Lessons

Lesson Info

Ariel: Lessons I Learned Along the Way & Final Q&A

The first thing I learned is the moment you focus on marketing instead of helping, you will feel like you're off your path. This is why people hate marketing because they feel like they're They're supposed to do this selling thing that feels really icky and the more artistic you and creative you are the pickier it will feel because your brain is actually not programmed for this after a consistent strategy is underway. If no one comments or shares your ideas, you need to do Lee. Take note and readjust. In other words, learn from the silence. Now again, How much is enough? I don't know. You need to definitely do. The three sees the consistent, compelling content for quite some time again. It took John over a year to get that that blawg really rolling. But it was a year where he's stuck to it and went okay. I'm gonna keep blogging at my control for independent artists and marketing, and he had here that he entered a very, very crowded marketplace. There's a lot of people talking about art...

istic integrity around marketing and social media, and he kept at it. He knew he was on the right path. He didn't give up, but I think he would have had he not begun to pick up some steam. Number three. Not everyone will agree with you, and not everyone has to like you. This for women, I think, is a big one. We are programmed to be likeable, to serve, to be malleable, to support. When people don't like us. It hurts artists to when people don't like your art. It's your personal expression of who you are, and when they don't like it, it feels like a personal attack. But there's all kinds of art in the world. You always have to keep that in mind. I always say this to my musicians. You're not maybe going to be the next Lady Gaga or the next Taylor Swift. But that doesn't mean that we can't find a community of people that like and resonate with you and with what you're doing. It's just a matter of readjusting your vision around that. And you know what? If they as Seth Godin says, pee pee in your pool, he's like my blog's my swimming pool. In a few peopie in it, I will remove you, remove the comments you know you don't have to put up with someone that's having a go. Do you know what I mean? Same. Same with Facebook. You can block people, and you can delete people on Twitter. And you can delete things that you put on social media, and you should. If people are being negative hating flavors, you don't have to put up with that. And that's another conversation in sort of the lessons I learned. It's like, What am I tolerating here versus what feels really good when I get up in the morning? Because if you're gonna make your own ecosystem and make your own money off of your brain or your ideas or your art, you better feel really good when you wake up in the morning cause this is hard work, really hard work. A tiny upset can feel like a tsunami online. Keep everything and everyone in perspective. I've been in tears from people saying negative things on blog's tears, like thousands of people could say something really nice. The one jerk that says something mean and it's like so Purcell on Horrible. You have to have a perspective on this because if you pick it that pimple and turn it into a cancer. You'll suffer big pop it, let it go if it feels scary or even terrifying to share your probably on the right path. You have that moment where you talked earlier about what your mission of starting over is, and you're like, Oh, I'm really choked up. That's a good thing. I feel choked up having this thought leadership conversation Right now. It's like, I hope people don't think that I think that I'm some sort of great big thought leader. I'm just trying to open up a dialogue here and have people think about something in social media. But I happen to be using words that feel confronting. So who I don't know. Next thing, this is a big, big, huge one. And as you progress through your social strategy, this this is actually sort of works on every platform of your life. But this really, really, um, can be using the paradigm of building your social media strategy. Getting yourself out of the way is a constant process, and you will always be working on this process as you illiterate and I want to talk about Questlove back to Questlove, he just moved himself. So out of the way toe right that honest blawg post About what being a big black man in America feels like. I mean, it you'd be you'd be I think, dead if it doesn't hit you in some way. He had to. He had to give it up. He had to move the rock star thing that everything out of and he really told the truth. I told the truth about us. Wait. His race. Being a man is huge. Those are the things that you constantly do is you grow any politician that gets themselves out of the way and tells the truth we embrace unlike anyone, that kind of tries to push it under the rug and lie. We don't like so much if you think about that. So I hope those lessons were helpful. I still, you know, I'm feeling it right now. Oh, boy. Got to get my This is not It's not about me. I want to share this thing with people. So do we have any comments crawling in? We've got a little bit of time. We dio So it loved it here. If anybody has either comments or questions, for Arial before we and the day keeps coming up about just being honest. You peel those layers back. You don't even need to check your motives because you're just honest. You're just being who you are and contributing that way. Yeah, when you're being of service, that's when good things happen. Yeah. I love that you said that so beautifully when you mentioned responding to everybody who who comments and likes on any of your posts. How do you respond to somebody who just liked it or said hello? All right. Okay. Rights. You don't have to do that. I should have made. That is That's a really good point. Like l l and O M G. And thank you does not need you. Well, you know, you don't need to go back and forth, back forth, back and forth. You know, like if you send someone a thank you note to send a thank you note for the thank you note No, you send the thank you note and you leave it over there with that person so you don't have Teoh. But what you should notice in your liking patterns on Facebook. If the same person is liking things over and over and over. Make it your business to go to their page and like something back and start a dialogue. They are inviting you to participate with them a lot of times a little like if you see it, multiple times can turn into a pattern which could turn into a friend, a customer, a sounding board, a board of directors. You never know where these people are gonna come from. On my board of directors right now is someone who hired me to work for him. We started talking and I was like, Whoa, I really love what you're doing. Will you help me? And now we help each other so you never know where that's. And he was on my newsletter for two years, three years before he ever called my office and he called my office and he had a bad experience because I had a sales guy who wasn't doing a great job. And then he called back two years later, and now he's the editor of my book. So it's amazing how things happen when you care to engage. So, yes, you don't have to comment on every l o L or like Or you know, that would be crazy making. When you have a negative comments on a Facebook ad would do. Would you delete it on? You? Make comments. It depends on how far you want to take it. So if you were, in my opinion, creating an argument or you're establishing yourself and you've got a platform that you are building commentary around, I think I think, too. My friend Jay Frank, who wrote Future Hit DNA. He's constantly commenting about the music industry and the way things are Iterating and not everybody likes his comments, and that's okay. He's, he's he's wilfully engaging in back and forth conversation, which should be had. I don't see that is negative. I see that is sort of constructive conversation. When it posts and you feel and someone says anything that's not in agreement with us, it can feel very negative. So you want to ask yourself first, Is that really negative? Or is that just someone I posted about, Um, what's that church that, um, they go to Teoh funerals of Children and they pick it and they do very something? Yeah, it's there very, very radical, and I don't agree with how they respond to. I don't like what they dio and I posted about this because there had been a hacker that hacked into the personal addresses of all of the members of this church and published it, and I wrote something about that and someone I know who's very ensconced in the Christian community, who leads worship and praise and worship and trains praise trains, leadership, people in churches, he said. You have to be very, very careful about this. And here's why. And he showed me an argument that I hadn't thought about that. If you take away the nonprofit status of that church with their super radical ideas that personally I don't agree with, you're taking away of freedom of rights for religious institutions. So you have to be very, very careful. And I hadn't thought of that. I could have gotten offended and been like, Oh, he's You know, he doesn't agree with what I think, but instead it opened something up. So you have to ask, Is that really, truly negative? Of course, if someone is just saying something awful and mean or they're a predator or they're saying something inappropriate, delete, delete delete. Delete their peeing in your pool. Seth Godin, Delete. But you have to ask yourself if I'm going to go on this pattern of establishing myself as a thought leader, is this a friendly dialogue? Is this is this OK? And you should have it. You can't always be in like, happy agreement world with everyone Now again, A lot of us building businesses we might never even get there in our block post. If you're blogging about like CC like what? Photos to post. I don't think a lot of people are gonna be hating on his block. But you know, if you're getting into, like, you know, more, more personal things, there will be people. So ask yourself, Is this a dialogue? Where is this? A diatribe? If it's a diatribe, delete. I hope that helps. Well, we have more questions from on line. They always have questions. So a question from social socio, What can you say about posting and linked in hoping to become a thought leader linked in has changed a lot. Would you say about That's a great platform for showing off? Someone said earlier. Like should I spouse, Should I be Yes, that is the place to do it. Linked in is a business network of people showing off what they're good at in business. Right? So this is a fabulous place. And remember, understanding the flavor of each social Channel is key. And you'll get into that tomorrow on Wednesday. But, um, you know, if you know, the purpose of LinkedIn is to network for business And if I've got a business that's built around Facebook Page management, well, you should absolutely be putting articles and things in pieces about Facebook on your lengthen. It shows that you're dialed in and plugged into what the conversation about Facebook is, and I will want to hire someone that is dialed in. So we constantly have a dialogue at my agency about trends and social media. And what does it mean? What is it? You know, that's very good. Yes, do that for sure. Great. We also have ah Ken in Canada and Gina Heart, thank thank you for sending doesn't have a similar question. Where do you draw the line in being honest and sharing flaws and possibly losing legitimacy and professionalism? And then Ken's question is kind of, uh how far you go with telling the truth, telling too much too soon. You know, we live in a very polarized society. I mean, if you think about Fox News, if you think about this polarization of people as a strategy and tactic for gaining popularity, it works for Rush Limbaugh. It works for for a lot of people. So you have to ask yourself, Am I okay with being the fill in the blank dude that's associated with that thing? Whatever that thing is, I don't know what the platform is you're talking about, but if you are okay with that, then go for it. If you want to be the poster child of that thing, many people in the tea party are very happy to be the poster Children of radical Republican ideas. Many people on the other side of the fence in the Democratic Party go radical on the other side, and they're fine with that. And they've built platforms around that and that that's good for them. So you know how much is too much is always a really, really personal question like you were talking about. Should I start blogging about this five year journey that I was on with anorexia. Maybe not maybe soon in the future, maybe when you're 20 years away from it and not when it's not so raw. I mean, there's a lot of reasons and then also revealing things also could be putting other people out in the open, right. If I reveal too much about something that happened to me, well, someone that I'm talking about might still be alive or might still be in my life. And I don't know that that's the best way to go, either. So you can allude to those things until the time is right. So this is, ah, super personal choice. But know that there are plenty of people that have built massive platforms around conspiracy theory. Have a lot of people think you're crazy? A lot of people are really into it and want to continue the conversation part, part of your niche niece. It could be that you share long are have so much to share where some people do like that, like Jenna Marbles. I mean, she's like she's been over sharing since the first day she got on there, you know, and it totally works for. That's her personality It's great. People like it. It's fun. She's, you know, she's got her puppy in her cleavage and everybody loves it, you know? So it really depends. I mean, that's a silly example. But again, the political thing can work for some people, but you have tow. You have to really ask yourself if I alienate x amount of people. Is that still gonna be okay for my overall brand? If the answer is No, don't do it, Jaster, I think very insightful questions in terms of this whole portion that you've exposed us to. Can you, um I just thought leadership come naturally. And if not, how can you grow into becoming a thought leader? Um, I was in. No, I would say it does not come naturally. My mother calls this your motor. Sort of like How big is your motor in the world? Gloria Steinem. Huge motor for women and feminism, Right. So huge. Didn't get married. Didn't have a kid. Did the whole thing for women. Huge motor, smaller motor. Might be a mommy blogger that cares about women and women's rights and doing the thing that they do on a smaller platform. So, um, can you ask the question again. It was like a two parter. Sure it was more. Does it come naturally? No. Does it off? No, I don't think it comes naturally. I don't at all. I think I think that like Derek, you sometimes have to fake it till you make it and sort of push yourself out of it and go. Okay. What's my vision here? My vision is I want to transform the way independent musicians distribute their music and get heard. That mission was bigger than his personal beef with his own personality, which he had to reckon with. So sometimes what you're trying to do and what you're trying to say in the world is bigger than your fear. Um, so I look at that as an example, But sometimes, you know, like, for me, my mom was this huge thought leader and choose the New York Times bestseller. And she was on Oprah and Donahue and she was like, the big thing in the eighties. And I, like, always thought, Well, I can't compete with that. What am I gonna dio And I went to a seminar on Brian Tracy said 2000 people in a room. Everybody has a story in them and everybody should write their book and tears started. I mean, I couldn't stop crying. I was like crying and crying. And I knew that was in my way of what I wanted to dio, which was write my book and I did it. And so you always have to ask yourself, This is a This is a really it's a produces a personal journey. How much is too much? Personal answer? I don't know if there's an easy answer for this one, but the second part was, How can you grow into becoming a thought leader if it doesn't come naturally? Yeah, I would say the Eleanor Roosevelt quotes one of my favorite Do something every day that scares you like keep pushing the limit for yourself. You know, consistent content is a huge piece of that, cause you can start neutral. You can start by reviewing a book that someone wrote about the topic you like. You can start by reviewing a movie that touches on this problem. You can start by talking about art that kind of looks like yours and why you like it. You don't have to go all the way there all the time. Right? So this is this is wide. So coolers all this content out there that you can work with.