Speaking of books.
When are you launching your book and any other future plans?
Hello?
Hello.
Welcome back to the freelance Friday podcast.
It's been a while since we've done a Q and a specifically for the show.
So let's hop in and answer some questions.
First one, what is the difference between a social media manager
and a community manager?
Love this question.
I've actually thought about doing an in-depth kind of video or podcast
about this topic in particular.
Let me know in the comments, if you're watching on YouTube.
If that's something that you'd like to see, but the long story short is a social
media manager is primarily responsible for the content calendar, you know,
coming up with ideas to post managing the creation or the delegation of who's
going to go ahead and create that content and scheduling it out onto the platforms.
Primarily now a community manager is more on the engagement side
where they're going to be actually be like stimulating conversations.
They're going to be maybe going on.
The forums maybe going on Twitter, maybe going into discords, things like that
and talking with potential customers or community members, there are really
different models or do different job descriptions for any company.
Of course, when I worked in corporate.
The first social media job was actually a social media community manager job.
And I pretty much interacted with our, um, clients and things like
that through the brand account.
But sometimes a community manager is actually asked to do that.
Own account or through like a, a personal account of some kind.
Maybe let's pretend that I worked for Mac and apple and they wanted
me to get a Twitter handle called Latasha apple or something like that.
So it kind of depends, but I definitely see that role being more and more
important these days, particularly as we're seeing more live streaming platforms
like Twitch, you know, you can have mods that are basically community managers.
And discord and things like that.
So that's kind of like the high level difference between the two.
You can also do both, of course, a social media community manager.
That's kind of what I did in my first social media job.
I was scheduling the content, but then I was also responsible for engaging and
talking to people and things like that.
I am bad at copywriting and I'm not able to find good resources to learn from.
Can you suggest some?
Sure.
Um, so what is this book called?
It's called the copywriter's handbook.
I will link it in the show notes.
That's one of the first copywriting books that I really reached for when I was kind
of first starting out in this industry.
It is very specific towards writing for the web, which I found to
be really important, you know, writing a blogs and social posts
and ad copy and things like that.
So if you're just looking for a book resource, definitely recommend checking
out that one as far as like courses or.
YouTube channels or anything like that.
I don't know of a ton off hand if you know of any and you're watching this
feel free to leave a comment on YouTube, I will say, um, there's obviously
like an handily there's copy hackers.
Those are kind of some of the bigger ones.
Also.
Terry's Schilling he's been on this podcast.
Actually.
I'll try to find our episode in Lincoln.
And he has a great Twitter account.
I think he has some courses as well.
So I really like him.
And I think he is really smart and he's always sharing tips and things like that.
Um, oh, and Grammarly, I wish this was sponsored.
It's not, but honestly just for a really simple, day-to-day kind of.
Piece of education or knowledge check.
I really recommend grammar.
Really.
It is a browser extension.
You just download it.
It's free.
I just use the free version at least.
And even just the process of like getting those corrections and those
suggestions for your day to day writing.
Really I think has helped me become a stronger writer overall.
So it's not like a course that you're taking, but you're kind of
learning on the job if you will.
And then lastly, I just thought of another resource.
I haven't tried this one myself, but I actually, I recently interviewed
Sheree cob on my Instagram live and she is a former social media
management accelerator student.
And she does.
Like amazing tick talks and things like that.
Anyway, she recommended a tool called copy a I haven't tried it myself,
but she definitely recommends it.
And there are a lot of these sort of AI copywriting tools out
there on the market these days.
I'd definitely like to try one for a video in the future, but my gut instinct is that
they're, you know, they're good and bad.
I think that they're probably a good place to start.
If you have like a long blog post or something that you're trying to edit
down into a social post, popping it in there, we'll give you a starting point,
but I think you're still going to have to edit and you're still gonna want to
edit it and add that human touch to it.
So I think that they, it just like Candra, you know, Canva doesn't
replace a graphic designer, but I think these copywriting tools.
Help kind of, um, empower you a little bit.
So definitely a few resources.
I mentioned you can check those all out a link them.
What was your experience like with your first client as a freelancer?
So I'm realizing that I've actually told several different versions
of this story, and I want you to know it's not because I'm lying.
It's I guess I have a bad memory about this stuff.
So my first, like long-term ongoing recurring client was from
Upwork and that was a $20 a blog.
Gig.
I did that for a while.
And then it eventually turned into like a social media copywriting
job, which I really liked, which I also stayed up for awhile.
And that was really, you know, my first freelancing, but I did do a freelance gig
before that and I totally forgot about it.
So I went to school for film and video.
I was working at a nonprofit.
As a, you know, an intern at the time, my nonprofit, it shared a building
with another nonprofit and I kind of be friended or this person befriended
me who worked at the other nonprofit.
Basically it was a friend.
I don't know why I had to do that long convoluted story, but
I met a friend outwork and they were a little bit older than me.
So they were already out of college.
And I had told them, of course, what I was studying and what I wanted to do.
They had a friend who was an office.
Who needed a kind of like a book promo kind of YouTube
video thing, a shop for them.
And so they threw my name out there and the author wanted to work with me.
And I'll be honest that like my imposter syndrome certainly kicked
in, in that moment because I had never shot something that was not
for school or for my YouTube channel.
The author was big and important.
So I definitely had a bit of imposter syndrome or thought I said, you know
what, I'm just going to go for it.
I didn't even have a microphone for my camera.
It was just like using the in-camera microphone.
I was not really a pro, but I, I went for it and I did it.
And I think the video turned out really, really well, you know, for
the, for the equipment that I had in the skill, the skill level that I had.
So, yeah, it was a good experience overall.
It was scary.
It was intimidating, but I just went for it.
I knew that I knew the knowledge.
I knew that I knew how to do it.
I just needed to like work up the courage to tackle.
Shit.
And yeah, it was really, really fun.
And I think it worked well for her because the author's book
actually got turned into a movie.
So, I mean, I'm guessing she probably sold a lot of books.
I'm not saying I'm responsible for that, but you know, it is part of the process.
Right?
Speaking of books, when are you launching your book and any other future plans?
Okay.
So I'm writing book is definitely an experience.
I would say I'm probably like a little over halfway done with my first.
So if I really want to crank it out, I think I can be done with the first
draft in the next couple months.
My goal is really like early summer to be in the editing phase, but I really don't
know when I'm going to be putting it out into the world because I don't know what
I'm going to do as far as publishing yet.
I haven't even.
When that far yet, I don't know if I'm going to be looking for a publisher,
which means I'm going to have to look for an agent and all this things, or if
I'm going to be self publishing, which means I'm going to be having to hire
an editor and a book designer, and, you know, do a lot of that launch work myself.
I'm kind of torn because obviously by self publishing, I'm going to be doing
everything, working with the publisher.
Easier from what I hear, you know, you're doing a lot less of the hands-on stuff,
but you also typically make a lot less.
I mean, unless you're some hugely important thought leader or whatever,
you're not getting like some six figure book advance, you know, so.
I have to decide.
I think if I want this to be more of a thought leadership piece,
maybe get me onto some bigger stages, get me in some bigger board
rooms and just use it as that.
And not really think so much about the revenue aspect or if I want
it to be a revenue driver and something that I'm actually selling.
And.
Trying to put into the business mix, but like I said, I'm not really letting myself
get there yet, to be honest, because I'm really just trying to enjoy the process.
I'm sure this is going against a lot of advice, a lot of advice that
I've read about writing books that actually sell and all that stuff.
But you know, this first draft is really for me, that's how I'm looking at.
I need to get these words out and then afterwards it can kind of put
on the commercial lens, put on the business lines and say, all right,
Natasha, what's going to sell.
What's going to make sense for our business.
And so on.
So long story short, I don't know if you do want to follow
along the book writing process.
I haven't shared too much on YouTube just cause I know that's not really
what a lot of people are here for.
But I did start a sub stock, which is basically like a blog slash newsletter.
I've been updating that like every other week or so.
It's just words are hard dot sub stock.com.
Please don't subscribe.
If you don't care, like you're not going to get social media tips on there.
It's legitimately me telling like random stories from my life and sharing
updates on how the book is coming along.
So don't subscribe unless you truly want to, but you can find more there.
Okay.
Future plans.
Other future plans, we are wrapping up sales for the social media management
accelerator round three right now.
So you officially have one week.
If you'd like to be part of the third cohort, you have one week
from the date of this podcast going live to secure your spot.
So I'll make sure to leave that link in the show notes for you.
Love that course.
It's eight weeks.
It's really interactive.
Um, it's just so much fun.
And seeing the transformations happen of people who are just wanting to
become social media managers or who are really struggling with their
day-to-day workflow and then seeing them graduate and just have so much
more knowledge and so much more confidence is truly a wonderful thing.
Then after that, I'm actually planning on it kind of a fun little passion project.
I've been talking to you all on here a little bit about how I really want
to do some more stuff with video.
I'm really passionate about video.
A big part of my business, a big part of why the business has been successful.
So I really want to help you all create some long form videos as well.
So stay tuned for that.
I'm working on kind of like a little hybrid between a course
and like a accountability group, but challenge, if you will.
Stay tuned.
There's going to be maybe a fun, little collaborative element too,
which I'm really excited about.
I think it will be a really fun project.
And then after that, like that's all I've got planned out so far.
I don't even know what the fall is going to look like or the
winter, but that's already a lot.
Speaking of how do you balance exploring new ideas versus staying focused?
I E new business revenue streams.
Oh, I would say this is hard.
It's hard because I was talking about this to someone recently, like my advice to you
is to stay focused, but my advice to you is also to diversify your revenue stream.
So it is, I, I understand how it's a little bit confusing.
What I'll say is, I think start diversifying your
revenue streams once you.
Main revenue stream is profitable and sustainable.
You know, you're able to repeat that success a couple of times,
like really make sure you get that sort of formula down before you
try to do way too many things.
And this is very general advice because of course, like I know entrepreneurs, I know
friends of mine who don't follow that.
Like they do the opposite.
They're like all over the place and more power to them.
So you kind of do have to like listen to what works best for you,
like with any business advice.
But what works for me is.
Doing something, proving it sustainability, meaning I can repeat
it a couple of times it's profitable and then it's trying something new.
Um, and also I'll say you want to think about your audience.
Of course, like at the, I mean, at the beginning of the day, you should
be thinking about your audience and what is truly going to serve them and
what is going to not confuse them.
You know, I try to make.
Stagger my launches and my project.
So I'm not like offering five different courses that are all limited entry.
They're like cohort-based and live at the same time because people
are going to get really confused.
They're like, well, which one should I choose?
And I don't want people to be in the position where they're having
to spend thousands and thousands of dollars to join everything.
You know, so making sure that you are also keeping like the user experience
in mind is also quite important.
So that's my advice there.
What's the virtual office service that you use.
I'm just curious.
So I honestly just use a coworking space.
Um, there's I won't say the exact one that I use, but there's a coworking
space around here that I really like.
And so I'll go in there and work every once in a while, but it's pretty rare.
These days, most coworking spaces have like a male only.
Or a mail addition to their plans.
So I'll be transparent.
I think I pay like 40 or $30 or something like that.
Just be able to have a mailbox.
My name is on the door, which is pretty cool.
I don't know.
And they scan my mail or forward it to me if it's like a package or something.
So it's pretty affordable.
Just check around at your local coworking spaces.
I'm pretty sure.
Um, we work and stuff does it, but my recommendation would be to look
at smaller local ones, if you can.
I feel like my dollars go a little further there and helping a small
business, but also I think the pricing is a little bit better at local ones,
how to generate leads for service-based businesses through Instagram
marketing, exact points to conquer.
So I would say, I mean, just look at some of my videos on
lead magnets and sales funnels.
I think it's important if you're going to be marketing through Instagram,
to be able to point to something that gets people into that sales
funnel, meaning you are collecting.
Email address.
So create a lead magnet.
This can be a PDF, it can be a video series.
It can be, you know, anything, really a discovery call I gas, or like a free
one-on-one create a landing page for that, where you collect emails or you
book a meeting with them and then use an email tool like float ask is my
favorite one to keep them in that sales funnel, you know, and start delivering
value to them, start selling to them.
I think that's probably.
The best, like exact points that I can recommend for you other than,
of course the basics, like staying consistent with your posting schedule
and engaging and like checking your inbox and things like that.
Have you ever considered doing something other than marketing?
Yes, I still am.
And I think I actively am.
You know, I love what I do.
Don't get me wrong.
But I think as I think about.
The next 10, 20 years of my life.
I don't know that this is what I want to do for that long.
And I don't think there's any shame in that.
I think sometimes people, people have left comments on my YouTube channel,
like, oh, you don't do that anymore.
And it's like, yeah, cause I'm not the same person as I
was seven, eight years ago.
When I first started my career, I have a lot of passions and interests
and things I want to do in my life.
So yes, I definitely.
Five ten-year plan.
I, one of my dreams is to own like a bookstore coffee shop, small
venue, you know, like acoustic music venue or something like that.
I think that would be so, so fun.
I know nothing about brick and mortar business ownership though.
Could be way over my head could be way more expensive than I think.
I don't know, you know?
But I'm definitely keeping that on the vision board, on the longterm vision
board of something that like, and baby I will do in five or 10 years other
than entrepreneurship though, I'm going to be honest, not in a long time.
I mean, when I was younger, I worked in a lot of different industries.
I worked in retail.
I worked in politics.
Um, and I think that's where I really wanted to work for a while, but that was
many years ago and things were different.
The climate was different.
It's a little hot these days, so definitely don't want to do that anymore.
So, yeah, I think, I mean, since I've been like an adult I've really
only ever wanted to work for myself.
Uh, okay.
These ones are a little bit more on the personal side, so.
Tap out.
We'll see you next time.
The first one is how are you today?
And thank you so much for asking.
I am doing quite well.
I'm feeling good.
I'm really loving the spring weather and it's making me feel a lot better.
Uh, what keeps you motivated to work so hard?
The thing I want to say about this is that.
I do work hard, but I don't work like so hard.
And this is something I've really been challenging myself to do over
the past, you know, year and a half or so is not worked so hard.
So yeah, I mean, I do definitely work hard, but I also take
breaks and I work hard at letting myself relax and enjoy life.
But who I worked so hard for or what made, keeps me motivated to work hard.
Honestly, it's like my family, particularly my nephews and my niece.
I just think like knowing that they're watching, they're so observant and they,
they just like, tell me stuff about myself that I forgot, I said or did.
And I'm like, okay.
They're watching me, you know, so I think it's really important for me
to be a good role model for them.
They have a lot of great role models in their lives, but I want to be another
one, especially when it comes to career.
And I think just like my future in general and my family's future as well.
I just, I really don't want to have to be like hustling into.
Way later years that doesn't sound fun.
It doesn't sound healthy.
I want to, you know, work hard now when I'm younger, when I have a lot
of energy, when I have more time, so that I'm able to enjoy my life
a little bit more in the future.
Are you watching the Elizabeth Holmes show?
Yes.
I don't watch a lot of TV, but I had to watch this show it's on Hulu.
If you haven't seen it yet, please tune in.
It's fascinating.
I'm I think it's really well done as a show.
Also, it's just really fascinating.
It's a fascinating, like look into Silicon valley culture in
like the early, mid two thousands.
It's kind of creepily accurate.
I mean, I've never like worked in Silicon valley, but a lot of my startup founders.
People that I know are so like that in their own way.
Like, no, they're not all frauds, but there is definitely this startup
culture of like making yourself appear more important than you are.
And, you know, kind of like these little white lies to get into
certain rooms or to get access to certain people to fund your projects.
That is a very.
Thing.
And I think it's even real in online business and it's forced me to kind of
examine, you know, my relationship and, you know, my, how I'm portraying myself
and things like that because there is this certain, like little level of
phoniness to certain types of businesses.
And I think this is a really interesting example of it.
Like I said, I'm not saying everybody is a fraud like Elizabeth.
Allegedly was in the show, but it is quite, it's really interesting.
And it also just like brings me back to that era of, you know, when Facebook
was still so new and like all this startup stuff was still so new, they do
such a good job even of just the music.
Fashion of how well the phones, oh my gosh.
We were dying about the, like the phones that they were using, like, oh, okay.
I know exactly what year it is.
Cause she has an iPhone five.
See, now when it's a good one, I highly recommend it.
Have you been working out lately?
And do you have any exercise tips for work from home or you've been looking great.
Thank you so much.
That's so nice.
Um, no, I am not a gym rat by any means.
I so wish I could be one of those humans.
Jim batty used in like the, you know, workout outfit looking cool.
That's just not me.
I hate working out.
I hate not being able to breathe.
I hate sweating.
I really do not.
So my tips on.
Um, and, and also like to answer the question, maybe what you're seeing, if you
are seeing a difference, I don't really like weigh myself or anything like that
is probably what I've been eating, which I've been vegan for about a year now.
And I definitely have noticed a change in myself, um, since that, but, uh,
my advice for working out is honestly, like, do what you know, that you can do.
And for me, I really love to walk.
And so I walk every single day.
Some days I walk for a really long time.
Some days I'm just walking around the block.
But if you know that you are not person who likes to work out like myself, like
do move your body in the way that you know that you can commit to even like this
weekend, we hung out with my nephews and we were just like playing catch in a park.
Like that's fun to me.
I was like, oh my gosh, we need to play kickball next time.
That sounds really fun.
So if you need to like, game-ify it or whatever.
Play with your kid, play with your nephews, play with your dog.
That counts.
I think sometimes we feel like, unless we're going to the gym and like pumping
iron, it doesn't count as working out, but you know, it, it does, it
counts as moving, moving around and that's, I think really what most people
need to be healthy now, obviously.
You know, intense fitness goals being like super ripped or whatever.
Like that's never been my goal ever.
I just want to be healthy and feel confident in myself, but yeah, to
achieve those things for me, it's mostly just about eating rights and
moving out at least once per day.
Okay.
Last question.
What was middle school Latasha like, and.
The question obviously for selfish, like nostalgic reasons.
But I also love it because one of my pieces of advice to people, when they're
trying to figure out what the heck to do with their lives or their careers,
at least in the moment, it's like, think about young, you really young, you knew
like you were young, you gravitated to.
Certain things naturally young, you was good at things, certain things naturally.
And I think that looking back to times when maybe we were the happiest or when we
felt the most free can really be helpful.
And for me, one of those times was definitely middle school.
I loved metal middle school.
I think it was my first.
Era of school, high school start to get a little too real.
You know, life started to get a little hard.
I got my first job and stuff.
Elementary school.
You're still very much a kid, but like middle school, I felt like
I really started to come into my own felt, you know, a little more
grown up, but not too grown up.
So anyway, um, I, I'm gonna see if I can find some pictures.
I was a drummer.
I played.
The first song I ever learned how to play was iron man by black Sabbath.
I was in jazz band at school, but like we always played rock
and roll and rock and roll.
Why did I say that?
Um, as far as music, I was listening to a lot of like post punk and metal.
I wore like bondage pants and, you know, band hoodies.
Like I all black, only black ever.
I would say I was gone, but I think it was mostly more like a poser.
What else?
Um, I had two best friends.
I I've never had like a lot of friends, but I did have two best girlfriends.
So we were like a little squad that was fun.
They weren't goth.
They were like normal and thought I was kind of weird, but they still love me.
Anyway.
I also started writing during this time I started writing poetry.
Which is weird.
Cause I don't write poetry.
Like haven't written poetry in years, but yeah, I think I was actually kind of good.
Cause my teacher likes submitted some of my poems to a
magazine, which was pretty cool.
BI I think those were like the big.
Personal attributes about me in middle school.
What else did I do?
Yeah, I think drumming was really my life.
Like I really loved playing drums.
All right.
I'm going to ask you all kind of a selfish favor here.
If you're watching on YouTube, these videos tend to do usually
pretty well in terms of use, but I usually get like no comments.
So please leave me a comment.
Help me out with the algorithm here.
Let me know if you have anything interesting to share.
Actually let me know what you were like in middle school.
This is what I actually truly want to know and myself.
For the podcast listeners, if you want to go ahead and rate and review the
show, it would mean the world to me and helps other people find our community and
join it and learn from the show as well.
And yeah, I hope you all enjoyed this episode.
It was kind of fun and I hope I will see you back here next
Friday for a new episode.
Thanks for tuning in bye.