Being visible on social media every day is important for business owners! But it can be a grind for ADHD entrepreneurs!
"And it's also super challenging for us when we're trying to build a consistent visibility calendar on social media because talking about our businesses is super exciting in the beginning, and then it gets old and stale!" - Katie McManus, Brave Business Coaching
Look, we all know we need to be more visible and consistently showing up on social media if we want to grow our businesses, right?
But it's not always easy for entrepreneurs with ADHD who may get bored talking about the same thing all the time.
It's important to remember that variety is important for those with ADHD in both hobbies and relationships.
While it's necessary to make people aware of what your business does, it's not the only thing you should talk about on social media.
And you absolutely should ignore those people on LinkedIn who tell you "this isn't Facebook!" anytime you post something personal.
Watch a promo video for the episode that's going to help you get more visible on social media!
Why it's so damned important to fly your freak flag on LinkedIn and other platforms!
Sharing your interests and obsessions with your audience can give them a more well-rounded view of who you are and make your content more engaging.
After all, we're not all about work all the time in the real world, are we?
(I mean some of us might be. But everybody needs a little down time now and then!)
It's okay to show your personality and share things about your life on social media as long as it's relevant to your business in some way.
As I explain in this episode, it can be really helpful to think back to when you were a child and the ways you would connect with your new friends and show off the things you were interested in.
If you do that, you can get ideas for how to share your interests on social media.
Accessibility: click to read a written-to-be-read transcript of the episode
Ideas for staying visible when it comes to ADHD and social media!
Coming up with relatable content isn't always easy, but it is possible, if you think about the different ways you connect with people in the real world.
In this episode I'll be taking you through the different types of content ideas I use to formulate my own social media content calendar.
As you'll understand, I make a point of connecting with my ideal clients by letting them get to know me just that little bit better!
And I'm going to help you do the same!
This episode that's all about ADHD and social media, covers:
- How social media can be beneficial for individuals with ADHD in terms of staying connected and organized
- The risks of distraction and contribution to impulsivity in individuals with ADHD
- Strategies for managing social media
- The different types of content formats you can turn to for your own social media posts!
Psst!! Have you registered to participate in my "37 Weenie Challenge" yet?
Get hold of the downloads and guides as well as booking yourself into the 37 Weenie accountability club by clicking here.
Who will get the most out of this episode all about ADHD and social media?
The goal of this episode is to help weenie ADHD-preneurs who are looking for strategies to manage their social media use in a way that is productive and healthy.
It could also be a useful listen for friends and family members of ADHD folk who are looking for ways to support their loved ones in understanding the challenges they may be facing when it comes to managing their business social media use.
Useful links
The 37 Weenie challenge registration page
That glorious Sally Field clip that we used in the episode
About Katie McManus
Katie McManus was trained in Executive Business Coaching and Leadership Development at the Co-Active Training Institute in San Rafael, California.
She's a CPCC (Certified Professional Co-Active Coach) and an ACC (Associate Certified Coach) with the International Coaching Federation.
ADHD and social media: staying visible! (Transcript)
Are you struggling to stay visible on social media every day because you have ADHD and get bored talking about your business all the time?
In this episode, I give you some ideas for how you can get even more visible than when you were just talking about business.
One of the things that I talk about all the time is how important it is for you as a business owner to be visible every damn day.
And one of the things that happens for ADHDpreneurs is that's a lot of pressure to talk about the same thing over and over and over and over.
And it gets really boring, really fast.
Because one of the things that we know about people with ADHD is we really, really need a variety in our lives.
Not just variety in in hobbies, which we, I know I have a closet full of all the art supplies and all the crafts.
But we need it in our friendships. Like oftentimes people with ADHD have friends that span all different interests, all different age ranges, from past jobs, past schools, and it's kind of hard for us to cobble together a group of friends because they all have such different does make our parties very interesting, however!
And it's also super challenging for us when we're trying to build a consistent visibility calendar on social media because talking about our businesses is super exciting in the beginning, and then it gets old and stale.
Like the cookies that you were obsessed with for three months and then bought a pack and then got two cookies in, then just couldn't eat them anymore cuz you were sick of them. what does visibility mean for your business and, and what will actually help you build your brand and build your business?
Now, everyone thinks that we have to constantly be beating the drum about what it is that we do, and sure, yes. For people to give us their money, they have to know how we're useful to them and to know how we're useful to them, we have to tell them what it is that we do. So yes, it is important for you to make people aware consistently of what it is that you do, okay?
That is going on. But doesn't mean that's the only thing that you get to talk about. So I want you to think back to when you were a little kid, right? So maybe you're like six or seven, it's a new school year. You made a new friend. Okay? So, and let's just call this new friend Thomas. Okay? So Thomas, which is a very, very formal name for our little boy.
Anyway, Thomas's parents are very stuck up. Anyway, that's the backstory. Anyway, so Thomas comes over to your house. And what's the first thing every little kid does when they have a new friend over to their house? They're like, Oh, come to my room, come see my room, come see like all my toys and everything that I care about.
And so , you'll like, I know you're remembering this, you would bring your friends into your room and you'd show them the posters on your wall, you'd show them your toys, you'd show them your books. You'd show 'em like the things that you're absolutely obsessed with at that moment. And that's how we get to know each other as kids.
And I just wanna give you full permission as an ADHDpreneur adult, to do the same thing on social media. So if I were to bring you over to my house and wanna show you all the things that I'm obsessed with, I'd probably show you my collection of plants that I've somehow managed to keep alive for the last two years.
I would show you my closet full of yarn from that time that I was super obsessed with knitting and spent more money on yarn than my car was even worth. I would show you my new water filter that sits atop the pile of boxes that has all the spin drift that I order. Cause I'm obsessed with sparkling water also.
I would show you my dog, who is the love of my life and all of her toys. Probably trip over one because they're all over the apartment and I don't like cleaning.
And I'd show you, I'd absolutely show you whatever new hobby I had lined up, in my living room, because I mean, it would just be there, it'd be in the way, and you'd have to, I'd have to explain it away anyway. It's the same on social media. And by the way, if you came over to my house and I showed you this stuff I can pretty much guarantee that something would make you feel closer to me.
Maybe your grandma was a knitter. Maybe you also have plants that you're shocked that you've kept alive. Maybe you're also obsessed with a weird sparkling beverage
And you probably love dogs, so let's just not even explain that one. But all that is valuable on social. Because before people are gonna come across you and think, Oh my God, this person does this work and they solve this problem and they give their clients this result. They have to give a flying F about you and for them to give a flying F about you, they have to kind of know you as a human being.
So I want you to, I wanna play out two different scenarios. So we have, let's just call him Joel and we have Patricia. Okay. So Joel is a professional, he's a lawyer, Joel's a pretty good writer on LinkedIn. He goes on, he doesn't use a lot of legalese. He makes it super relatable for people to kind of get some insight as to how he helps his clients and what his results typically are.
And he's constantly talking about that. But no one knows who he is. So you come across his content and if you have a legal question and if it's relevant to you in that moment, then you may stop and read it and if you do stop and read it, you may like it and you may comment on it, but also you don't know who the hell this guy is,
So you may just blow past it thinking, Okay, well that's legal stuff. I don't need to know that right now. I don't need a lawyer right now. Versus Patricia, who's also a lawyer but likes to share pictures of her dog and likes to show the seven hats that she knitted for her family for Christmas. And one time shared how she accidentally put dish soap instead of a dishwasher, detergent in the dishwasher. And her whole kitchen blew up with bubbles.
So Patricia is going to also be posting about her legal work and talking about how she helps clients and showing how she's useful to people.
But what she's really doing with the personal posts is she's showing, Hey, you, I'm a human and I'm not just any old human. I'm a human. That you have some stuff in common with.
And because we have some stuff in common, you're gonna have a really easy time commenting on my post about the hats. And you're also gonna wanna share your story about your dog peeing when they get excited about meeting strangers after seeing my post about my dog peeing when they get excited about seeing strangers.
Okay? So we're gonna have that in common, and you're gonna know me well enough that even when I do post something about my job and the the work I do with my clients, even if it's not relevant to you, you're gonna like me well enough that you're gonna read it and you're gonna like it and you're gonna comment on it because you like me and you wanna support me.
Now, this helps Patricia in a lot of different ways. First and foremost, people are going to comment on her stuff more often, even if it's not relevant to them, and that's going to broaden her reach to more people on the interwebs. So she's going to get better engagement, which means she's gonna get better reach.
Next, if someone who didn't previously have a legal problem or a legal question suddenly comes up with a legal question, they're going to remember her far better than they're gonna remember, Joel, because she feels in their brain like a friend that they've already established, and they're gonna be far more comfortable reaching out to her and saying, Hey, Patricia I'm not sure if this is your area of expertise and maybe you can just guide me to someone who I could talk to but I have this problem.
Can you help? And that gives her the opportunity to either a, get new business, if it's relevant to the kind of law she practices, or to gain serious brownie points by referring this person to another lawyer in her network. Who by the way, next time they get someone who's not relevant to them, but who's relevant to Patricia, may refer back.
So building your personal brand and flying your freak flag on LinkedIn and on all the social medias is actually one of the best things that you can do to grow your business. And it's one of the best things that you can do to give your ADHD entrepreneur brain the variety that it requires to stay interested.
So I wanna go into some different ways that you can share personally on LinkedIn. First and foremost though, if you haven't signed up for the 37 Weenie Challenge and you want to build that consistency by being visible on LinkedIn that is a part of it. So go ahead and sign up for that. The website you wanna go to to register is weenie cast.com/37.
But let's go into the different ways that you can be visible on social media and really build that personal brand and show everyone all the cool things that you have in your house.
So first and foremost, I wanna talk about vulnerable posts. Okay? And I know whenever we start talking about being vulnerable on social media, people tend to go to like the crying CEO guy, okay? And sure, if you wanna post a picture of yourself crying online, you're perfectly welcome to do it. I've done it myself. I obviously didn't get the backlash that the current CEO did.
However, we don't necessarily have to go there. Vulnerability does not necessarily mean that you're ripping your own guts out and, and placing them on a pedestal for everyone to examine. You don't have to do that on LinkedIn. Vulnerability does not mean here's the worst thing that ever happened to me. It could also mean, here's a moment in my life that was really special to me.
So, a post that I could absolutely write that would be fairly vulnerable and share a little bit about me is about how much I love my grandma and how she made this like potato cake. And I know that sounds terrible, but it was actually really good.
It was a cake and it was two layers and there was like raspberry jam in the middle and there's powdered sugar on top. And it was like a pretty basic like tea time cake. If you're British, you know, that's something that you would probably have. But it was my favorite thing in the world. And every single birthday that she was alive, I would ask her, will you please make this cake?
Will you please make this cake for me? I think a couple times she, you know, went above and beyond. She made one for the party and she also made a second one that I could hide away and eat in the days following and how much that meant to me. And it really showed how much she cared and how much she loved treating me as her granddaughter.
And it's something that I will never forget about her. It was just one of the most lovely things that, that adults in children's lives can do is just deliver in that really caring, lovely way. That's a vulnerable post. Right. And I'm sure as I was describing that you were thinking of maybe a grandparent or an older adult who did something similarly kind to you in your childhood.
Maybe they went above and beyond. Maybe they got you your favorite treat, you know, as a surprise, whatever it was. That is what I'm talking about when we talk about vulnerability. It's just a way for people to feel like, Oh my gosh, I know this person. how would you know that? Unless we were close friends,
And it just allows for us to see the humanity in each other. So go ahead and post something vulnerable. It doesn't have to be anything that's too personal, I mean, you don't know anything really personal about me from that story, except that maybe I have weird tasting cake.
But here's what I wanna warn you about when it comes to vulnerable posts, is when you're thinking about something vulnerable to write. And if it's genuinely vulnerable, if it's something that's really personal and maybe it refers to trauma, I want you to ask yourself a simple question before you post it.
Is this healed? Have I healed this? Because something that can happen on the back end of posting something is the comments. So it can be really activating to you for people to share back traumatic stories. Okay? We don't want that, We don't want, we don't want to pass trauma
around between ourselves and our followers.
It can also really piss people off when you get those messages like, "Checking in. Are you okay?? You know, you shared something really sad and hard today, is everything okay?" I know personally I hate it when I get those comments or when I get those messages. Because obviously everything's fine, You know, so you, if you are gonna share something that's fairly recent and fairly hard, you do get to name to people how you want them to engage with it.
And you also get to tell people, I'm fine. Don't check in on me.
Which also tells people that you're one of those folks that has a step upper lip and you don't like taking help from other people.
So that's, the vulnerable post. Play with it. You can do it. You don't have to do it. It's just a way for people to get to know you. Now, the funny post,
Now this one if you're a good writer, they're really easy to do. If you're still learning how to write for social media, they can be challenging, but I promise you, stick with it.
Keep writing, keep posting. You're gonna get laughs at some point, , you don't necessarily have to like tell a hysterically funny story, All you have to do is share a moment of something that's just a little out of the ordinary that people are like, “Oh, well that's kind of funny”. Okay, so back when the pandemic was in full swing, I was in lockdown at my parents' house on Cape Cod with my sister. She's two years younger than I am. And at the time, I think we were both like in our early thirties, and one of the things that I learned about her is she's such a weirdo.
Like she doesn't put cream or milk or almond milk or sugar in her coffee. She literally pours a cup of coffee and puts three ice cubes in it, three ice cubes. Like that's how she takes her coffee. So the funny story doesn't have to be any, anything elaborate. It doesn't have to be a dad joke unless you really love dad jokes. There's one post that sticks out to me in particular by, a client of mine, David Fryman.
He posted something about how he put his coffee on the roof of his car, which we have all done. And, you know, he starts driving and he's done this a lot of times. He said in the post, and he hears that plop, you know, and we all know that plop. And it's that moment of, Oh my God, my coffee, my mug. Damn it.
Like, I really wanted it. I really needed the caffeine, obviously, because you just forgot your coffee on the roof of your car. And so he explains in this post about how he got out of the car. And by the grace of God, this coffee cup had landed right side up and not a drop hd spilled. Right. And so it's, it's kind of a funny story.
We could all imagine that happening and how grateful we'd be. It's not like laugh out loud funny, but it's funny enough that we're gonna remember it. I mean, I've obviously remembered it. I talk about this post all the time cuz I wish that happened to me. I, like, I'm waiting for the day where I do this and my coffee doesn't spill.
May we all have the luck of David Fryman, who's an amazing lawyer, by the way. If you need a lawyer, he's incredible. You can follow him on LinkedIn. We'll put his, we'll actually put the link to his LinkedIn in the, uh, in the show notes.
And then another simple, a simple way for you to be visible and to be yourself and to share a little bit about who you are,
is to share a day in the life or a behind the scenes post, where you literally just take a picture of what it is that you're doing.
Take a picture of your messy desk, take a picture of you baking cupcakes. Take a picture of you outside. And post that and say, Hey, here's what I'm up to today.
It opens the doorway for people to say, Oh my god, my, my desk is way messier than that. Or, Oh my gosh, is it someone's birthday or making cupcakes? How fun. What are you gonna do to decorate them?
These are just a, a few really basic ways that you can build that variety into your social media calendar. Let people get to know you and also take the pressure off of having to be smart all the. because posting smart things about your business that encourages people to become your client is hard.
Those kinds of posts take me far longer to write than the personal posts. And really, when you're building a brand online, you have to be concerned with two things and you have to alternate between the two of them. You have to chase likes and you have to chase leads. And so sharing personal things is a great way to chase those likes because it's super easy for people to engage on those posts cuz they can relate to them.
Whereas if you're posting about only what you do all the time and it's not relevant to everyone, you're actually speaking to a very small pool of people. And if you're helping them with a problem that's fairly personal or they're not willing to admit publicly yet, like say your career change coach, If your ideal clients are out there and they're wanting to quit their jobs cuz their boss is a complete dick, are they actually gonna go and comment on your post about how they, you've had the worst bosses in history and share your story about bad bosses?
No. Cuz they don't want their boss to see that.
So giving them something personal that they can easily engage on and start a conversation with you, it's going to be the kindest thing that you can do. And it's also going to help your business down the road when they're finally ready to take the plunge and work with you to change their career.
© 2022 - 2023 Katie McManus – Business Strategy For Weenie ADHD-preneurs