Step Up Socials – The Transformative Power of Community

In this episode of Bear Business, Chris Barnard interviews Vicky Ballance about the transformative power of community and authenticity in business. Vicky shares her journey from digital project management to founding Step Up Socials, emphasizing the need for businesses to engage authentically with their audiences. She discusses her pilot project in Bearwood, aimed at fostering collaboration among local businesses and encouraging them to show up authentically online.

Key themes include the shift from traditional marketing to a more human-centered approach, the importance of building trust through consistent engagement, and the role of social media in enhancing community connections. Vicky provides practical strategies for businesses to foster genuine relationships with their audiences, advocating for planning and consistency in social media efforts. The episode concludes with a light-hearted discussion about games, reinforcing the importance of connection and fun in both personal and professional realms.

Highlights

Introduction to Community and Authenticity

Chris Barnard introduces Vicky Ballance, founder of Business Step Up Socials, discussing the significance of building a community around businesses and the role of authenticity in social media.

Vicky’s Background and Journey

Vicky shares her professional background as a digital project manager and her experience in building a cosmetics business. She emphasizes the importance of showing up authentically online to build trust.

The Lightbulb Moment

Vicky reflects on her realization that businesses need to be more authentic in their marketing. She discusses the shift from traditional marketing to a more human-centered approach.

Community Responsibility

The conversation shifts to the trend of businesses taking responsibility within their communities. Vicky explains her pilot project in Bearwood aimed at fostering local business collaboration.

Practical Strategies for Authentic Engagement

Vicky outlines practical strategies for businesses to engage authentically on social media, including showing their faces and sharing personal stories.

Overcoming Challenges and Building Trust

The discussion covers the challenges businesses face in building trust through social media. Vicky encourages consistency and authenticity in communication.

The Role of Social Media in Community Building

Vicky emphasizes the importance of social media in fostering real-life interactions and community engagement, especially post-COVID.

The Future of Step Up Socials

Vicky shares her vision for expanding Step Up Socials beyond Bearwood, focusing on empowering businesses to take charge of their social media presence.

The Importance of Planning and Consistency

Vicky discusses the necessity of planning content and being consistent in social media efforts to build a genuine community.

The Impact of AI on Social Media

The conversation touches on the role of AI in content creation, with Vicky advocating for maintaining a human touch in social media strategies.

Fun and Games

The episode concludes with a light-hearted discussion about favorite games, highlighting the importance of fun and connection in both personal and professional life.

Chris Barnard: Vicky. Hi. Thank you ever so much for joining me on this episode of the Bear Business Podcast. I’ve really looked forward to having you on the podcast. We often get told we cover a lot of dry marketing channels, but certainly not a dry marketing channel today as we’re getting into social media, we’re talking about kind of the next wave of social media and how everything is gonna be all around community and authenticity. So would you like to just tell our listeners a little bit about you and your background and what led to the creation of your business, Step Up Socials, please?

Vicky Ballance: Hi. Thank you so much! I’m excited about this as well ’cause I love talking about this topic. So I started Step Up Socials basically using all of my knowledge from the last kind of 10 years or even before that, of the power of community and the power of showing up authentically online and being vulnerable and just being yourself, being unapologetically you. Because the more that you show up in that way, the more that you build trust. And the way that I do that is by building people’s confidence to be able to show up as they are.

Chris Barnard: And what was your background like professionally? What sort of businesses did you work at as a stepping stone? What sort of roles do you have in your background?

Vicky Ballance: I was a digital project manager for a long, long time and I worked with lots of different companies, software, design agencies, charities, um, developers, literally loads of different types of businesses. And then I started my own business selling cosmetics online, and I built a team of over 6,000 women across the world and we were all selling products using social media. By putting them on our own faces and recording videos. And I think that’s just where my confidence came from. Um, and my belief in the fact that if you show up as you are, that’s the bigger you will grow.

Chris Barnard: Was there a particular moment during that journey where you thought, actually, lots of businesses need to understand this is how it’s going. They need to be more authentic, they need to show up as themselves. Was there a particular moment or was it just sort of, I suppose, an amalgamation of things you saw over your time there?

Vicky Ballance: Yeah. I think it was just a real combination of things, and I just kept seeing all these different businesses just showing the product on its own with a little bit of write-up or showing stats or like the boring stuff, no one buys into that. They buy into people, real people and real voices. And I think that was my light bulb moment to think, oh, actually I can help businesses do this. I can help them show up. I can help build their team’s confidence and I can help them just be more human and storytell rather than just sharing, this is what we are selling. Buy it, buy it, buy it. It’s more about bringing your community in and sharing your internal community with the outside world.

Chris Barnard: And you mentioned community there and sort of taking the responsibility, I suppose. This has become a trend in social media over time as we’ve moved away from one-way broadcast. Please buy my stuff to a more community-focused, purpose-led idea in social. And this is very much a tenet of what you believe at Step Up Socials and what you’re trying to create, isn’t it Vicky? It is about putting your business as part of the community and how you might go about doing that.

Vicky Ballance: Yeah, I think that the more you share your internal team and what you’re all about, your purpose, your vibe, your culture, your values, the more that those types of people from the outside world will be attracted to what you are sharing. So I think it’s all about being yourself and showing up as yourself and not to be too corporate and too sticking to the rules. I think the more you kind of, you know, shake it off a bit and be yourself, the more you gain trust from people and they start to want to follow you and they will see your posts more and more and more because they’re engaging in that because that’s what they enjoy watching.

Chris Barnard: What it reminds me of in very different ways is that the David Cameron big society idea, which I think came outta nowhere, probably 12, 13 years ago now, where David Cameron was sort of saying, everyone needs to get out, volunteer, be back in their community. Obviously there was a subtext there, which was that a lot of people were losing their jobs and this was kind of, it felt a bit mealy-mouthed at the time and I think a lot of people pointed that out. That actually, okay, it’s easy for you to say that, but there’s been a genuine shift since then in terms of people wanting to take more responsibility in their community and particularly businesses in the community working together. And this is where your pilot project in Bearwood might come in. I know that you are looking at sort of generating that. Can you just tell us a little bit more about what you are doing in your pilot project for Step Up Socials and how you hope that will transform your local area?

Vicky Ballance: So I decided to start here where I live. So I’ve put an advert out for local businesses and in a week we’ve had 50 join already. Um, and the whole idea of it is much to their disgust in some cases is to build their confidence to show up authentically online, to be more consistent, to use their social media in a different way to what they’re used to. So when I first started the group, people were automatically going in there and doing their usual spammy buy this posts, and that’s not what it’s about. I’m trying to teach them the alternative way to do things. And what I believe is a better way of doing things is to show up as themselves and work with each other in the community. So, we’ll all like on each other’s posts, we’ll all comment, we’ll all share. I’m sharing their posts into the stories of the profile, um, and just really help them increase their reach and also build their confidence to actually show their faces. So I keep laughing to myself because I think one of them might come up to me in the co-op and say, oh hi Vicky. And I will literally have no clue who they are because they’re not showing their face on their socials at all whatsoever. Um, and that’s something that I really do believe will make a big difference to a lot of these companies.

Chris Barnard: And clearly you’re showing up and Step Up Socials in particular is encouraging people to show their face, get out there and be in the community, show up with heart, I think you mentioned, which is a great quote in terms of how people’s mindsets need to be as their approach social media. So what does this look like in practice then? Because this is obviously you helping convince those people to be having more of a personal profile. Um, not being scared sort of share their likes in a business context. So what does that look like in practice, and why do you think this is such a good strategy for the modern-day business person?

Vicky Ballance: I think that the more that they show the highs, the lows, everything in between, the messy bits, the behind the scenes, the everything, and working together. So say this is very early days, but eventually I want the whole business community to come together and sponsor certain things in the community. We can do litter picks, we can all just work together, not just to grow our businesses, but to grow the community as well. Um, and then we teach our kids that that’s the right thing to do. We teach our kids the power of community and what happens when we all work together to support each other. So if we’re liking and commenting on each other’s posts and we’re sharing them and we’re lifting each other up, if someone’s struggling with something, we’re cheering them on and trying to give them that love and that support, then I think that that’s where the magic will happen. If people feel like they’re running a business when you run your own business, you are at home all the time, aren’t you on your own? And you feel like you are kind of like segregated from everyone else that’s got a real job. Um, and so if we show the power of community and coming together in the community center and doing coworking spaces or whatever it is. Like, I’ve got thousands of ideas. Thankfully I’m writing them down on a spreadsheet ’cause otherwise I’d forget them all. Um, but I just think that if we all come together and show what we can do here to make a difference, to bring back pride and people actually wanting to look after the community and each other, then I think that that’s where the magic will happen.

Chris Barnard: We have a great initiative where I am in St Neots, where the community has taken back a building actually in the town center. It used to be a bakery. I think it’s got quite a prestigious history, that building and to see it be turned into a community resource has been amazing. I think a few people might have been skeptical about it to begin with, but actually as they brought on the partnerships, as they have stepped up really and collaborated with local colleges, local businesses, um, and they even had sort of BBC, uh, the one show come down and talk about it, it’s definitely being seen as the model for the future. Do you think? What do you think has caused this kind of moment in time where everyone now understands this as the way forward? I mean, 10 years ago it was, uh, let’s farm social media out to the intern or the new person or the young person who comes in, right? They can do social media, uh, because the business doesn’t see the value in it. We’ve gone past that tipping point. Everyone sees the value. Now, do you think this has been accelerated maybe by things like COVID, maybe by generational changes? What do you think?

Vicky Ballance: COVID has a big part of it because people were just so isolated, weren’t they? And they realized that actually human interaction in real life is something that they need rather than just hiding behind their phone. I mean, I love social media obviously, because I do it for work, but it also has some really negative effects on especially young people. Um, so we’ve got to turn that around and use social media to connect with our external community, but also show our internal community so that everyone realizes what you are about and whether they want to be a part of it. Um, I think like you can use it for good, but also you’ve got to use it to encourage real-life interaction as well rather than it just being online.

Chris Barnard: And many businesses struggle, don’t they? To build that trust and build that rapport, um, with their social media. Some are transitioning from going one-way communication, broadcast. Here’s our offers to being more inclusive. Uh, I suppose it was pilloried to begin with, but the kind of meme-led strategies are actually the ones that are performing the best at the moment. So what are some of the, for the business owners, the business leaders, some who might be on the fence, some who are transitioning, what would be some of the practical ways you think that businesses can use social media to foster real trust with their audience? What should they be doing as part of their content?

Vicky Ballance: Showing their faces, recording videos. Um, if they’re on their own in their business, then just make sure that they’re sharing videos regularly, taking people on the journey with them, showing them the highs, the lows, the behind the scenes. Literally try and get people involved in your everyday life, in your business, because that’s when they start to trust you. If you’ve got a team, you can have team takeovers, you can let other people get involved in things. If you train people to have the confidence to show up and you trust them with what they’re gonna say, then they feel more valued and appreciated. And also you are making their job more fun for some people because they actually genuinely enjoy doing that kind of thing. So you might be sitting on some social media genius who’s got the personality for it, like the fish and chip girl, the chip shop diva. They just, that happened in a random thing and now they had, then they had queues of people lining outside the door just because they love the way that she served people. So I think you’ve just got to trust people more and just be just show up as you are, not something that you’re not. Don’t pretend to be something that you’re not ’cause people see right through that.

Chris Barnard: Yeah. Now we’re onto my special subject of chip shops. Right. Pretty much know my chip shops, but yeah, chip shop divas. Even one I know. And you’re right, it’s been an amazing story. I mean, incredible that chip shops, right? Again, as a, in the old marketing consulting days, if you were going to a chip shop, you’re probably talking about, uh, let’s make sure we are doing offers. Let’s make sure we’ve got, uh, you know, we’re, we’ve got an email list. Let’s make sure we are marketing to people on certain days. There’s a local chip shop here that does a week every year where everything’s cheaper, but they’ve been doing it as such a heritage people are used to it now, but you’d have been a very brave marketing consultant back in those days to go and pitch something like this, but this must be front of strategy, building authenticity in the business these days in a short-form video world like we are with TikTok, Vicky, right? That actually this probably needs to be the first thing you do. Certainly not a give it to the intern, and equally, you shouldn’t be creating it on the hoof. This is probably something that should be a content marketing strategy planned out in advance, Vicky, right?

Vicky Ballance: You want to have a big strategy around it. You want to take people right from the beginning to right where you are now and just keep showing up as the journey goes on because things change. Your purpose might have changed from what it was originally when you started your business and you’ve brought people in that are different or whatever. Like think culturally things can change as well. So I just think the more you show up and show, take people on that journey with you, the more that people buy into it and want to follow along.

Chris Barnard: Yeah. I love this view of wider contributions as well, getting wider team members to be involved. Even if you are that sort of solopreneur, partnerships, friends in the community, business in the community, like you’re saying with Step Up Socials, can you partner with other businesses and create even better content?

Vicky Ballance: You can help each other can’t you? It’s like, the way I think of it is like, in the old days with the communities, like you would swap things, wouldn’t you? So, saying someone grew tomatoes and you grew cucumbers, like you would exchange that and you would swap. So what I’m gonna be trying to encourage in the pilot is for people to use their skills to help each other and just swap, because I think that that’s the power of like. You can all learn something from each other. You’ve all got different experience. So the more kind of people come together and help each other, and it’s the same with businesses in different, so say a business is on a business estate that you might have a neighbor that you don’t even, the business you don’t even know anything about, and that they could help you in some way. You just don’t know. So it’s about bringing all of those businesses together to improve the community.

Chris Barnard: And there’s something I think people have to push through here that I’ve not really thought about before, but I realized in a conversation the other day that I was having with a legal business, a legal business that we’re hoping will do some legal episodes with us. Uh, and I was reaching out about a podcast episode and saying, can you come on? We have various businesses on our platform. We get questions, uh, almost daily around legal things that we say, okay, well, we can’t give legal advice, right? So I can’t answer you on this, but I am trying to get someone to come on, uh, to answer these questions. I actually think it’d be a really interesting episode, a really fun episode, but in my, in the process of my outreach, which funnily enough is pretty much all exclusively on social media these days. I was struggling to get a response and so I kind of a little bit naughty, I kind of went over this gentleman’s head, uh, to his boss, who I know personally and sort of said, oh, he is not coming back to me. And they said, oh, right, and of course I get an instant response then. But there is, there’s a fatigue here, isn’t there? There is a fatigue from years of spam. Uh, not just in social, just in communication in general. Where, and the reason I’m talking about it now is that when you are reaching out for partnerships, you’ve certainly gotta follow up because the environment we’re in now where, uh, we all get a hundred spam emails a day trying to sell us stuff, you can probably lose, you lose a bit of faith in partnering with people. ‘Cause you think everyone is a bot, right? You get to a point where bots coming even more bots incoming, right? Everyone’s a bot. Uh, everyone wants to sell me something. No one’s trying to add any value. You, you’ve probably gotta push through that fatigue, haven’t you? And, and I think Step Up Socials, you sort of focusing on the, uh, taking responsibility yourself and stepping up will require you to go out and put yourself in probably some uncomfortable situations, but not to be put off if they say no to begin with.

Vicky Ballance: Exactly, the community center, for example, didn’t respond to me when I first emailed them, but then I found out that someone that I already knew actually volunteers there, so I went down that route. So I just think like, just because you are not getting anywhere doesn’t mean that you are not making progress because you can post and you don’t get any likes, but people are still seeing that. And the more that you are consistent with those things and you stick to your own voice and your own way of doing things and show up with your personality and unapologetically you, the more people will trust you. So I think it’s so easy to get like post and then nothing happens. It doesn’t work like that unfortunately. You do have to be consistent and you do have to persist in making the progress that you want to make if that is your purpose. You’ve got to have your purpose, like really front of mind, haven’t you? And just keep focused on that because it’s easily to get disheartened and lose a bit of confidence really, but just keep going. Keep going.

Chris Barnard: Yeah, I love that message. Yeah. And you mentioned the power of community. You mentioned sort of how you start looking at building a genuine community around your brand. If I’m a business who’s listening to this, who maybe thought, oh, I know I should start doing it, maybe I have started doing it. Maybe I’ve started doing a couple of videos. What platforms should a business consider when they’re looking at, okay, how do I start building a community now? Should I be doing Reels? Should I be doing Stories? Should I be on Instagram, TikTok, wherever? How would you suggest that they approach these platforms and which platforms they choose to go with? Should they go for all of them? Should they practice on a couple to begin with? What do you think?

Vicky Ballance: I would suggest just picking one, like Instagram’s my personal favorite. That’s where I would spend my life if the other ones didn’t exist, or if I didn’t have to be on the other ones. I mean, um, but if you are, you’re kind of just starting out, then that’s where I would start. And if you are like not really confident enough, or you are doubting yourself a little bit, just start showing up in your stories and be consistent with that at first. So what you can do is save your stories and then at the end of the week you can do like a week review reel, but it’s be you’ve created that content going along in the week, that is your end of the week reel. Um, just to make it a bit easier for yourself. Um, but just, yeah, just try and show up in your stories to start with if you’re really worrying about it and lacking in confidence, and then just slowly build up from there. But I do highly, highly recommend showing your face as much as possible. Um, if you’re talking about a product, actually have it with you if you can, and show people rather than just put sticking up a photo of it and a bit of a blurb like that doesn’t work. You’ve gotta, you’ve gotta sell the sizzle, not the steak is one of my favorite sayings from Simon. So I just, Simon Squibb, if no one knows who he is, uh, I’m obsessed with him. Um, so I just think that you’ve got to kind of just, um, just really trust yourself and start believing in yourself. So the way that I used to get over the fear is to listen to a song called This Is Me, and I would sing that from the top of my lungs and dance around and lose my kind of like just worry and stress, and then just start recording a video. I used to go live all of the time in my previous business, and that’s how I got to the point where I am now where I literally don’t care.

Chris Barnard: I think everyone knows who Simon Squibb is these days funnily enough because he has been demonstrating exactly the things you are talking about and showing up. Uh, and not comparing yourself to other people, uh, and practice making perfect, particularly in these types of mediums where you’re not gonna be an expert to begin with. You’re probably not gonna be an expert after a few years, right? But.

Vicky Ballance: You’ve got to just, I think you’ve just got to just have a word with yourself and say, if I, if you genuinely want to grow your business, you’ve got to feel the fear and do it anyway, haven’t you? You’ve got to go out of your comfort zone, and I really do truly believe that the way that you are gonna do that is by showing up authentically and being unapologetically you. You’ve just got to just think, stop it. I’m just gonna go for it and just do it.

Chris Barnard: Yeah, I love that you have a song! I suppose people are gonna have to find their own way, aren’t they? For building their own confidence, I suppose even practicing things like public speaking or speaking in front of audiences are gonna help and then sort of practicing to actually um, very inexpensive to start these days. You could use your mobile. Um, phones are good enough to do the videos, aren’t they, Vicky? And, you know, our, a sufficient quality, you’re not gonna feel that it’s, you know, a Backstreet video. Um, and even if you are take to the next level, like for even for my podcast setup, right? We have a reasonably cheap audio interface and a very cheap lighting setup. So actually these things are not as they used to be prohibitively expensive, didn’t it? If you sort of pitch someone, oh, we’re gotta do six videos, you’d probably have to hire a videographer in, book out a room for a day, you know, get some photos.

Vicky Ballance: You just don’t need to do you now. I record videos when I’m walking the dog up the heath, like I literally don’t care where I am or what I look like. My hair’s a mess. It’s raining, whatever. I just, if it, if I feel something at me in that moment, then I try to, I record it in that moment rather than writing it down and coming back to it, ’cause it will never get done, will it? Your to-do list is never ending when you’re a business owner. So I think you just need to, if something pops into your head, it’s popped into your head for a reason and you need to record that as soon as you possibly can and share it. Don’t think about it.

Chris Barnard: It’s funny you mentioned messy hair because I went to the barbers the other day and he was laughing at me ’cause he was like, how do you want it? I was like, I don’t care mate. I’ve not got anyone to impress anymore. That’s where I am. That’s where I’m at in my life and career these days.

Vicky Ballance: Mate, don’t care sake.

Chris Barnard: Grays, you know, just letting them roll now. I don’t care.

Vicky Ballance: I tell you what he wasn’t expecting that kind of gimme a smirk but didn’t really know what to make of it.

Chris Barnard: Lucky he didn’t give you a skinhead.

Vicky Ballance: But, uh. There’s always time for that. But, uh, to bring it back to a serious point, I mean, we’re talking about, uh, in an AI world, which is what is coming, right? And uh, performance marketing’s getting sort of eaten away at, uh, data is not as good as it once was. Everything is now about brand. Brand should be your competitive advantage. Video and social media is probably one of the greatest ways to get your brand out there, isn’t it? So this is something that people need to focus on now. It’s not a, oh, this would be lovely. We’ll do it after we, you know, revamp the website. This is something people need to be getting on with now, Vicky, isn’t it?

Vicky Ballance: Yeah, just don’t do it. Just ’cause I think people really overthink it and they think, oh, I’ve gotta be like this. I’ve gotta be perfect, you don’t. The more raw and real and relatable you are, the more people are gonna trust you. So just feel the fear and do it anyway. Count 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And just go for it.

Chris Barnard: And have you got, so the chip shop diva, um, I was thinking off the back of that, of course, the Binley Mega Chippy and their song, it doesn’t have to always be chip companies. I remember a Chevrolet dealership in America were doing things of little skits. Um. There’s an electrics wholesaler doing some really interesting things of converting kind of conversations they have with customers into songs. It’s probably about getting a bit creative, isn’t it? And, and, uh, not being scared. Is there any other examples that you have either of clients or people you’ve worked with or things that you see that you really like? Other than Simon Squibb, of course, who’s a great mention for people to go and find.

Vicky Ballance: He just records everything, doesn’t he? Everywhere he goes, he’s recording stuff and that’s he’s so consistent and just built that momentum. That’s why he’s grown so much. But, um, so I work with a mechanic and he just gets so many views on his reels now because people love the way that he talks about the cars and he talks people through what’s showing people what’s gone wrong and things like that. So I. Um, and showing people’s faces, I’ve noticed, um, on some clients is you get 75% more engagement than the other types of sales posts. So I think the more you do show your people and your culture, the further you’ll grow.

Chris Barnard: And so where do we go from here now with Step Up Social? So you’ve got this pilot in Bearwood near you, where you are. I suppose you’re trying to create this wider movement. Uh, people will probably look at how they can get involved in their communities as well. Do you see the progress for you now is just taking the message sort of wider and wider once you sort of perfect it and, um. Uh, make it, I suppose you get, what you’re gonna find is different business owners are gonna be moving at different speeds, right? So you have to be adaptable and move with that. But would you like to take the movement out a lot, a lot wider a hundred geographically?

Vicky Ballance: I want to take trial it here, see what works and what doesn’t. Um, and then because ultimately, I’m not trying to be everyone’s social media manager. I’m trying to empower them to step up and do it themselves and to show up as themselves and to be consistent and to give them the skills to do this in the easiest and most simplest way possible, so I’m overwhelming them and giving them more to do on their to-do list. Um, but eventually I want to be able to either do face-to-face training if they need it, or online training if they need it, or help them with their content plans. Like whatever pe I want people to feel like I’m like a member of their team in a way so that they can decide which bits they need from me to help them grow. Um, but ultimately, if you want to grow your business, you’ve got to do it yourself, haven’t you? So you’ve got to, if you are showing up as yourself, I can’t sit there recording you all day, like you’ve got to kind of make that decision to go and do it. So, yeah. So I’m starting it here in Bearwood, and then eventually I want to start moving further out in BCP, Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole, and then who knows, who knows what’s gonna happen, but I want to do like a business estate next maybe so we can get all of the kind of bigger businesses working together as a community and then moving it onto a high street or, you know, whatever. We can do all kinds of things, can’t we?

Chris Barnard: Yeah. I think as you mentioned, the important thing is the mindset change, right? It is, uh, we are not just, um, half-assing it or um, just phoning in social media. We’re coming in with a purpose. We are committing to it. We are not gonna say, we gonna do two videos and then get demoralized. We’ve had 50 views or less.

Vicky Ballance: That’s I think that’s something that. Bit of a cheerleader. I like to hype people up and tell them to believe in themselves, so I think that’s gonna be a really big part of what I’m trying to do here, is to convince people that they can do it and keep reminding them that they can do it. Do you know what I mean? I can’t just say it once and expect people to do it. I’ve got to consistently tell people that they can do it and how to do it. So yeah, it’s exciting. I like, it’s been a lot of years of work that’s come to this point, so I think I’ve, I really do believe that I found my purpose and I’m on the right path right now. Um, so yeah. But we’re just getting started.

Chris Barnard: I think the important thing to remember for people who have, and people will have with social over the last 15 years, they may have had, uh, false starts. Shall we call them? Probably the polite way where they’ve tried things, uh, tried things on different platform, and that’s fine. I mean, there’s a, there’s a great illusion with social media, Vicky, that um, just because you have tried things, you have to keep it like that. I mean, you need to reintroduce yourself, right? And people are reintroducing themselves all the time. That the great quote for social media is that, um. The thing about it is once you start doing it, you are the only person who sees everything you ever post, right? So even if you post something, it’s, it’s not a dinger, here’s a, here’s me, you know, I experiment occasionally with a comedic post. People are like, which one was that comedic post? But I thought it was comedic. But it’s, it’s about not being embarrassed to put it out there and, and to show up and to have funnily enough, different posts you make, whether it’s a funny post or it’s a post about the community or whatever, you’ll actually engage different sub-audiences who are interested in your brand, won’t you, Vicky?

Vicky Ballance: You’ve got to show, like everyone has different sides of their personality, don’t they? And sometimes some subjects do need to be a bit more serious, but other times you’ve got to kind of let your personality shine through. But you can combine the two if you are using video, can’t you? You can make it slightly serious, but add a bit of a, you know, your personality into it. So I think that’s why video wins every time because your personality is coming across and people can really connect with that.

Chris Barnard: And if people are looking for, um, sort of next steps for themselves, they’ve, they’ve changed their mindset. They understand they should be doing this, they understand they should be engaging with the community, community partnerships. Do you have any information that, uh, they can maybe download from your website to, uh, help ’em on their way as they start to sort of shift their mindset?

Vicky Ballance: I’ve got a checklist on there and it just breaks it down into simple steps and got tick boxes. I love a tick box to tick things off as you’re going. Um, and I just think that if you just start there and you’ve got to, you’ve got to make a decision to stick to it for at least three months. I would say, and the way that I do it is I plan my content and then every Saturday I plan out my captions. So I sit in bed with my cup of coffee on a Saturday morning and I plan my captions for the next week and the content that’s gonna go with those. So, because I block out that time every Saturday and I’m using the methodology that I’ve developed, that’s how I am consistent with my socials. And then I just have a reminder on my phone to post them. I don’t schedule posts personally. Um, you can do if that’s your vibe, but I prefer to get on there and engage in the community and like, and comment on people’s posts before I actually post something. Um, but I, yeah, I just think you’ve just got to be really strategic and really plan things and just set out that time once a month to plan your whole month’s content looks like, and then once a week to actually plan your captions so you’re ready to go the following week. That’s how it encourages you to stay consistent.

Chris Barnard: Yeah, it’s a great point about the planning. I love the point as well. Um, I equally do that. I do not schedule my posts ’cause I spend some time engaging and that is probably the pre-Step Up Social step, right? If you are looking to engage with the community, you should probably be following your community groups, other businesses in your community, and, you know.

Vicky Ballance: We’ve gotta be social on social media. I think people have lost that. I think a lot. You’ve got to, you can’t just post and pray as I used to say, you’ve got to actually get involved in your community and support them and they’ll support you back. That’s how it works.

Chris Barnard: And in terms of AI and I, I’m hesitate and shudder when I mention it, even though I mention it at all by podcast now. ‘Cause we have to, as we talked about all areas in it. There’s no getting away with it and it touches on everything. Um, and particularly because a couple of the businesses we work with, that feedback fans have, uh, recently sort of taken on chat, GPT, other chat bots to help with their writing, help them often with sort of writers block and things like that. What’s your view on people using, uh, AI to help them, I suppose, craft these captions and I suppose even generate images now? Would, is it something that you’ll be encouraging as part of Step Up?

Vicky Ballance: I really, I’m really, really against that because it’s, yeah, it’s just not real, is it? But if you struggle with your words and you are struggling with how to write something, then I. you could, I write posts all the time and I put them in there just so it sense checks them and just make sure that they’re aligned with my values, I’ve trained it, my values are, what my purpose is, is this on brand and I just get it to check it before I send it. So I’m not against it at all whatsoever. I think it’s a powerful tool, especially when you are first starting out and you don’t really understand what it is that your, what your purpose is, what your values are and things like that. You can even use it to work those things out for you. Um, you can get it to ask you those questions to get you onto the right path so you can sense check all of your posts. So yeah, I’m definitely not against it for the captions and the strategy. But for images, no.

Chris Barnard: Yeah, it’s a great point. Still need that human guidance, the human strategy, the human understanding of what your values are. But yeah, I agree. I had, um. When I first started stepping up a bit more on social and, and doing a lot more blog posts, for example, uh, I found it was really good for sort of writer’s block when I’d get stuck on something or wasn’t quite, uh, able to put into verbiage what I actually wanted to say actually going a few rounds with a chat bot, talking out what I was actually trying to say. It was actually quite useful, but I suppose, yeah, years of.

Vicky Ballance: It clear in your mind and what it spits out is absolute rubbish. It doesn’t really matter, does it? It’s just having that kind of conversation, I guess, isn’t it? Um, just to kind of work things out in your mind. And the more you go through it, the more it kind of comes, becomes clearer, and you actually understand where it is that you’re trying to get.

Chris Barnard: It’ll be those years of people telling me to be more succinct. So I suppose I’m getting there eventually. AI assisted, getting more succinct with everything. But, uh, the one question I’ve gotta ask you, of course, that. Uh, people make sure that I ask, uh, before you leave, uh, would be around games. Everyone still loves a game card games, video games, board games, very social thing to do, right? So we like that. Maybe we can play some online social games. So what’s the favorite game in the Ballance household? What do you like to play? Uh, what do you get to do in your spare time when you want to play a game?

Vicky Ballance: It gets a bit, uh, irate in this house, I live with two very competitive humans. So we love Mario Party. Um, the latest, well, it’s not, I don’t think it is the latest one now, but Jamboree is our favorite, so that is a, a board game. Essentially, uh, an online board game. And, um, yeah, I’ve got very two very competitive people here, so it gets a bit, um, gets a bit irate sometimes, but few slammer the controllers down and whatnot. But I’m not competitive. I just let those two crack on and just focus on what I’m doing.

Chris Barnard: It’s incredible that Mario, funnily enough, Mario right, has it just lives on through all the generations. They find another way for it to be relevant. It was always Mario Kart in our day and we absolutely love Mario Kart. Got, uh, we used to play that for player and then these, these party games look really, really fun.

Vicky Ballance: They are really good fun. Then there’s lots of ones where you have to like stand up and like do certain things like, and like chop in and things like that. Like Parker really, really loves it and it’s really good because he enjoys it and we enjoy it. So there’s not many things that you can do that are suitable for an 8-year-old and some 40 somethings.

Chris Barnard: And this is on the Nintendo Switch. I’m sure other consoles are available, but.

Chris Barnard: Well, I’m just grateful that no one has the Nintendo WII anymore because that, uh, that fitness board used to call me out back in the day.

Vicky Ballance: I know. I, I’ve actually researched to see whether they do a switch version, but they don’t, thankfully.

Chris Barnard: No, thank you. Still getting over that trauma.

Vicky Ballance: Still got PTSD.

Chris Barnard: Well, thank you ever so much, Vicky. It’s been an absolute pleasure to have you on. I’m sure actually we’ll book you in in a future series to hear how you’re getting on. ‘Cause I’m sure, um, people will be very interested to hear how Step Up Socials go on and, uh, particularly when it might come to their area and how they can engage with you about it.