On this episode of Motivating Other Moms, Liane Caruso joins Rosemary to discuss social media, SEO and her life as a mompreneur. Rosemary and Liane discuss different social media platforms, and how those targeted ads really work. Liane shares her journey intro entrepreneurship and the different stuggles she has dealt with. This episode is packed full of great tips for social media interaction for you and your business!
Tweetables
“Some marriages look happy then end in divorce, it’s the same with business.”
“It’s not a bad thing to repurpose your content.”
“The opportunities for it to be an equal exchange is rare.”
About Our Guest
As a Marketing Communications Specialist with twenty years of experience ranging from strategy to design to execution, Liane Caruso launched Limelight Marketing Consultants in 2009. This well-respected Tampa-based firm was singularly committed to the establishment of meaningful campaigns that connected clients with their customers and prospects by powering brand awareness.
Limelight expanded rapidly with the addition of in-house specialists in design, demographics, branding, social media management, and content marketing. The second phase of the expansion included the addition of SEO and SEM digital marketing strategists to develop cohesive, research-based approaches to further client initiatives.
In 2015, Liane merged Limelight with The CRUSH Agency out of King of Prussia, Pennsylvania; the company responsible for supporting the franchise marketing needs of new and established businesses across the country.
Now responsible for managing the recently formed agency’s creative and marketing teams while identifying proficiencies and efficiencies in budgeting, planning and strategy, Liane oversees the creative process; ensuring quality control and marketing planning are in place for the clients and for the agency.
Transcript
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Liane: Hi. I’m Liane Caruso, the president of the Crush agency. We’re a digital marketing and advertising firm. We specialize in social media and online presence. You’re listening to motivating other moms radio.
Woman: Mompreneurs, if you’re pulling double duty with kids and a business, you know how hard it is and it can be easy to feel so alone. But I’ve got great news. You’re not alone and you can do this. Welcome to motivating other moms. The show that pulls back the curtain to show vulnerable moments, lessons learned and solid business tips for mompreneurs. Now, here’s your host, successful mompreneur, Rosemary Nickel.
Rosemary: Hi Liane. Welcome. Welcome to motivating other moms radio. So happy to have you here.
Liane: Thank you Rosemary. I’m happy to be here.
R: We have known each other for quite a while. You’ve been to one of my tea parties. My very first tea party actually.
L: Could not transcribe due to technical issues.
R: Yes. That was quite a night, wasn’t it?
L: Quite a night. What an experience. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of it, the very first one. I loved it.
R: It was more than I could’ve ever asked for. A lot of people were moved, a lot of eyes were opened and I think we were all surprised about what was really going on in each other’s lives that we don’t talk about of course on social media because it’s not the place to talk about it.
L: Actually, it left a very lasting impression on me. It was a great evening.
R: Good. I’m glad because it really is. That’s my goal is to bring us all together and really talk about the truth and so we don’t feel so alone in our journey because sometimes the struggle is really hard.
L: That is true and I was very pregnant at the time so —
R: That’s right. You were.
L: Things were running high.
R: You were so worried because it was your second one and with the second one you don’t know if you’re going to love it as much as the first one, you don’t know if you’re going to be able to spend as much time with the first one as you did — and it’s just — it’s really hard. It’s a hard transition.
L: Very hard transition. It was an eye-opener to some feelings that I had pushed down and it was great to be around other moms to help me kind of through the emotions.
R: What was your biggest take away from that night?
L: Oh, goodness. That I wasn’t the only one who had so many strong emotions on so many different levels. Back and forth between how am I going to handle baby number two and I — also I’m an only child so I didn’t know how to handle a second baby or brotherhood and sisterhood and can you love your second child as much as you love your first child which is a crazy emotion to have but you just love your first child so intensively but it is — and as a business owner which is also another baby if you will as far we’re all entrepreneurs so it is — it was a crazy, crazy evening of vulnerable emotions but just understanding in a room full of powerful women who understand the power of motherhood and the power of all the emotions and entrepreneurship and that you’re not alone. And feeling some crazy feelings. It was a — it actually came out as a sisterhood I think in just a couple of hours which was so fascinating to me from people that I didn’t even know and some that I did just on a very basic how you’re doing basis but — not being alone I think is probably the biggest takeaway.
R: I love that. It is surprising when you get into a room full of likeminded people that are in the space as you such as entrepreneurial mom and finding out that you’re not the only person struggling.
L: Right.
R: It’s not all sunshine, rainbows and unicorns.
L: That’s true. And I am not an outwardly emotional person and I kind of went into it like I don’t really know these people. And I think I was one of the last people to go too and people were sharing their deepest emotions and thoughts and I’m going this is — I am not doing that. I’m not doing that. and then when it got to be my turn it just all filled out and it was so surprising for me but it was because you created a space that was safe I think and also understanding that again I just wasn’t alone in some of the deep emotions that I had pushed down.
R: Did you find it very therapeutic in being able to release all of that? I find that when I do that it gives me the ability to move forward.
L: I did. Very much so. Yeah. Very much a therapeutic session without feeling like you’re lying on a couch.
R: Yeah.
L: And also without judgment Rosemary. I think that’s one of the most important pieces of that experience is there was no judgment in that room and I think that’s why I hide some emotions and hide feelings and as a mom we kind of have to keep going through a lot of things and as a boss and a business owner you have to kind of power through things so that experience was without judgment and I think that was a great safe place to express true emotion.
R: Well, I’m glad that you got to be a part of that and you got so much out of it. that’s my full intention when I do events like that and hopefully my listeners will be able to attend one in the near future and there is a lot more to your story that we’ll talk about later on in the show but we’re going to get to business right now. You are a partner with the Crush agency which is in Tampa and what was — what’s the name?
L: King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.
R: Prussia? King of Prussia. I’ve never heard of that but it sounds so fancy.
L: So it has one of the country’s largest malls actually so that’s why most people know King of Prussia if you’re from the northeast.
R: Okay. Alright. One of those mammoth, fancy malls? Kind of like International on steroids?
L: Yeah. It’s like a Mall of America but without (Inaudible portion could not be transcribed_____06:13) it’s that big.
R: Wow. Very cool. So you — when did you join Crush?
L: Well, I started consulting with Crush last year. I had worked with some of their franchise brands as a consultant. They had an opportunity to — they needed the leadership that understood their brand and also understood management of a team, of a creative team. So they brought me on to help manage their company and while I was also running my company down here in Tampa that I had been running since 2009 called Limelight marketing. I had about two or three people at the time here at Limelight and we were starting to grow pretty aggressively and crush had contacted me after about six months of not consulting with them and then brought me back into the fold to help manage their teams back in June of last year. And in December we started talking about — we’ve got two really strong teams in Pennsylvania and Tampa, two strong creative teams. Both companies are growing very aggressively. We should share resources. So that’s when we started to merge the two companies and in January we became (Inaudible could not be transcribed_____07:37) Crush agency with two offices.
R: For somebody who has a business and they might be in the same situation as you and they’re starting to consider merging their company with another company, what advice do you have for them? What should they be on a lookout for and be aware of?
L: Oh, goodness. I would say that it’s just such a big decision. I’ve been in — I started my own thing in 2009 when — after my son was born, when he was three months old. And my company was essentially like I said earlier my baby. And I was kind of a one man show for quite a while and I put so much time and money and energy and heartache and joy into this baby of mine, this business that I had built solely on my own. So it was a very hard decision to say I’m going to bring somebody else in and I’m going to grow faster. Part of me is still determined to kind of do it on my own but I don’t think that that’s always the right move either. So I think that just making sure that the numbers are right, that the contract is in place, that you have your own attorney, that you have your own — if you have a business consultant or a coach or something to look over it. Don’t make the decision totally on your own. Just make sure that the exit strategy is totally in place. I mean, all happy marriages look happy but so many of them end in divorce and it’s the same with business. So I would just be sure that Is are dotted and Ts are crossed and it just makes sense for you and your family at that time.
R: At your agency you guys have a lot of different services. Branding and design, content marketing, direct marketing, full service marketing, media (Inaudible could not be transcribed_____09:32) online digital marketing, public relationships, social media, web design and more and it’s a lot of stuff and one of the things that I noticed on a blog post was — and this was back in April but I know it’s the ongoing issue with a lot of people that surprises me that Google had a new algorithm change and what it meant for their website and a lot of websites are not mobile friendly. Why should my listeners have a mobile friendly website and what could they do to make it mobile friendly?
L: Well, it is surprising that so many — well, it is and it isn’t. That so many businesses don’t have mobile friendly websites. So basically it’s called having a responsive website and that means that when you’re viewing your website it responds to whatever size the viewer is looking at. So whether via tablet or a mobile phone or smart phone or a small laptop or a large screen that it adjusts to the viewing size. So as a mom as probably most of your listener are I’m sure, they are always on the go, they’re always looking at mobile. _____10:45 professionals, they’re always looking at mobile and search has really come down to mobile search. So Google is actually punishing websites that aren’t responsive or aren’t mobile friendly. Now people built their websites four or five years ago. Some of them even built only two or three years ago but they didn’t build them with a responsive code because it wasn’t as prevalent as it is now and a lot of the themes that were created weren’t responsive. Nowadays all of them are responsive. So it’s hard for people to say I just built my website two or three years ago. Why do I have to do this? And they essentially almost have to build a new site. Some of them can put — can re seam it. we’ve re seamed a couple of Word Press sites which is not as expensive as just building a new site but I think the cost and time and energy it takes to build a website is daunting for people and it’s frustrating and it’s overwhelming and they don’t want to take the time to rebuild or find the right web developer. A lot of people use contractors and the contractor disappears and there’s just so many variables to rebuilding a website. It’s a big deal. But nowadays you really have to keep up with the algorithms and your website should be rebuilt every two or three years and constantly get it updated. As much maintenance as you can put into your website as possible. That’s where people are finding you first. That’s their first impression oftentimes of you. So time and energy into your website is just critical nowadays.
R: Yeah. It’s really embarrassing when my website’s out of whack. Especially when you’re asking like — for me when I — for my particular situation if I’m asking people to come on to my show and my website’s now updated or it’s had a — I’ve put an update and it looks awful. I don’t know what I did. And so it sits there for a long time until I could either figure it out or have somebody fix it for me. It really is critical. It’s your business card. It’s your quality of business that you’re putting out there. So going to somebody’s website via the phone which the majority of the people do nowadays because they’re on the go and not being able to read what’s on there and see a seamless mobile friendly website could hurt you quite a bit.
L: Yeah. Definitely. And not only for first impression of your user, potential client or prospect but Google is punishing websites so they will not push you out in search results. They will push you down in search results if your website is not friendly. Google is in the sole business of answering questions so they’re going to put websites in the search engines in how you rank based on relevancy. Mobile is relevant so if you’re not — if your website does not provide not only relevant content but relevancy in terms of how people are using your website then they’re not going to push you up. Not only people are going to go to your website and they’re going to bounce. The more people that bounce, the less Google is going to push you in the search ranks.
R: As far as investments go and hiring something — someone like the Crush agency and a lot of small business owners may be thinking that’s a lot of money and I don’t have money to do that on the level — importance level of investing that money into getting somebody to fix that for you what’s the importance of that because I’m looking at — you’re going to have less people opting into your website if you have opt ins. And so you’re using possible clients that way. And that’s money.
L: Right. You’re missing opportunity, you’re not capturing information, you’re not capturing data to be able to send newsletters, to be able to get people to sign up for your webinar or by your product or service. You’re basically giving the business to somebody else. So it’s so important nowadays and should be top priority and it should be — one of the things that you need to be putting money aside for right now and not only — if Google is pushing you down in search ranks it’s not going to be easy to come back up which is more time and money. it could cost thousands of dollars and hours and hours and hours of time to try and get back up in Google’s good graces so time meaning — or money meaning blogging, content, keywords, possibly some pay per click ads in order to get — to be seen. If you’re on the 10th page of Google you’re going to have to get pay per clicks to be seen and just be a relevant part of the competition. You need to be a big player and if you don’t invest in the cost to do a website then you’re going to end up spending thousands of dollars and hundreds of dollars of time to try and get back up in Google’s good graces.
R: So earlier you had said that a lot of people who have older websites that may have not updated to a mobile friendly website yet may have to create a whole new website or possibly get a new theme. How does that look in the Google ratings if you have to get a whole new website that you start from the bottom anyways, right?
L: You do. Not as bad though. I mean, if you have all the right content and you have your _____16:33 no broken links and you can do some SEO technical updates to your site to make sure that it’s kind of moving up quick. It’s not as bad as not having a responsive site.
R: SEO, search engine optimization. Oh, my lord. Pull your hair out. Drive me nuts. That’s another one of those — there’s so many things that are so important. It is huge though. SEO is huge and the people find it extremely confusing. How can you explain SEO to make it simple and — for us non techy people to understand.
L: It is very confusing for people and I think it’s very frustrating for people because of the lack of understanding on how it exactly works and the importance of it. It’s not a — you can’t just wave a magic wand and expect SEO to work for you. It’s not cheap. It’s not not time consuming. Sorry for the double negative but it is a process but again it is so necessary when you Google something to be found. So basically search engine optimization is taking steps on your website through technical coding and through content marketing most specifically content marketing to be found in the search engine. Like I said earlier, Google is in the sole business to answer questions. So if you’re searching for I need to find a martial arts dojo in Tampa. Google is going to put out those websites that people — that answer questions. And how do they know they answer questions? That means people go to them and they stay on there longer meaning they’ve got good content, they’re — people are reading through the content or they have videos that they’re staying on page longer, they have relevant information, they’re not a martial arts dojo trying to sell rubber duckies. So it’s _____18:45 out relevant content that makes sense where the person who is searching for a martial arts dojo in Tampa. Additionally, if you sell services like you’re a life coach — the importance of hiring a life coach. You want to be the person that they find. Somebody is going to put out the content. It needs to be you. You’re going to find the information somewhere basically. So as much content that you can put out that’s relevant to your industry or your services that you provide, Google will give you more thumbs up which means they’ll rank your website higher. Does that make sense?
R: So there’s — like on a Word Press blog there’s an area where you can put in Meta tags and all this stuff. That’s SEO words, right? It’s your key words, right?
L: The key words, right. So if you have a Word Press site there are plugins that you can use that will help you do all of that stuff. Our favorite is Yoast. Y-O-A-S-T. You just install that plugin on the back of your Word Press site and that will help pull all the Meta tags and the key words on every single page that are going to help drive that SEO factor on your website.
R: So they don’t even have to think about it when they go to post a blog post. Yoast takes care of that for them?
L: Yes. Yes. Beautiful.
R: That’s awesome. Now your key words are important and you need to know what key words to use within your blog post or any other content that you’re putting out there and these are — key words are?
L: Key words are words or a group of words that people search for to find information. So if you want to be found for — we’ll go back to the martial arts. If you want to be found for martial — you want to be the leader at martial arts in the Tampa Bay Area. You’d want your key words to have martial arts, kids martial arts, martial arts classes and remember you can’t put key words that you think are relevant. It’s what other people are searching for. So there’s a lot of research that you can do to find out how people are finding different websites and I believe Google has the key word tool that you can go and you can enter in different websites and see what key words are helping them rank better. So Google actually has free tools that you can use in order to help you find the key words that are relevant to your industry.
R: And again these are words that your potential clients are actually searching for when they go to ask Google hey. I need to know about —
L: Right. Exactly.
R: And that’s — those are the words that they use. Talk about being found. We were talking about social media and how a lot of people don’t use it to the fullest potential and how it is so important for your business and I had asked you a question. I had saw Gerick Robins post a really great question because Facebook fan pages are so difficult now with Facebook. They don’t make them — it doesn’t appear like they’re being seen as often. And he had asked if you’re not using your Facebook page for ads is there a point to having a Facebook page at all anymore?
L: Right. I think that that’s an interesting comment. Facebook has a pay to play model right now for businesses which — for those businesses who have been on Facebook business for quite a while you see a significant change in how people are interacting with your content. You have to try extra hard, you have to _____22:31 more, you have to pay to have your posts seen or pay to have your page seen. I think — my personal opinion honestly is you still need to have a presence. A lot of people go to Facebook business pages to determine validity and determine relevancy. It’s almost like when I’m about to do business with a company or I just met somebody the first thing I do is I go to their social pages to see how they promote their own content, how they interact with their customers, with their clients, what kind of personality do they have. I mean, you can really determine a company’s personality based on their posts. Now Facebook isn’t for every industry. I don’t think every social channel is for every industry. It just depends on your target market but I do believe that you still need to have a Facebook presence. You just have to always be ready to up your game with Facebook and it doesn’t cost a lot of money to have Facebook ads. It’s really minimal what you can do to get additional exposure or to get additional people to see your posts. So it’s much different than pay per click and it’s much different than other types of advertising so I would recommend — I mean, even put a 20 dollar budget towards it every month. Sometimes up to a 150 depending on obviously your business but it’s not expensive to invest in Facebook advertising but I would highly recommend having a presence there and having a consistent presence there.
R: When looking at the numbers on Facebook or your fan page, having 100 to 500 or a 1000, which is more impressive because what I’m seeing today now is a lot of big marketers are dumping their list or cutting their list because they realized back in the day it was like oh. Their opt ins were get this free iPad if you — everybody sign up and then somebody’s going to win this free iPad. Well, they found out that they’re paying so much money for their email system to keep up with these thousands upon thousands of people on their email list that are actually not their target market. And so they’ve learned to clean that up so the bigger numbers don’t seem to be as important. When you’re looking at a page is it more important if they have a smaller following let’s say 200 to 500 people but they’re very active and they have a lot of communication as opposed to someone who has over a 1000 or more and has very little going on on their page.
L: Right. That’s absolutely right. I always say it’s quality over quantity. If you have 500 fans but only 10 are engaging your numbers are way off and they’re skewing your results. And again, back in the day like you said people were just — they were looking at numbers. That’s all they wanted were numbers. Like oh, she has 10000 fans. She must be good or oh, they have 5000 fans. That’s amazing. But if you have — we have one client that has over 10000 fans and she can’t get people to engage with her, interact with her and it’s so frustrating to her because she’s looking at numbers. Unfortunately back in the day if you’re spending a ton of money on Facebook ads or — that we’re getting the wrong kind of people so you do have to clean up your list because if your engagement isn’t in the right numbers then Facebook — Facebook _____26:03 similar to Google. They don’t consider you relevant if your people aren’t engaging with you then they’re not going to put your posts out to people. So it’s more important to have quality over quantity when it comes to your followers.
R: So how do you clean that up on a Facebook page if you have — if you know that maybe all of those people are not your target market and it’s a smaller number, how do you clean that up?
L: Well, you can look at your insights and you can see where your fans are from. A lot of times if they’re overseas and you’re a brick and mortar business in Tampa, Florida something’s not right so you can kind of drop some of the people on your list. The other thing is I would do paid advertising to get more relevant followers. That would be my stronger strategy which would be get — really niche down your Facebook advertising to — vary it by ZIP code, by radius, by city, by interests, by target market, age, demographics. All of those things that you know would be your specific target market and Facebook advertising has evolved quite a bit in the last several years so you can really, really narrow it down to that target market to get those people who are actually interested in your product or service to start engaging with you and that will help drive your numbers back up.
R: And so you were saying about getting more likes on your page and there’s boosting and then there’s ads. Is there any point to boosting at this point?
L: I don’t love boosted posts. I think the reason they’re created is to get more people to engage with your posts. The more people that engage it the more it goes back to the top of the news feed. So it depends — it completely depends on your strategy and what you’re trying to post. The problem with boosted posts is it doesn’t necessarily mean that people are liking your page so they might see your post but that doesn’t mean they’re going to see any more posts from you. So my preference is to do — actually, I like to do a combination of advertising on Facebook and I put less money into the boosted posts. There are times when it’s relevant to do as long as you’re understanding the results of that are more _____28:24 awareness and getting more people to engage as opposed to long term engagement or more fans.
R: So when you’re putting out ads — there’s a lot of things you could do with ads because it is very targeted. You could say I want to reach beaded men in Alaska ages so and so and so and so and they make this much money and their interests are this. I mean, you can really narrow it down to specifics.
L: Right.
R: It is crazy. But where do you want to target your ads to? Do you want to target your ads to your website to get them on your list? Do you want to target your ads to maybe a Facebook group where there might be more communication or do you want to put them towards your fan page? How do you make that decision?
L: I think every business is different, every goal is different so — I can go on and on about having a marketing plan and a marketing strategy based on goals and objectives for the year or based like quarter. It’s hard for me to tell you a definitive answer there but like I said, I typically like to do a combination of Facebook ads for a lot of our clients so we do the ones that drive traffic to the website, we use conversion tracking pixels to know specifically that they went and they filled out that form, that they engaged in that call to action so that you have hard data of how they interacted with your website and again driving traffic to your website is always helpful to the bigger picture of your online footprint. I like to do specific targeting towards more Facebook likes as long — again, as long as they’re relevant and qualified followers and then very rarely depending on the content I would do a post if you’re promoting a special or an event or a launch of something and that sort of is the time — or announcement maybe, I would do the post. But I would vary the dollar amounts based on the importance of your goals and adjectives.
R: What kind of changes have you seen in a business when you use an ad? Let’s say that someone spends 20 dollars per month to get more likes on their Facebook page, to get more fans. What can someone expect to see if they have the campaign right? That’s the trick is you’ve got to kind of keep trying things out. It’s not going to necessarily work the first time so you have to — don’t give up.
L: Right. It’s definitely — there is some testing involved but what you can expect to see is — and there’s also — you have to continue to produce compelling content. If you don’t have compelling content then your — all your _____31:12 numbers go up but your engagement go down. So you have to continue to produce compelling content that are going to get people to react. So if you spend 20 bucks to get more followers you want to engage those followers and keep them interested in your brand so that when they’re clicking like, share or commenting that you continue to show up in their news feeds. If they become uninterested in what you’re promoting then you’re just going to stop showing up in their news feeds.
R: That’s awesome. So content is still king.
L: Content is king.
R: Let’s talk about all of the other social media. This is the part I think that is what is overwhelming for people in general and then entrepreneurial moms — we’re juggling our families, we’re trying to build our business, we’re trying to create content and then we have to worry about being on all of these different social medias. Twitter, Instagram, Linked In, Facebook, Google Plus which — is that kind of dying? YouTube, Pinterest?
L: It is so overwhelming to have all of these platforms so my recommendation is — well, first let me answer. Google Plus, is it dying. I don’t think Google Plus is dying. It’s not going anywhere. It’s the — the benefit of Google Plus is the search optimization benefits so when you go to Google Plus, Google Plus — Google owns Google Plus. Google will actually spit out your posts in the search fields so you can essentially take up more real estate in the search results. I would keep posting on Google Plus and I’m going to give a little tip. If when you’re posting on your website — when you upload a picture on your website or you upload a picture on Google Plus, be sure that you name it with the key word that’s relevant to your business. Don’t just upload an image.jpeg. Upload — _____33:15 going back to martial arts just to be consistent. Upload martial arts dojo Tampa or yellow belt martial arts Tampa. Just to make sure because you can also show up in the Google images results when you name your photos.
R: So you’re talking about when you name them on your computer before you upload them or are you talking about within the post?
L: Within the post.
R: Okay.
L: And it depends. If you just want to name it when you’re uploading it onto your computer and you might as well knock it out in the beginning but if you’re choosing a photo that goes into your website or your Google Plus page then just name it appropriately with key words that are important to your search results.
R: Thank you.
L: So anyway, taking the right social media platform or platforms and it’s really important not only to your success and to be — to feel less overwhelmed with having to choose which one is most important for your business. You don’t have to be on all of them. If you’re a big business, absolutely it should be on all of them. They’re probably — they have social media teams, they have strategy, they have all those things. And so as a solopreneur or a mompreneur you need to pick two or three that are — that you know you can tackle and that you know you can tackle well. It’s important to make sure that you don’t try to overwhelm yourself with too much because again you have to be consistent with the amounts that you post and with the contents that you’re posting. Moms can easily do Hootsuite or some sort of social media scheduling platform that is relatively inexpensive that can allow you to sit in bed with your laptop on Monday night at nine o’clock after the kids go to bed and schedule your posts out for the week. So that’s an easy way to stay on top of things and just to make sure that you’re still producing that content. The only thing I say about scheduling content is you can’t just post it and forget it. Be sure to go back and engage with your followers, that they’re asking you questions, that they’re at least reading or if they’re responding on some level.
R: Is there a downside to scheduling? Are those posts not seen as much as if you were to do them on yourself?
L: There’s a lot of back and forth on that. I think at one time it wasn’t working so well for people who were scheduling. I think nowadays it’s not as big of an issue. You can schedule posts on Facebook to so if you don’t use a tool you can schedule out on Facebook and not — no difference than if you were to post directly. On Twitter, Twitter’s a little harder because you need to be consistent very regularly. You can’t just post once a day and hope that you’re going to get some of the followers _____36:16 engagement. You need to be posting pretty regularly on Twitter throughout the day so that one I would definitely use a scheduling tool and that one has no affect on who sees it at all.
R: How many times a day on average should you be tweeting?
L: I think it depends on your industry. I say 10 a day. We post 15 to 20 times a day on some platforms. I think _____36:41 what he did say? He posts like 100 times a day.
R: I was thinking there was — I remember somebody saying that it was — they post at least 80 times a day. I’m like, oh my god. What else do you do during the day?
L: Yeah. I think this guy _____36:54 does that. So people who have large fan bases are interacting regularly but that shouldn’t be overwhelming and if you’re using a scheduling tool it doesn’t have to be overwhelming because you can also repurpose your content. Not everybody is on — your tweet has a lifetime of maybe seven minutes so —
R: Wow.
L: Somebody doesn’t happen to — your followers don’t happen to be on Twitter in that seven minutes to see your content. If you repurpose that and do it later in the evening or do it the next day or maybe next week and the following and the week following it’s not a bad thing to repurpose your content at all on twitter. Even on Facebook because not everybody sees it and you can’t annoy people who don’t see it.
R: That’s true. That is true.
L: People always get in their own way and they think they want to be — they don’t want to be obnoxious. Well, it’s not obnoxious that people aren’t saying it and then would always test the time of day too that you’re posting. Most moms are on first thing in the morning at six AM and between eight and 10 at night.
R: I’ve been noticing how active people are at 11 o’clock at night. It shocks me.
L: It’s crazy. Yeah. I would always encourage people to look at their insights. On Facebook you have those tools to look at insights to see when your fans and followers are online and when they’re most engaging with your content. It’s usually — for moms it’s eight to 10, sometimes 11 because if you think about it when — you’ve got your phone, you crawl in the bed and you’re scrolling through, you’ve got to check Facebook one more time and the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning, I wake up my phone. I check Facebook. Like what did I miss.
R: I would like to say I don’t do that but it’s like this is like a huge no no in the self care world that I tell moms just put it away. You can’t resist.
L: It is a huge _____38:52 shouldn’t be that tied to it but I think it’s more realistic than we want to admit.
R: Yes, it is. Yes, it is. So I wanted to circle back around because our time is getting close to being — to the end. But I wanted to cover your story because it is one that I love. It’s probably hard to share and I think — well, I know actually that it’s actually more common in — by sharing it I know it’s going to touch a lot of people that maybe going through it. I’ve interviewed other entrepreneurial moms that have been through it. but I actually — you were one of my coaching clients for a while and we were coaching you, my husband and I when you were going through a really difficult time in your business and in your life trying to figure out what your next steps were. What — I would like to invite you to share whatever parts you feel comfortable sharing.
L: Okay. So I think I mentioned a little bit earlier that I started my business — I’ll try and do long story short by the way. Started my business in 2009 shortly after my son was born. Three months — when he was three months old I decided I just didn’t want to work for corporate anymore and I was helping other women business owners build their business, those multimillion dollar business, and I didn’t feel like there wasn’t any reason I just couldn’t do it myself. So I just quit on a wing and a prayer and I had no money. I had no team. I literally just did it day by day. And all from word of mouth and the reason I love social media and the power of social media is I could get my first client of Facebook.
R: Wow.
L: Yeah. So that’s why I have a love for social media for business because I just truly understand the power of it. So I — we struggled, my husband and I, we had my son Kyle and it was just kind of — and he believed in me. It’s like you can do this. And it does get a little quiet in that time when you first start a business. You take anything and everything you can possibly get just to get money in the door. I think I became a Mary Kay rep for a while just to get some additional cash to keep things going. I had no investor, I had no financial support. I literally had to do things day by day and pay for bills as they came in and so it was very little steps instead of some aggressive growth with people who have funding. So there was a lot of opportunities and I was using contractors at the time and I also didn’t really know how to run a business. Like I said, I kind of did this on a wing and a prayer. So I engaged with you guys as a coaching client and we were trying to figure out like where my business is going, what was I doing. I was pregnant at the time with my second child and an opportunity came to work for another company. And it was a really hard decision to make because I felt like I was giving up on everything. I turned it down and in fact I turned it down four times.
R: Wow.
L: Until the right feel — until they kind of made it where I just couldn’t refuse. They allowed me to come in and bring my baby into work once a week. The rest of the time I could work from home but it was just a huge weight lifted off my shoulders that the weight of the world wasn’t all on me for our entire family because now we were having a family that — I have a stepson that is 18 but now we have a family who — a family of five and here I am not making any money at all. our house went into foreclosure and I had to file for bankruptcy so — and I felt — personally I kind of felt like — my husband had a very steady government job, nice insurance and he worked nine to five and it just wasn’t what I was doing and I just wasn’t bringing in the income that I wanted to bring in so I went through bankruptcy, I went through foreclosure. I took this other job and I realized quickly in the other job while they were great to work with and it was a great experience I realized that I became unemployable and I just love doing my own thing. I love building my business for my family and so when my daughter was about nine months old I quit again and I went back and when I went back is when I decided to do things different. I started understanding the value of myself and my services and I started saying no to clients and to take on and everything. I moved into an office space so I wasn’t just somebody who’s working from home kind of like a side job which I think other — while I tried to appear to be big I think the perception was different so I moved into an office space. Once I moved into an office space and I had an address I brought on an intern that I bought a — then I hired her and then literally within months my company was one man show to 10 people with a merger in pending. So I think it was a complete change of mindset and understanding my value as understanding what I was capable of doing because I think that I had a lot of fear that I wasn’t capable of doing something that I couldn’t and instead of letting money to _____44:43 how I was running my business I had a different outlook on that too which was really interesting, the shift in how my business just exploded from there.
R: Do you mind sharing what that shift was in the money department because I think — well, I know a lot of people struggle with that. It’s huge.
L: Yeah, it is. It is huge. I mean, at one point I was charging 15 dollars an hour for my services and now I charge 125 to 250 dollars an hour for my services.
R: Bravo, bravo. Congratulations.
L: I mean, I just didn’t believe that I was worth that much money and I would do things for free for people too. And I bartered a lot which is great sometimes but sometimes if it doesn’t work out you should say no to it. I don’t — I have a hard — I have a strong opinion about bartering but I would just do anything to get business because I wanted to build a portfolio and I wanted people to like me and I didn’t want to say no and I wanted to build this thing where I kept getting wrapped in this vortex of clients who would take advantage of me and I — and just take advantage of my niceness and it wasn’t — I don’t think it was intentional so to speak. I allowed them to do it. So now I can actually let go of clients because if they’re not valuable to my time and as we all know as moms our time is so incredibly precious that every minute of every day I make hard choices. Do I go to this networking event or do I not go to this networking event. What is the value that this event is going to bring to me? What is the value that this meeting that I set up with this person is going to bring to me? And it’s — I don’t want to say selfish decisions but I have to weigh every minute very carefully now and so if a client isn’t going to bring me or my company value or growth I won’t take them on. And that’s such a huge shift in our business because now we take on clients who actually value our time, value our talents and value our expertise.
R: Well, I know we’re getting close to the end of our interview but I cannot resist your opinion on bartering because I have my opinion on bartering too. I’ve had — I’ve only bartered once or twice. That was enough for me. Which probably explains how I feel about bartering so what are your feelings about bartering?
L: I’ve only had one experience where it worked in my favor but I just — I don’t think it’s a good idea. I don’t think — and maybe for some business it might be or for some people in the particular stages they’re in, that moment, but you really need to weigh every single detail and I think that you need to have the results or the expected results and the expected objectives and the expected roles and duties of each person or each business in writing because I think people barter with friends and family or they barter with a service that they want or need and then the value of the time or the energy put into it is rarely equal. So I think that you just have to be very, very cautions of your time and don’t give in to something that you might kind of want and it would be really cool to do this but the opportunity for it to be an equal exchange are rare and it all often ends in resentment.
R: I was going to say the relationship part is that you could’ve had a — you might’ve had a really healthy relationship with this person either personally or business wise and it usually ruins that relationship.
L: It really does. It really does. I have a couple of barter experiences where I just — even now I just — I have resentment and I know the whole other topic of letting it go but I just — I feel like i wasted my time, I feel like I gave too much, I feel like they didn’t value what I did for them and they still don’t and they never will and that’s okay because I learned from it and I grew from it and I now make — I don’t make bad choices any more like I always say to my kids. So I think it’s a lesson learned and maybe you have to do it once or twice to understand the power of that lesson but I — the resentment, I think it’s because we’re moms and we’re emotional and we’re — sometimes we hang onto things we shouldn’t so I think the resentment that builds from a barter situation when it’s not laid our clearly that makes sense for both of you and I think that before you start when you write it out and you do the value of each effort it might not even go further than that because you see it in writing that wait a second. I don’t think this is right.
R: And most of the time I find just like giving free services of your business people don’t value stuff that’s free.
L: Absolutely. That is absolutely true and I learned that lesson or I had to learn that lesson a very hard way. Yeah. Free does not mean value or good.
R: No, it never does. It never ends very well. Well, thank you for being here. I want to let you guys know that if you’d like to get connected to some of my amazing guests like Liane and other mompreneurs who understand what it takes to build a business and be a mom head on over to motivatingothermoms.com and sign up for my newsletter. I’ll send you a link to add you into my private Facebook community created especially for mompreneurs like you. My desire is that you take one of these things you learned or were reminded of today and apply it to your business or life. I know that a small change can make a big difference and I am committed to bringing you one new story a week to inspire you, motivate you, help you not feel so alone in your mompreneur journey and leaving you saying I can do this. And I am so happy that Liane is doing this. And how can people get in contact with you Liane? Where can they reach out to you?
L: Well, my website is thecrushagency.com or you can email me at lcaruso@thecrushagency.com and of course you can find me on all the social channels. Instagram, Facebook, Linked In, Pinterest, Google Plus, Periscope.
R: Periscope. I need to have an episode on Periscope. I love Periscope.
L: It’s pretty cool. It’s definitely changing the way social media — and how we interact. It’s going to be really interesting to watch for sure.
R: It is. I agree, I agree. Well, thank you Liane again and all of her information will be on our show note pages so make sure you head on over to motivating other moms.
Woman: All right mompreneurs. This episode of motivating other moms has come to an end. Are you feeling inspired? Visit motivatingothermoms.com for more wonderful episodes and be sure to join our mailing list to get great free bonuses to keep your life and business moving forward. We’ll see you next time on motivating other moms.
Key Takeaways
[00:02:09] Liane describes attending Rosemary’s first tea party
[00:05:39] Liane talks about The Crush Agency
[00:10:05] Why do you need a mobile friendly website?
[00:16:55] Liane speaks all about SEO
[00:20:20] Liane explains keywords
[00:21:46] The importance of social media interaction
[00:25:02] Misleading Facebook numbers
[00:27:41] Liane talks about boosting Facebook posts
[00:29:03] Targeting ads on Facebook
[00:32:35] Is Google+ here to stay?
[00:34:59] Making your life easier with scheduling
[00:39:11] Liane tells her story
[00:45:01] Liane describes the shift in finances
[00:47:20] Rosemary and Liane share their opinions on bartering
Mentioned in This Episode
http://www.thecrushagency.com/
https://yoast.com/wordpress/plugins/seo/
lcaruso@thecrushagency.com
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