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Episode 62: How to Create Content that Connects with the RIGHT Client with Elisabeth Young
205 Plays5 years ago
If creating content has been a struggle for you—or maybe you’re not even sure this is something you be spending time on—this episode is for you. We chat about why she creates content and how it has impacted her business, how she creates so much content and manages so many different channels—we cover a lot.
It’s one of my favorite discussions to date, and I really appreciate Elizabeth’s approach. Another episode that would pair nicely with this one, is my interview with Lauren Carnes, so be sure to check out that episode as well.
Check out the show notes at https://daveyandkrista.com/btb-elisabeth-young-episode-62/.
Recommended
Transcript
Overcoming Content Creation Barriers
00:00:05
Speaker
So just like don't let the overwhelm get to you or the comparison because I know for a long time I was like, well, gosh, I must be doing all this wrong if I don't have some sort of like content calendar or plan in place. But at the end of the day, just like doing it.
Introduction to the Hosts and Episode
00:00:21
Speaker
Welcome to the Brands at Book Show, where we help creative service based businesses build their brands and find more clients. I'm your host, Davy Jones.
Guest Introduction: Elizabeth Young
00:00:33
Speaker
Today I'm chatting with Elizabeth Young of Eliza Ann Calligraphy and the Biz Bash podcast about how to create content that connects with the right people.
Elizabeth's Content Creation Journey
00:00:42
Speaker
If creating content has been a struggle for you, or maybe you're not even sure that this is something that you should be spending time on, this episode is for you. We chat about why she creates content, how it's impacted her business, how she creates so much content and manages to distribute that content across all her channels. We cover a lot. It's one of my favorite discussions to date,
00:01:02
Speaker
And I really appreciate her approach to content creation. Another episode that would pair nicely with this one is my interview with Lauren Carnes. So if you've liked this episode, head on over to Lauren Carnes' interview and check out that one as well. Before we get to the episode, I have a request. If you've enjoyed the Brands at Book podcast, would you take a minute to rate and review the podcast on iTunes? Doing so will help this podcast get more visibility and it mean a lot to me.
00:01:28
Speaker
Be sure to check out the show notes at davianchristo.com for the resources we mentioned during the episode, and like I said, we want to hear from you. Send us a DM, send us a Facebook message, tell us what kind of content you'd like to see on the podcast as we move forward. Now, on to the episode.
00:01:47
Speaker
Welcome back to another episode of brands that book. I've only had one other stationer on the show. All right. And so it's a very underrepresented group. So I'm excited to have Elizabeth Young of Eliza and calligraphy joining me today. Welcome. Thank you. I'm very excited about the conversation we're going to have today.
00:02:04
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, we almost had a 12 minute conversation before we even got started. What we're talking about today is content.
Elizabeth's Business and Content Channels
00:02:11
Speaker
So I want to go through all of the different channels that you're producing content on. And it's just so impressive. And as I was doing research for this episode, I just kept on coming across things, you know, so I haven't even I feel like I haven't even scratched the surface. But one of the things that we talked about on the podcast a lot, and just I think one of the things that I'm always telling people is how important content creation is in marketing yourself and booking clients.
00:02:33
Speaker
Establishing yourself as an authority and so on so I just want to go through the list of things that you're doing just so people can understand Everything that you have going on so you have two businesses one with Cammy Miller people probably recognize her as Cammy Monet right and you have the biz birthday bash with her that business and under that business you have the biz bash podcast and You just put on a stationer's summit and how many how many stationers participated in that summit?
00:03:03
Speaker
Yeah, so we had 18 sessions total and 15 other people besides Kami and I. So Kami and I each did individual sessions and one together, so that accounted for three. And then all the other 15 women, sorry, men, there were no men. Not this time. We can always add one in the future.
00:03:23
Speaker
And we had 15 other women in the industry that participated. That's awesome. And as somebody who's put on online summits before, I understand how much work goes into that. So that is a huge feat, having 18 different sessions. Is that stuff? I mean, just as a side note, is that still available?
00:03:40
Speaker
It is not available to sign up. It's anyone who registered when it was open has lifetime access. But there's always discussions of if and when, you know, doors were to open again when that would happen. And we've had some people asking it probably if it happened.
00:03:55
Speaker
wouldn't be until sometime like mid 2020 if I had to guess. Sure. All right. Well, back to all of your different content channels. So we're covering biz birthday bash right now. You have the podcast, you put on the station or summit, and then in your own business, so Eliza and calligraphy, you have your YouTube channel, you have your blog, you have email lists for both channels. And then
Elizabeth's Entrepreneurial Beginnings
00:04:19
Speaker
Pinterest, we talked about Pinterest a little bit. And then of course, you're on Instagram, and you had mentioned you have
00:04:24
Speaker
too many Instagram accounts to keep track of. But of course, you have Eliza and Clear Fee, and then at least one for the biz bash podcast or biz birthday bash. Sorry, my alliteration. I'm getting all I'm getting all it's a lot because we actually we wanted to claim biz bash podcast as a handle. So we have that as a handle. But in the bio, it just directs them to biz birthday bash.
00:04:48
Speaker
But then we have the station or some Instagram. I obviously have my business. I have my personal Instagram. My cats have an Instagram. It's just embarrassing. There's like way too many accounts that I'm managing. Actually, Instagram won't even let me add anymore. I've like reached the top five or something.
00:05:04
Speaker
I have a few. I mean, I have one for myself, which I bear. I mean, I show up on stories, but like it's embarrassing how little I actually posted the feed anymore over there. And then I have one for Brands at Book, but I just don't use it. Kind of like you were saying, I just claimed it just so that, you know, we had the Brands at Book handle, but I don't actually post there.
00:05:23
Speaker
But again, I'm excited to dig into how you manage all of these different channels. We should back up though, we start every single episode hearing a little bit more about our guests. So for those of you who already listen to Elizabeth's podcast, you know, stay with us, all right, because we're gonna get to some content stuff. But Elizabeth, could you tell us how you got into, you know, how did you start your own business? What is your entrepreneurial journey look like? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'm always
00:05:49
Speaker
first and foremost, very thankful for my parents and my dad, especially, who always has been an entrepreneur, always has been doing his own thing. I mean, he worked for Dish Network back in the day, but then after that started with his best friend. They started an endeavor and he had multiple business endeavors throughout
00:06:08
Speaker
The year and one of them at one point was this toy company. It was online only called all aboard toys. And I remember going into the warehouse and I would help them package things and send them out. And I remember thinking, I was like, this is like the coolest thing that my dad runs this and manages this.
00:06:24
Speaker
And so my dad has done a ton of stuff throughout the years he actually is currently the CEO of shop inventory which is inventory management so for anyone looking for a system with that but he's like always been my inspiration like my. Leading guy in terms of i know that i can do this like my dad has set
Challenges and Evolution in Calligraphy
00:06:44
Speaker
that.
00:06:44
Speaker
like set the bar high in that way of like don't feel like you have to work for someone else like you can work for yourself. So I've always been really creative and artsy was always doodling in school and throughout college too. I mean, I majored in communications, but I started
00:07:03
Speaker
to really pay attention to Instagram because Instagram what started in like 2010, something like that. And I was seeing a lot of like other hand letters and calligraphers on there. And I was like, wow, that's really cool. I've always loved handwriting. I used to get like my my teacher in eighth grade used to give me a hard time because he was like, maybe you would get more done if you weren't so focused on making your notes so pretty, because I just like was very methodical with my handwriting. And I've always kind of had that obsession. Well, I'm left handed.
00:07:31
Speaker
And learning calligraphy was a lot more difficult for me because of that because everyone I saw doing it was right handed. And there's a difference between the pens and the nibs and what works for a left handed person and what doesn't. I would have never guessed that, you know, like I would have just never guessed that. But when I was looking at your YouTube channel, some of your videos with the most views were around this topic of being a left handed calligrapher. So apparently, it is a thing. Apparently, it is more difficult. But anyways, you're going you were telling us about how but why it's more difficult.
00:08:01
Speaker
Yeah, it's just differences in like pens in the nibs, kind of how I said it, things you wouldn't understand until you really just get your hands on the materials and start trying. So it was fall of 2014. I guess that would have been like my senior year of school where I just like bought a bunch of stuff off Amazon. You know, I had done research, found some other blog posts people had put out there and really started experimenting on my own. And within a month of practicing my roommate at the time,
00:08:27
Speaker
referred me to someone and i got my first business i wrote out a family recipe i guarantee if i were to go back and look at that now i would like grimace because my style and calligraphy has changed so much over the years and just what i do over the years has changed like i don't even i don't even do projects like that anymore
00:08:44
Speaker
And so the fire was lit at that point. It was like a flame that was not going to die and go away. I had gotten engaged that fall as well, and I knew that I was going to be making this move across the country with my soon-to-be husband because his grad school was in Georgia, because I went to school in Seattle. So it was literally across the country. And when I got to Georgia, I had to do a side hustle. I had to get a full-time day job and then side hustle in the evenings because my husband was in school.
00:09:15
Speaker
So I worked really hard for a year. Then after that I quit. I was like, I'm out of here. I'm done. I went full time with my business. I had no idea what I was doing. I'm still sometimes have no idea what I'm doing. But yeah, that was in the fall of 2060 when I went full time. So it's been three years for me now, which that is just crazy. Like that it has gone that quickly.
00:09:34
Speaker
Yeah, amazing. I mean, one of the things that I appreciate about your podcast or the episode I listened to was about some of the mistakes that you and Kami, some cringe where I think the title of the episode is some cringe where the mistakes you all made as stationers really appreciated just, you know, how straightforward you are about some of the mistakes that you all made in the past. And some of which were not like, they're not like,
00:09:55
Speaker
They're relatively recent, not like yesterday, but I appreciated that aspect too because all our mistakes aren't when we first started. It's a consistent thing, right? So I appreciated that aspect of that episode for sure. But going back to leaving your full-time job, so you move
Leveraging Networks for Business Growth
00:10:13
Speaker
to Georgia, you just kind of side hustling really hard for a year, and then you quit and go full-time with your calligraphy business. First,
00:10:22
Speaker
A year isn't that long of a time, especially when you move. I imagine you were in Portland beforehand, right? You said? In Seattle. Yeah, Pacific Northwest, yeah. At least if you were still in Seattle, you probably have a network there. For instance, your roommate who referred you to a friend who needed choreography worked on. But when you moved to Georgia, you probably didn't have that network. There's probably an aspect of building that network. How were you able to take your business full time in that year?
00:10:49
Speaker
Oh gosh, well, the funny thing is like I have I even have a blog post about this like how to go full time with like your passion. I'm like trying to remember kind of like what I said in that. Well, I'm lucky. I also have a pretty good head for numbers. So I basically started out with
00:11:05
Speaker
I granted myself $1,000. I was like, I'm going to use $1,000 to get my business started and get it off the ground. And so when I hit that mark at a side hustle, where I had made that money back, I was generating a profit. And I said to myself, I think this will actually outweigh what I'm making right now. And I can't continue to grow my business if I'm not doing it 100% doing it all the time, because I'm just squeezing it in in the evenings.
00:11:35
Speaker
And so in terms of like growing that network, well, first of all, I'm lucky because of the internet. So I did still have a lot of friends from like back home and I grew
Balancing Creativity and Business
00:11:43
Speaker
up in Denver. So like friends and family in Denver too, that would find me online and send me business or order prints from me or calligraphy versus or whatever it was that they wanted. So I didn't feel totally like disconnected from the community that I had left.
00:11:57
Speaker
But I will say as much as I hated that job that I worked when I first moved to Georgia, my day job, that gave me an opportunity to build a network too because I was in a real estate office and they wanted house portraits and wood signs for clients and closings. I actually learned how to leverage that, I think, to my advantage because then when I quit, well, first of all, I had a good reason, right? I didn't have to tell my boss.
00:12:22
Speaker
I hated this. She probably already knew that. I was not that great an employee. But I could say to her, I'm quitting to pursue this, and I still had all those connections from that office and people that I had met in the first year of living in Georgia.
00:12:38
Speaker
That's probably a pretty unique combination of traits to have being both good with numbers and then also very creative feel like my wife christa she she's the same way but i also think that in the creative industry don't come across that often you come across people who really like creating but don't really love the business side of things.
00:12:57
Speaker
Yeah, I'm lucky. I will say very lucky because you're right. That's that's the norm. It's like one or the other. I guess it makes sense, right? It's not like your network from back home disappeared. It's not like you were a photographer and could only work in Atlanta, you know, so I forget, you know, you can mail, you know, whatever stationary pieces that you're that you're working on. So I do want to transition to talking more about content. You have so many different content channels. Why?
00:13:25
Speaker
That's a great question. Let me be really clear out front. I think it's partly because I didn't understand what I was doing, if that makes sense. Because now hindsight's 20-20, I can see everything very clearly. And at the time, I think it was just like, well, I've gone full time, and here's the things that I should do, that I should try to leverage to make my business stronger. So as you can tell, because you listed them out earlier, dipped my toes in a lot of different ponds. And I was like, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this.
00:13:55
Speaker
I mean, all of them have had benefits for my business in a different way. But the YouTube part of it really came out of my desire to teach and educate because I realized others were having struggles and stayed with my blog post for a little bit. And then with my blog post, I was like, oh, well, I can also blog for my ideal client and get some of that content in there, too. So those are like the two that I really started out with at the beginning, I think that were
Content Strategy and Audience Engagement
00:14:20
Speaker
kind of like fundamental to my business in the first year. So blogging and YouTube.
00:14:25
Speaker
Mm hmm. Yeah. And I would say YouTube is you probably got in YouTube pretty early, relatively, right? Just because yeah, like it's still not something is still not a channel that is utilized. It's not as ubiquitous as blogging, right? Like everybody has a blog, I think, you know, and then less people with YouTube channels and podcasts. But in general, like why? Why do you think content is so important? Like, why do you spend regardless of what channel it is? Why do you spend so much time there?
00:14:50
Speaker
Yeah, well, with blogging YouTube, especially obviously if someone's going to find a blog post, they're using a search engine. So SEO had a huge part in that, especially my decision for blogging. And even with YouTube, because YouTube itself is not a social media, it is an actual search engine. People go on there to search how to XYZ, you know, like, yeah.
00:15:14
Speaker
how to sand a wood sign, how to paint my front door, whatever they're looking for. And so that was very advantageous to me because I knew that there were going to be people looking up how to do left-handed calligraphy because that was my struggle. And I was like, I can really pinpoint that niche and probably have some pretty good success with it. So that's really what started it. Just very generic, basic tutorials on YouTube.
00:15:43
Speaker
Sure. So your strategy in creating content, what were some of the things that you did to create content in a way that would grow your business? Well, that was like part of like the problem is I don't think I was necessarily being super strategic about growing my business in the way I should have at the beginning because I think I had this
00:16:02
Speaker
like confusion between am I an educator or am I a service provider, right, for a client? That's a really interesting question. So, I don't mean to cut you off, but I do think you've – I think something that we've noticed as well is, well, you know what, I'm just going to let you talk about how you've approached this problem, I guess. So, you have this, you know,
00:16:25
Speaker
you had this confusion between are you educator or you clicker for how did you go about figuring out you know what posts to focus on you know more education or more calligraphy tell us all about that. Yeah well I think a lot of the content I was putting out there was very like education for because I think my goal at the time.
00:16:45
Speaker
When I started everything was it was just like numbers based. I wasn't doing a very good job of looking at the big picture. I was like on Instagram and I was like, well, I want to push people to my Instagram. I want them to follow me there. And how do I get content out there that'll make that happen? You know, so I can hit 10 K or I can hit whatever. I think I was purposely trying to talk to a lot of other creatives because I was trying to grow a social following. But as we know, like a social following does not equal business. Sure. And so
00:17:15
Speaker
Then once I started, I think I started kind of like taking a few steps back and I was doing like a lot of wood signs. The thing was that like commissions were coming in pretty well because of word of mouth. So I did not have like a lack of business per se. It's just that that was being driven by referrals and word of mouth. And so my content was like collecting this whole
00:17:37
Speaker
other audience, you know, I was like kind of like building both at the same time. And I was doing a lot of like one off work for clients in terms of like, wood signs, calligraphy, quotes, house portraits, all these things that I don't even do anymore. And like, it's taken me a long time to figure out, okay, what am I really doing here? What are my business goals?
00:17:58
Speaker
And so like the first year was like a lot of like doggy paddling, I think, you know, where you're like, Oh, I'll experiment here. I'll experiment there. And like, let's see how people react. Like, let's see how this builds my business. But that being said, like the strategy of that wasn't too good. Like I'll talk about this later in the episode. Cause you, you're going to ask me about like,
00:18:20
Speaker
what channel would I focus on? And like the answer will probably be kind of surprising to people, but I won't, I won't give that away yet. Yeah, well, I definitely want to talk about that in a minute. But I just think it's such interesting. I mean, there's a few thoughts I'm having as you're as you're talking about this one, while it might not have been the optimal strategy, I assume that
00:18:38
Speaker
you know, building a following on Instagram, even if it was other creatives or other stationers or calligraphers, still helpful, maybe in a way, you know, just in terms of like the social proof of having maybe a larger Instagram following or a larger YouTube channel or whatever it might be, right? And then I also think
00:18:56
Speaker
You probably got some referrals from people who were aware of you as a calligrapher, maybe who were a stationer of sorts. Referrals can come in from other people in the industry as well. You wouldn't say it was a waste of time to
00:19:13
Speaker
to create that content. And I think one thing I really appreciate about your story as I hear it is that you did just, you tested things and you created things and you just put it out
SEO and Content Strategy Success
00:19:22
Speaker
there. You know, I think that's a better mistake to make. And I hesitate even calling a mistake, but if we were to call it a mistake, I think it's a better mistake to make than not doing anything at all because you're not sure what direction you want to go. Yes, I think that's the ultimate lesson here is like,
00:19:38
Speaker
Make it and put it out there and see what happens. Like, don't get so consumed with like this paralysis or perfection that you're not trying anything at all because you're right, because then that's a lose-lose situation. Like, you're not doing anything for yourself if you're not putting something out there for people to see.
00:19:55
Speaker
And I think you've done a good job of reflecting on that, not just throwing things out there and keeping on doing that, but rather thinking about, okay, well, what's working and what's not? So how did you start creating content that connects with, I guess, quote unquote, the right people? Yeah, I think, okay, so I can actually kind of pinpoint the moment it happened on my blog, is I wrote a blog post that still to this day is like my most viewed blog post. And it was like, it's called Sixed
00:20:24
Speaker
the six most common questions about RSVP cards.
00:20:28
Speaker
And that started driving like a ton of traffic to my site because people were like, well, you've probably received an RSVP card in the mail, right? Where it has like the M and then a blank line. And that's always the number one question is people are like, well, what does that mean? And so I kind of like broke down all these questions that people had about RSVP cards and put them in a blog post. And it had a great keywords in there. And I think that's when the moment
00:20:57
Speaker
clicked for me is, okay, this is a wedding related, a paper related blog post. And this is driving people to my site and to me in the way that I want them to come. I'm collecting the people that I want, you know, and bringing them to my site. Whereas like my tutorials, though, great, are attracting creatives who aren't going to purchase wedding invitations for me, they're going to make their own. So I kind of had to
00:21:25
Speaker
have that a little bit of a mental shift of what content can I create that my ideal client is going to be interested in. And so why do you think that post in particular did so well? And what did you start doing, I guess, going forward to kind of imitate the success or replicate, rather, the success of that post?
00:21:47
Speaker
Honestly, it's hard for me to pinpoint why I did so well. I think I was just a surprise, but I had Google in terms of SEO. That's a whole other episode, but Google loves heading.
00:22:00
Speaker
in blog posts. So the fact that I had like six headings, right, and all of them had like RSVP card, and then that makes it really easy for people to search and for it to come up. Like if you look up common questions about RSVP cards, my blog posts might be on the very first page. And then I had images in there too, that I was like tagging with all the correct keywords. And so
00:22:19
Speaker
that was like it was like my aha moment of like understanding seo a little better too and i'm like oh i can take this strategy and replicate it again for writing common questions about invitations or what's your invitation style or all these other blog posts that
00:22:36
Speaker
I've been created. So it became a much more even split because I tried to be really intentional about like, let's do 50 50, right? Because I have created resources for creatives that are, that are purchasable, right? That'll make me money. So I still want to keep those people interested, but I want to be driving my ideal clients, my couples to my website as well.
The Power of Social Media and SEO
00:22:55
Speaker
So I became a lot more intentional when I was listing out blog posts that I tried to alternate
00:23:00
Speaker
with what I was writing. Yeah, and again, I think that's just such a valuable point is that you can have a large following on Instagram and still make no money if it's not the kind of people who are going to purchase from you. And so, even if a lot of industry peers look at you and say, oh, you know, she's so good at what she does, you know, they're not necessarily the ones purchasing, you know, from you. And so, you know, you can't take your Instagram following to the bank. I do want – I want to skip ahead to kind of what channels you find most effective.
00:23:26
Speaker
And even if you want to share for, you know, some of the different things that you do, because obviously something that you continue to focus on is education. And it sounds like primarily through his birthday bash with Kami. So I guess maybe could you share the channels that you now focus on for your calligraphy, stationary business, and then the channels you focus on for his birthday bash? Yeah, sure. And I guess which ones are most effective?
00:23:51
Speaker
Yeah. So this is what I was kind of saying earlier is going to surprise people a little bit, because if I could start over again with like that clean slate of being in my first year of business, having no idea what I was doing, I would try a lot harder with Pinterest. I have learned so much about Pinterest, thanks to Vanessa Kynes, who like referred me to you. My VA actually took her course. I didn't take it, but my VA took it and learned a ton about Pinterest, loved it.
00:24:19
Speaker
My friend Carly of Toucan also does a ton of Pinterest information and I've bought her Pinterest like ebook and
00:24:27
Speaker
I'm just devouring all things Pinterest because that is also a search engine and a visual search engine and is a very cool and I was and I've never really understood how Pinterest even worked until this year. I just thought it was a place where people like pinned, you know, cute photos, inspiration, realize like the workings behind it. And so I have been putting more effort into that side of things to get traction there. And I've slowed.
00:24:53
Speaker
My role on YouTube, so my poor YouTube channel now has not had a video uploaded since I think I uploaded a promo for the station or summit and that was the last one. Sure. But what, maybe April 2018, I would have to go back and look. It's been more than a year since I really did a tutorial of any sort. And your YouTube channel was primarily for education, right?
00:25:17
Speaker
Yeah, it was primarily for education. And now that I'm doing his birthday bash, that's where all of that kind of fits in, you know, sure, sure. And with the end with Pinterest, you were talking about that primarily in regards to your calligraphy business. Yes, as a child that you're using for your calligraphy channel, I'm using for my calligraphy business still very much Instagram.
Tools and Strategies for Content Management
00:25:34
Speaker
for both for eliza and calligraphy but i'm i'm like you i find myself relying on stories a lot more and i'm very picky about like what i put in my feet if it'll even be valuable so like last night was the first time that i wrote a caption long enough for people to actually have to hit like read more on instagram
00:25:50
Speaker
because I've gotten kind of lazy with it. I kind of just like throw things up there just so people know I'm alive. Like so they know that I still exist. I want them if they come to my Instagram page to know that I'm still like in business. And that's really the only reason I post on there because that is like, it's a lot of creative. So I manage Instagram at the Liza and calligraphy, but that's like kind of to connect more with my community, I would say that my ideal client, but I still have couples tell me all the time that they find me on Instagram. So that is not, it's not a lost cause by any means. Like it's still very beneficial.
00:26:20
Speaker
And the blog, the blog analyzing calligraphy is kind of like slow to scroll a little bit too. Like I'm a little more picky there about what I put up because as I've learned from people.
00:26:31
Speaker
And kind of like realized is that you can burn yourself out creating content, but once you've created so much of it, why not re-share, right? That content exists forever. Like keep pushing it and re-sharing. So then on my nailing list for Eliza and calligraphy, I actually, I have a VA. She helps me part-time. Her name is Madison.
00:26:52
Speaker
And I had her start creating a sequence through ConvertKit, that's what I use, so that when people join my mailing list, they get added to a 52 week sequence that has one email a week. It's called the open envelope. So every week they get the open envelope in their mailbox on Friday morning and it lists three content things that I have done. So like here's a blog post and I even like, I pitched my podcast on there too. Like here's a podcast and
00:27:21
Speaker
Here's an invitation I've done in the past, like I try to hit all of my target audiences with open envelope. And so then everyone jokes with me with me. They're like, well, what's going to happen when a year is over? I'm like, I don't know. Originally come to it, you know, so now it's more about like,
00:27:39
Speaker
like almost regurgitating and pushing all that information a second time. It's become a lot less for me in this stage about creating something new. How can we refresh something old or make it better for people? So glad you brought that up because I think it's just an overlooked part of content strategy. I mean, people work so hard in creating content to begin with.
00:27:59
Speaker
and then a couple years go by, content is still good. Maybe it needs to be updated a little bit, but it doesn't need to be rewritten in a lot of cases, but it just kind of dies a slow death because it's buried in your blog somewhere. Likewise, that's something that we've been doing even on the podcast is going through old blog posts that we still think are valuable, rewriting them, also creating a corresponding podcast episode and reposting both. Now it's at the top of the blog and people are more likely to find it.
00:28:26
Speaker
Again, I think search engines in general, I think Vanessa would agree about this in regards to Pinterest, but Google Pinterest likes fresh content. And so even republished content that's just reworked old content, it just gets in front of more people. So I'm so happy that you brought that up because that old content you create, I mean,
00:28:44
Speaker
Even if you're a wedding photographer, if it's a wedding that you shot and you're still proud of it and it still represents the work that you're doing, reshare it, especially when we work so hard to create it to begin with. I don't know how long it takes to record a podcast episode for you or a blog post, but I know it takes probably four to six hours for me to write a blog post. I don't want to take all that time writing a blog post so that people read it for one day.
00:29:07
Speaker
Yeah, right, exactly. And it cracks me up too when photographers are like, I just don't have any images to post on Instagram. And I'm like, what do you mean? It took like 2000 of like that one wedding alone.
00:29:19
Speaker
I always give my friends a hard time. My photography friends a hard time about that because I think people feel weird about it. Like for some reason, like posting the same thing twice. And I'm like, it's very advantageous. Like if you go back and that image is like your best performing from 2019, like post it again, like in a couple of months, you know, like people aren't going to remember it that well. They just don't. Like there's so much content online anymore that there's no way our brains can like process and remember all of it.
00:29:48
Speaker
I 100% agree. I mean, and back when we were shooting, we shot weddings before we transitioned fully into branding design.
00:29:55
Speaker
We had one wedding in particular that was shot on Flag Day. So it was patriotic themed, American flags everywhere. But every American patriotic holiday, 4th of July, Flag Day, Veterans Day, Memorial Day, images from that wedding would be shared. And that lived on for years. And still to this day, it's not uncommon for a publication to reach out and be like, hey, can we share this image?
00:30:21
Speaker
on one of those holidays. And so that wedding, that single wedding booked us other weddings for years. So again, I think it just speaks to your point on how important it is to share content. Also love that. I mean, it's so true. I do hear photographers always say, what do I post? I'm like, photographers have no, I mean, they have it, I think the easiest, right? It's every other vendor that's waiting for the photographer's images to be able to share. So again, just really appreciate that.
00:30:50
Speaker
And four, I will say too, in terms of like content management, I think there's like overwhelmed maybe for photographers, which is why I feel that way, which is where something like plan only or later or an app could come in handy for them. I highly recommend plan only I use that very strategically for both his birthday bash analyze and calligraphy to schedule content on it on Instagram, especially during seasons where we have big launches or holidays coming up, like pick your favorite 10 photos from a wedding, just upload them to plan only and you can kind of like
00:31:19
Speaker
pull them around and organize them and alternate them with other images as well.
Adapting to Algorithms and Practical Learning
00:31:23
Speaker
I finally got a hang of that. I was so proud. Yeah, Krista uses that for her own profile. For David and Krista, we use later. And I know that was one of those ones you just mentioned. And I think you could even hook that up to Facebook and post to both. I mean, I think we just use it to schedule to Instagram. We use co-schedule for our blog, which helps mostly, again, with Facebook. But I mean, that leads me to one of my last questions here.
00:31:47
Speaker
you do still manage even though you're more focused these days. And even though a lot of what you're doing is going back and refreshing maybe some older content, you still have a lot going on. So you still have two different businesses, Instagram accounts to manage for both, content to disseminate for each of those. How do you manage all of that? I'm guessing plan only is one of the ways that you do that. What other tips do you have?
00:32:09
Speaker
Okay, I'm a huge fan of time blocking. So if I were to be writing a blog post or something new, I would put that on the calendar because if I put it on there, then it's going to happen. I need to visually see it. And so at the beginning of 2019, I was trying to even give myself like three hours a week to blog, which of course, like most of the time didn't happen, but it was on my calendar to do that.
00:32:30
Speaker
And I would literally schedule, like, okay, what day do I want blog posts to go live? So I could kind of see that. Planoli is obviously one that we utilize, which is great.
00:32:42
Speaker
And we were just not as like aggressive about posting anymore. So that helps manage it. So like this birthday bash on that Instagram account, we really post once a week when our podcast goes live, unless we're doing a big launch or the station or summit is happening or something crazy. Then people get bombarded by like three posts a day. But we also, we schedule all of that ahead of time. So it's all ready to go. We don't touch it like the week of the launch.
00:33:03
Speaker
One thing that I've noticed about Instagram, I think one thing that I mean, I know people hate the algorithm, and they want to go back to the old days of the chronography and whatever. But I guess one one of the nice things about or one thing that I would argue for the algorithm is that, you know, even if you're posting once a week, that that post has an opportunity to show up in somebody's feed two days later at the very top, right? You know, so I do think that maybe there's less pressure because of the algorithm to have to post every single day or twice a day or
00:33:33
Speaker
Yeah, that's actually a great point because you're right because with the chronological feed I don't think I've even thought of that before like you would have to be looking at Instagram at that exact moment Yeah, the post went live whereas now it understands like oh Ashley might be interested in Elizabeth's Content like we're gonna show it to her even if it is two days later and she doesn't miss the deadline to sign up for the summit or whatever that we're promoting
00:33:57
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great point. I mean, I'll joke about like the algorithm all day and give it a hard time. But at the end of the day, there's nothing we can do. You just got to kind of go with the flow and accept it.
00:34:07
Speaker
One of the other things that I appreciated that I wanted to bring up was you mentioned search engine optimization. That's something that Chris and I do. It sounds like you sort of stumbled upon that in so you'd written a blog post and then you saw the benefits of search engine optimization. But you didn't necessarily like know a ton about SEO and then go write your blog post. Would that be a correct assessment?
00:34:28
Speaker
That would be correct. Like I had gone to like some rising tide meetings where they talk about SEO, right? But I think it's the same thing that we go through is like in middle school learning algebra, right? Where you're like going through the motions of like doing an equation until you have the moment. And I could still remember this from middle school where I would have the moment and I would go, I get it. I understand the process of this equation and why I'm doing it and why I get these results for this.
00:34:54
Speaker
And it was the same thing with SEO is that I was kind of going through the motions. I was like, okay, put up some keywords here and I'll make this image title have this word. And then it was that like RCP blog post where it was like the fireworks. I was like, Oh, I get it. I understand now why this is successful. Why search engine optimization is so useful when you're blogging or generating content.
00:35:18
Speaker
Yeah, and I wanted to bring that up just because I wanted to reemphasize this point that you get to that aha moment by actually doing it, you know? Yeah, by practice. If you had just decided, oh, I'm not going to write a blog post until I know everything there is to know about SEO, you probably still wouldn't have written a blog post, right? Like, I know I wouldn't have, right? So, you know, learning is something that's, I think, best done by doing. And of course, we don't want to just, you know, hustle ourselves into exhaustion. But at the same time, I think one thing that I really appreciate about
00:35:47
Speaker
your entrepreneurial journey, especially in regards to content, is that you just go do it. And then you reflect on, okay, what's working and where should I spend most of my time and what channels are most important to focus on. And we just see the benefit of that reflection through things like you taking old content and reworking it instead of thinking you always have to reinvent or invent new content. So I really appreciate that. I do have
00:36:10
Speaker
One final question for you. I want to know if you could go back and or, you know, I guess you can answer this. Actually, I'm going to make it two questions because I like both of them. All right. The first one, if you could go back and focus on just one channel, which one would it be? I honestly would have to say Pinterest. I think I would try to understand that one better and really go for it.
Starting Without Perfection in Content Creation
00:36:33
Speaker
But that's a really hard question. It's an unfair question. I will say, it is an unfair question. I've actually just sent out a survey to all of... I'm preparing for a keynote at Shoat United and I just sent out a survey to every one of my past guests asking them basically the question, if you had to tell people to focus on one thing in order to grow their business, what would it be? And it is difficult for people to answer because it's like, of course, there's never just one thing.
00:37:00
Speaker
Yeah, it was different. So maybe I'll cheat a little bit and I'll also say like my other option would have been blogging because then people can always pin my images themselves without me pushing it to Pinterest. And I wanted to like hop in and say one more thing too, if it's okay with you. Absolutely, yeah.
00:37:18
Speaker
that in terms of like the overwhelm because this is kind of the theme of like just get out there and do it out of shut out like a lot of noise like of these people who are like look at my content plan like look at my calendar for july like all these days that they were gonna post everything and i'm over here like i'm just like flying by the seat of my pants and
00:37:38
Speaker
I just want to say for those of you out there, and that's you right now, the flying by the seat of your pants strategy, that's totally okay. Especially if you're someone who's doing everything in your business yourself. I feel like content marketing and content calendars become a lot easier when you are adding people to your team and when everyone has to be on the same page.
00:38:00
Speaker
So just like don't let the overwhelm get to you or the comparison because I know for a long time I was like, well, gosh, I must be doing all this wrong if I don't have some sort of like content calendar or plan in place. But at the end of the day, color coded. Yeah, right. Oh, my gosh. I saw so many things that were so intimidating where I was really like, geez, I've got this like all wrong. But yeah, just doing it was like the best. It was the best thing in the end.
00:38:24
Speaker
Yeah, again, such valuable advice and I'm going to have to cut out some of these quotes so that I can maybe share them outside of the interview just because we're hitting 45 minutes here and I want to make sure that people hear this stuff. Again, I just think it's so important. I still feel like I'm flying by the seat of my pants occasionally. We're just now bringing on administrative assistance to help with getting a better grip on some of this content calendar stuff and organizing content and making sure it gets out to the right channels.
00:38:54
Speaker
You know, like you can only get to that point if you're actually creating the content. So, again, I just think it's such important advice. So, my final question is just simply what's your favorite channel to post on? Like of all the channels that you share content on right now, where is your favorite place currently to show up? Honestly, Instagram, it is. Like that's where I get the best engagement and interaction with my audience.
00:39:21
Speaker
I think that's where I get lifted up and encouraged the most because that is where the other creatives exist, where we kind of have this community of stationers and artists and paper people who have come together to encourage one another. So yeah, Instagram is actually a lot more encouraging for me than discouraging because I know for some people, like social media can be very discouraging, but that's my favorite place to show up. And I'm a huge advocate of for Instagram stories, too. I just think they make things really fun and personal within your business.
00:39:51
Speaker
If someone wanted to connect with you specifically on Instagram, the best account to do so would be ElizaAndCligraphy.
00:39:57
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I'll post the handle in the show notes. So it's pronounced Eliza Ann, but it's spelled with an S. So it looks Eliza Ann. So for people who are sitting there searching right now, you will find if you throw in Eliza or you spell it with an S.
Podcasting vs. YouTube for Engagement
00:40:14
Speaker
It's very confusing because my business is named after me. So it's a combination of my first name and my middle name. And my first name is Elizabeth with an S.
00:40:23
Speaker
So I took that and I was like, oh, Eliza, in my mind, that's how it sounds. And everyone else is like, oh, it's Elisa. And these are the things you never think about before you start a business. But yeah, so thank you for specifying. Yeah, I'm going to ask you another question. So this is my third or fourth last question now. I promise I'll wrap up after this. But your YouTube channel, you previously used a lot for education and tutorials and things like that. Now you're showing up more in a podcast type or doing more podcasts for education.
00:40:53
Speaker
So, what have you found kind of the benefits of podcasting? You know, maybe even compared to YouTube, like why did you all decide to show up on a podcast instead of maybe investing more in the YouTube channel? I would say it really comes down to the fact that people are multitaskers. So, they want to be doing something while listening and YouTube, you really have to sit down and watch. YouTube is great for tutorials, for those visual elements.
00:41:20
Speaker
But in terms of like, just Cammy and I having discussions about these lessons that we've learned, like people listen to us while they're commuting. You obviously cannot watch YouTube or should not be watching it while you're driving a vehicle. They listen to it while they're like making their kids dinner. Like all of these things that the YouTube, wow, I sound like I'm 50, but that doesn't like that's not conducive to that.
00:41:44
Speaker
And podcasting, it's just blown up. It's just blown up so much. And the fact that they get a notification on their phone of like, you have a new podcast episode from Biz Birthday Bash and they can listen to it immediately. I mean, it's really cool. Yeah. It's like the golden days of blogging where everybody subscribed to RSS feeds.
00:42:02
Speaker
and all their latest blog posts were aggregated in a single place. I feel like that's kind of what podcasting is today because everybody uses their favorite app, whether it be iTunes or something like Overcast where they subscribe to a bunch of different shows and the most recent ones pop up. So I would just echo all of those things and the amount of people who reach out and say,
00:42:22
Speaker
I listen to it while I run or during car rides and things like that. Whereas with a YouTube channel or video, people have to kind of stop what they're doing and watching. Not to discount a YouTube channel because it's still – this is one of the things that I've said for probably the last two years now is I want to start investing more in our YouTube channel. But I do think that podcasting is such an interesting and just a channel with so much potential to connect with people.
00:42:47
Speaker
Yeah, my brother, by the way, is a full time YouTuber. So if you ever wanted to talk to somebody who does that full time, I'll give you his info. Yeah, I think I definitely have to do that because it's one of those I struggle so much with video. It's just I'm a little bit of a perfectionist. So it's harder for me to show up there, I think then maybe something on a podcast where it's just more conversational in nature. And I don't have to worry about things being as perfect
00:43:11
Speaker
and I outsource the editing for the podcast.
Conclusion and Final Insights
00:43:14
Speaker
Oh, that's nice. Yeah, I don't even have to deal with listening to myself again and somebody else has to do that and cut out any mistakes. But thank you so much for your time this morning and I really enjoyed this conversation. I think people are going to benefit on so many different levels when it comes to content creation. It's something that's so important and I think that people are going to feel – it's going to be
00:43:36
Speaker
freeing for people to listen to your story because of your just approach to, hey, let's put stuff out there. Let's reflect on it. But let's not get caught up by things like, you know, having to have everything all laid out pretty on a on a content calendar or knowing exactly what you're going to do before you do it. So thank you for your time this morning and sharing all that
00:43:56
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And sorry to those of you who are listening and wanted a clear cut content plan. I'm just kidding. No, I think this is the most valuable thing. You know, I think this is the most valuable thing for people. And again, I think it's very much in line with things that that I talk to people about when it comes to content. So I really appreciate the conversation and thank you for your time this morning. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
00:44:23
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to the Brands That Book Show. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing and leaving a review in iTunes. For show notes and other resources, head on over to dvandchrista.com.