If you’ve been following along on Instagram you know that I’ve been poking a lot of fun at myself and taking the advice I often give my clients. I always joke that I need a “me” for me, someone to help me do all the things I know I should do, but never seem to have time to actually get around to.
These last few months as I found more time to invest in my business with my kids finally all in school I was able to actually take my own advice and it’s been pretty great. Here’s a few of the things I’ve done.
Overhauled my website
I jumped in with both feet and finally hired someone to create a real website for KD Social. It’s something I’d been meaning to do but just hadn’t quite gotten there and this has been huge. Now I have a place to blog, for potential clients to learn about me, and for everything KD Social to have a home. I am so glad that I didn’t do this myself even though I could technically have created a website. It wouldn’t have been this lovely and functional, and the process would have been 100 times more stressful for me. I have so much gratitude for Bill Moran, my web designer, for really understanding what I needed and bringing it to life so beautifully.
Took professional branding photos
Since I was investing in a new website I wanted to make sure I had the right images to go with it. There’s absolutely no sense in spending money for a great looking website but then putting anything less than quality images into it. So I of course had to work with Ana Isabel Photography. We came up with a plan to get some photos of me in action at a few different locations in addition to updating my headshots and now I have a wealth of beautiful photos for my website, social media, and this blog! It makes it so much easier to post things to instagram or to blog when I know I won’t have to hunt for an old photo or carve out time to take a photo to go along with my content, and y’all know I’m all about reducing the barriers to getting your content out in the world!
Ana made the process SO easy, and while I don’t love being in front of the camera she always makes me feel confident. We got so many great images and I have been singing her praises throughout the process of adding images to my new website and with each blog or social post, she truly captured everything I needed and more.
Blogging
Since I knew I’d now have a shiny new website that included a blog I started doing what I always tell clients to do and writing down all my content ideas that could use a longer form than a social media post. Blogging is great because it gives you a bit more room than just a caption to dive into a concept, and you can use it to create social media posts that drive traffic back to your website. Blogs are a great way for potential customers to get to know you, to help optimize your SEO and keep your website fresh, and to generate ideas for social media content. I’m constantly encouraging clients to blog yet I wasn’t doing it for myself and now that I am it feels really good. Watching the
Making time for my own content
One of the biggest pieces of my own advice that I tend not to take was making time for my own content. It’s so easy to get wrapped up in doing the client work that I didn’t do the work for myself. Making time just once a week to write blog posts, schedule social posts, or even just brainstorm ideas for my own content has been really helpful. I’m still guilty of not doing it enough, but it’s definitely getting better!
Now that I’ve had more breathing room in my days, it’s been fun to share some of my day to day in stories, continuing to post my values/politics, sharing more on threads, and actually having fun with social media instead of stressing over it.
The Numbers
Now that it’s been a few months I can look back at my insights and website analytics to see what’s going on behind the scenes as I make these changes.
Taking a look at just the past month of analytics data from Instagram, my non follower views have gone up 95%. I tell clients to take a closer look at that number because non-follower views mean your content is getting in front of people who don’t follow you, which helps you grow your audience. Same thing with Reach. Getting in front of those who choose to follow you is great and we love it, but seeing my reach number jump up to non-followers has been really satisfying.
In a surprise to no one, the data shows that getting consistent has a positive impact on who I can reach on social media. It’s showing a slow & steady growth that’s helping me connect with people who need what I do!
I’m really excited to keep tracking all my data. It’s one thing to know and see the evidence of how this works when I implement it for clients, but it feels extra satisfying to actually commit to myself to doing it for me too.
