Rebecca:
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Rebecca Saunders show, your place to discover how to build resilience, craft confidence, and have a huge impact on the world. So today my guest is a very special friend of mine, the amazing Sarah Moore. Sarah is the chief creative at Eleven Lights Media, and she runs a video-first social media agency. Her company has worked with global brands and digital agencies across the world to implement digital strategies across every social platform. What she doesn't know about social, you don't need to. So I've put her on today's show to talk about overcoming imposter syndrome in order to actually create compelling content that will grow your audience and attract new customers. If that's something that you're interested in, no matter what social platform you're on at the moment, it's time to tune in. Let's do it.
Rebecca:
Hello, and welcome to the show.
Sarah:
Hi thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be finally!
Rebecca:
Finally. We finally did it and that music gets me every time. o Sarah, thank you so much for giving up your time to be with me today. I want to deep dive right into it because we could talk about social and creating content for hours. In fact, we have done on multiple occasions. For a little bit of background for everyone listening, sort of what, where has this journey come from for you and why is social, the place that you love to work?
Sarah:
Yeah, I mean, I got my first taste of social media back when I worked in corporate, here in Brisbane, Australia and my digital manager at the time, sort of threw Twitter and Facebook, I believe at me back before it was like really a thing there wasn't social media managers back then there wasn't content creation jobs - it was very much digital. And so I got my taste of it then, and then I went into business with my mum later on and I did all of the digital for that. And I got to a point within that business where I just said, I just want to do the digital stuff for other people. So we dissolved that business and that's when I started essentially Eleven Lights Media, and I really cut my teeth on video and live streaming because back when I started there, I mean, people were doing it, but typically it was like very much a YouTube orientated thing for people who were doing it - and not a lot of people live streaming because it was, it was a very new concept and it wasn't integrated into people's social media strategies yet. So that's like everything in a nutshell, how I got to where I am today.
Rebecca:
So you've really cut your teeth on what some would consider the hardest part of social, which is showing up on video. What was that light like? Did you just roll into that naturally? Or was it a case of, you know, working up to that?
Sarah:
It was a little bit of natural and a little bit of watching other people who I admired and, and what they were doing at the time. So the natural part comes from the fact that while I was at school, I did things like drama and, you know, I've always sung on stage - and so being in the spotlight was attractive to me. I kind of like to being the centre of attention, particularly, you know, at that time in my life, and I thought it would be fun. I also found that because not a tonne of people were doing it there was a lot of white space. So I was watching people on YouTube who'd really dominated all word dominating on that platform and thought, why can't I do it in other places where I might get the cut through that I might not get on YouTube because I don't really understand how YouTube works yet - maybe I could do this on Facebook or at the time it was Periscope, which was attached to Twitter, and things of that nature. So that's kind of where it came from. So yes, a little bit of natural, but a lot more, just a strategic decision.
Rebecca:
And what were you talking about when you were jumping on camera? I mean, you've just started the business. It's something that you're just learning. What were you talking about and what did you really, I guess start the conversations with?
Sarah:
Yeah, so that's a really good question, and I suppose I'll take it in a slightly different direction before I fully answer that. What I was doing was jumping on other people's livestreams at the time and supporting them and learning from them and understanding how the audience was responding to them. And I started to understand really, really quickly the value of educating and giving people really quick wins. So once I started to go live for myself, I just started educating people with the little things that I knew. And sometimes that was as clunky as, you know, holding up the phone and talking, and then turning the camera around so I could fill my screen. And if you've ever done that before, you'll know that cameras don't like filming screens.
Sarah:
Yeah. It's was like, I look back and I cringe and I'm kind of glad that the platform that I used to film on kind of got rid of all the content. I mean, it's sad, but it's also not sad. You know what I mean? I would do things as clunky as that, so people could get their quick win and in the bubble that I was in at the time, I was beginning to be known as this social media person. And it was really through that, that I started to win my first client basically.
Rebecca:
Yeah, amazing, amazing. And I actually want to pull up on one of the points that you said there was, I'm so glad that the content doesn't exist anymore, which I think is really fascinating right. So I tend to talk to clients about the fact that they can't be like other people, they need to find their own vibe, find their own style, - yes draw inspiration from others. But one of the key things I see people doing is trying to be like someone that's been in the industry for maybe 10 years - and I tell them to go back and look at that rough and ready content. Do you think there's value in keeping that content there and documenting that journey? Or is there a point where you go, oh, maybe I should just delete all the stuff, you know, from five years ago?
Sarah:
There's massive value in being able to look back. Like I said, it's sort of, it's nice that it's not there, but it is part of my journey and part of my history - and so there's part of it that's a bit sad for me. Although at the time while I was live streaming, I was also showing up on Facebook, I started to do more of a produced that I was doing myself in, a bedroom in my house - and I've still got all of that. In fact, that's even on YouTube now. So, and I look back at that and I think I would cringe more at that than the live streaming. Because with live streaming there's like an organic process that was taking place, and because I had a community, we were able to bounce off each other and have more of a conversational tone.
Sarah:
But because when I started to cut my teeth on produced content, I remember watching other people's videos and thinking, oh, they talk too fast. They just talk too fast and captioning wasn't a thing back then, there was no auto captions. There was no SRT files, or maybe there was, I didn't know about them, but like you had to just listen. Right. And so I was like, people talk to you about, so I remember making a conscious decision to slow down and I look back at those videos now, and I'm like, I sound like I'm on some kind of, for want of a better description drug that slows me down, like the sounds half speed - and I would never speak that slowly again, how boring it's so embarrassing to watch and even learning how to inflect properly, like my tone of voice. I'm like, oh, that you didn't end that sentence well, because you're trying too hard. So you just didn't end it naturally. You ended it like on an uptick instead of like a downswing and it's so cringe-worthy to watch. So if anyone needs to feel about themselves, just go and watch my really early videos on Youtube
Rebecca:
For a bit of fun. I'm going to put that in the show notes and link to some of your earlier videos, which will be good. Cause I've watched them all, we've known each other for that long. So it's definitely good to tell those stories - I think, I mean, gosh, my videos from that time and we're also just a bit, Ooh, okay. But I was doing it very differently to you. I was doing it as produced content because I had the team and we were doing different styles of content and still being able to bounce ideas and draw inspiration from both streams, I guess. We don't just create content for ourselves, both of us sit and create content for clients of big and small. There's always going to be some level of pushback on whether that is from a video perspective, whether that's from creating regular content. What are the things that people can be doing? You know, what are the first steps of overcoming that? What I'm going to call imposter syndrome that do people really want to hear and see me. Where would you start with that conversation?
Sarah:
I'm probably going to say something that might offend some people, such as my life. I've gotta be honest with you. I think as with anything in business, video, finances, I don't know hiring staff - there comes a point when you just decide, because you're the boss, you're the CEO, you are taking yourself and your business seriously, and video is just another thing. And I almost think that this line of, oh, I hate my voice and I hate what I sound like. It's real, I'm not discounting that, but there is a point where you have to be the grownup to yourself and you have to say, you know what? If this was my child speaking that way about herself, I would go stop. I don't want to hear that coming out of your mouth and we're going to do it. This is a safe place, we're going to practice and we're going to do it until you feel comfortable, but know that that is never going to come until you actually take the action and do it. So as grown adults, running business, running businesses, sorry, we sometimes have to look at ourselves and go stop, make the decision show up and practice, which I know Becca, you preach like anything practice and just continue to do it. It's in the taking action that the perfection, although it's not really perfection, the iteration comes in the taking of the action. But if you never take the action, you can't ever know how great you can be.
Rebecca:
Yeah. Oh, I love that. I'm just going to let that resonate. If you don't take the action, you don't know how great you can be. That's a wallpaper right there. Like I think for above everyone's desk, that's creating content. Um, now, oh gosh, there's so many directions I could take this one in, but you know, as I said before, we are different sort of, sort of roots of video - and I don't want to solely focus this whole piece on video, because imposter syndrome can be, as taking a photo and putting that on social media, and what that looks like. What is the starting point? If we've got - I'm on the edge, I kind of want to do it, but I'm not a hundred percent sure. What's the bare minimum that someone building a personal brand. So well, let's get on the personal brand route first building a personal brand. What is the things that they should be doing without fail to start building that? I mean, I don't think they should be on every single social platform. Would you pick one and go hard on that? Like what would be the direction? Because I think there's a lot of overwhelm out there and definitely a - oh, I've got to be on everything all the time and it's just a bit too much. How do we start overcoming that?
Sarah:
Totally. So, I mean, this conversation could be an hour long. So for anyone who listens to this, please know that this is like trying to eat an elephant in a very small amount of time. So you'll probably hear me say some things and then have more questions and that's fine. You're welcome to come find me and ask those questions. But in terms of personal branding and we've worked with a lot, you know, my business started out as a personal brand for me. You've pivoted from company to personal brand and positioned yourself that way. Where I would start is I would pick two platforms - five years ago I would have said do one and do it well, but media is life these days. It's the lifeblood of the marketing in our business. You can't, especially if you're going to be a personal brand, you can't grow, you can't be found.
Sarah:
You can't be visible. You struggled to make sales. If you're not showing up somewhere, now you might be able to go to networking events and that's fine, but there's a limitation on your capacity with that. There's a limitation on how many events are around. I mean, you get something like COVID thrown into the mix and you can't even go to an event anymore. So you need to be building a presence on line - and so I would say pick two. And then coupled with that line of thought, in terms of platforms, by picking two - pick a medium in which you want to show up. And the thing that I love about video is it does so much legwork for you. So take this, for example, let's say you chose to do podcasts as one of your platforms and then you, let's say you like Instagram, right?
Sarah:
And let's even, let's say you decided to set up a camera like this. Now you've actually got three platforms. So like we're getting ahead of ourselves here. But when you turn on the camera, typically what's happening at the other end is somebody is talking. So now we have a video, now we have the written word, which can show up as a blog post. Then from that, you can take the quotes and turn them into images and you don't need to be a graphic designer these days to do this. I mean, ultimately we want to get our visual brands to a place where we're really satisfied with them, and that can mean outsourcing at some point, but it doesn't need to be the starting point. The starting point is for you to show up, if you want to be a personal brand and build your business or multiple businesses or multiple arms of a business on you, people need to see you.
They need to hear you. They need to have that communication with you because most communication is actually not what we say, right? It's in our body language. And there's actually a stat that goes with that, but I don't know it so I can't share it - but for people to hear the tone in our voice, to hear us explain things in our own terminology, to have us show up every day and start being that constant and start being that rock on which they can rely on in a particular area. That's really, really powerful. And that's why I love video because I truly believe when you can get consistent with it - it makes social media a lot easier.
Rebecca:
A hundred percent - and this for me, this show is Testament to that, what you've just said. It's filming the video, putting that out as, livestream and prerecorded content, creating all those social snippets, creating the podcasts. We've got the blog posts, living and breathing it. And in fact, the day that this is launching, and if you're listening to this podcast on the day that we've dropped it, which is the 2nd of November, 2021 - it's the first day for me launching The Video Accelerator course, right? Like it's the six week program, which I know you're coming into for a couple of bonus sessions. So Sarah did mention that this is an hour long conversation to deep dive into this, and I know she's got some tools and roadmaps. So if you want to spend that time with Sarah and get those questions, she is running a bonus session inside The Video Accelerator on, I think we go deciding whether it was week five or six, whether it was going to be in the Live segment or the Leveraging your Magic segment, or maybe a combination of the two, if we're really nice to her she might come twice.
Rebecca:
But if you want that, the notes of that are in the show notes as well, because I highly recommend deep diving that with her. It's just, yeah. The amount you can do with a little bit of content if you do it right - it's pretty phenomenal. So that's for a small business owner, individual brands. What about small businesses? You know, where perhaps you don't want to be the face of your organisation, but you may want team members to be like, how do we approach, how do we approach that from, I guess, a starting perspective, social media in a business is hard, right? It's hard when you've got a team involved.
Sarah:
Yeah, absolutely. I think it really depends on the type of business. So if we're talking service-based business and you don't want to show up, I would, again, this is like so individually based, but I would sit down with someone and question them as to why they don't want to show up. And if it's relatively superficial excuses, like to call them that we talked about the start, like I don't like my face and my voice and it's not my thing - and like at some point you just need to show up it's your brand. Right? And I think that if you've got team members who can show up, I'm not a huge fan of putting everyone on camera straight away. I think if you've got someone that's just like a really great character and personality and they love doing videos and they can do all the educational stuff, put them on camera.
Sarah:
But I think when you put other people as the face of your brand, essentially you have to make sure that your culture is solid and that the things you stand for are very much communicated through that person and that that person is reliable. Because here's the thing, like if you have someone who everyone starts to love showing up on your social for 12 months, and then they quit and then you put someone else there, that's almost confusing messaging because you're literally building your brand on other people. And so I do get nervous when people want to integrate others too much. I think over time it can make sense to bring in a team. But if we're talking, starting stages, I'd much rather see the business owner or somebody who has a real rooted commitment to the business showing up. If that's a business partner, someone who just is there for the long haul, we don't necessarily want our staff doing that if they don't have a vested interest in the longterm vision of the company.
Rebecca:
Yeah a hundred percent - and that could be a downfall too though couldn't it? In terms of not having the right paperwork in place to say that you can use that content, if they do leave the organisation, that's where I've seen a lot of things fall down for people as well.
Sarah:
We have had a number of videos that we've shot for clients where they haven't had the right paperwork in place and we've produced the final video. And in that time, a very short amount of time, the whole slew of people have quit or someone's quit and said, I don't want, I don't want my face to be in that. So we've had to recut video at their cost. But then we actually had, we've had a circumstance where like a number of people have left and there's almost like no one left in the video, so had to scrap it. And that's thousands of dollars of work, but that went down the drain because paperwork wasn't in place, mind you, the lesson was learned, and that won't happen again - and it hasn't happened again, but it is something to be very mindful of.
Rebecca:
Yeah, it's something that I do think a lot of people can find themselves tripping over. If they're not aware of that, it's something that as business owners, you're very overwhelmed, particularly now coming out of COVID and constantly having to show up and be there - and it's very easy to try and delegate that to a team member or have others show up on your behalf almost. So we err on the side of caution, I think when it comes to popping team members in content.
Sarah:
Something else that I would add as well is typically, especially if you're in those early years of your business, the business is built around usually your skillset, especially if we're service-based businesses. And I know a lot of your audience is they're not so much the e-comm side of things. I think it's easier if you're e-comm to stay out of the video, if you're doing gift hampers and things like that, and you just get to show the products and the packaging of it, and people love that! And then every now and then the owner shows up and people love that, but really they're not in it, but for service-based businesses, you're an accountant you're in finance, they're very tender subjects. And part of what people are looking for inherently is trust, right? And part of how we learn to trust people is we spend time with them and we're able to ask questions or they're able to even answer the questions that we would have asked if we weren't shy about asking them.
Sarah:
So I would really question yourself deep down as to why you wouldn't show up, especially in the early stages. If you are in a service-based industry, I think you're doing yourself a disservice to not show up in that capacity. And by the way, we're talking about video here today and I don't want, and like, I know that that's Becca's thing. It's very much a large part of what we do as well, but I don't want anyone to go and say, Sarah said, I have to do this because I am a firm believer that there is a myriad of things that work. So if you are just like at that point where you just like, I'm just not ready for video, do a podcast then, write blogs, content matters - and the more that you practice that muscle, the more that you'll start to see wins, and then you'll have the courage to try something out.
Sarah:
Right. But you do need to show up somewhere with your face. Even that if that's as simple as Instagram stories, you know, it is video. And I know I just said, don't do video, but I'm talking like fully produced video if that's really out of your comfort zone. But by showing up on Instagram stories each day, you're going to actually build that confidence muscle. You're not going to be scared of your voice. You're not going to be scared of what you look like. You're going to realise that you have a community - you're not gonna stop building community. You're gonna realise people actually want to hear from you. And you are creating confidence and building a skillset in yourself that then translates to something like this on camera that you can do in a more produced manner with a script and lighting and makeup and all the wonderful things that produce video.
Rebecca:
Yeah. All of those things. And I've love that. And I think, you know, wrapping, it's always a good place to sort of wrap it up. And I say that with the pun intended, as we're running into the Christmas season too, right? The festive season of closing businesses and all that kind of stuff. What are the hacks? I want to actually land on two things here. Number one, we've got, show up, do something, have that courage, build that muscle. We've got that one thing. Is that something that people should be doing, trying to do on a weekly basis? A monthly basis? If it's one small step for them to start, no matter what platform - is that a weekly thing they could be doing?
Sarah:
Yeah, I think so. If you can, if you're good at writing content or like putting out other content and you really want to step into the video space, all you need to do is just start changing one of those pieces of content to the words coming out of your mouth instead of out of your hand, you know what I mean? Or like if you're gonna put up a photo and write a caption, just speak it to the camera instead, and practice it. And you can do that on your iPhone, stand in front of a video to have good lighting on your video, stand in front of a window to have good lighting on your face. And if it doesn't work, delete it and do it again. What I would say is don't overdo it to the point that it sounds like you are memorising it because that's, I think that's a little bit of a recipe for disaster. But just switch out your content, like it's not, it's not terribly hard. I mean, there's many other things we can talk about in terms of content creation, but you know, if you have a thought about something, expand on that thought, but just do it to the camera.
Rebecca:
Just turn to camera or just do it into the microphone, really, if you're really opposed to doing the camera thing and you know, the wrapping of this content, the wrapping of it breaking for holidays for a break, cause we've all, you know, finally allowed out on about and to do things. What are the best things that people can do in terms of bulk creating content? Is that something that is potentially dangerous? Is it something that you love? What's your opinion on that?
Sarah:
For many years I would fly by the seat of my pants as content, as you know, we're very big believers in batching where we're currently about to hand in December content calendars for all of our clients. So, I'm a very big believer in getting ahead. The reason for this is because when it's all mapped out and it's ready to go, then the pressure is off. And if you have a bad day, a bad week about whatever, you don't have to fully show up in that energy. That being said, if something topical happens or something burning on you to talk about, you just switch out that content or you just add it in - that's the brilliance of looking ahead. So I'm a big believer in doing it and a quick hack for you. If you're like, I can't even think about how I would make a month's worth of content.
Sarah:
Go back through your Instagram insights, look at the things that have gotten you the most reach, the most engagement you can filter by it with these things the most follows, right? Look at your Instagram stories that have performed the best and go and remake that content in a new way. Maybe it was a picture last time. And you can talk about it as a video, your audience don't remember. I read a statistic the other day saying, oh, I can't even remember it. I quoted it to another client, but basically as the information filters down, people remember like 10% of like the last thing that you did. And then I don't know, it's some ridiculous stuff they don't remember. So you need to constantly be sharing a message. So something did really, really well for you reshare it, just reshare it in a new way.
Sarah:
And then batch out that content, and if you reshare that one thing, it doesn't mean you can't do that in multiple ways. Do a video on it, break it down into a little infographic in Canva. Maybe it's like you said, busting out a microphone or your voice memo on your iPhone - and then putting that over an image in the Headliner App, look up Headliner App. That's a really easy way to put audio over just a still image. I think you can even put it over video if you had like a video of you running in a field on your camera or something like that. And it's just like easy little hacks like that to just show up a little bit differently and mix things up and not have to reinvent the wheel. In fact, December is one of the best times for you to be able to look back over the year, see what's performed and retell those stories, based on your analytics - and then you don't have to stress.
Rebecca:
I love that. I love that and I will be putting those apps and those tips and tricks into the show notes for everyone listening. Thank you. We're out of time, we are we're out of time. We, I told you we could talk for hours. And we will be talking again inside The Video Accelerator, but Sarah, for those people who are listening and watching, where can they find you?
Sarah:
My website is ElevenLightsMedia.com.au - but if you want to get in touch with me or follow me, I am most active on Instagram. That means that I can put up a post in a month, but I love stories. Yeah, I'm on stories a lot - and we'll be ramping up in YouTube in 2022 again, so you can also go there. There's a tonne of free educational information on our Eleven Lights Media channel.
Rebecca:
Fantastic. And we'll put some of those highlighted bits on the show notes. People can have direct links to what Sarah's talks about on her social media channels. Again, thank you so much, Sarah, for joining me on the show. That is a wrap on another episode. Thank you so much for tuning in. I really hope you've taken away some golden nuggets from this one. I know I have. I'm going to be checking out that Headliner App, and that we're all now one step closer to having a huge impact on the world. If you have any questions about today's episode, please drop your comments in the chat below. And if you'd like to know more about what I do for you, come check me out at RebeccaSaunders.com. We'll see you next time on the Rebecca Saunders show. Thanks for watching.