128: Practical Steps to Amplifying Your Online Presence

Welcome to this episode of the Professional Creative Podcast. Now in the last episode I shared with you a framework that I developed called the Story Star. Now the Story Star goes over your why and five different points of the star that we have been rotating through on social media over the last year. And it has been revolutionary for the way that we show up and and talk about what we're doing online. And I think that you are going to love it as well. So if you missed the Story Star framework, head on over to episode number 127 to listen to the Story Star and also download the Story Star framework so that you can fill it out for your own business. Now, in today's episode, I want to cover a couple of different aspects of how I focus on showing up online. We'll cover several different components that I want you to almost think about filters that you can use alongside the Story Star to help show up online and show up on social media.

I'm Bonnie Christine and this is where all things creativity, design, business and marketing unite. I'm a mama living in a tiny town tucked right inside the Smoky Mountains, running a multi seven figure business, doing

the most creative and impactful work of my life. But when I first set out to

become an entrepreneur, I was struggling to make ends meet and wrestling with how to accomplish my biggest dream of becoming a fabric designer. Fast forward to today I I'm not only licensing my artwork all over the world, but also teaching others how to design their creative life and experience the same success. I'm here to help you spend your life doing something that lights you up. I'll help you build a creative business that also creates an impact, changes people's lives, gives you all of the freedom you want, and is wildly profitable. Welcome to the Professional Creative Podcast.

So you might also remember that in episode 127 I invited you to pause and go visit your very own social media profile, probably on Instagram, and take a look at it from the perspective of someone who's just entering your world. When I did this not that long ago, actually ended up changing it completely. What you want is for someone to be able to enter your world and very quickly figure out who you are, what you do, what you offer, what problems you solve. And so when your profile and your content match and you are certain that someone who comes into your world can quickly figure out who it is that you are and what you do, you can also be assured that everyone who follows you is there because they're interested in learning more about the problems that you solve. Which is going to be helpful when we go through today's concepts. The first thing that I like to think about when I'm sharing and showing up online is sharing what your path to success has been. In other words, every single one of you have things that you do every single day that have gotten you to where you are today. Maybe you wake up early, maybe you plan your day first thing. Maybe you do a devotion in the morning. Maybe you read 10 pages of a book every day, or you listen to a podcast like this one. Maybe you exercise and you walk every day. There are multiple different things that you do on a daily basis that have gotten you to where you are and have resulted in some success in your life. And I think that the disconnect here is that oftentimes people, we leave them up to just wonder, well, how did she get to where she is? How did she quit her job? How did she leave that situation? How did she get that book released? Or how did she launch that new product? So how you have gotten to where you are today? How did she make six figures? How did she sell out in minutes? All of those types of things? Well, I, I love to really just unpack for people what it is, the daily habits that we have that have led us to success. And I like to do it, if I can, every single day, over and over and over again. So I have a couple of people that I follow that I just enjoy seeing their routine and it makes me realize, oh, that's how they got to where they are today. Oh, maybe they wake up at 5am every day and they dive into their best work. They spend time reading and praying and writing and doing their best work in the morning and they show it day after day after day after day. Well, eventually it becomes really inspirational because now I see, well, that's what's different between me and them. Maybe I see someone who looks really healthy and, well, I have no idea how they got that way. Right. Unless they show day after day after day what they're doing to be really healthy. And then that shows me, well, that's the difference between where I am and where they are. It's that habit creation. It's the showing up consistently that is so inspiring. It's inspiring for people to see how you got to where you are today and what are those daily habits that you do that you partake in that have gotten you to where you are. So maybe you can think about that as a filter, as a way to show up. And every single day on social media, share. 1, 2, 3, things, maybe in your stories, Are you drinking your water? Are you reading a business book? Are you attacking the day? Are you working out every day? If you show those things, you really are letting people into your secret, right? Letting people into your secret to success. And I think that you'll find that you not only connect with people, but you inspire people as well.

Okay, picture this. Have you ever spent hours scouring through your video or maybe your podcast content trying to find that one place that you said that one thing? Or if you've forgotten or never found it and you had to re record everything. I've been there and it's so frustrating and honestly a huge waste of time. But it hasn't happened to me ever since I started using Searchie. Searchie is the software that I use for all of my videos and all of my podcast content because it not only transcribes it, but it makes it searchable by key word. And so for you to see this in action, I have an example set up for you over on bonniecristine.com resources again, that's bonniecristine.com forward/resources and you can actually play with Searchy and see how it looks on one of our videos because once you understand what it does, it's a game changer. I also host all of my workshop and my class, my membership and course material through Searchy as well. So students can search for any question that they have and go to the exact time in place where I talked about that one thing. And just imagine this. If ever do a Q and A and they want to know if I answered their question. All they have to do is search for their name and see if I did or not. It's literally like having your very own personal search engine for your content. So no more wasting time scrubbing through your video or audio to find that one golden nugget. With Searchie, you can easily find what you're looking for in seconds. Just type in a keyword or phrase and Searchy will pull up all the relevant content. It's a game changer for anyone who create audio or video content. But honestly, that's not all. Searches new AI powered transcription and captioning tool makes it easy to create accessible content that everyone can get access to. And with their customizable player, you can embed your videos and your podcasts on your website or social media channels in a way that looks and feels so professional. So if you are ready to take your video or your podcast content to the next level, head on over to Bonnie christine.com forward/ resources and just give Searchie a try. It's incredible. I think you're going to love it and I can't wait to see how it revolutionizes the way you create content.

The next one is to show more of what you want more of. So when I think about that, a great example would be, let's say that you want to do more speaking. Let's say you want to be on stages sharing your message with the world and you want to do more of it. Well, you should show more of that on social media. Another way I like to think about this is my portfolio of work. I have by this time in my career, a lot of work. Many, many, many patterns and collections in my work. And so I have to really be careful and refine what I show so that it represents the type of work that I want to do more of and not the type of work that maybe I've outgrown and I don't necessarily want to continue doing. This one seems obvious, but I miss it all the time. The things that we want to be known for, the things that we want to do more of. Let's say you want to do more art fairs or you want to do more teachings or showing up and doing workshops. We should show more online of what we want to do more of. That way people can find us and plug us in so that we get to do more of it. The next one is to share wins from your audience. This is such an easy and beautiful piece of content to share. It celebrates your audience. It celebrates people who are having accomplishments or maybe if you have sold a physical product and someone has transformed the way their room looks and they share an image of that, sharing those kinds of wins from your audience, well, it builds trust. It's also what we call social proof. So it is telling people and showing people that other people have gone before them and partaken in what it is that you're doing and they've gotten results. And so we love this idea of social proof. We love to know that we're not the first ones to take the chance. So these things can be like reviews or testimonials or shares or also just big wins and celebrations from the people who have learned from you. Super important to not forget to share these from your audience. The last one is something called a hand raiser. So if you have gone over your social media profile and you're certain the people who are following me, if they've read my profile, they're following me because they're interested in what it is that I'm doing here. And so I love a good hand raiser. Basically this is saying like, hey, if you're interested in xyz, just raise your hand. Comment below, send me a direct message no matter what it is that you're doing. So a great example of this is my coaching program. So the professional creative coaching program. I haven't really launched it or made a big announcement about it. All I do is say, hey, if you're making over $50,000 in your business and you're ready to go big, you're ready to figure it all out and grow, then come send me a DM and I'll ask you some questions and see if you're a good fit for the coaching program. That's all it is. But that's called a hand raiser, right? So rather than kind of making an offer or launching something, I'm just saying if you're interested, let me know and we'll take it from there. So if you have something even as small as an opt in to grow your list, you can simply just talk about it. Talk about it in your stories, talk about it in a post, talk about it anywhere you're showing up online. And when you're talking about it, you can say if you're interested in this or you want to learn more or you're interested in going deeper, just let me know. Send me a DM comment below. Now, one way that you can implement this for something like a freebie is to use ManyChat. Now ManyChat is a software that allows you to automate the sending of that free thing. So it's really great. We've just started using it in my business and have loved it. Now, I don't use manychat for my coaching program. That one is a one direct, direct conversation with me. But for freebies and opt ins, we use mini chat to automate that link so that it's easier to take care of the people who have raised their hand and say, yes, me, I want that as so those are just a few practical components. This is a mini episode that I wanted you to just think about how to integrate these into your Story Star framework. Again, if you missed the Story Star, head back to episode number 127 to get an overview and also grab the download for that episode as well. And so I hope this has given you just a lot to work with when it comes to figuring out what to say when you show up online. We want to help you foster growth, engagement and authenticity consistently in your online spaces. And I can't wait to see how you put these to effect in your own business. My friends. Create the beauty that you want to see come alive in the world. And remember, there's room for you.