just don’t want to do it, just don’t want to do it.
And she presented him with this quote, which I actually have in my office, and it says, What if I fall? What if I fall and it says, [00:48:00] Oh my darling, but what if you fly? And I would say, that is the thing is, feel the fear, do it anyway, and go for it and give it that consistent activity.
Teresa: Yeah, and remember that there are people that will be lurking and watching, and you’ll think, Why am I doing this? No one’s paying attention. And then someone, and you Karen, you’ve been working with me the last 12 months, and how long had you been following me before that?
Karen: Oh gosh, about five, six years. Yeah. Yeah. Like, you just don’t know. It’s all about timing. Yeah.
Teresa: You just don’t know when someone’s going to go, Oh, actually, now’s the time.
Karen, where can people come and find you and follow you and watch your lives and all of that good stuff?
Karen: Well, Karen Cureton social, of course, on Instagram, and I’m just Karen, just Karen Cureton. It’s a really unusual last name on LinkedIn. I’m really easy to find on LinkedIn.
Teresa: That’s the best thing. Love it. We will. Obviously, make sure we link up to that in the show notes if you guys, uh, head over there, uh, to, to, oh, I was about to say which show notes, but I can’t remember what episode you are. So you’ll just have to come and [00:49:00] find whatever episode number this is, you’ll have to come find that page. Karen, thank you so much.
It’s been an absolute pleasure to have you on.
Karen: Thanks T. Thank you.
