Hit The Mic With The Stacey Harris

Welcome to episode 349 of Hit the Mic with The Stacey Harris. Today I want to talk about the newest option for custom audiences on Facebook. I'm ridiculously excited about this. These are some really cool options and we're going to talk about what they are, when to use them, and the one that I want you to implement right away. First things first, what are these new choices? I want to take a step back, because I realize I've mentioned these briefly in past episodes and we've talked about them in backstage, but in case you haven't watched the video of Inside Hit the Mic Backstage about custom audiences, let me just briefly say what custom audiences are. What are Custom Audiences Custom audiences allow you to save a group of people that you want to target as a demographic for your ad. These could be from an email or from a lead magnet or from a look alike audience, or they could be a saved audience that you've built with your targeting that you have figured out. Basically it's

Welcome to episode 348 of Hit the Mic with the Stacey Harris. With all the changes in the last year with Instagram, I wanted to help get clear on how you can use it right now, how you can make these pieces, like Instagram stories and Instagram lives, and of course your good old faithful, your actual profile to work for you now. I thought I'd talk a little bit about how I'm using it, how some of my clients are using it, how we sort of mend these pieces together. We're going to do that by really talking about each of the three pieces, starting with Instagram stories. Then, we'll talk about Instagram live, and we'll wrap it up with our profile page. Okay? Let's jump in with Instagram stories. Instagram stories are a really powerful way for you to share what's happening that day. I do like having some plan if this is something that you are really going to be using. Even as far as actually planning what shots are going to happen or what chunks of video are going to go out. The co

Welcome to Episode 347 of Hit The Mic with The Stacey Harris. It's a new month and that's means today we're talking about three things you need to know right now. Often these are network updates and things like that. But, this month I actually want to talk about some more strategy stuff, because there are a lot of questions coming up in some one-on-one calls I've had and in Backstage about when to do these things or if an idea is crazy. I want to just dispel all of that right up front, all right? Running Ads to Content Three things you must know right now in May. First things first, the idea of running ads to content. This is a really great brand awareness goal, because again, you can lead with value by leading with your content. Often times, we think an ad can only be run if it's immediately going to pay off in an opt-in or immediately going to pay off in a purchase. That's not the case. In fact, I often run ads that really have no larger goal in the immediate future than gettin

Welcome to Episode 346 of Hit The Mic with The Stacey Harris. So Facebook launched stories much like we've seen on Snapchat for a longer time now and Instagram for quite a while now. We now have the option to share stories on Facebook and so today I wanted to have a little bit of a conversation around this idea of short-term content and its value in our overall marketing plans. Where does this content fit in our big-picture strategy? Does it really hold any value for us from a marketing perspective if it disappears? Goes away so quickly. 24 hours is not that long of a time obviously. So let's talk about that. And I encourage you to come into the private community on Backstage and share your thoughts, especially as we go into next week. while on May 1st you guys will get access to the full training on how to use this stuff and how to make this stuff work for you. We'll do a quick Snapchat review on there, quick Instagram review on there. Facebook stories review and we'll have some training

Welcome to episode 345 of Hit the Mic with the Stacey Harris. As important as creating quality content is and it's massively, hugely amazingly, foundationally important, so is curating content. Unfortunately, a lot of the conversations I've been having on coaching calls and with clients and at speaking engagements, and through e-mail, there's really a disconnect in understanding why other people's content, or OPC, is so important. Even more so than that, how does it make sense in your strategy to be driving traffic to somebody else? That's exactly what we're going to talk about in this episode. Because OPC, or other people's content, is hugely valuable, hugely important, and can still do a lot for your brand because you're still a resource, even if what the value they're connecting them with is not your own. People still attach you to having gained that knowledge or that insight. Often times you can share content that supports your message or supports your customer

Welcome to episode 344 of Hit the Mic with the Stacey Harris. All right, beginning of a new quarter means it's time to check in on your social media numbers, if you haven't yet. And yes, I don't just mean your social media numbers. I want you to check in on how your content's doing, how your website is doing, how things are converting, where your revenue goals are. I like to check in on all the things a lot because there is a wealth of information and answers to a lot of our pressing questions that we're spending thousands of dollars asking coaches and consultants and paying people to execute on things. A lot of times the answers to the question are in the data and other times it's good to check in to see if the things they're telling us or doing for us are, you know, well, working. So that's what we're gonna start with. I want to talk about some of the social media numbers you need to be paying attention to and why they matter. Daily, I like to check in on my vani

Welcome to episode 343 of Hit the Mic, with The Stacey Harris. It's the beginning of a new month and that means we're doing another three things you must know episode. These are the things you need to know about social media right now. We're going to talk about Facebook stories, we're going to talk about some Instagram updates and your overall social media security, and then we're going to talk about some Facebook ads updates with some new custom audience features that rolled out in March. All of these are things you need to know right now and you could have known them even sooner if you're inside Hit the Mic Backstage. I know a lot of you already joined us back there but if you haven't yet be sure to come on over to hitthemicbackstage.com because it is the place to be to find out all of this stuff as soon as it happens. All right? Let's jump in at number one, Facebook stories. Facebook has rolled out stories, again this is like a 24 hour piece of content, much like Sna

Welcome to episode 342 of Hit the Mic with The Stacey Harris. Today we're sitting down and talking about another social media management tool. This week we're talking about viraltag. Before we get into the specifics of viraltag though, I want to make a small disclaimer that I make whenever I do any of these kinds of episodes, and that is this. The social media tool that is best is the one you're going to use. If you are not going to use it, it doesn't matter how awesome, how free, how expensive, how feature filled, how whatever. It won't work. Okay? If you love the tool you're using now, great. Use it. If you don't think that viraltag's a fit for you, that's okay you're not broken. The tool you're going to find the best results with is the one you're going to use. With that said, let's break down viraltag because for a lot of you, it might be a perfect solution. Cool? Cool. Starting off, viraltag. Let's talk about some features. You've

Welcome to episode 341 of Hit the Mic with The Stacey Harris. Facebook Live. I love it. It's fantastic. Last week we talked about how I've been using going live to really improve my social media community, and the engagement, etc, etc. Really, we talked about two reasons you should never go live on social media, or at least the two reasons people give me and why they're just utter BS. It was only a little click baity you guys. It was only a little click baity. Today I want to talk about three tips I have been using to improve my Facebook Lives. As I mentioned last week, I, you and I, we go live together on Facebook once per week, minimum. Generally speaking it's on Thursdays, I've gone live more than once a week a couple of times this year, but the Thursday show is pretty much the standard issue Facebook Live time for you and I to connect. I want to talk about a few things I've done to, again, improve that, not only from a you guys getting a better show, but from a me seeing real

Welcome to episode 340 of Hit the Mic with The Stacey Harris. Hello hello. We're going to talk about something I have been using to grow my community this year and something that you really need to be using. We alluded to this in the "3 Things You Must Know" episode last week, but we're going to dive in deeper, and it's going live. First thing I want you to know, going live doesn't have to be a certain place, a certain frequency, a certain length of time. Going live might look different for each one of you. For me right now, it has really meant using Facebook Live. My community is there, my audience is there, my attention is there honestly. It's been kind of a no brainer for me to use that. Then disperse that content in the other places, meaning that Facebook Live episode can go up on YouTube. I can share snippets of it in my story on Instagram and Snapchat. I can really break that out; I can share that YouTube video on Twitter and LinkedIn. I really can use that Facebook Li

Welcome to episode 339 of Hit the Mic with The Stacey Harris. Welcome to our first episode of March which means it is a three things you must know episode, and so these are the three things I want you to be paying attention to when it comes to your social media time in March 2017. Now here's the deal. Some of these things will be relevant even outside of March, so if this is not March when you're listening, keep listening, because guys, these are things that I'm seeing questions on, I'm seeing frustration around, and so I really want to get this in front of you get clear. If you want to stay up on the latest and greatest of all things social media anytime, the place to be is of course inside of Hit the Mic Backstage. That's where I make all announcements on sort of network updates, strategy changes, tool updates, things like that. So if you are listening to this because of a intense need to be in the know, head over to to hitthemicbackstage.com because that's the place to be. All

Welcome to Episode 338 of Hit the Mic with The Stacey Harris. Wrapping up February we're going to talk one more Facebook ads episode. Full disclosure, this will not be the last episode we ever have on Facebook ads because this is literally a humongous topic. Just the last one for right now, we're wrapping up February. I want to talk about some Facebook ads mistakes. These are the three most common and, in my opinion, the most fatal Facebook ads mistakes you can be making. I'm not saying you necessarily are making them but maybe a friend is and you want to tell them about this. We're going to break this down. I want to keep today really short and sweet because I want you guys to take some action on this stuff. I'm going to make this really, really quick and dirty. Are you ready? Well, maybe not dirty but quick. Let's kick off with my biggest Facebook pet peeve. Okay, that's a soapbox. If you know me at all you know what's coming. Boosted posts. Yes, the boost button is e

Welcome to episode 337 of Hit the Mic with The Stacey Harris. Continuing our February theme with Facebook ads, I want to talk today about setting your budget and I want to highlight a couple of expenses that maybe we don't consider when we're looking at a Facebook ads budget because sometimes things pop up that we don't think about. I want to highlight some of those things, and why they need to be factored into your overall budget. One of the most common questions I get is how much should my Facebook ads budget be? We talked a little bit about budgets last week when we talked about should you be using Facebook ads as part of your launch and I want to touch on this briefly. There is no right answer to what your Facebook ads should be. There is no, it has to be XYZ or you won't be successful. What happens though is your Facebook ads budget is going to dictate the other things you do as far as how many different campaigns you run, or how many different ad sets you run or where you run them or

Welcome to episode 336 of Hit the Mic with The Stacey Harris. As promised at the end of last week's episode, I'm keying off a whole series of three Facebook Ads-related podcasts. We're going to start today with one of the fundamental questions, which is, "Should you even be using Facebook Ads as part of your launch?" I want to bring this up because, A, I know a lot of you are launching, a lot of my clients are launching. We've been doing a lot of one-on-one calls with people who are going through launches and who want Facebook Ads advice. We know that this is a massive time of launching. We're a little bit into the new year now, it's time to stretch your legs. Get those things that you've been working on creating rolling out. That's awesome. I'm so excited because I love seeing what you guys are creating and offering. The question then comes up, "Should you even bother with Facebook Ads?" Most often this question comes up because of budget. That

Welcome to episode 335 of Hit the Mic with The Stacey Harris. It is the first Tuesday of the month which means three things you must know about social media this month is what's happening today. We are going to break down the three things I want you to know in February 2017, some of these things are updates with networks, some of these things are going to be relevant to you no matter what month it is, because I want you to pay attention to some things as you're moving into the middle of the first quarter of this lovely new year. Let's jump right in. Number one, and this is one of those things that I want you to remind yourself of every month, stay consistent. February is notoriously the time where we have all long-since ditched our New Year's Resolutions. However, this is also really, really true for those goals and commitments you made in January for your marketing for this year. You said this is the year I'm going to get visible. This is the year I'm going to be consistent. Thi

Welcome to episode 334 of Hit the Mic with The Stacey Harris. Oh my gosh guys, so we're going to talk about content again today. For the last time we're wrapping up our month of content focused content, and we're going to talk about types of content, and what type of content you should create. I love me some podcasting, but it's not for everybody's, because it's just not what everybody likes to do. That's cool guys. Let's jump in, and let's start with talking about what types of content are there. First off, big picture. There's live and recorded. Any of the things I'm going to talk about you could do ... Although, maybe not blogging. That would be hard to do live, right? You can do content live, and then repurpose it into recorded content. You could do pre-recorded, prepped, edited, shay content. I like a mixture personally. It's how I like to create. Again guys, it's cool if you want to do something different. You don't have to do what I

Welcome to episode 333 of Hit the Mic with The Stacey Harris. Today we're answering a question I get all the time, the "how often" question. We're going to talk about how often you should be creating content, because it really hinges on three other questions. There is not, contrary to what Pinterest infographics may tell you, one perfect answer to this question. It really depends on the answers to a few other questions. We're going to go through those questions so that you can figure out the answer for you because, guess what, guys, it might be different than the answer for me. Just like my answer now is different than my answer was a year ago or two years ago or three years ago when we started this show. As you might know, we moved from two episodes a week to one episode a week moving into 2017. It's been a little weird because I created 300 and something episodes of the show going twice a week for three years, almost four years, so it's a little strange still, I'll be

Welcome to episode 332 of Hit the Mic with The Stacey Harris. You did this fantastic thing. You created a podcast, a blog post, a video. Whatever it is, it's full of value, it's fantastic, it's amazing. What happens next? Most people make one really big mistake at this step. What they do next is create another piece of content. Instead, I want you to do something else. Whenever I create a piece of content, it then goes through three steps. Number one, social media scheduling. It goes through the scheduling of what's going to happen in the next few days. It's goes into the cue, all that. We'll dive deeper into that in just a second. Number two, how is it going to get repurposed. For our purposes, transcript is made and then it goes into a couple of editing processes. One for LinkedIn Publisher and Medium, one for DeskPose and sometimes, depending on the post, a couple of versions can be made, so repurposing. We'll talk more about that in a second. Then, number three, we repea

Welcome to Episode 331 of Hit the Mic with the Stacey Harris. All right, guys. As you know, I just came back from December unplugged ... Okay, so technically I'm not unplugged during December, but I'm not in my office every day. I'm not sitting at my desk. I'm not creating content. I do tend to keep up with my social, although most of what goes out during December, I'll be honest, is scheduled, unless it's sort of an update of what I'm doing. I'm just not in it every day. I'm in vacation mode a bit more. We did really cool stuff over the last four weeks, and if you want to check that out, well then you should've been watching Snapchat and Instagram stories, because that's where all of the fun silliness of those kind of things take place, for future reference. Now, then. Here's the deal. I still had a podcast, technically two, go up every week. My social media went out, things like that, but what I want to talk about is how I'm able to keep my co

Welcome to Episode 330 of Hit the Mic with The Stacey Harris. Welcome to 2017. I'm so amped. Today, we kick off the new show format. We kick off the new show schedule. We're going live this week on Thursday. I'm super exited to tell you about something else we've got going on this month. I'm so ready for the New Year. I'm so excited. 2017 is going to be a big, big year for us, because we're going to do some big things this year together. To kick that off though, I want to talk about the epic amount of things that happened in social media in December, because this stuff, is going to impact the changes you are making. It's going to impact the plans you are rolling out. I'm guessing, for several of you, there are plans already rolling, and for more than a few of you, there's probably plans still in the making, which is totally cool, but either way, this is stuff you need to know, because it's going to impact the way you market on social media this month, for