Transcripts
1. Introduction: I know what it's like running a brand and feeling like the only way to grow any faster is to start employing an abundance of people. And in realizing the amount of funds that would involve, My name is feasible and I want a podcast with over 4 million monthly impressions. However, growing to that size was not easy. I had to find many ways in which I could grow without employing 18 ways in which I can save time and automate a lot of my processes to make sure that I don't have to focus on all of the different demanding aspects of growing a brand. And I could just focus on the content of this course will take you through a bunch of tips and strategies, ultimate elements of your brand so that you can focus on just that. I'll be sharing time-saving tips and strategies that we use to grow our brand without sacrificing quality or spending a bunch of money that we couldn't afford at the time. This is not a course that's going to walk you through each tool and give you the tutorials. It's gonna give you the idea is to equip yourself with strategies to go away and implement on your brand to tool use in all of these tools already exist for free on many different platforms. That's not what this is. I'm here to help you think of new ways that you can automate and grow so you can focus on your brand. Join me on the other side where we will get started.
2. Class 1: Using Tools & Templates: So one of the key ways that many of us feel that we are being halted in our growth is due to aspects that relate to creativity or to some kind of output in design or development. So this could be like thinking that we need a graphic designer or a video editor, or a web developer. And whilst having all of those things will be great and will also substantially improve and grow AS rapid speed. We don't always have the funds or the network to be able to start employing these people went to our company. And most of the time, especially in early stages, is to do with our funds in the company. And this is exactly what this course is about, is about being able to still carry on with creating great content, with pulling out great posts or editing videos, but without having to hire, for example, a creative team. And so this lesson is about using tools to your advantage. So when I started podcasting, I would consider myself probably one of those jack of all trades who could do a bit of video editing, a bit of design. I understood the Adobe suite somewhat, but I definitely was not a great UX designer or someone who could create the perfect Instagram post. I'm more importantly, I was unable to keep up to date with the latest fashions and latest trends when it came to design, right? Like when you're designing something for social media is so important as a brand that your current and so you're using the fonts that are now in your using the style of imagery that's now Coburn and trending. And that's just something that I was unable to keep up to date with. Perhaps if I put all of my love and attention and time into something like graphic design, I could get somewhat to like an intermediate level. But with my key focus being to promote my podcast, my brand. That's not something that was that was willing to do. I wasn't willing to take time out of those things to focus it. Areas like graphic design or video editing. So like I said, this cross is about using tools that allow us to have great output. That is trending, that is colorant, without having to employ a whole creative team, without having to employ a graphic design over 2 thousand pounds a month for $3 thousand a month. But rather use tools to advantage with a small knowledge that we have when it comes to social media posts. Using tools such as Canva or free pig personally, I use free pick, I think for you because an entire library of amazing content, if I just type in Instagram post, I see abundance of images and videos, images on free that I can download and I can download like a PSD version. I can download an AI version which is an illustrator format. And I can make edits to them. And what these companies do, like Canva, like free pick, is for a small monthly fee. Something a lot cheaper than hiring a graphic designer. So we're talking maybe $15 a month. You're able to subscribe and have full rights to all of the images, to all of the templates. So essentially what we're doing is we're downloading these templates and we'd literally just changing the text on these templates or changing the images. So we have a library, hundreds of thousands of graphics. The actual graphic designers are constantly uploading onto these marketplaces. And we just simply downloading them and using them. And we can pretty much guarantee that all of our content and our graphic designs will always be quality to the latest trend because we are using work done by actual graphic designers. So when it comes to websites is very similar using tools like theme forest or Squarespace or Shopify by using these websites and these tools, instead of trying to create our own thing from scratch or trying to hire a web developer, we can simply go to something like square, but Squarespace, SAP or monthly account for a fairly reasonable price. And use their themes, their templates to guide us along the way. And the same goes for video websites like Video Hive. You can download these templates, open them in your Adobe Suite, whoever software that those files are compatible with. And you can make very clean and easy changes. You don't have to have an abundance of knowledge on the software's. A lot of these templates, if not all of them, come with tutorials. And for the most part, if all we need to do is change the image or change their texts and keep the rest of the design is can be incredibly simple for us to do. So less than one is used tools to your advantage online rather than hiring people to do the same thing that these tools will do. Now, these tools and templates are a great stepping stone. And the more you get used to using them, the more you can customize them to the point where most of the time you'll adapt the template in a way in which if you were to compare the original template to your, it would almost be unrecognizable.
3. Class 2: Scheduling Your Posts: Have you ever come to that realization when you're manually posting Instagram posts or manually tweeting from your brand account. And thought, this is something that is very much so not scalable. I'm learning to hire a social media team at this point. So make sure that they're always posting on time. You feel like perhaps you want to oppose to once a day or twice a day and then something happens like a family event. And before, you know, you haven't posted in 234 days and you're losing followers and you're losing engagement. This is why lesson two is so important. Listen to his boss scheduling your content. You can essentially create all of your content for the week in one day and scheduling for posted across all of your social media accounts throughout the week. So for us, we use content or websites like buffer or scared social. And there's many others out there like HootSuite as well. And what these softwares and he's websites do is they allow you to upload your content in advance. And you can schedule the exact time. You can schedule the exact people that you tag. You can win some of these websites, you can even tag products. You can uproot story posts. You can upload your first comment as well. It's quite advanced how far you can go with scheduling. And what that does is it now takes off the pressure of having to constantly have a device with you. Every time you release a video, every time you release a new blog post, or every time you have an update, where you can do is when you schedule these updates, you can make sure that they're the post goes out automatically. Furthermore, this is something that I went through. I know what it's like having control of so many different social media channels and understanding the growth of your brand is going to essentially come at this day and age from the growth of social media. And social media only grows if you're uploading content consistently. It's been spoken about so many times by so many people. We now understand that whether we're trying to pander to the algorithm or not, essentially it's very, very easy. Mass, more uploads, more regularly and hopefully you will continue to grow. So when I knew of this, but I struggled to heat up today, I realize that we have to start implementing some automation. So one thing I'd recommend is spend one day a week or a week creating all of your content for that week and just scheduling you're all in advance is one of the most satisfying feelings. When you've uploaded all of your content for the week or the month. And you just realize that you don't have to think about that for a long time. You don't have to think about what's going out, when it's going up, it's just all automatically being done for you. And this is when now you really begin saving that time and during that time and energy and effort into the actual content and into focusing what you're good at. Less than two is scheduled all of your social media posts in advance. Like I said, you can use software and websites like buffer, HootSuite, sketch social, and many, many more. A quick search of the internet will help you find everything you need.
4. Class 3: No More Video Editing: Learning to edit a video can be incredibly time consuming and editing it well is a whole nother story. So while options or you'd have to, perhaps you're left with the option of hiring a freelance video editor. Or if you're a podcast like ourselves or YouTube channel, most likely you'd have to have somebody full-time or not. One of our biggest challenges, especially when we became Virtual on our podcast, was creating episode, grabbing footage from our guest, getting our footage getting, you're getting there. We'll do collating altogether, editing it all up, and spending hours waiting for it to export. But with the nature or podcasting or within each of our podcast being, there is a completely raw, uncaught conversation. I realized that there was a much better way of doing this. So this lesson is for people who regularly upload videos. So if you're a podcast or a youtube channel, you really don't want to listen to this one that we use is we use a live stream software to record our videos. This video, why now is being recorded on a live stream software in fact. So what does that mean? That means rather than using SD cards and Drang wolves CAFO ij into Editor, we recording live and direct to a live stream feed. But a livestream feed doesn't have to go anywhere. Livestream softwares are so advanced now that you could have your ident being played at the beginning, you could have a lower third With your name coming during the video. You could have a split screen. You could bring in a guest. You could do all sorts of stuff live while you're having a chat. And you can record it all directly to your computer. Just because you're using a live streaming software does not mean that you have to live stream it onto YouTube or any other platforms. However, if you want to say exporting time and uploading time, then even better, because you can just live stream your video directly to YouTube as a private video, for example, or an unlisted video. And then you save yourself uploading time, you can just publish it there. And then now of course, there are plenty of downsides to doing it in this way. First of all, you're gonna need the equipment we have to live stream, which means you're gonna need to research the devices that you need to be able to connect to your camera, to your computer, your microphone, to your computer, and all of the leads and HDMI cables and, and battery packs. To be able to handle a livestream, you just have to figure out which livestream software is best for you. Another downside is that if you create videos that require heavy editing, perhaps you're not really saving much time, but if like us, you're creating content that requires very minimal editing. The advantage of using a live stream software is that you record straight your computer. So where are the pros and cons for this one? But if video is something that you guys do focus on, how to think about speeding up, editing, uploading, exporting time by recording directly to a live streaming software and just taking the final output file and uploading it or livestreaming it directly to YouTube and never even having to worry about the upload. Thanks for viewing this lesson. I'll see you on the next one where we talk about automating your calendar and scheduling.
5. Class 4: Automate Your Calendar: One of the issues we can't cause often as a channel that relies on guest appearances is booking guests in. And whether you're a podcast like os or your a social media brand, you're always going to need to work with other people. And that might mean scheduling in meetings or scheduling in guest interviews and abundance of many other things. And nine times out of ten, without some kind of automated system, this can be incredibly, incredibly difficult. You're talking. Having back and forth. Whatsapp message is trying to align the timings. And when you finally have the meeting, trying to figure out who's going to create a zooming all the way to way you're going to be, how you're going to be putting into your calendar, remembering the date and so many other things and just having an automated kinda changes all of them. So different softwares like for example, currently allow you to set up your calendar and sync it with the, with the calendar on your mobile device. Wherever you have iPhone, Android, or any other smartphone, most of the smartphones will work with apps like for example. So we went from panicking every week trying to trying to arrange a guest, to simply creating a calendar and saying the times that I am available to do interviews. So that could be Monday to Friday, nine to five or so. I create a calendar that says I'm available for Monday to Friday between 95. And I can send my calendar link out to whoever I'm trying to book a meeting or an interview with. And when they click on the link, they can see my available time stores and they can see that I'm only available between 95. And if, for example, I update my calendar, so I go to my phone and I enter that. I've got a doctor's appointment tomorrow at ten AM. Automatically, my calendar the calendar will realize and it would take that time away so that no one can book a slot in for an interview or meeting. This has saves so much time rescheduling or accidentally becoming double booked. And I even have my calendar on my phone shared via the cloud with my wife. So if she, for example, books something in for one of our children, then again, that time will be taken out and nobody will be able to book a meeting or a podcast of me. But it goes so much deeper than that with these kind of softwares, especially with Kalidindi, you can also set automated messaging so that your guests can get a message via email or SMS 24-hours before, ten minutes before, you can say, saying for example, please remember, we have a meeting tomorrow on the following link. When a booking in a slot with you, you can ask them very specific questions that you can sell yourself, such as their Zoom ID or any notes that you need for the meeting in advance. And it will automatically is added to whatever kind of using it to. Calendar also allows you to accept payments. So if you're doing one-on-one consultations or you're charging for your time, you can take the payment directly from there and it will be linked up to, for example, your stripe or perhaps even your PayPal account. So in summary, if you want to save time booking people in and avoid lengthy conversation and double booking and reminders. Automate your calendar with Kennedy and it will make your life a lot easier.
6. Class 5: Automate Emails: So often when we're dealing with customers, clients, guests, collaborators, we have to send very similar messages over and over and over again. Whether this is on emails or on social media, most of these platforms allow us to automate messages and message templates so that we don't have to sit there writing messages over and over and over again. So if you use Gmail for example, a great feature is that you can create an email template while the template once. For example, if people often message you for sponsorship inquiries, you can have a sponsorship template. Just click on the template, click send. And maybe if we just adjust it with adding their name or adding a little personal sign off and always go. Likewise, if you do all of your business on Instagram with the growing market of Instagram shop and Instagram as a marketplace and as a online store instruction for business also allow you to automate DM replies. So definitely use automatic replies and automatically apply templates in your emails and on your social media to make sure that you are saving a bunch of time and automating that process.
7. Class 6: Utilising Your Audience: If you Bill Brown on social media, chances are you have a very low you audience base. And if you have a very loyal audience base, that means that your audience is probably very well invested in your brand and your company, in your podcast, your blog, channel, you message, if your audience is invested in your brand, there'll be very passionate and would most likely loved the opportunity to have more control over the brand that they love. So utilizing your audience is a great way to increase productivity for your brand and save time during some of the smaller things that you don't necessarily have to do that the community would love to do. Now this isn't necessarily saying that you should explore your followers or your audience to be able to get your work done for free. It means that there's elements of your brand. The Appassionata audience would love to feel ownership over. So this could be something, for example, like writing the descriptions for your YouTube videos. If you find it very lengthy and difficult to why the descriptions for YouTube videos and to start adding timestamps for your YouTube videos. Pulling our postal socials to say, hey guys, I would love to have my audience, those who watch my content, who loved my content to be able to write descriptions on each video or to timestamp each video. And perhaps you could put together some kind of form or an email list where they get Parks in return for helping you with your content. These products could include something like early access to your videos or discounts to your store. How to think about how you can make something like that mutually beneficial for yourself and your audience.
8. Bonus Class: Automate Your Store: So this lesson is for those of us who have delved into the product world, whether that means that your entire business and brand is based off of selling products, or whether you've grown a social media brown like a podcast or YouTube channel to the point where you can now start selling merch. Here's a new aspect to think about automating the purchasing system for those products. Now, I'm not here to talk to you about drop shipping and how that works, but what I'm here to talk to you about in this lesson is also meeting the little nooks and crannies of the purchasing method. And over the purchasing journey that your customer goes on, make sure that there's a 360 automation where you don't have to get involved at all, but your brand is. I'll give you two methods that we've thought about and have given us great reward. Number one, number one, automatic abandoned cart messages. Now, you don't have to have much knowledge on coding if you're using one of the many popular e-commerce sites to host your product-based shop, there will have a program that you can either purchase or perhaps even get for free that allows you to send an email automatically. You don't have to do nothing. Send an email automatically to a customer when they've added something to the cart and then they've abandoned it, it will give them a little notch saying, hey, we realize that you'd have this in your car and you can even provide them with a discount code to help them finish that purchase. And secondly, you can focus on automation is with reviews. We all know the reviews help grow our brand immensely. Word of mouth is still one of the most powerful marketing forms. And I know that when I'm purchasing the product and I often look at the reviews to see what other people think about it. If we're confident about our products, we want to increase the reviews that people write as much as possible. So what we've done on, for example, trust pilot is connected our shop with trust pilot so that every time somebody purchases an item, they'll then get an email after a certain number of days which you can set yourself, which says, Hey, how was the product would be really grateful if you would have to also review. And that has increased our reviews by tenfold. So they're just two ways that you can automate the process of increasing sales, increasing awareness, increasing reviews, without you ever off the setting up, having to do anything.
9. Outro: Thank you guys for watching my course on time-saving ways to grow your social media brand. The point of this course was to outline just a few tips and tricks that we've used ourselves to grow our brand while saving money and time without needing a huge amount of skills if you found this course beneficial, please do. Let me know in the discussion below and I'll see you again on the next course.