188: How to Make Social Media Work for You
Brought to you by Pet Sitters Associates
Summary
How are you using social media? Meghan breaks down some of the key aspects for making sure your social media is working for you. From having realistic expectations, to setting manageable content strategy, using social media for your business does not have to be overwhelming. As with everything, there is a balance to be had, and understanding why you’re using social media is the first step. It’s not all about the follower count, it’s about having engaged loyal clients and followers. We also share how to balance content across the major platforms, and how to leverage local Facebook groups to your advantage. Natasha O’Banion answers the question on how to less awkward at the meet and greet.
Topics on this episode:
Setting realistic expectations
Posting value
Using the different platforms
Ask a Pet Biz Coach
Main takeaway: You do you boo, just make sure your social media is working for YOU.
Links:
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
post, people, clients, pet, business, instagram, content, social media, dog, facebook, pet sitter, platform, greet, potential clients, followers, sitter, tick tock, turtle, confessional, local
SPEAKERS
Meghan, Collin Funkhouser, Natasha
00:17
Hi, I'm Meghan. I'm Collin. And this is pet sitter confessional, and open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter.
Meghan 00:29
Hi, welcome to Episode 188. Hello. We are so glad that you have joined us today. We hope that this is a helpful episode to you. And don't forget to subscribe and follow in your podcast player, so you never miss an episode. We've been putting out content for almost three years now, and have so much fun doing it. And we're not going to stop anytime soon. So be sure that you're subscribed and follow so you always know which episode is coming out. We want to give a special thank you to our newest patron member beth.
Collin Funkhouser 01:02
Thank you so much, Beth, for supporting the show and for finding value in the content that we're producing and wanting to see more of it and wanting to have it stick around. If that's you, you can head on over to pet sitter confessional comm forward slash support to find out more.
Meghan 01:19
And also thank you to our sponsor, pet sitters associates. So this is our big social media episode. This has been brewing for a while and it's been on my mind for a while and I'm probably going to forget to say something or miss something or remember in a week that I should have said something about this because it's really a big topic. And so there's really so much to it. So we may do a follow up episode on things I forgot to say in this episode. But I hope it's helpful to you. And it gets you thinking about being intentional with social media. I'm going to start off this episode by saying that not everyone agrees that social media can work for a pet care business. There are social media managers and pet care businesses that have huge followings that obviously say it works for them. But there are others who say social media is a waste of time. And you need to be focusing more on the boots on the ground, and building relationships in person versus over the internet. Now, wherever you fall on that spectrum, you have to recognize that the internet has been around for a few decades and is obviously not not going anywhere. Nope. So if you want your business to be around for years and years to come, you have to at least be somewhat knowledgeable about how to market and advertise your business in a digital way. You can't get around it. So I'm going to be talking about organic reach, not paid reach. I won't be discussing ads at all, or how to run them or how to set them up. That is a different discussion for a different day and probably an interview because I am certainly not the expert in that. So I'm not saying I have this completely figured out. No one really does. Because the algorithm changes daily, what I feel like posting changes all the time as well. And I'm not someone who has subscribed to the plan your whole social media in a year type of thing. If you do that, that's great. And I'm sure it works very well for you. I know that batching things is very efficient. I just haven't tried it yet. So I'll be sharing some of the things that I've learned over the past couple of years in dealing with social media. Prior to starting this podcast, I had no knowledge of social media, I didn't really post I, we didn't have really a presence very much. And so I just kind of winged it. And so these are only my opinions. And just as every business is unique, and the goals you have for your own business are unique, so is your social media, it's going to be unique as well. So my way may not be the best way for you. I don't recommend spending hours and hours every day posting 50 stories and five individual posts on the seven major platforms. You know, with everything in life, you have to have a balance with social media is crucial. And if you absolutely dread doing it in any capacity, then you may need to hire someone to do it for you. If you feel like it's important for your business, or have a team member or a friend post for your business. If you are great at it and you love it and you already have social media hacked then great, but I still hope this episode is helpful to you. And if you do have it all figured out. I would love to pick your brain on what has worked for you and what you've tried. That hasn't worked so well. So you can find us on Facebook or Instagram at pet sitter confessional. If you follow us on Facebook or Instagram, you may have noticed that we have somewhat of a large following for being a podcast in a niche market. That definitely didn't happen overnight. And that is something that a lot of people can get really caught up in when dealing with social media is the follower count and the number of likes and the number of comments. At the end of the day. The follower count really doesn't mean a whole lot. Obviously you want to turn those followers into clients but The algorithms, particularly for Facebook, and Instagram are abysmal. And they are always working against you.
Collin Funkhouser 05:06
That's because there's so much content out there on social media that these sites are constantly trying to figure out which piece of content to show people on their platforms. Just because you have 20,000 followers, doesn't mean that all 20,000 will see your post, because those same followers are also subscribing to following other accounts. And the platform is desperately trying to see which posts to show them to get the most engagement.
Meghan 05:31
Well, yes, and they want to keep people on their platform. So Facebook is addictive, because you just want to keep scrolling and scrolling. Like just like Instagram, you want to see engaging content. So their algorithm is going to tailor the content that you like most the stuff that you like, the most the stuff that you comment most the stuff that you know, the reels that are blowing up and getting a lot of attention, those things are going to be shown to you more,
Collin Funkhouser 05:54
right? It will. And there's just so much content being put out there, that the algorithms are trying to juggle all of that and figure out which one to put in front of somebody as they're scrolling.
Meghan 06:03
Yeah, so seeing that a petsitter in New York City has 18,000 followers on Instagram should mean absolutely nothing to you. Because first of all, you can buy followers, so you don't even know if those are genuine people or robots. And second of all, the internet is global. And if you are a local pet care business, you are not servicing people in Bangladesh. If you service Nashville, Tennessee, then you want your followers and the people that like your page to also be from Nashville, Tennessee, it can be very fulfilling to reach 1000 followers on Instagram, or 500 likes on Facebook or 1000 subscribers on YouTube. But at the end of the day, you need to stay hyperlocal if you are a pet care business, you don't have any products or digital services, then you need to stay hyperlocal. Now, if your dream for your pet business is world domination, and you want to expand into different states in different countries, and you want to have products that people can buy, whether it's t shirts or tennis balls, and you want to be a coach of some sort and sell digital courses. That's a different story. But if you are in a small town, you don't want 1000s and 1000s of people because then the your actual clients and your potential clients that are local may not be seen your content because the other 18,000 people are
Collin Funkhouser 07:18
well also that hear that if you are in a really small area or at a very hyper niche market, there might not even be 1000s upon 1000s of people to even follow your account. So we said this before, but comparing yourself to anyone else is a waste of your time and energy. Because you don't know their goals for their business, you need to be focusing on your own goals for your own business.
Meghan 07:42
So who is your social media for it is obviously for you and your business to promote and advertise what you do and who you do it for. There are really two sides of the social media coin, there's having a presence, and then there is having an advertising and marketing aspect.
Collin Funkhouser 07:58
Obviously, just by posting photos and updates, you are essentially in effect advertising to potential clients. But that is very different than approaching social media as your sole and only advertising Avenue. And that gets back to the distinction that we've made at the beginning of this episode where some people think social media is the only way to go. While others think you should focus elsewhere. We think that if you are approaching this from an advertising perspective, you need to have a very balanced approach and definitely consider going where your clients are. If your ideal client is retired, they're probably aren't focusing very much time and attention on Tick tock,
Meghan 08:32
I agree with that. You can pretty much post anything that you want. But I recommend you post what brings the most value to people. dog and cat pictures are very cute, and will obviously make the owner of that particular pet very happy. And they may share the post. But that doesn't really add anything to other people's feeds. So think stories, post the picture, but have a good story that goes along with it, or have a good tip that you can use as well to share information with clients. I think right now, for Instagram, the ideal set of content for a week is one to two reels, for picture posts and a live that you then post to your feed. show people what your day is like show people how to properly put on a harness, have a pet care Tip of the Week. Get your face out there it is hard it's not fun, necessarily. But people connect more with faces have the pet kiss your face. Smile with pet, do a video explaining a meet and greet or part of your booking process. A lot of people recommend posting pet holidays but personally I've never been a big fan because they can be very generic. And again, don't bring a whole lot of value to people other than just spreading awareness that Today is National turtle day or whatever. Also because that type of content is so ubiquitous, it can really get redundant and your post might look and sound the same as the A dog walker down the street because you're both posting about the same pet holiday on the same day. So I feel like people need to start getting more creative about what kind of content they are posting. So how do your overnights work? If you offer them? Do you have a special service of reading the dog a book to sleep or covering it up with a blanket at the end of the night? You can show that on social media? Do you have packages for dog walking? Show the client why your dog walking is better than somebody else's? Do you require lockboxes show a client why it's a great idea for them versus you carrying around a bunch of keys. If you provide daycare show the dogs running around and playing with toys and friends. And now that it's summer, you if you have a pool, you can show them playing in the water or with the hose. I mean, the possibilities are really endless here, which is why I tend to get a little frustrated when I see the pet holidays pop up all the time. Because, yeah, they're easy content. But it's not very creative content. And it's not really engaging for your audience, you always need to keep your audience in mind. So again, if you live in Denver, Colorado, and you offer dog walking and dog hikes, and your ideal client is an active person in their 30s and 40s. You need to tailor your social media to your ideal client and your potential clients. So SHOT Show you walking the dog up a mountain, or show the dog running through the forest.
Collin Funkhouser 11:22
Well, here's the other thing as well, it isn't I know, it's something that we can get caught up in a lot is that many of us are afraid to post the same thing or about the same topic over again, again, there's a saying that says every day there's somebody who's born who's never seen the Flintstones, then basically this means that it's okay to talk about the same topic continually. Because there's always somebody new to it, who's never heard of it before. So just because you've posted that one time about your lockbox policy doesn't mean that the next month, you can't also post the same thing again, as we all try and figure out what to post and create content. A big part of that should actually be repetition of messaging and information that we want our clients to know. And remember. So whether that is your lockbox policy, your cancellation policy or more about your personality, it is okay to repeat posts,
Meghan 12:12
well, especially on Facebook, where you can only pin one post at the top of your page. So the rest of the posts if they are if you have more than one important post, it's going to get buried in the feed. And same thing with Instagram. If you post a picture of day, a month later, nobody is going to then scroll that far back to see what the post was the important post, right?
Collin Funkhouser 12:33
Well, I'm part of that too is that if we find ourselves posting content just because that we think we need to be posting something, take a step back and press pause on that. And we need to remind ourselves why we are doing this, if all you want is to have a quote unquote active account where you post 100 pictures a day, 1000 pictures a day, there are plenty accounts out there like that. But if you're wanting to target information and engagement to a particular audience and client, you have to take a very different approach, which is what we're talking about here. We're not just talking about a shotgun approach to producing content for content sake, we're talking about pertinent information and good quality content that directly speaks to your target client.
Meghan 13:17
Well, and infographics are really good for that. So if you want to teach your clients how to put on a harness properly, you can do a step by step or a video maybe a better way to do that. But if you have, how to keep your pet safe in the heat, or how to keep your pet safe with fireworks, or how to clean a letter litterbox infographics are a great way for engagement as well.
Collin Funkhouser 13:39
We're not saying just reuse the exact same post, you can repurpose content if you're stuck on what to post, reuse a post from six months ago. You can change the background photo, you can change the font size, you can change something about the information. But you can reuse those so that you can highlight your services or maybe another business that you've partnered with in the area.
Meghan 14:00
Yeah, I'm not saying necessarily to repost a dog or a cat picture that you had posted six months ago, but one that highlights your services or again another business that you partner with. And with that use social media to bring awareness to other pet businesses or companies in your community that you've partnered with. If you don't provide doggy daycare, but partner with a business that does and you provide pet taxi to and from that daycare, make a video of getting in the car and getting the dog in the car and how happy he or she is when you drop them off at daycare when you pick them up at daycare. The daycare business is going to love that because you are highlighting them and how happy the dog is when he or she gets picked up. And you're also highlighting your services as well. People want to see your business stand for something and that you are part of a cause. If you volunteer with the Humane Society, make a post about that to collaborate with other pet care businesses in your town or near you and create posts that are relevant To each of your businesses, I just saw this a few weeks ago with Heidi and hope and the savvy sitter down in Florida. It's hurricane season down there. So they teamed up and created posts to help their clients be prepared for the crazy weather. And so they had each other tag on the post, and it was a great way to collaborate with each other, and not see each other as a threat, but to raise each other up in this industry, and bring value to your clients.
Collin Funkhouser 15:24
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Meghan 16:10
There's the eternal question of when should you be posting your content, there are tools and analytics that you can use to track when the best time to post is. And they usually say when your audience most of your audience is online at a particular day or particular time, I don't typically use these because I follow the rule of Dawn is better than perfect. And I just posted when I when it's convenient for me.
Collin Funkhouser 16:34
Well, I will say that part of that is is that what you were consistent about when you're posting you start training your clients and training your audience to expect your posts at certain times. And you kind of build this as a relationship with them
Meghan 16:46
well, and the algorithm likes that as well. The algorithm likes consistency, if you post for if you post 10 posts for three days, and then you don't post for an entire week and then you post one day and then not the next five days, you need to be consistent because otherwise, you aren't going to be getting as much in front of your audience and the algorithm is going to get confused.
Collin Funkhouser 17:08
So when you start putting together how and when you're going to post, try and pick a time that's going to be consistent and easy for you to post throughout the day. Maybe that's you set time aside throughout the day. Or maybe you just schedule one time in the morning or in the evening to post your content so that you can be consistent and that you can have longevity in posting
Meghan 17:29
well. And there are apps out there, there's later there's Hoot suit or Hootsuite, that you can schedule your posts and they will go out at whatever time I don't use those. But you may and they work great for a lot of people. There are so many other things to be doing during a day trying to figure out the exact hour to post your photo to get the most engagement really doesn't seem like that big of a payoff at the end of the day. But if it's important to you, you can use a scheduler and you can use your Facebook and Instagram analytics and post during that time. If you are actively trying to use social media as your advertising and marketing engine, it may be worth it to do a deep dive on your analytics. But if you are just posting to get engagement and share stories and not necessarily focused on the advertising side, getting the post out whenever you can is more important. I know that the Facebook and Instagram algorithm likes about once a day, like I said be consistent. for Instagram, they also say to engage, which means like and comment on people's posts. And to do that about 15 minutes before you post and about 15 minutes after you post and that will kind of wake up the algorithm and make sure that people really see your posts. hashtags are still very powerful as well. But make sure that they are tailored not only to your specific post content, but your geographical location and things that your potential clients would be searching for. So you can if you are in Miami, you can say hashtag Miami petsitter. And then if it's a picture of Labradoodle, you can say hashtag labradoodles of Florida or labradoodles of Miami. You don't want to use hashtags with millions and millions of posts because then the second that you post, it's going to just go further further down the feed because so many people are using that same hashtags. So you want to do local, local landmarks, local parks, big restaurants in the area, or even big events whether they cater to pets or not. Last year, Facebook did roll out where they were going to start making hashtags searchable in Facebook. And while the don't get as much traction as they do on Instagram, I feel like they're still worthwhile to post. You don't have to post a ton of them. A few of them works but they are searchable. And don't forget that you can also tag a location for your photo as well. So you can tag the landmark tag the dog park tag the restaurant as an actual location and you'll show up in those different searches that way to another great question to ask is where should you be posting. So the there are eight major platforms Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tick Tock Snapchat, LinkedIn, YouTube and Pinterest, your business can be on all of them. But unless you have a specific social media manager to run those accounts, you will very unlikely be excelling at all of those, I would recommend picking one or two and not really more than three to focus on and grow your audience. They're obviously the platform with the biggest number of people on it is Facebook. But remember, that also has the lowest organic reach. And organic reach just means the number of people that see your post without you having to pay for it. It's important to keep in mind the lifespan of a post on each platform. So on Facebook, your post usually only lives for about five hours, unless it's getting tons of comments and likes and shares. It will only live for five hours on Instagram, it's about 21 hours, then obviously stories live for 24 hours on each platform. on LinkedIn, it's 24 hours on YouTube, it's 20 days, on Twitter, it's only 18 minutes. And then on Pinterest is the longest at four months. So the platforms that you should focus on solely depend on your business structure, your goals and where your clients are. If your clients are business professionals, then you want to head to LinkedIn. If they are older and retired, you'll likely go to Facebook, if they are millennials and more urban than Instagram is probably the place for you. I don't really hear too many pet care providers using Snapchat for their business. But I know that there are some out there, that's how they communicate with clients. And the same goes for Tick Tock as well. It is very hard on Tick Tock to target local regions. So unless you are a really big name with a million people following you or whatever, on Tick tock, you are very unlikely to be found by potential clients on there. But it is possible a huge place to post content is in your local Facebook groups. We live in a really small town, but I still blast it out to 20 or So Facebook groups and I can get a reach up to 40 times what I normally would with just a post, I use the bump feature. And it's also called bring up my post. But all that means is you just comment a letter or a period on the posts that you created in a Facebook group and that will shoot it up to the top of that group. I heard a few years ago that Facebook was going to be taking away that feature. But I think it's still around because it works for me. This is another pet peeve of mine, you should not be advertising your local pet care business in global groups on Facebook to find a pet sitter or to find a dog walker, somebody in Singapore is not going to be reaching out to you for your dog walking services in Miami, Florida. It is a giant waste of your time to be promoting yourself in a group of 10,000 or more people who are trying to promote their services as well. The whole point of your local pet care business being on social media is to drive awareness to your business. And yes, converting them to clients. So you want to make sure that the time that you spend on social media is being used as efficiently as possible. So this means engaging with people that have liked your content, posting content that brings value to people so that they want to share it. And this means connecting with new people so that you can start building a relationship with them. Social media should be seen less as selling your business and more about building relationships. I also don't like the follow up or follow or like for like, those are the surest way to tank your reach. If you are a local pet care business, if you're doing it like for like on Facebook, and a pet sitter in a different area has just liked your page, that's great. But they probably are never going to use your services. And this could be taking an organic reach spot away from an actual client or potential client you have in your local town. And I understand that pet sitters should support other pet sitters. And I'm not against that in any way. And some people just want to see all the cute puppies and kitties that others are posting about, I get that. But please keep in mind that it is actually pretty detrimental to your Facebook business account.
Collin Funkhouser 24:00
And that's because Facebook algorithm is trying to see who is following particular accounts. And then where are they located. And then again, search surface pertinent information and relevant content that they are going want to see. So as you are trying to drive more local traffic and local content to your page, having a lot of followers and people who like your page from across the globe really waters down that effect that you can have. And so again, having all of that support is great. But having more engaged local followers will actually do a lot more to boost your posts.
Meghan 24:33
Yeah, so that was talking about Facebook, Instagram is another story but keep in mind, your follower to following ratio. In my opinion, it doesn't look very good to a potential client to come across a pet business Instagram and you have 600 followers, but you were following 6000 people. There's no way that you could possibly keep up with that many accounts due to time and the algorithm, but I just don't feel like it looks very good aesthetically for someone To see that you were following so many people, but they aren't following you back. If you want to get followers on Instagram, search local hashtags and write a thoughtful comment about their latest picture. Don't just write cute dog or love your post, but actually read what they wrote, they took the time to write something out, take the time to actually read it and write something that shows that you paid attention to their post, they're likely going to follow you back then to add a call to action on each post that you have. And this isn't a book now or give me a call. But instead, think of it as what is your dog's favorite treat? Where does your cat like to hide questions that will get people thinking and are intriguing, and that they're actually going to answer. I also want to note here that a lot of times people copy what they wrote on Facebook and paste it into Instagram or use the scheduling feature. And they will say, on Facebook, they'll say post a photo of your dog wearing a hat today or something like that. And they have also posted that exact same thing to Instagram. I see this quite a bit. Obviously people cannot comment photos on Instagram. So it doesn't look very good professionally and doesn't do anything because people can't comment what they actually want to comment with the picture. Also, it's important to utilize the interactive features on Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn stories, like polls and questions. The algorithms love to see this when people are really interacting with your stuff, that must mean that it's important and people like it, this should go without saying. But if you repost someone's content, please give them credit to be a kind human, they've worked hard on that. If you're worried about people taking your photos, and claiming them as their own, add a watermark or post your logo in an area that they can't crop out, be authentic. When posting, people can see through the Bs, they really can't. They want to get to know the person behind the business or the people behind the business.
Collin Funkhouser 26:52
And we have a lot of fear as pet business owners of letting people get to know us. And so we tend to hide our faces, we tend to not allow our personality to shine through. And we think oh, if I just focus on posting pet content, if I just focus on giving tips that will help connect with people. But as markets and demographics have changed, people are really looking for that face, as you said, make that face behind the content that face behind the business. And it's okay to be you. It is okay to tell your story why you got into pet care, some of the struggles that you're coming with some of the unique perspectives that you can bring, you can be quirky, you can be fun, because you are you. And that's really going to allow your content in your page and your social media to be differentiated from everybody else. We think of that word a lot. And you know, how can I differentiate myself from other people, you, you are that differentiating factor, not your prices, not your logo colors, not your services that you provide, it's you and how you train your staff if you have staff, that's where that uniqueness comes in. And so that's what we need to be showing and helping people understand about why we are different and that that's a good thing. So how do we start putting all these pieces of the puzzle together? And how do we start getting our content out across different platforms, as Megan had already said that she has seen a lot of people who will post directly from Facebook to Instagram and it doesn't quite match up. So this is really important because the type of content that we post to like an example LinkedIn should be different than the content that we post to something like tik tok. And again, this is the difference between merely having a presence versus utilizing each platform to its fullest. Now, if you follow us across multiple platforms, you'll probably see that many of our posts are actually pretty similar. That's because that for us, we found that for our pet sitter confessional podcast, Instagram gets the most engagement and traction across all of the other platforms. So all of our content is Instagram first, meaning that its design and layout are created with Instagram in mind first, and for our personal pet business, we mostly focus on Facebook, we then take those posts, and adapt them to meet the other platforms and do our best to have a presence across them.
Meghan 29:10
And again, you can be on every single social media platform there is but I would not recommend trying to excel at all of them. Because you will get micro gains on all of them, where you could get massive gains on one or two of them if you really focus on them
Collin Funkhouser 29:25
exactly. So focus where your strengths are. So for our content, we sometimes try to have a catchy photo or video because Instagram loves photo and videos. If we're focusing on LinkedIn, for example, you would try and have more writing and put together an article. If you're focusing on Facebook, you might also have a photo but you're going to have a lot more text associated with it as well. And again, maybe not as many hashtags since that's relatively new to Facebook. If you're investing all in on a video platform like tik tok, you're putting together a video content with some text overlays. video doesn't work too well on Instagram or Facebook or link Though so that's definitely something to keep in mind when we're putting together this kind of content that we're putting out there.
Meghan 30:05
Well, except for reels on Instagram, those are huge, and the algorithm has really liked those lately, there's a lot of reach. That's the biggest thing for reach right now is reels.
Collin Funkhouser 30:14
So this is all pretty overwhelming. And as you can see, there's quite a lot of work that you can try and create specialized content for every platform out there. And that gets us back to our done is better than perfect thinking, we would rather focus our effort on a platform that is actually getting us traction so that we can have the biggest bang for our buck, and really hone our skills and understanding of that platform to be utilizing it to its fullest, while also trying to maintain a presence across the others versus trying to juice engagement across all platforms consistently, we just do not have that kind of time. And when we've tried it in the past, it really hasn't paid off for us given our goals.
Meghan 30:51
So let's give an example of how to possibly do this. Let's go with my example of national turtle day. on LinkedIn, you could write an article on the history of national turtle day and its role in raising awareness for turtles globally. On Tick tock, you would do a short 15 to 22nd video of a turtle walking cross the road with some catchy music in the background. Instagram could be a photo of you holding a turtle and talking about a turtle client that you've had in the past. And Facebook could be you sharing a link to the national turtle foundation to help raise money to rescue turtles in your area. And that's just for one day of posts. But you have four unique pieces of content that are designed specifically for each platform strengths, however, is as you can imagine, this takes a ton of time and effort. So what we do, as we would see where we are getting the most traction, typically on Instagram, and design the post around Instagram, and then post it to each of the associated other platforms. And that way we know we are targeting our audience exactly, we are still having a presence across the others and we are trying to be as consistent as possible. Another big component of social media is Facebook, and Facebook is creating your own group. If you find that in your area, there is not a group dedicated to dogs or a particular breed of dog or other pet considered cre anyone, you can then invite and drive engagement to your group of people who are interested in the topic. It's really great because Facebook is all about groups these days. And if you were in a group, Facebook is actually more likely to show you content posted to a group versus somebody random post on their wall. So the content doesn't necessarily get lost in all of the rest of the clutter. It has more organic reach than a typical Facebook page. You can use your group to talk about your pet sitting services and also to market yourself. But don't be spammy. Generally, people recommend the 8020 rule on social media. So you add value 80% of the time, and you market and sell yourself the other 20% of the time. We've said it before, but we'll say it again have two or more admins for your Facebook group or page, it's easy to get locked out Sure is. So you always want to have a backup profile that has admin access just in case, you could also be posting client testimonials or Thank you gifts or delivering your product to customers. These are kind of easy things to be posting about. Really just images and content that your audience can easily engage with rather than focusing solely on the selling element. But you know your social media best, you know what content performs better than others what gets more likes and gets more comments, pay attention to that. create content that your audience wants, but also make what you want, right? Like Don't be a slave to your followers, who recognize what they share the most of and comment on and create more of that if that's what you want to. But you do you do. There's no reason to stress over content, whether that's what to post or when to post. There are plenty of social media managers out there that would help you or you can just do it yourself and learn as you go like I did. Social media can be really daunting. I wasn't super interested in doing 15 second dances two years ago and tik tok rolled out, I'm still not a fan Come on, which is why we haven't really grown on that platform ever really made any kind of effort to post stuff on there and a long time. But social media is all about what you make it if you are determined to grow it. There are definitely ways that you can do that and tools and people that you can utilize. Canva is a lifesaver. You can create an infinite number of graphics and everything is customizable. There's different shapes, different pictures, different colors, anything that you want and can think of you can create in Canva Don't let your social media look like anyone else's. Your business doesn't look like anyone else's and your content shouldn't either. You are what makes your business unique. capitalize on that. Be creative. Remember that everyone has started at zero, even Kim Kardashian, hey, have realistic expectations for not only your social media goals, but also your time on there. You can literally spend all day creating and posting content. And if that's what you want to do, great, then you need to structure your business that way and hire a team to do the dog walking and the pet sitting. There is no one size fits all for social media. Unfortunately, it's ever changing. But nowadays, it's necessary to get in front of the most eyeballs. And most of all, have fun. Social media should not be a drudgery. It's a way to connect with your clients. So create posts that reflect the culture and the attitude of your business.
Collin Funkhouser 35:28
We actually met Natasha urbania, pet business coach through Instagram, and she's on the show today to talk about how to get less awkward during the meet and greet. Oh, I
Meghan 35:38
need this one.
Collin Funkhouser 35:39
That's we take on more and more clients. And we're doing a lot of more interactions. We're doing a lot more meet and greets. And we are fielding a lot more phone calls or questions. And I know some people can get the feeling like they are awkward around others or have employees that have awkward interactions with clients as they're going throughout their day. What kind of recommendations or help, would you or advice would you give people so to take away those feelings of that they're awkward around?
Natasha 36:09
Free meet and greet questionnaire. That's what I'll say, pre meet and greet questionnaire. A lot of people in the pet industry. I've never heard anybody doing it. But it was my pre qualifier for my clients. And once I had my pre meet and greet questionnaire and filled out my Walker's did not need to do any additional work. So I actually love this question. Because I am very extroverted. I come from sales and marketing. I love to give everybody my full personality and everything that I do every day every time. But everyone's not like me. So when we talk about growing and scaling, I'm like, is this realistic to send, like, level 1000 into a meet and greet every time? Can we scale our business by training a bunch of level 1000? No, we can't. So let me put something in my business to where it doesn't put the pressure on my walkers or sitters to be that person. So the client books online on their own, they're empowered, they fill out a pre meet and greet questionnaire that has tons of questions. Has your dog bitten someone before? What's your schedule? What's your start day? What's your dog's likes and dislikes? Are they okay with new people? Right? So you have things that you need, and you have your qualifier or you're like, I cannot take this client. So in my questionnaire, I already have all the answers that I need. Okay. So by the time my walkers get to do the meet and greet, they can just say, Oh, yeah, you already filled out all the forms, you already answered all the questions. I'm just here to live on the dog, and to take photos of where you keep everything. We're going to put that in our system. And now anyone that comes over is going to have full transparency of where to find lockboxes and cleaning supplies, etc. So we're no longer making a meet and greet like a sales meeting that we're like, Well, let me tell you about my business and how I was founded. And let me tell you the story of Renzo and Ruby. And that's not a meet and greet. a meet and greet is designed to to make sure that this relationship is a go. The only reason to make to make this relationship is a good fit is by asking questions. It's a listening relationship. But in that forum before they even got to the meet and greet, that is the most powerful tool. Well, that'll help you streamline that so quickly. That's why we do no sales we do no no history, no mission statements. We're like, Hey, we already got all the information everything's in our system. You're all ready to go I just want to come over here and put a face to a name bigger over gonna set your lockbox up. And let's they're alive. We love it. Because let's think about this. Let's think about the flip side. If I do all the paperwork, and then my Walker sitter goes over, ask all these questions are like, don't you already have this? I already filled this paperwork out. You guys already asked me this or if my Walker goes and I'm not even sure if they ask all the questions. I'm not even sure if they presented it the way that I would have presented I have no idea what happened between the client and Walker now no idea into that I call and say hey, just want to follow up on your meet and greet how's everything going? I want to go ahead and fill out your paperwork finish make sure we have everything but not there. Like the walker already asked me all this like you guys don't talk. You didn't get that from them. Right? It's just a weird, non scalable relationship that you can take you can take that out by just having that questionnaire. Also this is your opportunity to put a lot of policies in there so my in my pre meet my clients know that we're going to have multiple walkers coming over. Question is is your dog okay with new people we are team collaborated. So now before we even meet and greet starts, they have the option to say you know what, my dog is actually very timid around people, and they need the same Walker so that I get a chance to say you know what, we're probably not a good fit because we work as a team. I allow my workers to go on vacation, they travel, we have snow days, we all back each other up. So we would not be a good fit. Right before you even go down the whole rabbit hole of your process, you literally qualified right out the gate. And so introvert or extrovert doesn't matter. Let's call it a paperwork.
Meghan 40:19
Paper paperwork is what spoke for you in that moment. It really
Collin Funkhouser 40:25
does. Because the main times we're at the meet greet and we feel like we have to make the hard and fast decision have to take on the client or not. And imagine if you got rid of all of that unknowns. And before you even left the door to go to the mean, greet, you already knew whether they were a good fit or not. It just puts you so much more at ease. And you know, there are no surprises. I mean, surprises do happen every now and then. But you just you could have a much better picture of exactly what you're walking into what their expectations are. And they already know some of yours. As you said, if you have some questions in there that outline a little bit of your policies, can you do this? Can you you know, are these?
Natasha 40:59
Are you okay with our four hour time window?
Collin Funkhouser 41:03
Exactly. You know, if they say no, you don't even have to worry about declining them in person, you just have to sit you that's a text message or that's an email back to them saying, sorry, this isn't going to be a good fit. Your some other recommendations, it takes out all that awkwardness of having to say yes or no on the spot. And you can screen those before you go.
Natasha 41:22
Yeah, I mean, in any business in any industry, you should be screening clients. I mean, I screen clients and coaching, I want to make sure I'm going to be the best fit. I want to make sure we're on the same mindset page right on growth. So you always have to ask screening questions. And that way when people are like my clients crazy, and my client thinks is my client, you create the beast, I will say that, again, we create the beast and our client, it's never the client. It's something in our process that wasn't clear. If the client is unsure, uneasy, that's an opportunity for us to get clear with them through our process and prevented in the future for more clients.
Collin Funkhouser 42:04
Natasha runs a successful dog walking and pet sitting company and she's also a coach. And if you would like for her to help you in your business, you can head on over to start scale sale calm. And when you're ready to work with her. Use the promo code PSC 20 for 15% off.
Meghan 42:17
Let me know what has worked for you with social media. Do you enjoy it? Do you not what content works great for you. You can let us know at Facebook or Instagram at petsitter. confessional.
Collin Funkhouser 42:28
And obviously this is a topic that Megan is very passionate about. And she has a lot of thoughts and she spends a lot of time thinking on. I don't. So definitely she will be the one helping you and giving tips.
Meghan 42:40
But we appreciate you listening to this and thank you so much.
Collin Funkhouser 42:44
Thank you. And we'd like to thank our sponsor, pet sitters associates and our Patreon for making today's show possible. Bye
