New Year. New Me. New Social Media Plan?
Happy New Year! I hope you had a fun and safe end to 2018 and are enjoying a relaxing New Year's Day.
I've been on vacation since before Christmas so I'm trying today to make sure that my life is a bit more organized before I go back to work on Thursday. I had a huge plan of what I was going to accomplish and well, it didn't happen. As someone who works from home and doesn't spend a lot of time in direct contact with people I ended up sick the day after Christmas and New Year's Eve was the first day I didn't feel like I needed to be changed to the Vick's Vaporizer for most of the day. Needless to say, my New Year's was less champagne, more NyQuil. I might need a vacation from that 'vacation' so I can accomplish what I'd planned on doing in the first place.
I don't know about you but I spent quite a bit of time in December setting some personal and professional goals for 2019. I hate resolutions. To me a New Year's Resolution is something we all forget about by the 15th of January and we're back to the same life we had before. I am however a goal-setter, an organizer, and someone who loves tracking things with a good spreadsheet. I have a few personal and professional goals that I'm tracking this year.
My personal goals are things like read more, which I have three different goals for. I'm using baseball references for them because I'm already itching for spring training to get here. The Walk Goal is read a book a month plus read all of the Harry Potter books again, the Double Goal is read two books a month plus Harry Potter, and the Grand Slam is a book a week with Harry Potter. Can I accomplish any of those? Yes of course. I love to read but sometimes I get caught up in a binge of The West Wing for the 4,000th time and forget to open a book. So I'm trying to read before bed instead of thinking "just one more episode" is a good plan. I want to drink more water and I'm committed to setting smaller goals with the eventual goal being the target amount of water I want to drink in a day.
My biggest professional goals are:
- Start treating HeyGiud like a client, which means writing the content calendar for myself the way I do for every client an execute it the same way I would for a client. This also means setting aside time each week to focus on my social media.
- Launch a newsletter. I want to provide information for business owners, nonprofits, and individuals that helps them manage their social media, learn new ways to use different networks to reach their market and provide value to people whether they are a client or not.
- Build a plan and stick with the plan. I started doing some block scheduling of my days in November and it worked really well for the remainder of the year. My goal is to tweak that and perfect it so that I can be efficient and effective this year. I've also started using the amazing app Wunderlist for all of my to-do lists and goals. It's been such a HUGE help. No I don't get a kickback for saying that I just like letting people know about things that can help with efficiency.
- Schedule at least one full office day per week where I don't have meetings, calls, or any kind of interruptions. This gives me the ability to make sure I get all of my office stuff handled when I can focus on it and not in between meetings and events.
- Create a better work life balance. This vacation was the first part of that. I'm also planning on trying to take one full weekend off each month where I don't look at email, don't schedule a post, don't alter a post, and make sure that I don't do anything work related in that weekend. I'm also going to try for at least one week day a month as well. That way I can get everything I need to for personal stuff that should happen during the week done.
- Spend time each Sunday getting my week scheduled so that when I go to bed on Sunday night I don't feel anxious. Despite working for myself I still get that Sunday night before school and I didn't do my homework feeling. I tried this a few times in December and it really helped so I'm making it a weekly thing this year.
I want to make sure that as you go into 2019 you feel as confident about your social media as you can. I know that it's often a huge goal for business owners, nonprofits and individuals to have a plan for their social media each month and to follow it to make their work life online a little easier.
Here's how I can help!
- Download January's Holiday List. This is a one page, easy to reference sheet with a few fun hashtag holidays you can use to add a little fun into your marketing plan.
- Sign up for the newsletter. When it launches it will provide you with valuable information that includes tips and tricks for your social media, how to cut down on the time you spend doing social media, and information about awesome networking events coming up each month. I have a few other ideas up my sleeve for this and I'm working to hopefully have it launch during the first quarter of the year.
- Set up a free initial consultation! If you aren't a current or former client I offer a 1 hour free initial consultation. It's a chance to meet, talk social, and get to know each other. It's also a chance to enjoy some delicious coffee from one of my favorite local coffee shops, Freedom Blend Coffee! I have fallen in love with Freedom Blend and think it's the perfect location for these meetings. (Without an office this year all of my initial consultations will be held here unless a different location is specifically requested.) Sometimes the best thing you can do for your business is learn when to contract someone else to help you. Whether it's just needing someone to help come up with a plan monthly, quarterly, or by project I can help with that. If you need to hand over the keys to the kingdom and have someone else manage your social media I can absolutely take that off your plate and give you a chance to focus on the parts of your business you love most.
I know that 2019 will be an amazing year for all of us and I can't wait to see where social media takes us!
See you on social!
Annie
