Full transcription below

Speaker 1 (00:00):

Hey, business-minded mama. I’m so grateful that you are here and that you are ready to grow enough, authentic community and scale your impact. Hi, I’m Stephanie. Parenza the voice behind business-minded mama podcast, local and small business advocate and entrepreneur. I’ve created this community because I want to help business-minded mamas. Like you build your dream business by finding your authentic community and gaining control and clarity on the financial aspects of your business by managing your own books. Now let’s tap into your own potential. Hi, I somewhat disappeared last week. Um, just shifted my focus a little bit to my family and some, uh, obstacles that were present. So I apologize for not being there last Thursday, but I am back this week. And the plans as of now are to have an episode today, Tuesday and again on Thursday. So, um, once again, thanks for coming back here.

Speaker 1 (01:16):

So today I wanted to talk briefly about finding your focus outside of Instagram, likes as a new blogger or influencer. It’s hard not to get wrapped up in the number of likes, even as an influencer that has not considered new. It’s still very hard. And I find myself in that predicament, um, all the time. It’s, it’s a constant roller coaster of caring and deciding not to care. And it’s really been on my mind lately to let it go. And so I thought it was important because when I entered this influencing space, you cannot imagine how many connections I made via DM because other aspiring influencers were reaching out, asking, how do you increase your engagement? How do you get that many likes? How do you do this? And it’s like this constant conversation. And I did the same thing, reaching out to other influencers that I thought were doing better than me.

Speaker 1 (02:30):

How do you get so many people to like your post? How do you do this? Um, so couple of things, I think it’s important to note here that what you see is not always what it appears to be. And there are things out there, um, engagement, pods, and bots and whatever else that can increase one’s likes. So you may see another influencer that has a ton of likes, but for you to know if it’s organic or not, you really can’t. So I think it’s important. One to just stop the comparison, because you don’t know what’s behind those likes, don’t let yourself compare to others. And I know that’s hard, but I think it’s really important to let go of that because you don’t know what they’re doing. You don’t know if they have 100 friends that are following and constantly liking. You don’t know if they are pouring hours and hours to get those likes.

Speaker 1 (03:36):

So just allow yourself to stop that comparison game. I also think it’s important for you to just stop and take a moment to think about what your main goal is, what your end game is. Why are you pursuing this path? And maybe to allow yourself to shift focus, Instagram likes are not going to make you money, per se. I say that because I realized they are important when it comes to brand deals, at least your engagement rate, which likes are part of. But I think if you allow yourself to focus more on your goal, whether that be brand deals, or if that were to be, you know, other, other streams of revenue, as in, uh, eventually, uh, consulting or coaching or, uh, courses, whatever it may be, make sure you keep in mind what your end goal is and ask yourself if likes are going to help you reach that goal.

Speaker 1 (04:47):

I also want you to remember that this is a journey. It is a process, not one influencer that is truly successful. Remember not determining their success based on their followers or their like count because you don’t know what their financials look like. So I feel pretty confident to say that the true successful influencers have been doing this for years. And it took a lot of time, allow yourself to have the time to get where you hope to be. So I want to challenge you to shift your focus to your goal or your goals of your influencing business. And by allowing yourself to do that, I think you will naturally start to see an increase in engagement because you will be pouring your heart and soul and passion into the thing that you want most be consistent. You’re going to hear a lot that consistency is key, so be consistent.

Speaker 1 (06:00):

And I would suggest that you give yourself a timeframe, perhaps 30 days of consistent posts, only focusing on what you want to share, what your message is, what you want your business to be not paying attention to the likes, not even allowing yourself to compare your day to day likes comparing to others. Obviously you get on Instagram and you’re probably going to see them, but don’t let it process or register in your brain. Give yourself a challenge of being consistently posting your message, your passion, and after your 30 days, go back and see if your engagement increased during that time or go and see what posts maybe resonated more check out the times that you posted the days. See if there’s anything you can gather from that 30 days that may help you move forward. And if you don’t think 30 days is enough, give yourself 60 or 90 days, like I said, this is longterm.

Speaker 1 (07:04):

This is a process. I merely want you to have this challenge. And I think it’s easier when it’s, you know, a 30 day challenge, just challenging yourself to not even allow those likes to affect you. Because I think that allowing yourself to let it go, you will have an increase in engagement and in likes, because you will have your focus where it needs to be. Let me know how it goes. Come visit us in the business minded mama Facebook group, and share your wins. Reach out to me if you have any questions and I will see you again later this week, did you like what you heard on today’s podcast or do you know a business minded mama that could benefit from hearing this, take a screenshot and share this with your community. And don’t forget to give me a review, want to chat more by me on Facebook and the business minded mama Facebook page or on Instagram at mrs. SIS or through my website, www dot business-minded moma.com.