As of February 19, 2025, any new Facebook Live live videos will only be available for 30 days before being automatically deleted from the platform.
This is a dramatic departure from Facebook’s historical default of storing all content until a user chooses to delete it.
If you regularly livestream onto any Facebook property — Groups included — this change affects you! While Facebook’s announcement specifically mentions Profiles and Pages, all live videos are technically attached to either your Profile or Page — even those streamed directly into groups.
What This Means for Your Content
Here’s what you need to know:
New live videos (streamed after February 19, 2025) will only be stored for 30 days
Existing live videos (streamed before February 19, 2025) will be selected for deletion in waves.
Facebook users will be notified by email and within the app when their live videos are due for deletion, with approximately 3 months to take action
All live videos on the platform are affected. This includes those in Groups, since they’re attached to your profile or page
Facebook is likely making this change to clear server space, which is expensive for any company to maintain.
How to Download Your Facebook Live Videos
Fortunately, downloading your videos is fairly straightforward:
Go to your Facebook profile
Click on your profile picture
Navigate to “Activity Log”
Filter by “Live Videos”
For each video you want to save, click the three dots and select “Download”
The video will download to your device with an automatically generated filename (not the original title), so you may want to rename files as you save them to keep track of your content.
This method is preferred because every livestream video you’ve hosted will be included in your Activity Log, no matter where you streamed it to. Alternatively, you can download the videos you want directly from each Group, Profile and Page. But that process will take longer.
You Activity Log will list all of your live videos, no matter where they were hosted.
What to Do With Your Downloaded Videos
Once you’ve downloaded your videos, you have several options:
Upload them as pre-recorded videos on Facebook — There’s no guarantee how long these will be stored
Convert shorter clips into Reels — Facebook seems to be encouraging this
Host them on another platform like YouTube or Vimeo
Store them in your own archives for future use
Your decision will be based on the role live video played in your overall Facebook and business strategy.
Stay Updated on Platform Changes
Social media platforms are constantly evolving their policies, especially regarding video content. If you’re regularly hosting live videos as part of your community building strategy, you’ll want to stay informed about these types of changes.
For more tips on building and maintaining thriving online communities despite platform changes, join my Facebook group,The Secret to Thriving Online Communities. We regularly discuss strategies for navigating platform changes while keeping your community engaged and growing.
Have you received notification about your live videos? What’s your plan for saving your content? Feel free to share your approach in the comments.
When was the last time you scrolled through Facebook and actually saw posts from your friends?
If you’re like most people, your feed has gradually transformed into a wasteland of random suggested posts, ads for products you don’t need, and content from strangers — with occasional updates from people you actually care about.
This isn’t an accident or a personal attack. It’s by design.
Social media platforms use sophisticated algorithms designed to maximize the time you spend scrolling. Unfortunately, what keeps you scrolling isn’t necessarily what brings you joy or connection.
The Broken Promise of Social Media
Remember when we all joined Facebook to stay connected with friends and family? To see photos of babies growing up and college friends getting married? To maintain relationships despite distance?
Somewhere along the way, especially for those of us who use these platforms for business, that experience got hijacked. The feed became cluttered with content engineered to keep us engaged — but not necessarily content we value.
As we fell into the habit of passively consuming content (scrolling without interacting), the algorithms interpreted our behavior as disinterest. When you see a friend’s post and think “how cute!” but keep scrolling without a like or comment, Facebook doesn’t know you enjoyed it. It only knows you didn’t take any action on the platform after seeing it.
Over time, the algorithm shows you less of that content in favor of posts that generate reactions, even if they’re from strangers or inciting high conflict.
Taking Back Control of Your Facebook Feed
The good news? You can retrain these algorithms to show you what you actually want to see. It takes a little time and intentional effort, but in about five days of consistent curation, you’ll notice a dramatic difference.
I recorded a step-by-step tutorial showing exactly how to take back control of your feed:
Now, if you want to wipe your feed clean — seeing nothing but a beautifully decluttered landscape — you’ll want to skip the steps below and use something like the News Feed Eradicator Chrome Extension.
The first step is aggressively weeding out unwanted content:
Hide irrelevant ads — Click the three dots in the corner of any ad, select “Hide ad,” and choose “Irrelevant to me” as the reason.
Access your ad preferences — Go to Settings > Ad Preferences to see which topics and advertisers are targeting you.
Opt out of ad topics — Under Ad Topics, select “See less” for categories you don’t want in your feed.
Block specific advertisers — Review the list of advertisers you’ve seen and hide the ones you’re not interested in.
Decline suggested posts — When you see content from accounts you don’t follow, click “Not interested” or “See fewer posts like this.”
Part 2: Show Facebook What You DO Want to See
Just as important as weeding out the unwanted is actively signaling what content matters to you:
Prioritize important connections — Go to Settings > Content Preferences > Favorites and add people whose content you want to see first.
Respond to Facebook’s prompts — When Facebook asks if you’re interested in seeing more from someone, click “Interested” for people you care about.
Engage deliberately — Leave meaningful comments and reactions (especially the “heart” reaction) on posts from people you want to see more from.
Break passive consumption habits — Instead of scrolling past posts you enjoy, take an extra second to like or comment.
Why This Matters for Business Owners
If you run an online community or use social media for business, this matters even more. When your personal feed becomes cluttered, you miss important updates from clients, colleagues, and collaborators. You might even miss mentions of your business or questions from potential customers.
Plus, understanding how these algorithms work helps you create more effective content for your own audience. If your followers aren’t seeing your posts, they can’t engage with them — no matter how brilliant your content or how much they love you.
Give It Five Days
The key to success is consistency. Spend about five minutes daily for the next five days actively curating your feed. Hide what you don’t want, engage with what you do want, and be intentional about how you interact with content.
By the end of the week, you’ll likely notice a significant shift in what appears in your feed. You’ll see more posts from friends you’ve missed, fewer irrelevant suggestions, and a more fulfilling social media experience overall.
The algorithm can only learn from your behavior, not your thoughts. You have to show it what matters to you.
Beyond the Basic Cleanup
Once you’ve reclaimed your feed, consider these additional strategies:
Repeat these steps on all devices — If you’re like most people, you have a primary device you use for social media, usually a phone or computer. Once you take these cleanup measures on that device, repeat them on your secondary device because social media web apps are often different from their mobile versions.
Regularly check in on favorite profiles — Visit the pages of people you care about most to catch anything you might have missed.
Use lists or favorites — Create custom friend lists for different groups or mark your closest connections as favorites.
Schedule regular cleanup sessions — Set a calendar reminder to repeat this process every few months to keep your feed from degrading again.
Be mindful of your engagement patterns — Remember that every click teaches the algorithm something about your preferences.
Do this on all social media platforms — Though the specific steps may be different, you can curate your feed on every algorithm-driven social network by taking the two-step approach of telling the platform what you want to see more and less of. This works on Instagram, LinkedIn, X, Pinterest, etc.
Let Me Know How It Goes!
I’d love to hear if these strategies help improve your social media experience. Drop a comment below, or join my community attonya.link/group for more discussions about building meaningful connections online.
If you’d like more community-building tips and resources, you’ll find plenty here in the section marked Guides.
Managing conflict in online communities makes a lot of professionals want to vomit.
If you’re like many good people on social media, the thought of coming under attack for something you’ve said — or something you didn’t say but someone inferred from your post — is enough to make you want to hide under your bed and gorge on ice cream.
As a professional community strategist and manager, I’ve seen more than my fair share of conflict on just about every social media platform you can imagine. Free communities, paid communities, Facebook groups, membership sites — conflict shows up everywhere.
Online Conflict is Practically Unavoidable
Conflict is inevitable. Just like roses usually come with thorns, it’s tough to have an active, thriving community that doesn’t somehow, somewhere come with conflicts.
They’re natural. They’re normal.
I’ve had conflict bubble up in a community because a member mistook the community leader and me as mother and daughter. While I jokingly replied that my client’s children were younger and much more adorable than me, the member went into defense mode. They leaned in hard to convince everyone that we were to blame for their error:
We were standing too close together to not be related
We both wore glasses and had curly hair
To them, it was obvious that we were more than client and service provider. Meanwhile, it was an uncomfortable situation for other members who were confused by the refusal to let the situation die.
Lesson learned: You can’t please everyone all the time. But that doesn’t mean you have to armor up or gird your loins like you’re preparing for battle every time you post something online. That’s no way to live and will interfere with the authentic connections you deserve to have online.
What you need is preparation and a plan.
Your Three Choices When Conflict Arises
When conflict surfaces online, it’s normal to feel backed into a corner with only one way out. But the truth is you have three choices:
Ignore it — Wait and see if it goes away on its own
Shut it down — Close comments, delete comments, ban users, or leave the group if it’s not your community
Monitor and mediate — Allow the conflict cycle to complete itself while staying ready to step in if needed
In most cases, I find the monitor-and-mediate approach most effective, but I’ve had years of practice handling online conflict. Few people are as comfortable managing tense online conversations as I am. But if you want to learn the monitor-and-mediate approach, keep reading. I’m breaking it down for you below.
The Art of Monitoring and Mediating
After managing countless conflicts across various online communities, I’ve developed a tried-and-true process that works in most situations.
Here’s my detailed approach to monitoring and mediating conflict:
1. Allow the Conflict Cycle to Complete
Every online conflict follows a natural arc, much like a story:
Initial trigger (the post or comment)
Conflict ramps up as more people engage
Reaches a peak of activity and emotion
Begins to decline as interest wanes
Eventually fades into community memory
Many conflicts resolve themselves within 24 hours. The first day indicates how things will go in most cases. But timing varies. Some situations build slowly and peak for weeks, while others flare up and die down in a matter of hours.
Rarely does a conflict become so significant that it’s remembered long-term, but it can happen. Usually, though, that happens with larger brands. But even then, what seems major in the moment naturally dies down over time.
Think about it. Do you remember the “United Breaks Guitars” scandal? How about the discovery that UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi spent at least $175 million university dollars to scrub negative posts from the internet related to a campus pepper-spray incident? Likely not. But these were intense case studies when I was in grad school, big enough that they made their way into public relations and crisis communications textbooks, research journal articles and professional case studies.
The key to effective monitoring is finding the right balance. You want to stay informed without becoming obsessive. Here’s how I approach it:
For Fast-Moving Situations…
Set up notifications for key terms or threads
Check several times an hour
Take screenshots of concerning comments (they might get deleted)
Track who’s involved and how the conversation is evolving
For Slower-Building Tension…
Check in a couple times daily
Watch for pattern changes
Pay attention to member reactions and engagement
Note if new people are joining the conversation
Stay ready to step in, but don’t rush. If you have a strong culture, you’ll find that the community will rise up to police itself – but they need the space to work things out.
3. Step In Strategically
When you do decide to intervene, how you do it matters as much as when. Here’s my approach:
Frame the Intervention Positively — Start with something like: “What I love about this group is that we all have different perspectives and we feel comfortable working through our disagreements. That takes courage.”
Set Clear Boundaries — Remind members that while this issue matters now, it may not be central to why your community exists. I often say something like: “Let’s remember that just last week, we all liked each other. Maybe we can keep liking each other while we work through this.”
Match Your Community’s Tone — Your intervention style should align with your community culture. In some groups, I can say, “How old are we? We don’t need to call each other names.” But in others, that would feel condescending and make things worse. So know your audience and adjust your tone and style of response accordingly.
Use Diffusion Techniques
Sometimes the best approach is to validate multiple perspectives while redirecting the energy. Here’s an example from a cookbook author I observed:
When conflict arose between vegans and plant-based eaters over honey, she stepped in with: “John here is one of the good guys. He owns more of my cookbooks than anyone, and yes, he’s right. Honey isn’t vegan. And you all are also right. This is a whole foods plant-based group where honey is okay to discuss. Both things can be true.”
4. Be Ready to End It
Sometimes, despite your best efforts, you need to take more decisive action:
Delete comments that violate community guidelines
Close comments on inflammatory posts
Ban users who consistently create problems
Remove posts that are causing ongoing harm
If you do need to end things abruptly, be prepared to:
Explain your actions clearly
Stand firm on your decisions
Handle potential backlash about censorship
Support team members who may face criticism
The key is to always act in alignment with your community’s stated values and guidelines, even when making tough decisions.
Think Before You Respond — Put more thought into your conflict response than you might have put into your initial comment.
Frame Rules of Engagement — Be clear about how disagreement should happen in your community.
Consider Context — What works in one community might feel condescending in another.
Be Ready to End It — Sometimes you need to close comments or delete posts, but be prepared for potential backlash about censorship. Humans are imperfectly human. You can control your behavior but not how others perceive it.
Own Your Mistakes — If you need to delete a problematic post, acknowledge it publicly: “I deleted my earlier post because [reason]. I’m not trying to pretend it didn’t happen, but I can’t leave it up to continue causing harm.”
Moving Forward
Preparation doesn’t mean paranoia. Having a plan for handling conflict allows you to build and maintain a thriving online community without living in fear of the next blow-up.
Eliminating conflict is impossible. But you can handle it in a way that maintains community health and respects all involved. Sometimes that means stepping in quickly, other times it means letting the community work it out themselves while you watch the magic happen.
What matters most is staying true to your community’s purpose while keeping the lines of communication open. After all, the most engaged communities are the ones that handle conflict with grace and clarity.
Every day, I encounter talented creators, business owners, and communicators who feel trapped in social media paralysis. They know they should be showing up online, but something holds them back.
Maybe it’s the writer who spends hours crafting the perfect Instagram caption, only to never publish it.
Or the coach who watches trending reels for hours, feeling increasingly overwhelmed by what they “should” be doing.
Or the speaker who’s been told they need 10,000 followers before they’ll be taken seriously.
The result? Valuable voices remain silent. Important messages go unshared. And authentic connection opportunities are lost to perfectionism and fear.
Why Imperfect Action Matters Now More Than Ever
The cost of social media paralysis goes beyond missed opportunities.
When genuine voices stay silent, spaces get filled with noise instead of value. Your ideal audience misses out on the unique perspective only you can provide. Meanwhile, the mental toll of feeling “behind” or “not good enough” grows, creating a cycle of avoidance that becomes harder to break.
Waiting for perfection doesn’t serve anyone — not you, not your community, and certainly not your mission.
Reframing Social Media Success
The very things most people stress about on social media — perfect timing, trending formats, viral potential — matter far less than they think. What truly matters is showing up consistently and authentically, even if imperfectly.
Think about it: Just because social media never sleeps doesn’t mean you don’t get to.
And just because experts say you need to spend 10 hours a week on social media doesn’t mean that’s realistic for your life right now. Following trends and common practices isn’t the key to social media success. Doing what you can sustain consistently is what makes the difference between those who grow on social media and those who don’t.
The Sustainable Social Media Solution
Instead of chasing perfection, focus on these core principles:
Start Small and Safe
Begin with neutral, non-controversial content
Build your “posting muscle” gradually
Focus on consistency over volume
Break Down the Process
Separate ideation from creation
Batch similar tasks (like visual creation)
Schedule dedicated social media time with clear boundaries
Build Relationships First
Engage meaningfully on others’ content
Create genuine connections through comments
Let community guide your content
Progress Over Perfection
Post imperfectly rather than not at all
Focus on serving your audience, not impressing peers
Measure success by engagement, not just metrics
If you find yourself losing precious time on social media due to distraction, consider tools like Newsfeed Eradicator to help you focus.
Balancing the Practical and the Ideal Drives Success
As someone who’s been managing online communities since the MySpace era, I’ve experienced nearly every social media fear imaginable. From having people track down my children’s school to facing threats of professional sabotage, I understand the very real anxieties that come with putting yourself out there online. Yet I continue to show up, build communities, and help others do the same — not because I’m fearless, but because I’ve learned that imperfect action beats perfect inaction every time.
At the same time, when these really scary things happened to me, I pulled back a bit. Though experts advised me to capitalize on the controversy to grow my audience, it didn’t feel right at the time. So instead of posting controversial hot takes or weepy displays of vulnerability, I went to the opposite end of the spectrum. I posted the most basic, bland content you could imagine for a bit until it felt safe to step back into my true self.
Authors also experience a lot of pressure to be everywhere all at the same time, especially when launching a new book. The sales a book gets in the first 30 days is considered a leading indicator of its sales potential for the following 12 months.
But authors are human just like the rest of us, and their capacity varies from person to person. While some of my clients will shelve everything not related to their book for several months to give it their full attention, others are unwilling to make that sacrifice.
One of my clients, for instance, limited herself to just 15 minutes of social media engagement three times a week during her book launch. Despite the minimal time invested, she still achieved the results she had hoped for. She maintained meaningful connections with her readers because she used those minutes intentionally.
What Might Be Holding You Back
Often, what holds most business owners back from doing what they need to do on social media to serve their ideal audience well is fear. Every single one of us has an internal critic that can convince us it’s unsafe to assert our expertise publicly.
For most of us, the fears boil down to:
What if someone is mean?
What if I do it — whatever IT is — wrong?
Who do I think I am?
Counteracting those fears requires you to have a neutralizing response. Here are my neutralizing responses to the fears mentioned above.
“But what if someone says something mean?”
There aren’t as many mean people in the world as we fear, but nobody is immune to the effects of haters and trolls. It’s not a question of whether you’ll get negative comments, only a matter of when. The important thing to remember is you always have choices. With negative comments, you have the choice between addressing them directly, using them as teaching moments, or letting them stand as a testimony to the commenter’s character.
“I don’t understand all the trends and features.”
Nobody understands every trend or feature on social media. Platforms change their practices too quickly, and how humans interact online is constantly evolving.
Your only job is to do the best you can given the information and time you have available to you at the time. Rather than allow yourself to be overwhelmed by everything you could do, practice intentional constraint. Pick one platform that makes sense in your brain and focus on learning how to use it well. Once you get to a point where you feel like you’re excelling at being consistent and connecting with your target market, then you can consider expanding your focus. Quality engagement on one platform beats scattered presence across many.
“I’m afraid of appearing prideful or self-promoting.”
Humility is a lovely character trait, but hiding in the shadows prevents your target market from ever discovering you exist. Sharing your message is the only way to serve your audience. Without you talking about your experience, they will either continue to believe they are all alone in what they experience or they will gravitate toward someone else who speaks to their needs. Focus on how you can help others through your content, and you won’t come across as prideful.
Ready to Break Free from Social Media Paralysis?
When you’re overwhelmed to the point of paralysis, the best course of action is to start with one single step in the right direction. Maybe for you, it’s commenting thoughtfully on three posts in your field. Maybe it’s spending 15 minutes drafting content ideas for 15 minutes — even if you don’t take the next step to post those drafts. Choose something that feels doable for you.
Need more support? Check out the annual community content calendar, which is filled with content suggestions and specialized training to support your success.
You Don’t Have to Let Fear Prevent You from Serving Your Community
The best social media advice I can give is this: do what you would do if nobody was looking. Post what’s in your heart to post. And if you don’t want to post, that’s fine too. There are other ways to build your platform or business.
Don’t forget the fact that most “expert” advice comes from people who built their following in a different era with different tools. What worked for them might not work for you, and that’s okay. Your path doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s.
One post won’t change the world, but enough good people posting enough good content can create meaningful change over time. Your voice matters. Your message matters. And showing up imperfectly is far better than not showing up at all.
Start small, be consistent with what you can manage, and let your impact grow organically from there. The world needs your authentic voice more than it needs another perfect post.
This listing of resources for online community managers contains affiliate links, which means we might make a small commission from any purchase you make at no extra cost to you.
If you’re running a group, you’re going to need help. Though hiring human help is nice, it’s not always necessary. There are essential tools and resources for online community managers that save so much time, it’ll feel like you’ve hired help – even if you’re a one-person show.
No matter the type, active management of your community is vital to fostering healthy engagement, a positive culture and connection among members. But you only have 24 hours in a given day.
From content scheduling and analytics to community-building strategies and beyond, these resources will empower you to create and maintain vibrant, successful online communities without devoting every minute of your day to life online.
While Facebook Live Producer lacks the polish of third-party streaming services that support branded frames and lower-thirds for your livestream, it works well within Facebook groups, doesn’t cost a dime, and doesn’t require much technical skill or training.
Video Resources for Community Managers
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but nothing compares to video when it comes to building meaningful relationships with people you have never met in real life.
Video helps to build deeper connections within communities because tone is hard to read via typed text. What is written with the intent of wry wit by one person can be perceived as judgmental, sarcastic and outright mean to another.
If you love video, you probably already have a favorite app or software program. For several years (2019 to 2024), I swore by StreamYard for live video streaming throughout social media. Since, their major price increase in 2024, that’s no longer the case.
Facebook’s decision to close its API for Groups in April 2024 reduced the value of third-party livestreaming apps for most community managers. Third-party apps are still the way to go for multi-streaming (livestreaming to multiple platforms at the same time) on public-facing properties (Facebook Page, YouTube Channel, LinkedIn Profile, etc.). But if livestreaming into your group is your top priority, the investment in a third-party application might not make sense.
Facebook Live Producer
Recommending Facebook Live Producer for livestreaming in Groups or elsewhere on Facebook is not something I thought I’d do again since the feature went wonky for me back in 2020. For two straight years, I couldn’t access the feature at all. But with the API closure, I had to learn to make it work – especially when testing consistency around going live every day.
The biggest benefits of Live Producer are that it’s free and easy to initiate from computer or mobile device.
Other benefits:
You can pin a comment to the top of the comments feed under your video (great way to highlight a call to action)
You can schedule your livestream in your group as an event
Issues I have with Live Producer:
You can’t have an on-screen guest if you livestream from your computer. To livestream with a guest, you must initiate the livestream from your phone. Your guest must be watching the livestream from their photo to request to join the broadcast or for you to invite them to join the broadcast with you. Sound annoying? It is.
You can’t toggle back and forth between direct-to-camera and screen share. If you want to share your screen for a tutorial, you must initiate that before the broadcast begins. This is the feature I miss the most with third-party apps.
Even if you type out a title and description before you go live, you have to do it again when you initiate the broadcast — and the formatting doesn’t stick. You have to edit the post after the livestream ends to add spaces between paragraphs and any other formatting you want.
If you’re already paying for Zoom, explore its livestreaming options to see if they meet your needs. It’s fairly easy to connect Zoom to your Facebook Page, YouTube and Twitch channels. The “Custom Streaming Service” option will allow you to use RTMP to stream into a Facebook group.
Zoom
I don’t love using Zoom for livestreaming into Facebook groups, but if you want to stream from your computer, toggle back and forth between looking at the camera and sharing your screen, or having one or more people on camera with you, it’s a solid option.
I wouldn’t invest in a Zoom account strictly for livestreaming purposes but if you’re already paying to use it for meetings or webinars, learning to use it for livestreaming further maximizes your investment.
Going live to a Facebook Page, YouTube channel or Twitch account is as easy as connecting your accounts and clicking a button from within a meeting. But if you want to go live in your group, you’ll need to select the “Custom Streaming Service” feature, which uses RTMP to connect your Zoom meeting to a livestream within your group.
If production quality and audio/visual effects are important to you, check out OBS Studio. It’s free and if you’re willing to spend time learning how it works, it can do a lot for you.
Loom
The joke around here is that I speak fluent Loom, because I send so many videos using Loom. I’ll send direct-to-camera videos in response to emails I receive, and I record a lot of tutorials using Loom because the service is so easy to use. To date, I’ve recorded and shared almost 2,500 videos using Loom. Whether I’m offering feedback to a client, providing a tutorial or starting a conversation, Loom makes it easy to do from my phone and my computer.
Loom hosts your videos and tracks views while allowing viewers to leave comments as well. You can trim, edit and embellish your videos – all within the app. And, you can download your videos to upload to various platforms such as Facebook and YouTube.
In 2024, I tested Zoom Clips as a replacement for Loom to see if I could simplify my tech stack. While Zoom Clips was just as good at recording videos as Loom is, it falls short in additional features. What I have always appreciated about Loom is that I could also upload recordings to share with others. Zoom Clips lacks that capability. Zoom feels more like an internal recording tool, not one that’s meant for external audiences.
Email Marketing Services
Email marketing services allow you to send professional mass emails to your community members in compliance with anti-spam laws. Services like this are critical if you’re sending out newsletters, sales emails or are trying to build up an email list for business purposes.
But they are also a powerful way to connect with your online community members outside of your group, which is important if the community is hosted on social media. You never know when Facebook, LinkedIn or a similar platform will go down or be unavailable. I value having email access to my group members. In The Secret to Thriving Online Communities, we even have a specific email onboarding sequence that goes out to new members and establishes that direct line of communication.
Kit (formerly ConvertKit)
Kit has been around for AGES but has made significant advances in its level of service recently. I started using Kit in 2016 when I had only 45 email subscribers. I was frustrated by MailChimp and looking to make a switch. Even though they didn’t have a free plan at the time, Kit’s customer service and stability made them worth the investment. I’ve never looked back.
Nowadays, they have various tiers that work at just about any stage of business. The freemium plan is fully functional up to 300 subscribers. I’m seeing a lot of authors, podcasters and livestreamers go all-in on using Kit to connect with their audiences. It’s just as valuable for product-based business. They have great starter templates and a variety of features to allow you to customize your subscriber experience. They also have the Creator Network for collaborative list-building efforts. In 2024, 774 people subscribed to my email list through Creator Network referrals — making this the best passive list-building tactic I’ve ever tried.
What I’m especially excited about at the moment is the Kit App Store. Seamless integration with Canva, Giphy, Senja are streamlining my workflow. When you shop the App Store, make sure to look at “legacy integrations.” Community leaders will be thrilled to see integrations with Circle, Mighty, MemberPress and MembersPro.
Mailerlite
I don’t LOVE Mailerlite, but many of my clients do. Sadly, like a lot of email marketing services, they’ve dramatically reduced the value of their free account tier. So much so, I’m almost exclusively recommending Kit now. But if you prefer a simple interface and solid drag-and-drop builder (something Kit doesn’t do well), you should investigate Mailerlite.
Social Media Scheduling Tools for Community Managers
I’ve used at least 100 social media schedulers over the years. Between my work as a social media manager for a major research university, an agency owner, solopreneur and fractional CMO, I have put every tool through its paces. I believe most schedulers do one thing best or work with one platform best and do everything else “meh” — so get clear on your priorities before committing to any paid plan.
As a people-first community manager, I have a different perspective on social media schedulers. I don’t use them so I can “fix and forget” my social media plan. I use them to publish content when my audience is most apt to see it, so that my time is freed up to develop meaningful relationships across social media. By scheduling my posts, I can spend more time responding to comments and commenting on other people’s posts.
Meta Business Suite
Since Facebook closed its Groups API in April 2024, most third-party apps won’t auto-publish posts into your Facebook group. That makes native scheduling of content within your group and Meta Business Suite as your top two options for scheduling community content.
Meta Business Suite has finally integrated all content creation and scheduling tools to provide a pretty good level of service for scheduling to Instagram and Facebook, and moderating your comments. Best part? It’s still free.
The cost of free in this case is basic functionality. Here is what you can do through Business Suite:
Schedule posts to Facebook Pages, Groups, and Instagram accounts (including Reels, Stories and videos)
Schedule Carousels to Instagram
Customize the text of your post, so your caption on Facebook differs from your caption on Instagram when cross-posting
Get recommendations for the best times to post on Facebook and Instagram according to when your followers are most active
Access analytics on post performance (even if you didn’t schedule the post through Business Suite)
What you can’t do:
Schedule the first comment to publish with the post
In-depth hashtag research
Schedule content to platforms Meta doesn’t own
If your preferred social media platforms are owned by Meta, Business Suite might be all you need for scheduling your content at the moment.
For the price, Metricool integrates with a robust list of social media platforms, including Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Threads, Twitter (X), Twitch, Bluesky, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Google Business Profile.
Metricool
I switched from SmarterQueue to Metricool in Fall 2022 because I love the integrated dashboard that combines analytics from my website with all connected social media properties. I also find its scheduler to be more reliable, while still allowing for posts to be recycled on a loop.
I use the paid plan, which allows me to schedule to my LinkedIn profile. Unfortunately, analytics are only available for company pages on LinkedIn. I like that I can schedule both my post and the first comment on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. If you don’t have graphics or images of your own, you can access their image library to illustrate your posts. Recently they have added AI copywriting to help improve the quality of posts and direct integration with Canva and Google Drive to make accessing your own images even easier than before. In 2024, they added several platforms to the list of supported channels (e.g. TikTok, Threads, Bluesky, Pinterest).
Tailwind
If Pinterest is part of your marketing strategy, you need to take a close look at Tailwind. No service is better at executing an effective Pinterest strategy. I don’t care for how it manages scheduling to other platforms but if your brand is Pinterest-forward, it makes sense to fully embrace Tailwind as your social media scheduler.
Productivity Tools to Support Community Managers
As a service provider, I have a lot of experience with productivity tools. I’ve tried several personally and professionally. Whether they are tools my team and I use in our business, or tools our community management clients use in working with us, the choices are numerous.
I believe you are your most important system. The best productivity tool for you is the one that plays nicely with your brain. You may have to try a few to find the right fit for the work you do, but once you make a decision, the time saved is exponential.
News Feed Eradicator
If you find yourself distracted by the overwhelming amount of content on your social media timelines, News Feed Eradicator will be your best friend. This free Chrome Extension wipes your news feed clean, so you can focus on the task at hand. It works on every major social media platform, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Reddit, LinkedIn and more.
You can turn on the eradicator for a limited amount of time if you’re doing deep work on social media, or keep it on all the time to take control over your news feed.
GroupTrack CRM
My people-first approach to community management is made possible at scale thanks to GroupTrackCRM, which works on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn to keep track of conversations, ensuring nobody falls through the cracks.
We use GroupTrack for our high-touch member onboarding experience in The Secret to Thriving Online Communities, and I also use it to keep track of people I connect with all over Facebook (friends, page followers, peers, etc.). The bulk messaging feature allows me to stay in touch with people via DMs without landing in Facebook jail. GroupTrack is a great tool for anyone who wants to tighten up their process for cultivating leads via social media.
Basecamp
Basecamp is a web-based project management and collaboration tool that our team uses to manage work and communicate with our clients and each other. It offers a variety of features that can increase productivity, including task management, communication (direct messaging, group chats and message boards), file sharing and scheduling. Customize Basecamp by integrating it with other parts of your tech stack, like Proposify, Toggle, Timeshift Messenger and HoneyBadger.
Having one service to manage internal and external communication and project management has saved hours for my team. We’ve been able to eliminate weekly meetings and can now successfully achieve our goals by working asynchronous to one another. The functionality of the mobile app is just as convenient as the web app, critical for anyone who conducts business on the go.
Asana
Asana is a web-based project management tool that is designed to help teams organize and manage their work. Though you can view tasks as a kanban board, Asana is great if you’re a list person. It creates to-do lists, assigning tasks to team members, setting due dates and tracking progress.
Asana has been around so long that it integrates with most popular tech tools online business owners and community managers rely on. Slack, Microsoft Teams, Vimeo and Google’s suite of services are just a few. If you’re going to use Asana for project management, I strongly encourage you to add on Slack for internal communication. Otherwise, you’ll end up buried in meetings or email when you need to brainstorm ideas.
Slack
Slack is a cloud-based team communication and collaboration tool that provides real-time messaging, file sharing, and group chat features. It is designed to improve team productivity and streamline communication. Slack makes work easier by including all members of your team in discussions, regardless of locations.
The best remote teams I’ve been on use Slack for internal communication. I’ve also used Slack as a community platform. Not everyone likes Slack’s user interface, but if you take the time to organize your workspace in a logical manner, teach your team to use it effectively and hold everyone accountable to using it as designed, you’ll quickly come to love it. Slack integrates seamlessly with Zoom, Google, Asana, GIPHY and Loom (along with hundreds of other software resources).
Liz Wilcox’s Email Marketing Membership makes it easy to connect with members of the online communities you manage.
Courses, Memberships, Products and Programs
Community management isn’t just a matter of running a Facebook Group or two. To have a thriving online community, you need a variety of other skills: building and nurturing your email list, graphic design, video production, and an understanding of search engine optimization (SEO), online learning and content management. You can hire service providers to do these things for you or enroll in programs that help you do them yourself.
This is not an exhaustive list of the programs I credit for helping me to get to where I am, but they are programs that solve what I think are some of the biggest problems facing community managers.
Liz Wilcox’s Email Marketing Membership (EMM)
If you’re using your community for lead generation, you need a way to connect with them outside of the group. Email is the best way to reach your members. Getting their email address is the first step but once you have email addresses for your members, what’s next? Ideally, you’ll start emailing them regularly so they get used to hearing from you in both places. But it can be hard thinking of what to say in those emails.
Enter the Email Marketing Membership (EMM) by *NSYNC-loving Liz Wilcox. For only $9 per month, Liz will send you an email template and video explanation of how to use it every week. Her membership portal has a variety of workshops on how to grow your email list and turn followers into friends and clients. The membership includes a private Facebook community for team and peer support.
The AI Content System by Viral Marketing Stars includes the Viral Content System® Strategy, 12 Monthly Content Collections with templates, captions & calls to actions, AI Notion workflow with all the templates + captions + call to actions pre-loaded, AI ChatGPT prompts & step-by-step customization for your niche, and a variety of additional bonuses.
AI Content System (Viral Marketing Stars)
Design is not my gift but hiring a designer for social media content isn’t practical. Professionally designed graphics average $14 apiece. At that rate, a package of 15 images would cost $210. That’s a steep price tag for social media posts with an average shelf life of a few hours.
So how do you get compelling graphics to slow the scroll on social media without breaking the bank? The AI Content System from Viral Marketing Stars is my recommended solution. The Viral Content Club, a Canva template subscription, is my solution. I first entered the Viral Marketing Stars ecosystem in 2016 when I was first learning livestreaming from founder Katya Varbanova. Since then, I’ve leaned on Katya’s digital products for a variety of reasons. I still rely on these Canva templates for everything from Facebook cover images and Instagram posts to YouTube thumbnails and infographics.
OnVideo
This video membership is helpful if TikTok, Reels or YouTube Shorts are part of your marketing strategy. OnVideo is Elise Darma’s membership focused on short-form video content.
Every week, you get five short-form video ideas and caption templates for TikTok, Reels, Shorts and Idea Pins. They are adapted to a variety of business models, whether you sell coaching, services or products. These video ideas are also great if you’re looking for quick videos to post in your community.
The Playhouse
The Playhouse is a collective of creative solopreneurs that launched in 2024 with a simple goal: to help members expand their network and visibility in fun, collaborative ways.
The Playhouse is built on the foundation that we’re all leaders and learners. Mentors in our unique zone of genius, whether it’s business skills like design, copywriting, marketing, or life skills like body liberation, breathwork, or learning how your birth chart can affect your capacity.
As a Playhouse mentor, I host ask-me-anything and tutorial sessions each month. I have also built strong collaborative relationships with other members of the Playhouse. Even in the short few months I’ve been part of The Playhouse, I’ve found both service providers and clients from within the community.
What I enjoy most about The Playhouse is while there are several events hosted each month, none are recorded. This prioritizes live participation and makes each event truly special. The Playhouse is hosted on Heartbeat and events are hosted using GoBrunch. It’s a different experience, for sure, but one that is well-suited for anyone seeking human-to-human connection in their online business efforts.
Attract & Activate
I’ve been working with Meg Casebolt and the Love at First Search team since 2020. I’m an Attract & Activate alumna and I hire the team each year for an SEO Roadmap.
Attract & Activate, delivered live twice each year, is the first course that made search engine optimization and keyword research make sense to me. Once I understood how SEO worked, I also understood what a beast it can be to do well. Hiring Meg’s team for my annual SEO Roadmap means the heavy lifting is done by professionals. The team does the keyword research for me based on my goals for the year, and provides me with a list of keywords to target and articles to write to support ranking for those keywords. If you found this article from an online search, you have the proof of the Love at First Search team’s success.
Additional Resources for Online Community Managers
Canva
Canva is a web-based graphic design platform that allows users to create a wide range of visual content, including social media graphics, presentations, posters, flyers, videos, and more. The interface is user-friendly and the template options are vast. Even with no design experience, you can create professional graphics quickly and efficiently.
Canva was one of my earliest business investments, and it gets better every year.
Google Workspace
Most community managers aren’t working deeply under the hood of the businesses they support, but sometimes our work with clients identifies deeper operational issues that need fixing so we can be most effective. Though it doesn’t happen often, I’ve worked with clients who have achieved significant business success without fully building out business systems. These clients, usually solopreneurs (maybe supported by a VA), are running their business through a personal email account and free cloud storage.
In these situations, I recommend Google Workspace’s Business Starter or Standard Plan. I use the Standard Plan because my work requires the 2TB pooled storage and the included Appointment Bookings Calendar and eSignature with Docs and PDFs have allowed me to cancel my Calendly and Adobe subscriptions. Google Workspace is a robust suite of tools that supports professional communications, scheduling, and data storage and management. And if you want to fully appreciate all that Google has to offer you and your business, I highly recommend Adrienne Farrow’s Go-To Community. Adrienne is my personal Google expert and the reason I’ve been able to streamline my tech stack.
MemberVault
When I launched my first online course in 2018, I looked everywhere for an easy, affordable learning management system. MemberVault caught my eye because it was the first to offer a marketplace dashboard that displayed free and paid offers side-by-side.
You can use it for coaching, consulting, courses, memberships, digital products, and even podcasts. I’ve tried other LMS platforms over the years but keep returning to MemberVault. Nothing compares to the value at this price.
Want Help Choosing Community Management Resources?
Team Kubo specializes in online community design, development and growth. Whether you need help with strategy, training your admin team or day-to-day management of your group, we can help. The first step is to complete our no-cost community health assessment, so we can identify your needs and customize a plan to get the results you desire.
I love cats. I’m one of those people who can lose myself in an endless loop of videos featuring babies, animals, and Starbucks hacks. No. I don’t ever try to make the copycat drinks myself, but I enjoy watching other people do it.
But as someone who “Facebooks for a living” I can’t afford hours of doom-scrolling. I need to get in, do what needs doing, and duck out to focus on other things.
Whenever someone asks how I can manage multiple communities on multiple platforms at the same time, I always say I am forced to focus. Especially on Facebook, where there are hundreds of notifications and updates vying for my attention every time I log in.
So yes, I do focus my time on social media. I also have help.
My help is in the form of a handy Chrome extension called the News Feed Eradicator. You have to see this tool in action, especially after the major updates made over the past two years. It’s my best ally in making social media a distraction-free zone.
The video above is 9 quick minutes, but you can always speed it up if you’re running short on time. After you watch it, leave a comment sharing which feature impresses you most. I can’t wait to see what you think!
Do you know the difference between a social media manager and an online community manager*?
If you’re thinking this is a trick question, you aren’t alone.
It’s not uncommon for our community management agency to receive queries like this:
“So … since you’re managing our group, you’ll do Facebook and Instagram for us too, right?”
Or…
“Oh, we don’t have a community. We’re looking for someone to manage our social media accounts. It’s the same thing, right?”
Short answer: Nope, we don’t do that, too and nope…it’s definitely NOT the same thing.
Community management IS NOT the same social media management, but the two are often mistaken as interchangeable. And that means the professionals who specialize in each function often get mistaken as well.
The confusion comes from the fact that social media is critical to the success of each business function even though a social media manager has an entirely different focus and set of priorities than a community manager. And if you don’t understand the differences, you will never be happy with the social media managers or community managers you hire because your expectations won’t match the reality of what they deliver.
This article defines each function, explains its purpose and describes how social media managers and online community managers are different-though-complementary roles in an organization.
At a surface level, a social media manager runs a brand’s public-facing social media channels. They do this by analyzing social media audiences and creating a strategy to strengthen the brand’s digital reputation across social media platforms, which may include professional accounts on:
Facebook (Business Page)
Instagram
Twitter
YouTube
LinkedIn
TikTok
Snapchat
Pinterest
Excellent examples of social media management include the Lake Superior Twitter account, TSA Instagram account, and The Pioneer Woman on Facebook.
A social media manager takes on the persona of the brand, creating content in the brand’s voice while listening and responding to engaged followers. To be successful, they must know the ins and outs of each platform they manage, the tools used to manage those platforms, and advise you appropriately.
Social media managers are the ones who are monitoring analytics and letting you know what type of content performs best, when to post, how often to post and whether you should consider adopting a new platform or ignore it altogether.
Depending on the size of your brand or scope of active social media platforms, you might have a single social media manager or a social media management team with different people fulfilling your strategic and creative needs.
What is Online Community Management?
Community management focuses on developing a community surrounding the brand and prioritizes people over policy.
Where a social media manager focuses on the effective use of various platforms to promote a brand, a community manager is platform-neutral. They focus on the principles that foster safety and connection in an online space.
Most professional community managers don’t care whether they are working in Circle, Slack, Facebook, Mighty Networks or a proprietary community platform. How they do their work might need to adapt according to the community platform, but what they do and how they approach the work is the same.
A successful community manager is equal parts strategist, concierge, mediator, cheerleader, event planner and welcome wagon. They are paid by the brand to represent the community and its interests. In addition to handling the proper online care and feeding of their groups, community managers might host virtual events, in-person meetups, and staff booths at conferences.
When community managers create content, it’s rarely branded or polished. It’s responsive to the community’s needs and relevant to the culture of the group.
The Key Difference Between These Roles
The easiest way to describe the difference between social media management and community management is how they function online.
A social media manager’s job is to BE the brand on social media. They develop your brand persona on each social media channel in alignment with your values and goals, creating, curating and scheduling content that best reflects the brand’s voice and interacting with the audience as the brand. Whether a brand has one social media manager or several, there should be no discernible difference in the content produced and posted by each. It should all look and feel cohesive and unified.
A community manager’s job is to be the spokesperson for your brand, using their own voice to build a loyal community around your brand. They typically participate in the community under their own identity and are known by name among members of your community.
Their main purpose is to make your community members feel seen, heard and valued. They will often tell brand decision-makers things they need to hear based on the perspectives of community members, even if they don’t want to hear it.
When a social media manager leaves a company, nobody but others on staff notice. When a community manager leaves a company, it can be like a death in the family, and requires a transition plan because many group members will feel as emotionally connected to them as they are to the brand.
Community Management is Relatively New as a Defined Role
Though online communities have existed as long as the internet, community management as a specialty wasn’t given the respect it deserved until 2020 when global lockdowns forced everyone to confront the importance of well-managed online communities.
You used to see full-time community managers treated and paid like entry-level customer service representatives or call-center workers. Usually, though, community management fell under “duties as assigned” for an employee with other — often unrelated — job responsibilities.
Now, you see organizations developing entire community management teams within operations or marketing departments and community manager positions ranging in pay from $40,000 to over $100,000 per year. Formal training programs are emerging to certify community managers as well. Meta, which was among the first to have a certified community manager program, also hosts the annual Facebook Communities Summit. Though we’re seeing more community management events and training programs emerge, the Facebook Communities Summit is still favored among leaders of Facebook groups of all sizes.
Need Help with Your Community?
Team Kubo specializes in online community design, development and growth. Whether you need help with strategy, training your admin team or day-to-day management of your group, we can help. The first step is to complete our no-cost community health assessment, so we can identify your needs and customize a plan to get the results you desire.
You have surely heard the old adage, “You have to spend money to make money.”
But if you have an online business, your level of required investment is likely a lot lower than those who run brick-and-mortar establishments for several reasons:
If you’re a service-based business, you don’t have to worry about inventory.
If you’re a solopreneur, you don’t have to worry about payroll or benefits.
If you’re a product-based business, you have greater control over supply and demand because you don’t have a storefront to maintain.
Online businesses are easier to bootstrap because the minimum overhead startup costs are super low and you, as the owner, can determine your rate of growth based on available cash.
Still, investment is required and every entrepreneur makes costly mistakes at least a handful of times in their lives. That’s why it’s important for all of us to talk with one another and share our experiences. You telling me what works for you can save me hours of time and energy compared to me having to do all the research on my own.
In this article, I’m sharing my best business investments of 2021, which include a mix of services and service providers.
My 5 Best Business Investments of 2021
I hired a lot of help this year, but not much in the way of staffing. A mentor told me years ago that, when you’re feeling overwhelmed as an entrepreneur, the support you need isn’t always an employee or contractor for the business.
“Everyone thinks the answer is a virtual assistant,” I recall him saying. “But usually, especially in the case of women in business, the best support staff they can hire are professionals to help around the house. Most business owners need a housekeeper long before they need an executive assistant.”
Since that conversation, I’ve always been critical when considering my true needs as my business grows.
Do I really need a Pinterest manager or do I need a meal service so I can use the time I would typically spend cooking to manage my own Pinterest account?
Do I really need a paid writing coach or do I need a free writing partner to hold me accountable to my word-count goals?
These are the kinds of questions I’ve grown accustomed to asking myself when thinking of increasing my productivity and reducing my burdens.
And the two questions above are ones I asked myself in 2021.
I hired a Pinterest manager, and in six months, I have yet to see any return on the investment. I’m considering putting that visibility strategy on hold for a while. As for the question of writing coach vs. writing partner, I found I needed both. The coach helps with brainstorming, outlining, and organizing my content. The writing partner keeps me writing when I say I’ll write. So, the words actually make it onto the page.
But when I stop to think about the business investments I made in 2021, there are five that stand out as the best. Here they are…
Best Business Investment: Hire an Accountant (CPA) Who Understand Online Business
When creating a financial structure for their business, most people start with an accountant because they are terrified of making mistakes on their taxes. Nobody likes to pay more than they have to, and a lot of people fear getting audited more than public speaking or root canals.
They are happy to do their own bookkeeping, trusting that a good accountant will find and fix any mistakes they might make before filing their taxes.
I am not most people.
A bookkeeper was my first “big girl” business investment because I was doing way too much mental math and it didn’t paint an accurate picture of how much I was making or keeping. I chose to start with a bookkeeper because I wanted solid records that would show how solvent my business was. I also wanted to pay myself consistently, and learn how to decide how much I could afford to spend on supporting my online business efforts.
Having a bookkeeper made tax time a breeze, but I knew I’d need to add a CPA to the mix eventually. “Eventually” turned out to be June of this year. And I took the plunge at almost exactly the right time because the tax authorities came calling just a few months later, asking questions that I didn’t know how to answer.
Do you know what the best feeling in the world is? Calling your CPA and having them say, “I’ve got you,” and then having the situation taken care of while you focus on more important things (like thanking God you didn’t put off hiring an accountant until 2022).
My accountant might not be the right accountant for you, but I highly recommend seeking out a professional who understands the unique traits of online business because it’s vastly different from other business models.
As a creative entrepreneur, it’s not uncommon for your revenue to come in fits and starts based on when you launch programs or bring on new clients. A book advance or course launch might bring in more than half of your annual revenue in just a single month. Traditional financial professionals who look at cash flow on a weekly or monthly basis might cause you angst, while someone who understands online-based creative endeavors will help you understand how to work with your particular revenue rhythm.
Best Business Investment: Hire an SEO Team That Understands Your Online Business
If you know me, you know I’m a super-fan of the Love at First Search team. I participated in their SEOctober challenge back in 2019 and enrolled in their Attract and Activate course in the spring of 2020. I was fortunate enough to score an SEO strategy session with Founder/CEO Meg Casebolt as a bonus that year. I’m still in awe with how much I got from that single session with Meg.
So, this year, when I met with a publisher about writing a book on how to handle conflict online and they gave me targets to aim for in the areas of website traffic, email subscribers, and social media followers, I knew I needed Meg’s team to help me make it happen.
I could have dug back into the material from the Attract and Activate course or joined the Love at First Search membership program, but I didn’t feel like I had the time to dig in and create my own plan.
Key page improvements for 5 pages (Home, About, Services, etc)
Keyword research & SEO suggestions for 5 existing posts
A new content plan for 12 blog posts
30 days implementation support in a private Slack channel
For a little extra, I had the Love at First Search team update my existing pages and posts and create a dashboard for me so I can track, measure, and analyze the results of my efforts in 2022.
It took a couple of weeks to get my SEO plan in hand and another week for my site to get updated by her team, but it feels so good right now to know it’s all done. Now, all I have to worry about in the coming year is writing content that serves my existing community well and offers resources to attract new readers.
If you’re new to growing your audience and authority online, you might not need an intensive session like I had. But I think everyone can benefit from Meg’s SEO Playbook, which provides guidance on how to organize your articles and website content to attract the right readers at the right time.
Best Business Investment: Hire an Enneagram Coach to Help You Better Understand Clients and Peers
Have you ever encountered the type of person who seems to be offended no matter what you say?
It happens to me more often than I like to admit. And working as closely as I do with clients in their businesses and on big goals, it can be problematic. I can’t do my best work if both the client and I feel like we have to walk on eggshells around each other. There’s a huge loss of productivity when you’re constantly having hard conversations about what you said vs. what you meant.
Even my years of experience with mediation and conflict resolution don’t always help.
But what has helped me is working with Lori Young, an Enneagram coach who specializes in interpersonal communication and relationship dynamics.
I initially hired Lori to help me develop closer relationships with my children based on what motivates their very different behaviors. But after only one session, I quickly saw how working with her could improve my business relationships.
Since then, I’ve called upon Lori to help me sort out conflict in teams I’ve worked with, and find the right words to use in contract negotiations with potential clients. I also better understand why I continue some behaviors that I know aren’t in my best interests but can’t seem to stop.
Not only has working with Lori made me better in business, but it’s also made me a better human. By understanding my own reactions to people and circumstances, I have developed a deeper understanding of other people’s reactions to words and actions.
Best Business Investment: Hire a Homeschool Coach to Help You Stay Sane
From February 2020 to November 2021, I was a working homeschool mom.
If you had told me on January 1, 2020, that, in just a few short months, I’d be a full-time entrepreneur educating my kids at home, I would have laughed at you.
And then my eyes were opened to a whole segment of the homeschool population I never knew existed: working homeschool moms.
A business friend introduced me to the Working Homeschool Mom Club on Facebook, a community hosted by Jen Mackinnon of Practical, By Default. Though I love the Facebook group, the size of the group and speed at which people participate was overwhelming for me. I needed something smaller and more intimate where I could get answers to my specific questions and support juggling a lifestyle I never imagined living.
[socialrocket-tweet quote=”A friend introduced me to the Working Homeschool Mom Club on Facebook, a community hosted by Jen Mackinnon of Practical, By Default. Total sanity-saver.” tweet=”A friend introduced me to the Working Homeschool Mom Club on Facebook, a community hosted by Jen Mackinnon of Practical, By Default. Total sanity-saver.” style_id=”default”]
I spent most of 2021 in Jen’s High-Octane Homeschoolers program and have made lifelong friends in that group while learning how to juggle the demands of homeschooling while running a business. Now that my kids are back in traditional school, I’ve moved into Jen’s Coaching & Caffeine program focused on work-life balance for the entrepreneurial mom or mompreneur (not my favorite word, but it fits).
And if you haven’t picked up on the theme yet, Jen’s life does run on caffeine—as does mine. We’ve enjoyed many sessions chugging coffee like we’re college kids pulling all-nighters. It just makes me love her more.
Best Business Investment: Find a Social Media Management Tool That Works with Your Online Business
Having spent years as a social media strategist, I’m hard to please when it comes to social media management tools.
When I was managing all of the social media accounts for a major research university, I had the chance to test out tools of every size and scope. I spent time with the team at Sprinklr, which starts at over $100,000 a year, before leading the university-wide implementation of Falcon.io. We also tested tools like AgoraPulse, CoSchedule, SproutSocial, Hootsuite, and Later before contracting with Falcon.
However, my own business’s pockets aren’t nearly as deep as a university’s. Where the university scored a great deal using Falcon for under $40,000 a year, $40 a month is the threshold for my own business.
[socialrocket-tweet quote=”I have tested tons of social media tools since starting my business, trying desperately to get the best level of service for the lowest possible price.” tweet=”I have tested tons of social media tools since starting my business, trying desperately to get the best level of service for the lowest possible price. SmarterQueue checks all my boxes.” style_id=”default”]
I have tested tons of social media tools since starting my business, trying desperately to get the best level of service for the lowest possible price. Over time, I’ve developed a list of priorities—my own non-negotiables—when it comes to social media management.
Since I don’t mind the native scheduling features of Creator Studio for Facebook and Instagram, being able to schedule social media posts ahead of time isn’t enough to make me love a third-party application.
I need MORE.
If I’m going to pay for a social media management service, I expect it to integrate seamlessly with every platform I want to be active on. I want to be able to see how all of my channels are performing in a single location, while easily responding to comments and interactions on all of my posts.
SmarterQueue is the Best Social Media Management Tool for My Online Business
SmarterQueue does all of this and more. It allows me to schedule feed posts and stories on Instagram, timeline posts on Facebook Pages and in Groups, as well as posts on LinkedIn and Twitter. There’s a Pinterest integration, too, but since Pinterest is its own animal, I prefer Tailwind for that.
As for content creation and curation, I love that SmarterQueue allows me to easily discover content that’s relevant to my audience from all over the internet. Whether it’s news articles, blogs, or specific social media accounts, I can easily add them into my queue. The analytics aren’t incredibly detailed, but they get the job done and allow for apples-to-apples comparisons among various platforms. But what I appreciate most about SmarterQueue is how it allows you to repurpose and recycle content.
You can fill your queue with several posts and create a schedule of when you want those posts to publish according to category and channel. SmarterQueue takes it from there. If you have a lot of content already created, you can let it go undisturbed, checking in every other week or so to refresh your queue with new content or variations of content already scheduled.
It’s easy-peasy!
If you’d like to check out SmarterQueue for yourself, use this referral link for an extended trial. And if you’re a registered non-profit, make sure to apply for a service discount.
What Business Investments Will You Make in Your Online Business?
Now that you know what I’m grateful to have invested in this past year, it’s time to look ahead. Your best business investments for your online business might be different than mine, and we’re better together.
What business investments do you have planned for 2022?
Will you hire help around the house or in your business? Will you adopt new tech tools—or maybe a new computer?
Let us know in the comments so we can all learn from each other.
And make sure to come back next week to find out our community’s picks for best business investments of 2021.
Want results on social WITHOUT spending 24/7 tied to your device?
Sure…you want to connect with your followers & you want real relationships, but you also need time to connect with the real people in your offline world.
You can’t live your whole life on social media, switching from channel to channel in an attempt to be all the places all the time. At the same time, you also need results. You need to see your audience grow in a meaningful way.
In this article, I’m sharing 3 easy ways you can save time on social media without sacrificing results. Some tips are instructive, so watch the video above to see how you can do them for yourself.
The Designer’s Hack for Fast Graphics
When it comes to rabbit holes, design work is probably the deepest and darkest. If you’re like me, you can lose hours searching Unsplash, Pexels and paid photography sites for pictures to go with your social media posts and blog articles.
The fastest way to minimize the time is to minimize the number of images you need to find. A tip I received ages ago from a photo stylist is to take an image that has the right colors, composition and mood, and create several crops calling attention to various parts of the image. This can turn one image into 10, each different enough while all still complementing one another. To create even more variety, you can use different filters or effects (taking a color photo to black-and-white, intensifying a certain color in the image.
Flat-lay images are my favorite to use for this tactic, but elements work too (Like an extreme close-up of a flower or color splash).
If you’re a Canva user, it’s easy to make several copies of an image to crop in a unique way. You can also add frames and elements to add quotes or branding as you desire. The image below shows an example of how a single image can be cropped to draw the eye to spec
How Social Media Pros Manage Online Relationships
As someone who started managing social media professionally in 2007, I have made ALL the mistakes.
I can remember sitting down at my computer and opening Facebook to check the comments on our posts and losing hours without much to show for it. And often, I’d spend so much time responding to comments that I wouldn’t have time to cultivate relationships with other brands, potential power partners or even to identify opportunities for growth.
In talking with peers at conferences, I learned I wasn’t alone AND there was a solution. The problem I was facing was that I was letting the events happening on social media in real time control my schedule and my habits. I needed to take the control back.
To do this, I leaned on my calendar. Rather than blocking out general pockets of time for “social media,” I assigned specific tasks to each time. An average day went from looking like this…
6 a.m. — Facebook and Instagram
10 a.m. — Instagram
7 p.m. — Facebook and Instagram
…to looking like this…
6 to 6:15 a.m. — Post to Facebook, respond to comments from prior day
6:15 to 6:30 a.m. — Check in on 3 Facebook groups, adding value where I can
6:30 to 6:45 a.m. — Post to IG stories and check updates under #communitymanagement and #facebooktips
10 to 10:15 a.m. — Post to IG feed; post to stories
7 to 7:15 p.m. — Respond to comments on Facebook (page and group)
7:15 to 7:30 p.m. — Visit the feeds of 5 power partners to comment on their posts
You might not want a schedule like this EVERY DAY, but assigning specific tasks to a specific time each day prevents you from falling down the social media rabbit hole. It also helps you get a better understanding of the return you’re getting on your investment of time on social media. Another tool I use to help me save time is the News Feed Eradicator, a free Chrome extension that wipes the timeline clean to minimize distraction.
How to Drive Engagement on Your Terms
Engagement is everything on social media. Engagement — reactions, comments and shares — is how you know whether your content is resonating with your audience and the impact you’re making on them in their daily lives. You want engagement.
At the same time, you can’t drop everything every time you get a notification that your post has been liked, shared or that someone has left you a comment. Being reactive like that won’t get you far and will likely make you feel like social media is ruling you when you should be ruling it.
You can upset the balance of power in your favor, though, by adding thoughtful calls to action with each post.
Ask folks to comment with a specific word or phrase, such as MORE INFO or DETAILS, so you can follow up with them. In doing this, you put yourself in the driver seat. You can check through your comments once or twice a day, prioritizing the folks who commented with your special phrase. These folks have raised their hand, so to speak, for contact from you and you can reach out knowing that they want to hear from you.
When I employ this tactic, I send the commenter a private message to start the conversation and I respond to their comment, telling them to check their messages. Over direct message, I send them the info links they’ve requested while answering any questions they might have. I enjoy the two-way interaction, and I have found that members of my audience appreciate my undivided attention — attention I can give to them because I have designated time to do so.
Your Turn…
Saving time on social media without sacrificing results is possible, and the tips above are things you can do right now. If you’re ready to make a change, let us know in the comments below. We’d love to hear about your results.
It’s not as hard as it seems. The process itself is simple, but it does take time and energy and effort. It also takes time. But if you know what you’re doing and take a strategic approach, it will happen and sometimes faster than you imagine.
To help you become known and loved by your ideal reader or fan, I have recorded a masterclass for the Writing at the Red House Podcast. In this podcast series, I walk you through the process of growing your audience from start to finish.
In this podcast series, we’re going to cover understanding who your audience is, building a compelling offer that is tailored to your ideal reader, and then I’ll teach you how to create a content strategy and calendar for social media. Finally, we’ll talk about building collaborative relationships with power partners to reach even more followers!
The first step in building your online following is understanding who your audience is.
This episode will walk you through the process of thinking like your reader, so you can align what you offer with what they most desperately desire.
Since recording this episode, I’ve worked with several clients who have struggled in this area. Knowing who we want to help is one thing, but figuring out what they think, feel and do is another. The best place to start is by asking. If you want help in doing that, you can borrow my brain. A free 20-minute session could help you identify the best questions to ask to get to the heart of your reader’s deepest needs.
Now that you’ve created your offer, it’s time to put together a content strategy.
In this episode, we’ll go through how to plan out your content in advance so you can steadily grow an audience by inviting followers to develop a relationship with you.
You’ll learn:
The different between a strategy and a plan
How to start developing a strategy of your own
The two mistakes most communicators make with their content
The final step of building your online following from zero is to develop collaborative relationships with peers and mentors who can become power partners.
You might not think you have much to offer if your audience is small, or you’re just starting out, but that’s not true. We all have something to offer if we take the time to think it through.
In just about an hour, you can listen to the masterclass and be well on your way to building your online following — even when you’re starting from zero. This four-part masterclass is free and available online, and on your favorite podcast apps. The editorial calendar and posting prompts mentioned in the series are available for free in my private Facebook group, Tonya Kubo’s Secret to Thriving Online Communities.
Do you want more online visibility but feel like you don’t know where to begin?
In this episode of Awesome Talk with Tonya, visibility expert Csilla Muscan shares her top tips and tricks when it comes to getting seen online even when you’re not well known.
Csilla is someone who knows how to connect with her followers on a deep level AND she makes it count. As an author, speaker, podcaster and speaker coach, Csilla has carved out a nice chunk of online real estate for herself even without a huge online audience.
Whenever the topic of online visibility, I hear three top complaints from the message-driven writers, entrepreneurs and experts I serve:
I can’t get seen. My audience is too small! I’m too new!
I don’t have enough time. It takes too long get my name out there.
I don’t have the right credentials. I’m nobody special.
Of those three, which resonates most with you?
If you’re like our live video viewers, it comes down to time. You feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day. That may or may not be true, but let’s unpack these challenges in order.
How to Get Seen When You’re Just Starting Out
Everyone starts somewhere. Neither Csilla nor I landed on the scene with a ready-made audience throwing credit cards at our faces. We set goals, made plans and took action. You can, too. If you’re just starting out, Csilla recommends taking a narrow focus to your message and your audience. If you try to reach everyone, you’ll reach no one.
We know this to be true. We’ve seen it and we’ve lived it.
Here’s what Csilla recommends:
Pick ONE person as your target.
Pick ONE message to attract your ONE PERSON.
Build relationships focused on your message and your person.
Build one-to-one relationships, knowing that the impact amplifies over time. You might not get results overnight, but they will come. And those results come in the form of referrals, speaking gig, podcast interviews and more. The consistent effort pays off in big ways.
How to Grow Your Online Visibility When You Don’t Have Much Time
If you’re a busy working homeschool mom like me, or a busy working mompreneur like Csilla, you don’t have time to waste. Here’s the deal: NOBODY has time to waste. We all have the same 24 useable hours in every given day, and we all have to maximize them so we can do both what we need to do AND what we want to do.
If you can carve out 15 to 30 minutes a day, you can grow your online audience and authority. Csilla teaches a framework and I coach my private clients on audience growth strategies focused on working smarter instead of harder (or longer).
The key, though, is strategic. If you’re using social media to build relationships and visibility, you can’t get lost in cat videos or go down a rabbit hole of posts from crazy relatives on your newsfeed. You have to show up, make your connections and move on with your day. If you need help with that, check out this cheat sheet.
How to Build Your Authority When You Lack Credentials
Whenever I hear someone say they feel they lack credentials to grow their online visibility, I hear insecurity. And, for most people, the issue of time or being new is a smokescreen for feeling unqualified.
If you have a message placed upon your heart to share, you’ve been called to do so. Unless your calling requires an advanced degree, such as being a doctor, lawyer, or scientist, people aren’t nearly as concerned with what you know as much as they are concerned with the results you can get for them.
It’s not that credentials aren’t important. They are. But frequently, experience and skill can stand in for some credentials. The thing with letters after your name is they offer the perception of credibility and skill, but what your audience really cares about is what you can help them to achieve.
Other ways to develop perceived credibility are to blog, publish a book, start a podcast, work directly with your target audience as a coach or consultant, step on a stage and speak at a public event. Some methods gain you credibility faster than others, but everything combines to grow the authority you have and need to be a recognized expert in your chosen field.
Are you feeling like social media isn’t safe right now?
Do you hesitate before checking Facebook each day, unsure of what you might see?
Do you think (or overthink) every post and comment, afraid of who you might offend?
If you can answer “yes” to any of the above, this article is for you. Keep reading to find out how to take charge of your news feed (or, how you can wipe out negativity on social media).
[socialrocket-tweet quote=”Take charge of your news feed with these five tools…” tweet=”Tired of negativity on #socialmedia? It’s time to take charge of your news feed. These 5 tools can help. ” style_id=”default”]
This article is the result of a post I wrote not too long ago about why good people don’t get to quit social media when the world loses its mind. I believe that when you say you have been given a message to the world, you owe it to the world to suit up, show up and speak up consistently. Even when social media is a frothy cauldron of outrage, you owe it to your audience to be a beacon of light in the darkness.
But I also understand you’re human — I am too. That means we have emotions and get overwhelmed. But there is a way to stay active on social media and avoid the negativity. You start by being the boss of your news feed. Here’s five tools to help you do just that. And if you’d like the tools in a convenient download, click here to access the complete checklist.
Download News Feed Eradicator for Facebook
Most of the grief on Facebook comes from what you see on your news feed. News Feed Eradicator is a Chrome extension that eliminates your news feed and replaces it with a motivational quote, allowing you to do what you need to do on Facebook without distraction. Download it here: https://tonya.link/eradicator
Organize Your Friends Into Lists
If you aren’t using lists on either Facebook or Twitter, now is the time to start. Lists allow you to organize your friends and the people you follow into categories so you can decide when and how to check in on their posts.
Manage Your Notifications
All social media platforms allow you to manage how you are notified of updates. You can choose to receive email, text or push notifications to your mobile devices. On Facebook, you can toggle notifications with an even higher level of specificity based on your preference.
Protect Your Post Privacy
Did you know you can control who sees or responds to your social media messages? Every time you Tweet, you have the option to choose who can reply. On Facebook, you can get even more specific, specifying exactly who can and can’t see each post.
Silence Frequent Offenders
Both Facebook and Twitter allow you to mute conversations and users. On Facebook, you can put your friends on snooze for 30 days or unfollow them so you don’t see their posts in your newsfeed but stay in touch.
These tips are quick AND effective. Need help balancing what you can do on social media with what you should do? Let’s talk! Schedule a free Borrow My Brain session: https://tonya.link/brain.
What Might Be Holding You Back
