The Social Butterfly: My social media strategies

Being a technophobe, I was very resistant to social media when it first came on the scene. You see, I started Chelleline Cards back in 2007, before Facebook had Pages, before Twitter, and before Instagram and Pinterest. The main ways to market yourself were blogs, MySpace, Facebook (to your personal friends), and Flickr. I signed up for all of them, half-heartedly promoted on them, and then dropped most of them. So, understandably, I was quite skeptical of social media when it popped on the scene.

Over time, though, I did eventually set up a Facebook page (2010), a Twitter account in 2013, and an Instagram account a few months ago when my dad bought me a pay-as-you-go smartphone.  I've come to see them as a way for people - friends, fans, store owners, and whoever else - to learn about the goings-on here at Chelleline Cards. It's also much more interactive than the website or blog, which means I can get instant feedback to what kind of content people will respond to. Entrepreneurship can be lonely and isolating, so it is nice to reach out and hear back from people via these channels.

I tend not to post the same things on all the social media sites, though. Although I rarely have someone following me on all three channels, I've found that my fans and followers on the different sites respond to different content. So, on Facebook, I will usually post the "official" information about the company - orders of cards being sent to certain stores, new designs, pictures from events that Chelleline Cards attended (the Treasure Island Flea, for example, or the National Stationery Show).

On Twitter, I also do shout-outs for events like First Friday Raleigh (we have two stockists in the downtown Raleigh area), the Treasure Island Flea, and NSS, and I do post new listings on Etsy, and occasionally mention if cards are being sent out to certain stores, when that store has a Twitter account. What I post on Twitter that I don't post on Facebook: interesting business articles, other general interest/news articles, and pithy observations on life and entrepreneurship.

On Instagram, it's a mix of my personal life (such as pictures of trips we take) and behind the scenes photos of the business. Unlike the majority of Instagrammers, though, I don't take photos of myself or of Mitya (or anyone else). You can find photos of us in other places online, but I don't know, I feel uncomfortable posting photos of myself on a regular basis. It feels just a bit too personal to me.

On my blog, I usually post my own thoughts about running a business. 

Now, I don't have a whole lot of followers on any of the sites, so you're probably wondering, why listen to me? It's a valid question. After all, who am I to give advice when I don't participate very actively on Twitter and Instagram?

But, if, like me and many microbusiness owners, you're wearing many hats and looking to not get overwhelmed by social media, having an outline of what content to post on what channel could help. Also, it helps to realize that social media is not your full-time job, and that these channels are merely an outlet to share a side of the business and your life that you normally wouldn't be able to on your website. This will allow you to build a following slowly and organically, and will prevent you from suffering from social media overwhelm.

On Quitting

I've experienced a lot of frustration with Chelleline Cards over the past year and a half, mostly due to losing touch with many customers due to our two moves - first from Montreal and then from Raleigh. I've contemplated going back to the work force - which, to be honest, sounds really wonderful at this point - but in our new town, there really aren't any jobs for me. I also don't really know what kind of job I would look for if I were to go back to the rat race. In the past year, I've looked for advice on when you should throw in the towel, and have balked at almost everything I've read (quit if you're not making a full-time salary after 3 years, etc., etc.).

I also balked whenever someone suggested alternative career options for me. The truth is, there was also a part of me that didn't want to give up on Chelleline Cards. I'd given up on so many other things in my life. I gave up on becoming a scientist. I gave up on pursuing a Ph.D. in English and a career as a professor of literature - probably the only other job I would have loved as much as Chelleline Cards. I went to law school and decided not to pursue a law career. I gave up writing and with it, my childhood dreams of writing a novel. I started a great NYC cultural events blog, New York Brain Terrain, and stopped three years after I started it.

After all of this, I didn't want to give up on Chelleline Cards, too.
 
The truth is, only you know when it's time to quit. No one else can tell you that - not your parents, not your friends, not a book or online article.

In fact, the most useful piece of advice I read about quitting was from "Think Like a Freak", the new book by the authors of Freakonomics. They have a chapter called "The Upside of Quitting," and it was in the closing paragraph where I found was I was looking for:

"We might add that Winston Churchill, despite his famous advice to those Harrow schoolboys, was in fact one of history's greatest quitters.  Soon after entering politics he quit one party for another, and later he quit government altogether.  When he rejoined, he quit parties again. And when he wasn't quitting, he was getting tossed out.  He spent years in the political wilderness, denouncing Britain's appeasement of the Nazis, and was returned to office only when that policy's failure had led to total war.  Even in the bleakest moments, Churchill did not back down one inch from Hitler; he became 'the greatest of all Britain's war leaders,' as the historian John Keegan put it.  Perhaps it was that long streak of quitting that helped Churchill build the fortitude to tough it out when it was truly necessary.  By now, he knew what was worth letting go, and what was not."