#AskSimon 5 Fabiana from Rio

Hi Simon, this is Fabiana from Rio de Janeiro. I run a professional services firm in Rio I find social media a waste of time, but now that I am a freelancer I kind of can’t ignore it anymore. You seem to have fun with it, can you give me some advice on how and where to start?

Two things resonate with me: Is social media a waste of time? Can it be fun?

I used to say “social notworking” because I thought it was a waste of time.

I changed my mind.

We live in the age of leverage and the currency is attention. Energy flows where attention goes. 

Is it a waste of time to look at what other people eat or where they vacation? Yes it is.

But what if instead of trying to reach more people, we would try to REACH PEOPLE MORE? 

I say age of leverage because it was never as easy and affordable to reach PEOPLE more. 

If you have a phone, you own a publishing company, a distribution company, a content creation company. There are no excuses anymore, for not singing your song aloud. 

Let me clarify: many people should not post anything, because they have nothing to say.

But if you have something to say, please SAY IT! Share it! Give it away. 

Love and knowledge are the two things that grow if you give them away. So if you have it, you can serve someone else and it’s magical.

Mythbusting Number One: You don’t need more than 1000 fans! Don’t worry about having so many followers when you are working on having a successful business, an income generating machine. Not a job, or a project, but a repeatable machine that you can use over and over again. 

Please forget the big numbers. In the beginning, don’t think that you need a large amount of followers, you just need to reach people a little bit more everything. You need to become unapologetically YOU. Experiment with what you have to say and the way you say it.

If this starting point is too hard or scary: Do document instead of creating. Document every day. Alone or with a professional team, if you can. Study what is prevalent right now. Learn the choreography of the social media platforms. 

Before posting always ask:Who am I helping with this? Who does it serve?

I would strongly recommend to study TikTok: Search for the hashtags in your field and learn the communication patterns that work. See which experiences are being created, and check if your audience can be served by that. Could your audience generate some insight or solve a problem, or be motivated if they see it? Could it help the community connect and generate solutions? Study Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and of course, LinkedIn. Do it for you and not for others. Then start creating. 

SELF CARE: Do not burn out. Frustration with followers and likes can lead to burning out, but you don’t need so many, just a few. A few to build up the foundation of your business. 

Many burn out because they give up too early. 

(Forget newsletters, email services are the way of the future! It is a real conversation between you and your customers, and share with intention and delivering valuable insight with a bit of marketing at the end.) 

Give generously. ​

Some give up because they give from a place of scarcity, not abundance. Give love and knowledge if you have more than you need. This applies to life and work. First, make sure you have more than you need for today so you can give away some of it, not all of it for the day. Don’t give away your limited knowledge, it is too early to give that to your audience.

Create a smart SOP (Standard Operating Procedure). This applies to automation and evergreen content. Create a flow that you can reuse many times. 

We have a very helpful SOP which we call the “Value creation flow” - More about that in our next episode. 

See you next week!

- Simon Severino CEO Strategy Sprints

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