Hashtag Authentic - for creatives, dreamers & business owners online

Things We Talk About In This Episode:

• The importance that established news organisations find ways to use social media if they want to engage a young audience
• TikTok has redefined the experience of social media, with short video content, and Instagram Reels and Youtube Shorts have followed suit
• How Sophia found an audience on TikTok (and later on Instagram Reels) by talking to camera about her media stories
• The way we can gain insights into what makes a successful social media post by being a user of the platform
• The importance of constant engagement on social media, both creating and consuming content
• Acknowledging the fear and vulnerability that can come with being authentic and genuine online
• Sophia’s tips for successful TikTok/Reel content: action or engaging content in every second, and lead with your most powerful image/shot/quote)
• Comparing the strengths and drawbacks of the different platforms, especially Reels and TikTok
• When creating Reels content or TikTok content, share that content on both platforms so you’ll meet both audiences
• When it comes to sharing your opinions online, having a sense of purpose goes a long way towards building your confidence
• How Sophia has been promoting her book: reposting user content from her book launch on Instagram, a big thread on Twitter, traditional media appearances, and weekly TikTok videos (interspersed with other content so she doesn’t “spam” her audience)
• The challenges of Internet (and especially social media) censorship with any content relating to sex or sexual health

Links mentioned in this episode (and where to find Sophia):

Editing apps that help you create Reels or TikToks:

• Splice
• Template
• Cap Cut on Apple, and on Google

Here’s where to find and chat with Sophia:

• Sophia on Twitter: @sophiasgaler
• Sophia on TikTok: @sophiasmithgaler
• Sophia's book, Losing It: Sex Education for the 21st Century

Where to find Sara:

• The Insta Retreat - Currently on Pre Sale
• Sell Your Sh*t - Currently on Pre Sale
• Sara’s website: meandorla.co.uk
• Sara on Instagram: @me_and_orla
• Sara on Twitter: @meandorla
• One to one business coaching with Sara

Things we talked about:

• The value of owning your own audience
• Building a brand for yourself around the work you’re doing
• The growing online hunger for content by real people and the forging of real connections
• We seem to be entering an era that Farrah calls, rather poetically, "the Time of the Writer": the world has passed the period of devouring all the content on the Internet, now we are more discerning, and only want to consume content that we genuinely enjoy
• The continued return of demand for long-form content
• The return of community: the value of hearing from and engaging with your audience
• Giving your best work away from free (yes!)
• The limitations of the stories that can be told in traditional media
• And related, the limitations of creating content when you're in competition for followers or clicks
• When you try to appeal to the masses, you bland out

Farrah's tips for what works well on Substack:

• Niching works well. The more you niche, the more dedicated (as opposed to big) an audience you'll get
• Publishing twice a week tends to grow a "stickier" audience
• Use social media to point people to your Substack content
• Use your "About" page to set expectations and declare a manifesto
• Claim your real name, if you can

Where to find Farrah:

• Farrah's Substack platform, "Things Worth Knowing"
• Farrah on Instagram (for dog pictures and Substack information)

Where to find Sara:

• Sara on Substack
• Sara’s website: meandorla.co.uk
• Sara on Instagram: @me_and_orla
• Sara on Twitter: @meandorla
• One to one business coaching with Sara
• The Insta Retreat

Sas Petherick is a UK-based coach who specialises in helping women experiencing self doubt. I first met her through Instagram a year ago, and was struck by how much insight and wisdom she could drop into the most incidental moments of casual conversation. She also makes me laugh until it hurts. For anyone who's ever felt like an imposter in their own career, or like their self doubt is holding them back in life, this episode is essential listening. I think you're going to love it.

Things We Talk About In This Episode:

• Multi-layered, multi-hyphenated careers and what to call yourself if you’re asked at a party
• Being led by curiosity, the value of deep-dive research, and the joy of starting something new
• Mel’s early career in the not-for-profit charity sector, and the turning point she reached that led her to galvanise a group of volunteers and ultimately, to co-create Freedom Acts, a not-for-profit group aimed at ending modern slavery
• How pregnancy can be an impetus for both creativity and personal rebellion
• Doing something new, how to “be a learner at every stage,” and how to get things done despite feeling totally unqualified
• Pivoting careers, self-doubt and self-worth wobbles when it comes to moving from charitable work to for-profit work, the desire to “do good,” and the realisation that roles, and work, can be “both-and” rather than “either-or”
• Finding your ‘ideal community’ on Instagram, and building space to make that community part of your offline life
• Starting an “accidental business”
• Allowing your values to drive your business, or the work you do in the world
• The inner work that goes into making peace with charging for your services, skills and time
• That women need to have more stakes and autonomy in economics, finance and making money... and that we are to be trusted
• Navigating the world of online influence
• The concept of being influential as an improvement (what it means to be “improvingly influential”)
• Mel’s research into what people consistently find “influential” in both social and personal contexts (three core pillars of intuition, integrity, and impact)
• The value of finding and maintaining our own personal boundaries when sharing online
• The very human desire to “be seen” - and giving ourselves permission to admit this and pursue it

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Mel’s website
• Mel’s business, Assembly
• Mel on Instagram, @melwiggins
• Freedom Acts
• Sara’s podcast episode “Using Instagram for Charity Fundraising, with Creating for Good”
• Sara’s story in Stylist magazine: “How becoming the breadwinner changed my relationship with my husband”
• Tara Mohr (coach and author)

Things We Talk About In This Episode:

• Working with clients in the creative process and their reactions.
• How as humans we respond to visuals in a human way. Narratives that make it seem shallow to care about how things look. Like it’s superficial to care too much about the way you look and that this might mean you don’t have depth.
• Aesthetics are a luxury that comes after the essentials of survival and how you can still care about aesthetics, even if the first priority is survival.
• Creating worlds on Instagram for an escape, or for an imaginary world to exist in.
• Growing up in a third-world country and living without running water. Living and growing up in a country where safety isn’t guaranteed and that these things stay with you.
• That where we start is not always a reflection of where we’re going to end up.
• The importance of the client’s story, understanding and connecting with them.
• Taking lessons from pain. Looking for good and having empathy.
• Struggling with seeing our own magic and the stories we tell ourselves.
• Behind the scenes of Sell Your Sh*t, and how the coaching and lessons had an impact on Susan.
• Learning that our experiences of life are not always everyone else's experiences. That our normal isn’t everyone’s experience.
• How Susan joined Instagram as a way to communicate her journey. That starting to share and mingle with people helped her to feel it’s safe to share online.
• That Instagram gives us chance to take small baby steps into being seen or into vulnerability.
• How being in the spotlight can mean you lose the sense of freedom with your account.
• That Instagram can be like therapy, that the discoveries that come as a result of being in the spotlight can help you to understand what you want. It makes you confront a lot of the stuff that’s hiding under the surface.
• How people can reject your work but not reject you, and how we can get this confused, something that’s covered in Sell Your Sh*t.
• Starting a business on Instagram and running a product business.
• How preparing and getting ready is more about feeling ready, and how this is a process.
• Learning about yourself and how your messages connect with other people is something you can’t rush.
• Designing your brand from the inside out, so you can finally stop tweaking your brand. Challenging the there's one right way theory.

Links mentioned in this episode (and where to find Susan):

• Sell Your Sh*t
• Susan product line
• Susan youtube
• Join Susan’s Email list
• Why you need to join Substack with Farah Store

Where to find Susan:

• Susan's website: bysusanmar.com
• Susan on Instagram: by.susan.mar
• Susan on Youtube: by Susan Mar
• Susan's Email List & Freebies: choose-your-own-journey

Where to find Sara:

• Sara’s website: meandorla.co.uk
• Sara on Instagram: @me_and_orla
• Sara on Twitter: @meandorla
• Sara on Substack: meandorla.substack.com
• One to one business coaching with Sara
• Sell Your Sh*t - enroling now