029 Content Strategy vs. Content Planning with Amanda Warfield

It’s no secret to you that a HUGE part of what we do is create content, and it can get really overwhelming really fast.

You’re not alone if you’re thinking - where do I find the time to do it all?!

I’ve been there myself, and that’s why I knew I had to get my friend Amanda Warfield on the podcast for an interview! Amanda and I dove into the differences between a content strategy and a content plan, and how you can utilize each to get the most out of the work you’re putting into your marketing. If you want to stop feeling like you’re wasting your time when it comes to creating content, this is a “must-hear” interview!

Show Notes:  CLICK HERE

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Guest Details:

Amanda Warfield

Website | Instagram | TikTok | Podcast

Chasing Simple Content Planner | Click Here!

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Transcript

Sandra Henderson  0:00  
As wedding photographers, I know it's no secret to you that a huge part of what we do is create content. Whether you're posting on Facebook or showing up in your Instagram Stories, creating videos for Tik Tok writing on your blog, the list is endless and it can get really overwhelming really quickly. If you've ever thought where do I find the time to do it all friend know that you are not alone. I have been there myself. And that's why I knew that I had to get my friend Amanda Warfield on the podcast for an interview!

Sandra Henderson  0:31  
Amanda is a simplicity-focused content marketing strategist and the host of Chasing Simple, a podcast to help creative entrepreneurs uncomplicate their life and their business. As the past teacher she treated in her classroom lesson plans for speaking to creative entrepreneurs on sustainably fitting content marketing into their business without it taking over their business. Now she's a two-time business owner and she spends her time helping clients create content marketing strategies, and teaching her students to batch their content so they can have time to move the needle in their business and find work-life balance. If her nose isn't in a book, you can find Amanda annoying her husband by slipping Disney into every conversation or forcing her cats to snuggle. And so you can see why she and I get along so well!

Sandra Henderson  1:18  
During our interview, Amanda and I dove into the differences between content strategy and content planning, and how you can utilize each to get the most of the work you're putting into your marketing. If you want to stop feeling like you're wasting time when it comes to creating content. This is a must hear interview and I know that you're gonna get so much out of it. You're listening to Episode 29 of Keeping It Candid.

Sandra Henderson  1:41  
Welcome to Keeping It Candid. I’m your host, Sandra Henderson, an international wedding and family photographer and business coach. I help wedding photographers use systems to build out the back end of their businesses to gain control and continue to thrive no matter what life throws their way. And on a more personal note, I’m a strong Enneagram three wing two who is obsessed with tacos, and my love for travelling combined with navigating chronic illness life are just two of the many things that drive my passion for all things systems, workflows, and beating burnout as a business owner. Join me every week for a candid behind-the-scenes look at what it’s really like working as a wedding photographer, where I’ll give you actionable steps to take your business to the next level. Absolutely no fluff here, friends. So go grab your favorite notebook and pen and let’s dive into this week’s episode.

Sandra Henderson  2:29  
I'm so excited to have you here, Amanda, thank you so much for joining me! I cannot wait to dive into everything that we have planned for today. But before we do that, I would love to just hand things over to you and give you a chance to introduce yourself and let everybody know a little bit about what you do.

Amanda Warfield  2:44  
Well, first, thank you so much for having me. I've been really looking forward to this conversation since we started talking about doing this question back in December maybe?! So I'm super pumped just to be here today and to get to chat all things content plans and strategy with you. But for those that haven't met me yet, I'm Amanda Warfield. I'm a simplicity-focused content marketing and launch strategist. And I help creative entrepreneurs, simplify their marketing, so that they can fit their marketing into their business without it taking over their business because we want to run sustainable businesses. And I know, this is something that you and I have talked about a lot, just the idea of like, our health changes from day to day, and we don't always have the capacity that we would love to have, maybe and I think a lot of entrepreneurs, the more I get into the entrepreneurial space, I think most entrepreneurs are neurotypical, or they have some kind of chronic illness or whatever the case may be. A lot of us choose this path because we don't have that sustainable energy, where we just have peak energy all the time. And so I really am passionate about making sure that entrepreneurs can continue to market their business without it overwhelming them, so that it's sustainable, and their business can continue to run for them.

Sandra Henderson  3:59  
I love that so much. And I love what you said about making it simplicity-focused. I think if we took that perspective and approach to more things in our lives, that would make things so much easier.

Speaker 2  4:10  
Yeah, absolutely. And most of my clients, most of my students are solopreneurs. And in an ideal world, we could all work to best practices, right, but it's just not realistic or possible as a solopreneur. I have some clients that have mega teams, and they're like, you know, they're making seven figures in revenue in the year. And that's great. And they have tons and tons of team members. And I look at the content that they're putting out. And it's great. But it's so much and the idea that solopreneurs are trying to live up to that just makes my heart hurt because it's just not realistic. These people have teams of eight 920 people, right? It's not possible for one single person to put out as much content as a team of 10 to 15 to 20.

Sandra Henderson  4:58  
Yeah, that is so so true, which is kind of the perfect lead into the topic that we're going to be chatting about today. Speaking of content, we talked a little bit before jumping on about the difference between a content plan and a content strategy. And I think, before we get into anything else, it's super important to clarify what these two are and what the difference is. So since you're the content expert, I'm going to hand that over to you and let you tell the listeners a little bit more about that.

Amanda Warfield  5:27  
Yeah, absolutely. So a lot of times content planning and content strategy can be used as synonyms of each other, but they're actually not in they're very, very different. A content plan is just one tiny piece of a content strategy. So the plan itself is simply saying, I'm going to post about this thing to this platform on this day in time, the the mapping out of what you're going to say and when and where that's the plan. But in order to create that plan, and to come up with those topics, you have to craft a strategy that's based on so much more than just where am I posting? And when?

Sandra Henderson  6:08  
Oh, yes, that is so so true. And I can see even in my own business, how those lines get a little bit blurred as I'm going through every month, like figuring out what I want to say, on the different platforms and things like that. I've totally been guilty of blurring the lines between the two for sure.

Amanda Warfield  6:24  
And they are I mean, they are a bit blurry, because the plan is part of a strategy. If you're gonna have a strategy, you need to have a plan. But you can have a plan without a strategy. And that's what we don't want. We want to make sure that you're crafting a strategy, and then you're taking that strategy and implementing it into your plan.

Sandra Henderson  6:43  
Oh, yeah, absolutely. That's so so true. So where does someone even begin when they're starting to map out their content strategy?

Amanda Warfield  6:51  
The very first thing that you've got to look at is your goals. You want to make sure- because here's the thing, marketing for the sake of marketing is fine, when that's all the capacity that you have. So hear me say that! If you're like, I am just doing the best I can to like keep things moving right now. If that's all you have the capacity for, throw that spaghetti at the wall with your marketing, see what sticks. I'm all for it. We want to keep it simple. But once you're ready to move past that, you want to ensure that your content is actually moving the needle in your business that is actually getting you leads that it's actually making you money, because if it's not, is it doing a whole lot for your business, is it worth the time that you're spending on it? Right? So we want to make sure that our content is connected to our business goals in order to move the needle on those goals? And the way that you do that? Is you hone in again, what are those goals? What's your yearly goal? What's your quarterly goal? What is your monthly goal? And what is your weekly goal for your marketing and for your sales? Breaking it down into those different avenues? And again, that sounds so simple, but how do you expect to get to that goal revenue wise? And why? What are you selling? So let's say that you, I'm going to try to do some really simple math because it's going to be off the top of my head, and I am not a math major.

Sandra Henderson  8:11  
Me neither, so it's all good!

Amanda Warfield  8:13  
Yeah, I don't have that capacity. Okay, so let's say that your, your goal is $20,000. Again, for simple math $20,000 in revenue for the year. And for Q1, because that's when we're recording this, your goal is $5000 of that $20,000. Okay, well, how do you plan to get to that $5000? Where's that coming in? And this is where we stop a lot of times, a lot of times we say this is my revenue goal for the year, and I'm gonna split it between each quarter. But how are you getting there?

Sandra Henderson  8:41  
Yeah, that was always something I really struggled on when I was first getting started with like setting financial goals and sales goals and things like that. It was like, I set that number, but then it was like, Cool. But now what?!

Amanda Warfield  8:51  
Right? And that's where the disconnect comes in. And that's why our marketing doesn't lead back. So what you want to do is you want to say, okay, in q1, my goal is 5000, what are my different streams of revenue that I'm actually going to be attempting to make money from. So a lot of times we have 10 courses and four things in our shop. And also we've got three different services. You can't make money from every single revenue stream, each quarter, you have to really nail down and focus in on maybe three max, right? What can you actually move the needle on in this quarter? And so let's say though, for the sake of simplicity, there are two things you've got a one to one service and you've got a course. And in q1, you're going to try to make $5,000 between the two of them. Okay, well, how much and you're going to want to look back at last year's numbers for this have those pulled out, but how much did you make in each of those last year? How much did you make in each of those per quarter last year and use that number to roughly estimate how many sales you'll get for q1? And some things you want to look at are okay well in q1 I didn't have a ton of one to one happening for whatever reason. Maybe it's too cold outside to do sessions. And we're just it's very low key I really pick up in q2. So maybe I'm just planning on having one session. That's my goal is just one single full session for q1, whatever that number is, let's say $2,000. For full session on average, I don't know I'm literally making up numbers. I know nothing about photography, pricing, but let's say $2,000. Okay, well, that means in order to hit that $5000, you have to hit $4000 with that course, if you sell the course for $200 each. Oh, I don't, that math's hard. Is it 20?

Sandra Henderson  10:43  
I think so haha

Amanda Warfield  10:44  
20 of your students, okay, I thought I was doing simple math. But let's say it's a $200 course. And you know, in q1, you've got to bring in 20 students. So you have to break down that big number. And it's a guesstimate, it's always a guesstimate, there's no way to like 100% perfectly predict what you're going to make, but use the numbers from last year. Use the patterns that you see in your business of your slow in your busy seasons for different revenue streams, and guesstimate what that number is going to look like and then figure out how you're going to get there. So again, if you your number is $4000 for the course and you know, okay, well, I sell it at $200. How many students you need, you need 20. Okay, so that's your focus for q1, you have to your sales goal for q1 is 20 course sales and one full session, knowing that you can then take that and go, okay, well, my marketing has to be geared towards the course, everything that I'm doing with my content, and my marketing, and q1 has to be geared towards the topic the course is on and leading people to the course, to the freebie that leads to the course, whatever your back-end systems look like.

Sandra Henderson  11:51  
That makes so much sense! My wheels are turning like thinking about wedding photographers and how they can apply it even if they don't offer courses and things like that, which we're seeing photographers do more and more. But for anyone who doesn't, like, you can easily just replace the word course with like albums or prints and start like incorporating product sales in that same way, using that same mentality that you would then want to focus your marketing strategy around selling those albums and prints and not necessarily around booking sessions or weddings.

Amanda Warfield  12:20  
Right! Exactly, whatever your different revenue streams are, you're going to try to figure out how do I make this happen? So if it's albums and you know, okay, well, I need to sell X albums. And this is actually a great segue into conversions, which is a very long conversation, but we can kind of dive into it a little bit. So if you know that you, let's say your average conversion rate from wedding clients to the number of clients. Basically, I worded that really weird. But if you know that 5% We'll do 20%. Again, easy if 20% of your full session, your wedding clients buy an album and you want to sell four albums. That means that you need 20 clients because 20% of 20 is four. And so you can work backwards to know how many you need in order to sell the number of albums, upgrades, whatever, different packages that you need to sell. And this can also work if you know okay, well, I'm maxed out, I can only take on this many wedding clients a quarter. And currently 20% will actually upgrade to an album. But I don't have time like or the ability to take on more wedding clients. Okay, well, how how can you increase that conversion rate? What can you do to focus on bringing that number up instead of trying to bring in more people?

Sandra Henderson  13:47  
Yeah, absolutely. You're speaking right to my soul with that, because that's definitely where I'm at in my business right now is not having the capacity to take on more weddings, but still needing to grow my bottom line. It's more expensive to live and I have lots of big goals, and so I need to focus on print sales and things like that to bring that bottom line up. So yeah, that definitely directly applies to me. And my favorite thing about hosting this podcast is when I get to edit, edit it, I get to like go back and re-listen and like take all of my own notes. So that's like a fun little highlight!

Amanda Warfield  14:18  
That's the best part of hosting a podcast is I just choose people that I want to learn from, right. And then I get to ask them all the questions I want to ask and then we audience benefits. 

Sandra Henderson  14:27  
It's so true. I love it. So what do you think makes for a successful content strategy?

Amanda Warfield  14:34  
I think at a bare bones level, it's making sure that you know what your goals are, and that you're connecting back to them, like we just talked about, if you are not connecting your content with your goals, or if you don't even have a goal in mind with your content because again, maybe you're like I don't have the capacity to sit down and do the whole strategy thing by myself. I just like putting content out as all I can handle right now. Well, your goal is getting content out and making sure that your business is being seen your goal is consistency, right. So if that's the case, your goal is consistency. But having some sort of goal in mind, whether it is simply being consistent, or it's, I want to make sure that my content is moving the needle in my business, having that goal in mind, because if you have no goal, the content is just spaghetti at the wall. It's literally just, I'm putting stuff out here. And frankly, it's a waste of time if you don't have some sort of overarching goal in mind, because if you're not leading them anywhere, or your goal isn't to just see growth, well, what are you doing and why

Sandra Henderson  15:37  
I used to be the queen of the like, set it and forget it, post it once and put it into the world. And then that was that and like, I just made the assumption that everybody was gonna see it, everybody was going to know it existed because they set it the one time and that was good enough. And, oh, I've learned many things.

Amanda Warfield  15:56  
Yeah, we have to really be broken records with our content. And I know that so many people hate that. They don't they, they feel like they're bothering their audience. But your audience is such a small portion of what you actually put out there, especially on social media that if you're not saying it over and over and over and over again, you're actually doing them a disservice. Because then they don't get that education. They don't get that information from you.

Sandra Henderson  16:21  
We're gearing up for wedding season over here and I wanted to quickly interrupt this incredible interview to tell you about my wedding day questionnaire template. I send this questionnaire to my clients three months before their wedding day to collect details about things like their ceremony, what time dinner is going to be served at which family members they want to take photos with, and also to educate them on things like how long different sections of photos typically take and the benefit of doing a first look. Using a questionnaire like this is such a great way to avoid unnecessary headaches on the day of because you'll have all the details that you need to keep serving your couple no matter what comes your way. Because let's be real, we all know that anything can happen on a wedding day, but it becomes a hell of a lot easier to roll with the punches when you're thoroughly prepared. The wedding day questionnaire template includes nine pages of questions broken down into each section of the day, day of contact information getting ready first look ceremony, family formals wedding party photos, newlywed portraits, the reception, additional details and vendor info. The questions within each section cover every bit of information you could possibly need to make sure that you have a successful wedding day and create a photography timeline with ease. You'll walk into every wedding with a new sense of confidence because you know, all of your bases are covered to keep things stress free no matter what. And the best part. It's only $17! Yes, friends, just $17! Head over to simplysandrayvonne.ca/resources to get your copy.

Sandra Henderson  17:58  
Yeah, I was just actually talking to someone on another episode where they were talking about how you need to, if you want to have a business, you need to talk about your business or something like that. I'm totally like getting the paraphrasing wrong. But it made so much sense like we... We are the only ones who regularly get tired of talking about the same thing over and over again. But the majority of people are maybe only hearing once every five times that we talk about it. So it's super important to have that in mind as you're putting together that strategy too.

Amanda Warfield  18:28  
Absolutely. And not only do they only hear about something maybe once every five times, but it takes seven to 10 times of hearing about something before someone will take action. So if they're only hearing about it once every five times and they need to hear about it 10 times, that means you need to talk about it 50 times before one person is going to take action on it.

Sandra Henderson  18:49  
Right? I hope everybody's writing that down because it's so so important. It's something that I wish I had figured out much sooner in my business for sure. You actually have a planner to help people with their content, that content strategy, right? 

Amanda Warfield  19:02  
Yes, I do. And you know, it's funny, because for years, people would ask me, Well, what do you use to plan your content? And I was like, I don't know, I just print off a random calendar page online, like, I don't have anything. And then this last year, I got to the new year. And I was like, You know what? I really wish there was something that yes, has the calendar page for me to create that plan. But I wish there was something that would really make me sit down and focus on the strategy side of things because I'm great at doing that for my clients. And of course, when we're great at doing it for our clients, it's the last thing we do for ourselves, right? And so my strategy was falling off and I was just throwing spaghetti at the wall essentially, which was fine, but I knew that if I had something that would walk me through step by step what I needed to do to craft that strategy for myself, I'd be more likely to do it until I actually created the planer for myself. And then you know, talked about it and other people were like I need that too. And so I started selling it in my shop 

Sandra Henderson  20:00  
Oh, that's awesome. And I've seen everything that you've posted about it as you were building the new one for this year. And it looks so thorough, I have used a lot of content planners. And I mean, it goes with courses, it goes with things that you buy from shops, sometimes you get things that are very simple, and they're promising a lot more than they're delivering. Your planner is the exact opposite of that it definitely walks everybody right through the entire process. And I think that's so valuable when it comes to just the way that photographers are spending their money. It's very hard earned, we're very protective of it, like most business owners, which I can totally support and respect in every way. So it's nice to know that there are things out there that are delivering more than what they're promising, and actually, like out there to help people.

Amanda Warfield  20:48  
Oh, thank you. That's very kind.

Sandra Henderson  20:51  
So speaking of I mean, we've been speaking of Content Strategy this whole time, but where is one area that you think is super important for wedding photographers to focus on in 2023 as they're planning out their content marketing strategies?

Amanda Warfield  21:05  
Do you mean as far as where they're showing up? What topics are talking about? Where-

Sandra Henderson  21:10  
let's say where they're showing up.

Amanda Warfield  21:13  
Okay, so right now, the, the new giant in our industry in the online space is TikTok, right. If you're looking for organic growth, meaning that you don't want to pay to play, you don't want to bother with Facebook ads, and all of that right now. Or if you are, you want to just be a small part of your strategy. If you want to see growth, you've got to be on TikTok. There are plenty of reasons that people don't want to be on TikTok, and I get it. But that's kind of the way things are at this moment in time. Instagram, and Facebook are great for nurturing a community that you already have. But we're not seeing growth in either of those apps, for the most part, there are always going to be anomalies, right, there are always going to be people that have really found a way to make it work for them. But overall, for the most part, we're not seeing growth on Facebook, or Instagram, it's more so here's a place a community that I've created already. And these are people that I have connections with, I want to invite people into this space, because this is a great way to nurture them. But it's not growing things for me. So my suggestion, honestly, is to get on TikTok, grow, TikTok as much as you can get that organic reach. Be aware that people are really mean on TikTok, I really mean. So the whole, post controversial things, and you'll see growth is still true. But be prepared that you're gonna need thick skin if you're going to use that strategy. But get on TikTok, grow that audience and then send that audience to your email list to your Instagram to your Facebook groups. So that you're you're getting that growth still, but you're sending them to these other places where you can really nurture them, because that is something that I'm seeing on TikTok, the nurture aspect is not there so much. You know, they've tried implementing stories and they're implementing the, the be real kind of, you know, where TikTok now is what it's called and implementing these other things. But what it sees what I'm finding with myself and my clients is that TikTok, TikTok, Instagram stories are still a really great way to nurture your people. Facebook groups are a really great way to nurture people, email lists will never go away. It will always be a great way to nurture people. TikTok, not so much to an extent, but it gets harder and harder as more and more people get on there, but it's a great way to see growth.

Sandra Henderson  23:46  
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense and paints a really good picture about the difference between specifically like Instagram reels versus TikTok because I know a lot of photographers were just like, do I have to get on TikTok? It's not for me like XYZ reasons why they don't want to be over there. And then Instagram Reels came out and they're like, Okay, perfect. Now I can still show up on video but I'm just gonna stay on Instagram. So talking about how one is really like better suited for nurturing the following and the community that you already have versus one being better for growth. I think it's a super important differentiation to make.

Amanda Warfield  24:22  
Well, so TikTok, the biggest difference between Reels and TikTok is that TikTok really values authenticity a bit more than reels does reels that are more polished, tend to do better. Versus the like, I look like a bum but I'm getting on here to like share something I thought about does a lot better on TikTok. So TikTok is actually a lot easier to create content because you can look terrible and nobody cares. That's not the point. They want to hear what you have to say and they want to hear the education that you're going to share. But you The other thing to note with reels is how often and I with every social media platform, every tactic within a social media platform is looking at how you're utilizing them. How often are you looking at reels versus stories versus the feed? Right? We all know the feed is dying. Instagram has said they're going to prioritize pictures again more this year, we'll see what happens with that. But the feed is dying. And my take on social media is that right now, they're all trying to compete against each other and add these new, different tactics in. But what tends to work best is utilizing the parts of the platform that are I don't want to say necessarily more native, but the ones that you see more people using, and that you're interacting with yourself, because stories on Instagram aren't native. But that does seem to be the one that most people are utilizing. Versus tiktoks People aren't utilizing stories on tiktoks. Some are, but for the most part, they're not. It's more of a four year pay for you page, like, we want to scroll, I don't even look at my friends tiktoks. Like if they come up with my for you page, great. But what I when you get on the app, the first thing that shows up top of your screen for you page, when you first get on Instagram, first thing at the top of your page is the stories. And so that's going to naturally be what we go towards more, because it's going to be the first thing that catches our attention. And so utilize if you only have so much capacity, which we all do utilize the things that are unique, and that are doing well on each individual platform.

Sandra Henderson  26:42  
And you actually just started doing that over on your Instagram, I remember seeing in the last couple of weeks that you have decided to take the pressure off of yourself and stop focusing on posting, and doing things that are not getting any sort of return on your investment and focus on stories as well. So has that been going for you in the first little bit,

Amanda Warfield  26:58  
It's so much nicer, there's just so much less to worry about. So for everyone listening, I have decided to move towards a semi-static grid, where basically I am hopefully every quarter, we'll see. But every quarter, I'm creating just three images. And they can either be the cover for real or for carousel or whatever. But three images that I'm going to pinned to the top my Instagram feed. And if that's the only content that I put on my feed that quarter, I am okay with that because my feed content is not moving the needle in my business. And I have tried strategy after strategy after strategy for months now. And I just decided, You know what, I've tried it. I've tried almost everything. And it's not working, which means that the hours I'm spending each month working on Instagram feed posts, not worth my time. And so I'm just done doing it. And you know, I posted this week for Valentine's Day, some of my husband, it was just like a spur of the moment, like, Oh, I feel like posting this. And I got all kinds of likes, but you know what, it's not getting comments or anything like that, because people who are scrolling the feed there, it's back to the pretty pictures. Oh, that's a pretty picture. Oh, that's a pretty picture brand photos, not getting a ton of love. Photos from my husband, like traveling get all kinds of likes. And so it's almost like we've reverted back on the feed to Oh, I like this picture. I'm not going to read the caption, but I'm gonna like the picture. And so it's just been so nice to just remove that pressure, and just show up on stories based on the strategy that I've created for stories and allow that to move the needle for me.

Sandra Henderson  28:33  
Oh, yeah, I'm sure that's been so nice. I've seen a few people doing it here and there. And it's very, very tempting. It's something that I'm going to be heavily considering in the future of where I'm taking both my photography and coaching businesses, that's for sure.

Amanda Warfield  28:47  
The beauty of it is there's so many different ways that you can do it too. You know, I've seen some people who created a nine square grid, and that's going to be there and tired. They're not posting anything else. They deleted all of their old or archived all of their old fi posts, and they just have the nine square grid, and it's got everything from contact information to services to about these freebies, all of it. There's a different post for each one. And that way when you find their page, it's like, Hey, this is everything you need. For me, you don't need any of this other stuff. And they've archived it. I've seen people that are doing a quarterly six grid, I actually got the idea from Nicole Yang. And she's doing a quarterly like magazine cover, which I think is so stinking cute and smart. And of course, she's a brilliant graphic designer. So but she's doing that's all she's posting is every month she's doing a new magazine spread and they're just stacking on top of each other. I went with the three because I wanted that ability to post if I felt inspired, so that way I could pin them at the top and anything else would stick underneath it. But for my other business, I'm going to do a six square per minute grid. And I'm just not I'm not going to do a quarterly one. You know at some point I'm sure information will change and I want to To change up my strategy, but for now, that's just going to be that because that business I don't it's more of a side hustle, I don't spend as much time on it. And so I'm not going to worry about, oh, I need to do this every quarter or I need to update this each month, it's just, I'm gonna create at once, make it great. When my strategy changes, we'll make a new one.

Sandra Henderson  30:16  
Yeah, that's so great, like kind of going full circle to what you were saying at the very beginning of the episode is that you need to like our energy is limited, our lives can be very unpredictable. And so it's so important to focus the energy that we do have in areas that is actually paying off and worth our time to spend it on. Yeah,

Amanda Warfield  30:33  
Exactly. And marketing is important. I wouldn't have a job if I didn't believe that, right. But it's not the most important. It's, it's up there. You don't want to completely stop your marketing, right? Or you will have no business but it can't take up all your time. And so what can we do to simplify while still being strategic? And not spend all of our time so that we have those sustainable businesses?

Sandra Henderson  30:57  
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I'm gonna just take one last question over to you if there is one thing that listeners that you hope that they walk away from, or one thing that they could implement, right, as soon as they finished listening to this episode, what would that one thing be?

Amanda Warfield  31:13  
Oh man. You know, I always ask people this question on my podcast, and I never think about what I want to say when other people ask it to me. Um, I would say, if there's only one thing that you walk away from this from, is the idea that you do not have to follow best practices. For any platform for any type of marketing, you don't have to follow best practices, to see results and to run a really successful business.

Sandra Henderson  31:40  
I love that so much. That's one thing that I always think when I see educators and experts, or social media experts on Instagram, and they're saying like, you should be posting X number of reels per day and this number of stories per day, and they're not wrong, but that's what you need to be doing if your job is to grow your Instagram following. But to get photography clients, you don't have to be posting on Instagram 15 times a day, because they really do not translate to one another. And I think that that message gets lost a lot. So everybody, if you haven't already written down that little takeaway that manda just said, it's super important. Definitely go and set that mindset and apply that to your business as you're going forward.

Amanda Warfield  32:23  
Yeah, absolutely. Keep it as simple as possible. When and if you decide to add on a VA or other team members to your team, then you can worry about best practices for now. Keep it as simple as possible so that you can be consistent, not constant. 

Sandra Henderson  32:38  
Oh, love it. And I'm going to have a link to your content planner in the show notes so everybody can go and grab themselves a copy of that and make the content and marketing plan and strategy side of their business so much easier this year. And before we wrap things up, uh, where can everybody find you on social media and on Tik Tok?

Amanda Warfield  32:56  
So for both Instagram and Tiktok my ad is @mrsamandawarfield. And I also have my own podcast called Chasing Simple that you should definitely check out.

Sandra Henderson  33:05  
Yes, absolutely. You should definitely check that out. Amazing. Well, thank you so much again, Amanda. This was so so great. I love chatting with you. And we will definitely have to do it again soon!

Amanda Warfield  33:15  
Thank you so much for having me.

Sandra Henderson  33:18  
Thank you so much for listening. You can find full show notes from today’s episode at simplysandrayvonne.ca/keepingitcandid in the meantime, let’s connect. You can find me on Instagram and Tiktok just search @simplysandrayvonne. And if you’re loving this podcast, I’d be so honored if you’d go ahead and hit that subscribe button and leave a review. Until next time!