Welcome to the Hair of the Dog podcast. I'm Nicole. And today we're going to be talking to Deb Laflamme from, For the Love of Your Business. She is a social strategist, marketing maven, and we are going to dive into how to create an easy-to-implement process to finally make figuring out what the heck to share on social media a heck of a lot easier. Stay tuned.

Welcome to the Dair of the dog podcast. If you're a pet photographer ready to make more money and start living a life by your design, you've come to the right place. And now your host, pet photographer, travel addict, chocolate martini connoiseur, Nicole Begley,

Nicole here from Hair of the Dog. And I am here with Deb Laflamme from For the Love of your Biz, who is a social strategist, marketing coach, extraordinary and all around just awesome person. Um, welcome Deb. Welcome to the podcast. Hey Nicole, thanks so much for having me. Of course. I'm so excited to have you. Yeah. I'm going to talk about all things social and marketing and all that good stuff. Cause I know that's an area that a lot of us get a little overwhelmed with, myself included. So tell us a little bit just about you and your business and let us get to know you a bit. Sure. Well, um, I'm a mom, I'm a wife. I am what they like to call a creative ideapreneur. So what that puts, that puts me on this pedestal, I guess, of someone who's constantly got the flow of ideas. And so I love to be able to help you and your people who want to market their business better in a different way. And I've really built my business for the love of your biz based on that premise that you are an expert in what you do, you know, who you serve, but you want your message to connect more deeply with your people, with your audience. And when you get online, you're able to connect with the whole world. So I love to help marketers business owners, just like your listeners connect more deeply through their online marketing. Nice. Excellent. I feel like everyone gets, myself included like I said, gets completely overwhelmed when they just sit down and they look at, you know, even if they're using later, planoly, or you know, just something, they look at it and there's this big blank calendar. And they're like, Oh my God, what do I do? I share images. I guess that's all I can do. And, and we, we fall into this rut of just sharing some of our work and just missing the chance to connect with everybody. So yeah. Give us, give us some hints to help to make this less overwhelming. Yeah. It's funny because you know, there are so many business owners online that would love to have the portfolio images that you and your audience have, right? So it's like, the grass is always greener. We always want whatever people have. But for you guys, you have this gorgeous album or, you know, folders and folders, folders of these

Beautiful examples of your work. Right. So, but here's the thing. So do most amazing photographers, right? You're on the same level as like I say, everyone else like you. So really my work helps you stand out from the pack ironically. Yes. Just like the dog. I love it. Yeah. So here we are, like, you are lined up with all the people who also are pet photographers, right? And so when you're, you're, you know, you're standing in front of your dream client and so is your quote unquote competitor. You want them to pick the person they have something in common with like to say like a common thread or something of interest that they can relate to. So now the bond is already started and I always like use the example of a pen. You know, you're at the fork in the road and you need a pen to write an address down. And Nicole and I are both offering you this pen and the pen works exactly the same. The pen writes the same. It's the same color. You don't have to wait for either of our pens, right? It's the same price, it functions the exact same way. It will totally solve your problem. So basically the pens are identical as far as the person is concerned, as far as your dream client is concerned. But if you hear that Nicole has a passion for horses and you have a passion for horses. She's already got a tick mark more than Deb, more than I. But if Deb says, Oh, I love avocado toast. And I love having cucumbers on top of that avocado toast. And I love horses. Now Deb's got maybe two checks that are a common thread that she's got a connection with you. So the more deeply you can connect with your dream audience and share beyond the photos and the experience of working with you, the more ticks you get, like the check marks to say, Oh, I like her. Oh yeah, she lives here. Or she grew up here or she likes to travel or she likes horses or he loves the golden hour and is willing to come to our local beach. Like there's all these elements that come into play when your dream customer is looking to pick a photographer for their pet and for their family and for their family shoots, whatever it is. So when you actually are attracting someone, you want to make sure that you're giving them more than just, I take pictures of photos. Here are, here are the pictures. Like you have to go above another level up or two levels up so that your dream client can get to know you better. And that's something that we can talk a little bit deeper about today, about how to get rid of that overwhelm and be like, okay, I've got the pictures, now what.

Yes, absolutely. And I think this is going to be tough for a lot of pet photographers and the way that a lot of photographers get into pet photography because they love animals. And they're very much, um, I would say an introvert heavy crowd

Yeah. That, you know, and it's

Whether you're introvert or extrovert, excuse me, I'm, uh, I kind of straddle the barrier, but I ended up more on the extrovert side. But even with that, it's not always comfortable talking about me and myself. And, and I think a lot of us have this mental block of, Oh, no one cares about me. They don't care what, you know, what I like or what I do that my image is going to be enough to, to sell my, to sell this opportunity. That is just sharing my images, that we don't realize how important that connection of, you know, just being that deeper connection of who we are

Actually are and not being scared to share it. Yeah. And I think that, uh, you know, photographers and many other online business owners, we hide behind our business. We hide behind our brand and photographers. You know, you guys are hiding behind your cameras and your skill is put out to the world when the product comes, like when someone actually works with you, the process. Right? So here's the thing that may set you apart. If you, first of all, you don't have to go super personal. Like you don't need to give out your birthday to tell people where you were born. They don't have to do those things. Some people do. And, and it's funny, Nicole, cause I straddled both as well. Yeah. Are so surprised that I'm not a total extrovert, but when I'm talking about what, I'm, what I feel comfortable about and that I'm passionate about totally extroverted. You throw me into a room full of people. I don't know. Oh my God. I gotta go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, please make sure the exit's close by. If we're like looking to get to know each other. It's great. I'm totally happy to do that. But yeah. So I get, so I get that. There's gotta be a balance between how much we let in, like how, how much we pull back the curtain. But what if I right now share some of the content ideas that I know pet photographers, dream clients are craving. Love that. Okay. So one of the things that I love to teach Nicole, and I know that you and I have talked about this are the four pillars of content that need to be shared in your marketing. And when I say need to be shared, this doesn't mean every day, all day, this doesn't mean you have to go write new blogs. I'm not here to overwhelm anyone. I am here to help you break it down so that you understand what it is. Your dream client needs from you to make a decision of whether or not to work with you, whether or not to hire you, whether or not to refer you to a friend or a family member. So grab your paper and pen if you haven't already. But the four pillars that I believe in my heart and that I've watched pet photographers and so many other business owners succeed at their content marketing. There's four of them. One is you always need to be a resource. So, and I'll give you some examples of this after I list them, but be a resource at the end of the day, you need to share valuable content. And this does not mean you have to be the creator of that content. Isn't that exciting? Like there's an article about lighting. If there's a location maps, if there's something happening in your local community, if there's a pet store or a shelter, that's doing an event, this is how you connect more deeply by being a guide, sharing, valuable content that you did not create. Okay. So check that right off your list. Like, Oh my gosh, I can share other people's stuff. Awesome. And I'm guessing all of you listening are following a lot of people who share really good content, Nicole included. You could share that content out with your audience. Again, it connects you to your dream client because you're being of service. Okay. Notice, I didn't say to sell anything. Notice, I didn't say drive them to your website. This is all about being a resource. So that's number one. Number two is inspiration. So here's the thing. If it inspires you and it fills you up, I guarantee 100% it will also inspire and fill up and give passion to your audience. So this could be those quotes that you see online. People love to like them, comment on them, share them. So this pillar is really anything that creates some sort of engagement like conversation or sharing, or what's the nickname for your puppy, or what's the story behind your dog's name? Or what month is your dog born or cat born? Or if your dog could be any other animal, what animal would your dog be? So here, here's just some quick examples that I'm thinking of right now off the top of my head, but also inspirational quotes that you can put over your photos. Again, this is where other marketers are so jealous of you guys, because you have this portfolio of beautiful shots. You can put your quotes or quote that inspires you on your images and pop your logo right on there and share that with your audience. So the second pillar is inspiration and it's super important.

I love that. And you know, we're lucky in two ways that we have great images, but also who doesn't like to talk about their dog. If they don't, they're obviously not our client. So

That's right. That's right. Yeah. It was a pretty easy it's so and dogs and the story of their dog and how old is their dog? And like, what treats are you giving their dog? Like, what's up, what's a great summer treat. Who's done. Like, uh, pupsicles homemade popsicles. Here's some recipes, like all of this is super valuable and attracts the right people to you. People you're going to, you're going to attract different people who maybe didn't know that you're a human being more than a photographer, right? Yeah. So I love it. The third pillar, which may be one that's harder for everybody. Actually the third and fourth are usually the ones that photographers and other business owners struggle a little more with once I give you permission to share other people's content. And once I give you permission to inspire people with fun content, then you got to talk a little bit about you. So pillar third pillar is about you. And, um, again, I don't need your birth date. I don't need your social security number, but it's as easy as sharing why you started your business. It's as easy as talking about your pet. So this is truly the peeling back of the curtain a little bit. Um, you know, your love of pets. Why do you love pets? What did you want to be when you grew up? Did you want, did you know you wanted to be a photographer for me, for example, someone just asks I'm in a group that I'm in, what did you want to be? What did you think you were going to be when you grew up? And I wrote a veterinarian and then she prompted me and said, well, what sparked that? And I said, when I was younger, I rode horses. And part of riding where I went was you had to care for the horses. And I fell madly in love with them. And I was like, I'm going to take care of them for the rest of my life. And then I didn't want to go. And now

Even more because I didn't know you used to ride horses.

Yes, I did. My, actually my father used to secretly take me out of Hebrew school. My mother didn't even know Barnett Ipswich, Massachusetts. Cause I grew up outside of Boston and I would ride four times a day after school. And then when it got darker, like cause of the, you know, the sun would set in earlier in the winter, I would go early in the morning. So I just want you guys to know that these little bitty stories, it's what helps people connect more deeply to you. So like I was going back to the story of the pen with Nicole and I at the end of the street, you know, avocado toast. How you take your coffee? Where do you walk your dog? How do you get exercise? Have you taught your dog to swim? Does your dog go on a boat? Like it can be a combination of you and your family and the things that are inspiring you for me. Like, um, I love lighthouses. And so everybody really starting to associate me with lighthouses and I get them, my followers on Instagram, when they see a lighthouse, they send me pictures and tell me, they thought of me,

My followers do that when they have a good chocolate martini.

Exactly. Because they know that you are all about that sharp chocolate martini. Exactly. How did we know that Nicole? Because you shared that with us, and PS, you should be sharing more of that with us. We want you to know, I know

I'm telling you, you guys, I'm right here, along with you learning from Deb and, and I'm implementing all of these things because yeah. It doesn't always come easy to do these things, but it's, it's so, so worthwhile. And I do notice a difference in my business 100% when I share more, because I've never been like, I've never been one of those people like, Oh, selfie, Oh, let me take a picture of this and that. Like, I try to actually not be on my phone that much and try to enjoy the moment. So it can definitely be a balancing act, but you know, you can take the pictures and post them later. Yeah.

I would say that's actually a really good point before we head into the fourth pillar, when all of all of your content, it should be done intentionally. So you never want to just post a post that your people will feel that they will know that you just kind of did this. This should be a plan that you put into place. And I'm going to share with you three easy ways to do that, but don't feel overwhelmed by, Oh my God, I have to post all these things all the time and all day and every day in every platform, that's not what this is about because actually the quality trumps the quantity when it comes to good content every single time. So yeah. And so the fourth pillar, the most important, in my opinion is the services pillar. And so when I share this, this, these pillars in a training services, the S on either end are dollar signs. And I want to remind you that you own a business and you need to remind your audience that you are a business. And so every single thing in your business that brings you money eventually. So this includes, if you have a free opt-in or a freebie that would eventually bring you money. So I'm here to remind you that you own a business, even if you love what you do, and you literally would do it for free, even better, remind your audience that you are a business owner, and these are the services that you offer. And here's how you join my list. And here's the about page on my website. There's lots of ways to drive traffic to your website. There's lots of ways for people to understand how they can work with you. That would all come under the services.

I love that. And it's so true because we need to really ask for the sale and let people know, Hey, this is an option. Like just FYI. I offer this because I think a lot of times we have this own, our own junk in our head that gets in the way of, Oh, well, it's not nice to promote yourself or, Oh, well, I feel yucky about it. Oh, but I love what I do. I feel bad taking people's money. Like we have all of this stuff in there, which is definitely worthwhile trying to work through and figuring out why do I think this way? Is it something from a childhood? You know, how can I change this belief? So it becomes easier to share, but if we never share, then you know, you're leaving a lot of potential clients on the table. And here's one way to hopefully change that belief like that. Your potential client, you sharing, what you do is actually a service to your potential client, because they might be sitting at home with their dog that they love so much, that's getting older, that they want to capture. And they don't even know that pet photography is a thing because let's face it. How many times do you say, Oh, I'm a pet photographer. And people were like, wait, what? That's your job? So it is not well known to all of the masses that this is a thing. So by us sharing that we offer this, you're actually doing a service for someone that, you know, they have free will, they have choice? They say, Oh my gosh, this seems amazing. Please let me pay you so that you can do this for me. Yes.

So you brought up a couple of things that I want to share too, is you're right. It's you're you actually, you actually are being selfish by hiding it, right? It's unfair for your audience. We don't make people buy our stuff. It is totally their choice. So let go of the fact that just sharing a link to your website makes you feel bad. Like it is like people are busy, like so busy and you know what? You probably want to be hired by someone who's busy because they're the ones that are going to see the value in your work. They're going to be the ones that say, Oh my God, I totally want to photograph my dogs at this stage right now, but I don't know how so I'm going to hire an expert. But when you give me a link on Facebook or in an email campaign that drives me to your website so that I can learn more about working with you. You just saved me hours of searching on Google, especially if I don't know what to look for. Yeah. Easy for it. This is, this is the key about social media content is you're literally handing your dream client what they need to know about working with you and getting to know you better and being inspired and seeing you as a resource by delivering them this content in the form of these pillars that I'm talking about. Yes. 100%. So maybe that's easier for you to think that, Oh my gosh. If I don't say it, imagine if you said it and you got 10 new prospects and of those 10, 2 book this month, right. For one post. Right? Right. Yeah. I think that a lot of photographers in general, not just pet photographers, have this belief that as long as I create beautiful work and have a nice website and post an image on social media here and there, then my business is going to be booming. But it's just not true because people are so busy. And you know, I can't tell you how many times that I get a prospect that I chat with them. And I'm like, gosh, they really sounded like they wanted to book. And I don't hear from them. And guess what I do, I follow up with them and guess what happens often? They're like, Oh my gosh, thanks so much for following up. This totally fell off my radar, but I really want to do it. Yeah. Put yourself in your dream client shoes. Like you're busy too. Yeah. You're busy trying to get leads like, and you have a family and you have a dog you want to walk and you're going to process the pictures that you took last week. So like, I love when I get reminders like a drip in an email or a quick messenger message, like, Hey, are you still interested? Or, you know, if someone's reached out to you, don't feel like you're bothering them if you're following up. Because I would guarantee that 80% of the time, it just fell off their radar. And think about a time when you really wanted something and you were like, Oh man, I'm really excited about this. And maybe it didn't get around to it quite as quickly. And they followed up with you and you were like, Oh, thank you so much. That's how some of our clients are. And conversely, if this helps to think of a time when someone followed up with you, but you were no longer interested then, okay. Just say, okay, thanks for following up. But not at this time, like, you're not sitting there like, Oh my God, that person's terrible. I'm going to go tell everyone on the planet that they are horrible business owner because they followed up with me and I said no. Right, right. We make it like just giant mountain in our head. And we, we turn it into well, if they maybe, maybe they don't like me. Oh, what if they don't like me? Oh, they're going to ruin my business. Oh. You know, we just, it gets snowballed and crazy. So stop that. Stop that. I mean, like again, if, if, if you're selfish by hiding, think of how helpful you are by showing up. Yup. So, okay. Now, you know, the pillars, the resource, inspiration, about you, and$ervice$ with the double dollar sign. Love it. So you're like, okay, now how do I use them? Well, so what I like to do is I like to share with you a three step process because I guarantee you're like, where do I even begin? I like to tell people to do is take a piece of paper and draw four columns, or make a four cube grid. You know, like across the middle of a page, one of those blocks, you should label resource one block inspiration, one about you. And one about services with the double dollar sign. And then my first step in creating the most amazing content for your audience is curation. And for those of you that are photographers, which is probably everybody, creativity is probably going to start flowing. And maybe right now you're like, I don't even know where to where to begin, but take one of those four pillars and put some ideas in that block. So maybe, um, inspiration we'll start there. Maybe it's a pet quotes or pet memes or, um, fill in the blanks or this or that. These are some prompt ideas that you can create. But we're right now, just coming up with the idea so that you don't sit and stare at planoly or later or PostPlanner, or at a later time, this is actually going to be your, your new Bible for your content marketing, the four pillars that you're going to literally fill in ideas every time they come to you. And then you're going to repeat for resourceful or resource stuff, about you, ideas that you can share about you. And then of course the services. Now I have a notebook that literally has four tabs because I've been doing this long enough. And I literally think I live in social media posts. Are you adding to this all the time? All the time. I love it. And for me, because I am a creative, I get to share these ideas with my people, right. So when I have an idea, like, I want to share a story of gratitude. Guess what? That crosses over two pillars, a little bit about me and inspiration and that's okay. Like, I don't want anyone to feel like there's a drop, like a very heavy cement wall in between these. They should all be so beautiful and connected so that it's not like, Oh, she's just sending me a service. Oh, she's just inspired. But like your audience doesn't feel like that. It's always going to be welcoming so that when you are ready to launch a course or mini sessions, or, and this is what I was going to say earlier. sell prints, I see all of you guys struggling with you do the photos, but then, you know, you can't sell the prints. Guess what? That's a moneymaker. You know it, you know that this could be taking your business to that next level, more revenue. That's the relationship ladder for your clients, right? You, you engage them, you take the photos, then you create books or prints or gifts. And it's like that beautiful relationship from start to finish. So all of the things that you're doing with these pillars is to help attract people so that when they're ready to buy prints, they come to you. When they're ready to have their photos taken, they come to you. So now you're at the point where you've dumped all your ideas. And this is like I said, an ongoing process, but you could do this monthly. You could do this weekly until you start to like, build this, library of content. You've got, you know, your favorite tools or apps that could be a resource. You could promote a service or a new product that would be under your service category.

I was going to say one that definitely everyone should do is whenever a new order comes in, you take a picture of the client's new, beautiful album, and you put that up and tell the story of that dog. And here's their album. And Oh, do you want one too? Yeah.

Here's how you book. And again, the most important piece of that, isn't just the pictures and the story, because every photographer is going to have that it's would you like to learn more about how you too can have this or how this could be yours or how Christmas is coming and this would be amazing under the Christmas tree. So bring it all together so that it's easy for me to take that next step.

Yeah. And I love it. This is screaming Trello board to me.

Yeah. Actually, um, Trello people use Trello. A lot of my clients use Trello. I use OneNote. So yeah. So I take the stuff off the paper and put it on one note. Cause then I can, I can curate the entire post. We're going to get there in a second. But step is the curation, getting those beautiful ideas that maybe come to you when you're on a walk with your dog or you're on vacation, I would tell you that most of the time, these ideas aren't going to come when you're sitting down to create your marketing.

No, never. Right?

So you could use a memo app on your phone, a notes app on your phone to jot them down, but then you're going to put him someplace, either in a journal on Evernote. One note Trello, a Google doc works, find what works for you to store them. Okay. That's step one, step two. And I have goosebumps. Step two is create. So we've done the curation. So it's curate. And then step two is create. And this is where you take those ideas and turn them into something epic that you know, your audience wants. Right? So this could be taking that quote that you saw, um, on a blog and putting it over, laying it over one of your photos. And I don't know what programs photographers typically use for graphics, but of course there's Canva or PicMonkey, there's Adobe, there's Photoshop, whatever you use, you take that gorgeous photo of that chocolate lab we'll say, cause that's what I have taught from that in the fields. Maybe he's in sunflowers and you put the quote over it and then don't forget to put your logo or your handle or something that identifies that you're a business and that you created this graphic. And it's, you know, I wouldn't put like, um, proof, you know, I, I would make it a beautiful graphic that like, people will want to share. That's what you want. You want to, people want to share. So this is the creation part. This is taking those ideas and making them something. So maybe you want it to share events from the local shelter. You would take those links and you would load them into your content. So maybe it's like a fundraiser for, um, place, you know, a shelter for dogs. Maybe they're doing an adoption day, or maybe you're partnering with a breeder and they're having an event that would be resource. So you want to stagger those posts. And a lot of people say, well, how much do I share my practice is if you can get into the habit of sharing like eight, if you can do two of each of these pillars. So two resource, two inspiration, two about you, two services, like I would rotate through them over the course of a week. That's great. Like if you could do six to eight posts rotating through the four pillars would be awesome. And if anybody wants to see how like I've done it specifically in Instagram, I will rotate through the four pillars. And the way that you can tell is every fourth post is a picture of me on Instagram and you'll see that. And I don't really care how the grid looks, but that's my trigger. So it starts with Deb. Then it goes inspiration. Then it's something of value. And then it's a service.

We should have a pop quiz for everybody to go and see when the last picture of themselves they posted is yeah,

Actually, um, at the end of the year, you know, the top nine that people do with their kids, I would say I did the top nine for all my clients, including myself. And 100% of us, six of the nine top nines were a picture of them, their pet or their kids. Yes.

People want to know who they want to know. Us. People are connected to other people not to business. So being a personal brand, especially, you know, it's, it's so important. They people want to buy from people.

Yeah. You were to buy from people. And here's the thing. You guys, so many of us try to be like, we, we at hair or the dog or we at for the love of your biz. Here's the thing. This is not, we're not Nike. We're not Coca-Cola, we're not, you know, like we get to, we, they want to be like us. They want to be small. Like us. They want to be able to tell the stories of their employees. It doesn't come off the way that it comes off for us. Yeah, we are pride. We are proud. We are mighty as small as we may be. We have the power to wow our customers, our clients, our fans, our followers to get to know us better so that when they get to the fork in the road and they get to decide who's pen they buy they're going to buy the pen from the pet photographer, who they feel a connection with, a common thread. Yup. So now you are sitting and the other tip I would like to give for the creation part is if you are tired in the afternoon, if you are groggy, if you're better off taking a nap than doing something productive, do not make yourself do the creation when you're not inspired and energized. Pay attention to your body, right? Pay attention to your world around you. It's gotta be no distractions. It's gotta be when your energy is high, because I'll tell you when you write the copy for your content, even if it's just a fill in the blank, it flows much more beautifully when you have energy and you're caffeinated. If you like coffee, you've gone for your walk or you've done your exercise. And now you're showered, like figure out when you are at your best.

Yeah. And then I, for me, it's in the morning, like once it hits lunchtime and the afternoon, like there's, there's nothing creative coming out of my brain. So you can plan your day that the afternoon I do more admin stuff that doesn't require a lot of thought, but

I try to reserve the morning for, you know,

For in thought more creative things. So yeah, definitely set up your day, whatever works best for you. I know a lot of photography creatives tend to be like midnight. Just 2:00 AM. They're super creative. I'm a pumpkin. I can't do that, but okay.

Oh gosh. Yeah. The second I stopped. Like if, if I sit on the couch at eight, good night, but I, I, I love 5:30 in the morning, six 30 in the morning, like I've already done, you know, 5,000 steps on a walk by 7:00 AM, had two cups of coffee. And I could like, so I actually, for me, I do most of my content curation content creation, like actually putting the post together on Sunday mornings. It's just my time. Like, you know, my kids are sleeping. The dog doesn't expect anything from me. I don't have any place to go. And I've been doing this long enough that I can do it pretty quickly, but find, pay attention. I just want to say like pay attention to your energy. Um, pay attention to day to day and start blocking time in your calendar for the creation phase of content marketing and treat it like an appointment that you will not cancel an appointment with yourself

In your business and the appointment to grow your base,

Right? It should be. Non-negotiable just like a client, a prospect call, right? Someone wants to work with you, you drop everything, right. I want you to block a time every week for the next like 30 days, just one block of time and start going through this process of creating the, creating the content that's going to go out. So let me get into the third phase. And then, and then I can give some ideas, Nicole. So we've done the curation, which is always going to happen and it's going to happen at times that maybe you don't expect it. You're going to document that wherever you want to keep things like together, then you're going to block the calendar and sit down and do the creation where you make the, the ideas that happened in the first phase into something amazing that you want to share. And then the third step and the one that I love the most is calendaring. So you've curated created, and now you're calendaring. And what that means is putting it so that it goes out to your audience and that means publishing it or scheduling it. And I actually, for those of you that have never used a scheduler before, I have to say the Facebook scheduler, that they've just rolled out, that you can post on both Instagram and Facebook works just fine. There's actually a create app now. So you can do it all on your phone if you like, but there is something freeing about taking that content and scheduling it to go out when you're busy working or when you're hanging out with your kids or when you're on a hike with your dog or when you're just sitting having coffee and editing pictures, like it is so freeing when you, those ideas that you've turned into something epic, go out to your audience and you didn't have to manage it. And it frees your brain up

To think about other things. Cause you don't have to take that mental space every day to be like, what am I going to post?

What should I do today? Oh my God. And I never want anyone to feel guilty at eight o'clock at night or 11 o'clock at night. Like, Oh my God, I didn't post today. I see all of you doing that. Like I see those posts go out at 11 o'clock guess what your audience doesn't. And when they wake up in the next morning, their newsfeed is so full of the stuff that went out in the morning. They're never going to see that post. So, I mean, I have clients that I'm like, Ugh. Yup. There that is like, before you went to bed, you felt guilty and you threw a post out. Like honestly, if you're gonna create it, schedule it for tomorrow morning at 7:00 AM. Yep. It's 2020. The one good thing I could say about this. We have schedulers.

Oh man. Yeah. The list is short for that. But yeah.

So here we are, right? We're we're in a, we've done the curation. You've done the creation. And then the calendaring I use post planner. I use a planoly. I love planoly for Instagram. Now anybody can message me if they have questions about, I would say try and test schedulers out that work for you. But like I said, the Facebook scheduler is fine. It's totally fine.

You can do the Facebook one from the computer. I know a lot of photographers prefer to do all our scheduling from the computer. Cause that's where all our nice files live.

Thanks Sam. Yeah, I do all my, all my creation on my computer and all my calendaring, all my computer. I use planoly on my computer. I use post planner on my, on my computer, but my clients, many of them just use the Facebook scheduler, the creator, which you can now you can now do Instagram as well.

Yeah, that's great. I didn't realize you could do Instagram now. That's fantastic.

Yep. So a lot of things to make life easier. So I think that's a lot, I mean, you get your content ideas, right? Your pillars, what the kind of content that you should be sharing with your audience. And now you have the three-step process. I really want to stress that. It really is a process. When you come up with an idea and you create a graphic and you calendar it all in one phase, you're shooting from the hip. It's not strategic and it doesn't last forever. It's a one and done and you walk away. But when you break it into those phases, it all is aligned. You've got your ideas. You can rotate the pillars. Your graphics will start to look the same. And then you can plan based on when it should go out based on a launch that you're having or a sale that you're having or what time of year it is or where you're going to be to take photos it's much more strategic and actually is easier on your brain, your body and your business.

I love it. And then with some of those things I imagine, not everything, but some posts can be re re used or edited and reused in the future. You do, you have a place that you kind of keep content that you're like, Oh, I might want to reshare this or, or edit a little bit in the future and redo it again.

So I do a lot of that in my posts in post planner. But you could do that in like the Facebook scheduler, or why not use Evernote or OneNote or Trello for what I would call evergreen content and just pop the picture or the content in there and just give it a header, a title so that, you know, like this was a, this was a post that I lab, which was specific about photo books. This was a post that was specific about my mini shoots, right? Like may mini sessions or holiday gifts. Like those are the things I would say most. It's mostly the services pillar that you're going to be repeating. And let's be honest. I could post the same thing today and the same content in 30 days.

No, no one has any idea.

Right. And I don't even change the picture. I have a lot of recurring posts inside post planner and I mean, people will tell me, they'd never seen it before. I love that graphic of you holding the light bulb. It's awesome. I'm like, yep. It's been going up for six months. Right,

Right, right. Yeah. Goldfish, I think have more attention than we do. Yeah, totally. I love it. This is fantastic. And I feel like it's, it's such an, I don't want to say easy because it's work, but it's, the steps are easy. Like anyone can sit here and if you choose to focus on this and say, okay, I'm going to commit to, you know, stop it to stop flying by the seat of my pants and to actually commit, to start making, um, a more organized plan and a more organized content creation. Like this is the easiest way that I've ever seen laid out to do it.

Yeah. It's possible. And the one thing I want for your listeners is for them to release themselves, relieve themselves of the weight that, that their social media marketing puts on them because I want it to be fun for them. And if it's fun for them, their audience will.

Yeah. Yeah. And then it, you know, it does become fun when, when you have interaction on the other end. So then it doesn't feel like you're just shouting to nobody anymore. And you're like, why am I even putting this up? Nobody even interacts with it. When we have you start to curate this audience that, you know, enjoys hearing from you, that, you know, messages you back, that it engages in a conversation. It becomes self-reinforcing.

And I would say that most of you that are listening are probably like, it doesn't work. Like I can, I can feel that some of your listeners are going to be like, this doesn't work. Here's the thing, two things, one, it works if you work it and two, I would tell you that if it doesn't work, if it hasn't worked for you, then you just need to test something different. Because a lot of people say, I put content out, but no one does anything. And I always go to their pages and look, and I'm like, you didn't tell them what to do. You just shared a post or you said what you liked it, but you didn't ask them a question. So they may have read it. Not everybody likes and comments, tell the people, what it is you want.

Yes. Should there always be a call to action or sometimes just a post. Yeah.

So I think like when you guys are sharing some of your images, you could just say, I love like the sunset and this picture was just killer. And I had to share it with you and what's going to happen is you're just going to get lots of likes, which is great. But you could show a side by side of sunrise and sunset and say, which, which is your favorite time of day. And then you're going to get people to pick like your, you make it for your audience to engage. The more engagement you get. I mean, just this week on my Facebook page, um, it, I did a fill in the blank. Something like, um, I think it was, what's one thing you want to make sure you do every day or one thing you try to do every day. Right. And it was all over the board. Someone said, um, sleep more. Someone says, uh, work on my mindset. Someone else said, um, prepare, uh, prepare my house for sale. Like, it was like all over the place, but it was just so easy for people to answer. Right.

And again, people love to talk about themselves and like talk about their dog.

Yeah. And they love to give opinion. So yes. When in doubt you could always ask people's opinion. Whether, you know, whether you really are gonna take it or not. Like, I always say, take it with a grain of salt. Hey, you want it? You want to get some engagement, ask people what their dog's names are. Yup.

Yeah. Or what their nicknames are or how many names they have for their dog. I mean, I have like 30 for Zoe.

Right, right, right. So in addition to, you know, having the pillars, don't forget there's national days that you can always piggyback on, you know, like, uh, I think, um, in June it was take your dog to work day. I saw tons of pictures of dogs on the internet, July alone. There's like, get to know your customers. There's pina colada day.

So national martini day, Sunday, I forget what it is, but there is

Not July, but I'll tell you, July is heavy on the national drink days. Pina coladas. There's Avocado Day, Tequila

Day. There's Ice Cream Day, I think in August or July 19th. Oh, nice. I better get ready.

There's all these things that you guys are probably overthinking and not even seeing that you could align with your business. Yeah.

And then when you're doing it from last minute too, and then you don't have time to take advantage of any of these days. Um, you know, because you're like, Oh gosh, that was yesterday. Oh, hi. Oh, well, you know, so yeah, just planning a little bit ahead. And if, if there's, uh, a national whatever day, it probably exists. So you can Google, Google that and find it certain breeds of dogs there is. And there's like working dog day and hunting dog day and then dog days of summer. I mean, honestly, let's get on that bandwagon. Yeah. Oh my gosh. So many things, so many things. Well, Deb, thank you so much. This has been so good, such a meaty, incredible episode. People are going to love it. Where can they find more about you and where can they connect with you? Sure. Well, so, um, business is for love of your biz.com, which is F T L O Y b.com. That's the way we shorten it. But honestly my favorite place to hang out and where you guys can come and get social post ideas every single month for free every month I deliver a social post calendar full of prompts, national days, and themes for my members is my free Facebook group, which is called Social Post Ideas with Deb Laflamme. Everyone is welcome, no matter what industry you're in. If you are a marketer, I want you to have ideas to help you market your business better. And that's what we do inside the group. Nice. It's a great group. And there actually are already quite a few Hair of the Dog members in there. And, um, yeah, look forward to getting more in there. We should just all take it over and it's going to become a dog marketing group. I love it, I could just focus all my calendars for you guys. That'd be fun. I love it. I love it. Uh, thanks again, Deb. Um, it's been fantastic and yeah, you guys definitely check out Deb and that Facebook group, she is so helpful. Um, and as you can tell from this episode and really, really good at creating an actionable, easy-to-implement strategies to help get your business seen by more people, talk to you soon. Thank you.

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