Transcript (note: this transcript is not perfectly written, it is the transcript, not the specific blog post):
Kimmy the puppet and this is social media hangout time with Janet E. Johnson and Kimmy, the puppet. And we have a very special guest today. Her name is Angela Brooks. Hi Angela!
Hi there! How are you Kimmy?
Awesome! Angela is a former Birkdale mental health nurse who is now a nurse educator, thriving business owner and online marketing trainer. She is married to an amazing man who supported her continually on her business journey. Angela is also the mom of two very busy boys who are active in sports including travel baseball. She quickly learned how to take her business on the move so she can attend her sons’ games and practices. And I know she does a lot of her stuff by iPad. So welcome Angela.
Thank you.
Let me hear a little bit about your story and some of the success you’ve had on social media.
Well thank you for having me on your hangout. First of all I was really tickled that you asked. I found out really quick that when you have boys you have to have life on the run because they don’t slow down any. And we have baseball practice or a game everyday in the summer so that’s normal for us. And so I don’t have time to sit or have access to internet with my whole laptop so my iPad and my iPhone are always with me. My phone is my internet connection so I can sit up in the stands and I can do pre-post, I can stay engaged with my team on the Facebook group that we’ve got or answer emails, whatever it is I need to do I can stay in touch with everybody and still get to enjoy the kids while they’re travelling, too, so it was a venture I never thought I would take it to the level it did. It was just a convenience thing at the time, who knows.
So what do you do when you’re on the fly and you need some extra power, do you have some special power packs, too?
So far I’ve just been fortunate but my phone I do have a couple of charger set along. Zip my phone real quick and I don’t one for the iPad yet but I can get that for 10 hours so it will have the extra zipper charge.
So how long have you done the virtual business that you have?
The last 3 and a half years it has, it has really involved in the total 3 and a half years, oh my goodness, it just seemed like it has gone fast but I went from not really knowing a whole lot about what Facebook offered and of course Facebook has grown in the last couple of years. I just kind of grew with it and took advantage of what they were putting out there.
And how do you do all your posts when you’re out work? Because you’re working full time and you’re sitting at the baseball field obviously you’re going to be driving and working, so how do you get all your posts done?
Usually my husband’s driving to the game so I sit on the other side and I’m plugged in to the vehicle. All the chargers are full so I can sit and pre-post everything. Get everything set up so I’m posting it 6 in the morning, I post 11 o’clock and before lunch and then a 3 and a 6 pm. And in the afternoon I’m usually loved. But during the day when I’m at work I’m hands off because I’ve got other things that I have to do.
Right. And do you use a special tool for doing your posting or do you just manually post it and set a schedule or what tools do you use?
Hootsuite is my favorite. If anybody has ever had a conversation with me they know that Hootsuite is my favorite.
Sure.
And where are you posting to? Like so you’re talking about posting and pre-scheduling and mentioned Facebook but let’s back up a little bit where exactly, what are your social media platforms that you’re using?
There’s hardly a platform that you’re not going to find me on but my two favorites are Facebook and Twitter. I am on Google+. I don’t get as much interaction on Google+ so I backed it up and Facebook and Twitter is where I do mass posting. I am also on some of the other smaller platforms just because I need to be there. I want people to find me everywhere they look. But the Twitter and Facebook are my two major, they’re my two major tools. And LinkedIn, of course everybody is on LinkedIn , I always forget that one.
Sure, sure.
And Instagram. I always get some good tips off your Instagram page, I think they’re great.
Oh my goodness! Right now I’ve got a 30-day video challenge and you’re welcome to come too, Kimmy.
Oh thanks.
I’ve challenged my team just to get people, just to get my out of this fear of the video thing is to start posting Instagram, they’re 15 seconds. And so we’ve been doing a video, 15 seconds everyday for 30 days and that gives you the opportunity to learn. Yeah, that gives you the opportunity to learn how to do video and people really get to know you. And it’s not really about the products, it’s about just you and your day.
So when you talk about your team and how many team members on your, in your evening business?
And it’s the side the people always call it my side business, always like that. I think the there’s around 1,500 in there right now.
Oh that’s fantastic. And do you care to share what that business is? Are you okay with that or would you just…
It’s everyday living essential oils, that is the product base that I use. You’ve got to have a company to market it for and market with. And the oil is something we use in our family so that is my backend company that I market. My frontend is me because you needed, you.com is the most important part of your business and people really have a hard time understanding that you’re the most important part of your business. It’s not your product. That drives me nuts when people think it’s everything about the product but it’s really not.
Yeah, that’s come up a lot. And I just read a Facebook post from Post Planner that had come up on how to market you business and I know a lot of entrepreneurs and network marketers and they’re always saying how do I market with my business and I think you need to, I love this point, can we expand on that a little further? So you took your company and you’re marketing a product but yet you start with yourself, is that correct?
Yes. When I started with it it was all about nursing stories . It was just beginning to write my book, the Nurse’s Voice, which is on Amazon and I didn’t even know where to get started to write a book. So I started writing blog posts to see what got people’s attention. And if I wrote soft stories I got some nice little posts but if I wrote some really, people really like drama. If I wrote drama post then I got lots of comments and it went further. So I was posting Mondays and Thursdays faithfully every single week and was telling stories about me. And about my nursing and around me and my life and in the process of that if I was sitting in the ball game I would say ‘I was at the ballgame this week and my son who’s a pitcher came in with sore muscles. That’s when I integrate the essential oils and say how I treated my son with a simple aromatic product without making it a great big ordeal of buy this oil because that’s not what people want to hear.
So you do it by telling stories? This is a really, really good point. You’re using the stories to not pushing and selling but you’re actually not even trying to sell, just telling a story and if they choose to follow on purchase then that’s how it happens. Now do you have a blog currently with what you do? Can you back up to how you set you up your… because I think this is an area of interest for a lot of people because a lot of people are entrepreneurs trying to build their business on the side of a job in order to build it because things don’t happen like this overnight, typically. You mean the “typical” trend. And so let’s back it up to do you have a main hub of a blog and where do you, you said how often you post it, that kind of thing. Does that go back to your blog or not?
Everything, everything I do is driven to my blog. It is just like your home. Your home is your base. Everybody knows that you live in a certain address and everything, all of my social media drops back to the blog.
How often do you blog?
I blog on Monday morning, I put it up usually about 4:30 in the morning so it’s pre-scheduled to go live. I send that out, that same post goes out to my list so it’s going to my blog, it’s going to my list and then once it goes live, I have tools at the bottom on each and every post for Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Reddit and StumbleUpon. I hit those buttons and I send it out there. And that small process takes me, I am going to say 2 hours. Within 2 hours worth of work, that’s if you’re struggling to have writer’s block or whatever, within two hours I’ve gone in 10 different directions for other people to pick up and start posting. Doing that alone everybody says but I don’t have any money, I can’t advertise or I can’t do this. The first two years that I did this that’s all I did because I couldn’t afford to do the pay-per-click advertising yet. I was picked up by nursesmagazine.com. Yes, go ahead.
And I was just going to say there is no really easy button for any business, you just have to put the blood, sweat and tears in. And telling stories is such a big thing that if people just wrote down ideas throughout the day, they’d have a bunch of blog posts and they could start blogging and that really makes a big difference. But congratulations.
This is not a Cinderella story.
Great and you put in a lot of work into it. I’ve known you for a little bit and I really do see that you put a lot of work but also a lot of love. And you really care about your community so I just think you’re awesome and congratulations on getting picked up on the nurses.com, that’s pretty exciting.
Yeah, people think that they have to, there’s no easy button. This is not the Cinderella story, this is work. You may hear everybody saying that’s an overnight success but that’s bs, I don’t care who told that to you. But just your simple writing, writing your story is unique. Nobody else has your story. So that makes you stand out immediately from the crowd it’s because I can’t tell your story and you can’t tell mine so that makes you unique and every social platform that you are on. When you’re telling your story in your own little quirky, kind of snarky sometimes and I throw that in there, people get to know me and they expect that out of me. If I was to come sugary sweet they’d go what has happened and they
let took her brain, so you know, I’m just me.
Yep.
That’s great. That’s a focus we really have on this show is like what, it is so, the world is so loud nowadays. It’s so crowded on social media and you need to do something that’s really going to make you stand apart from the other people in your industry or your competition or just overall social media even if it’s not your competition because it’s so noisy. So that’s kind of your twist is what you’re saying you got that little…
Yep.
It’s great and when, go ahead Kimmy.
And yeah, and you know having the nursing background and I’ve read a couple of your stories and I’m sure they are very fascinating when you’re in the mental hospital. But you show that compassionate side but kick-butt side, too, and you know I’m sure you’re a snarky nurse, waaahhh.
Yes.
Hey Angela, can you share with us, I mean you have a huge win this month and because of all the efforts you’ve put in and the audience you’ve grown would you mind just sharing what you’ve done for that company in the recognition you received?
This month I hit a very large platform. I’m like 1500 points away from being platinum which is a very big step in the company. As a gold director, I’ve done 100% online and like I said I’m 1500 points away from being platinum people are eyeballing me how did you do that because I’ve had no home parties, I’m not doing, I’m not chasing people down in Walmart or you know, trying to slather things on people that don’t want it. I’m just telling my story. I’m just simply telling my story and with that I have topped out over couple of people in the….
Ooops, what’s up, what’s up? You just cut out, sorry about that. Okay, tapped out. Can you repeat that? You just cut off for a second.
I was ….. in the company 10 years trying to reach platinum and I’ve done that in 3 years, all social media.
Wow.
That’s amazing. Good for you. What a role model. So do you get people who want to be part of your team now? What if there are already have essential oils do you offer a program where they can help and learn from you, as well?
Yeah, I have …
Hang on Angela, we’re not hearing you.
And it has grown into the business. Okay
We can cut that piece with that yeah, we can cut that piece in the podcast but go ahead and answer the question again. Let’s try one more time. I think you’re back but we don’t know until you try.
Oh I lost my question, what was my question?
Can you hear me? Can you hear me?
The products that you have to help people. Yup, yup. Do you have certain products?
The biz.
Oh, she went again.
The business incubator. Can you hear me?
Okay. The business incubator is your product and what can people get when they become part of the team?
Well…get in the team. The team is generalized as the community to help build you out where you need comments and posts and things on your blog. They can go and help you do that. You’re going to get a team call with me once a month that’s an hour long. That’s a training and we’re going to do 30-minute Q&A which is tonight. We’d do it the first Tuesday and second Tuesday of the month. The coaching program that I’ve got, most places you’re going to get for $4.97/month at minimum. And the reason I haven’t done that is because #1 I enjoy what I do and I don’t want into a full pledged coaching right now and until I’m doing it full time at home, that’s where I’m going to sit.
That’s fantastic. And so Angela, I just wanted to say thank you so much for being on the interview today. And just to remind everybody out there that if you have an interest that you would like to get in touch with Angela, go to angelabrook.com and her name is right on the pictures, too, so I encourage you to reach out to Angela. And Angela we really thank you for being on socialmediahangouttime.
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