8 Questions with Social Media Mastermind Tara Jacobsen - Sterling & Stone 2017
Number one, what’s the biggest mistake you’ve ever made and why was that mistake a good thing, if it was?
You seem like the kind of person who thinks of mistakes as good things, but maybe you have a disaster that was just that.
Tara: No, I think the biggest mistake I’ve ever made was I went into business with a friend and I love her today, she’s my writing partner. And I think that we didn’t look on the front-end that we were entirely different in business.
Like for writing we’re amazing, we’re great together. For brainstorming we’re great together, and for implementing, literally, were could not implement one thing. Because people watch you and Johnny and you and Dave and you’re like oh, you guys are implementing, and we would have just continuous arguments.
The one things that comes so easily to mind is she wanted to do a membership site with all kinds of touchy-feely stuff, and we’re going to talk to these people every day. It’s going to be really high price because it’s high contact.Related:GroupBuy SEO Tools
Sean: And not scalable.
Tara: I never want to talk to a human being unless I like them. So we literally sat there for probably three months going back and forth to figure out how to make that work, and it can’t physically work.
Sean: Was it one of those things where it just got too watered down on either end so you didn’t have your vision, she didn’t have her vision?
Tara: And it became this thing that nobody would want to buy anyways. It wasn’t exciting. We weren’t excited about selling it, because she was so “I’m not getting anything I want” and I was like “Oh, my God, this is going to be the most horrific thing in the world.”
Hey, let’s try to sell it!
It didn’t work.
But as far as how do you make the best of it, first off I think that number one I found out that I am an alpha-like person. I had a staff already and I had always worked with people who would implement my vision.
I love input, I love talking to people but you have to have one driver of a boat.
And second off, I learned that you can truly keep your friends. Just because something happens and it doesn’t exactly work out that way, she’s now gone on and she’s doing all kinds of marketing for fitness and she’s doing wonderfully in that space and it’s perfect for her and she’s making high touch products that work.
But that was hard. Because I love her so much and she’s such a big part of my life and she’s such a good friend, saying that isn’t going to work was devastating.
Sean: So did that put you off partnerships in general, or if you found the right partner would you want to try that again?
Tara: I don’t know. I had a real estate partner when I was in real estate, that didn’t work so well. I’ve had other partners that I’ve done things with.
I’ve had partners that it’s worked really well when it’s on a specific.
Sean: Like project-to-project.
Tara: Like on a project basis I love that. Like with Rebecca and doing our books, we can do wonderful books. She has strengths I don’t have. I have strengths she doesn’t have. We do a lot of the same thing.
We scope them out together. I produce a ton of the content, she makes it actually comprehensible. So that’s the kind of thing that works out really well.
But as far as like once again going and saying oh, I’m going to split my business, I’m not.
Sean: So when it comes to business on a macro level, it’s Tara the lone wolf, but on a project-to-project basis you could find the right partner.
Tara: Oh, I love doing stuff with other people. You can become really stagnant if you’re just doing your thing your way all the time.
Sean: Oh, for sure. You’re just boxing yourself off. You’re closed. I mean you know how collaborative we all are.
Tara: Oh, gosh, yes.
Sean: That’s what we do. But it makes sense. So you’re not in any way opposed to collaboration. It’s just partnership on a whole level, it boxes you in too much, right?
Tara: Right. And I tend – you wouldn’t think it with as loud as I am and as opinionated as I am, but really the people I love, I love and so I really want to try to make sure that they’re happy.
So there’s probably a passive-aggressive thing where I try to make them happy but you’re not doing it my way.
Sean: Oh, I understand that. I totally get that. We talk a lot about the 80/20 rule. It is just so important to getting a lot of stuff done, and it seems like 80/20 is even more important with social media because you can just easily whittle your day to nothing.
So how do you decide what to focus on?
Tara: Wow, huge question. We’ll start at the biggest macro level. How do you like Twitter, Sean?
Sean: In theory I think it’s awesome.
Tara: I checked yesterday and you haven’t posted since November.
Sean: No, that’s not true. Okay, wait, wait, wait. Yes, that’s true I haven’t posted anything unique but I’ve responded to everybody. I get on there and I respond, I reply. And I did post something that was for a fan who had sent something and I retweeted.
Tara: Oh, I think I might have seen the retweet.
Sean: But no, I am very lazy on Twitter. Absolutely I suck.
Tara: Okay. So Johnny loves it though, right? I don’t know that he posts a lot but I do talk to Johnny a lot on Twitter.
Sean: He’s definitely there 10-20 times more than me.
Tara: Exactly. And I love Twitter, so I’m really good at that. I think that that is awesome.
Sean: If it makes you feel any better, I want to love Twitter.
Tara: There you go. Well, I kind of know exactly what you’re talking about, because being a social media person everybody wants me to love Facebook.
Sean: Right.
Tara: Like they totally want me to love it. They want me to have special groups and to do all this stuff and I hate it. Like I hate every second – well, I wouldn’t say that. Today I get in a really cool conversation on a private message group with people who are making graphics.
But it’s not my group. I’m not having to go in there and do that and be available all the time.
So Facebook is not my thing.
Linkedin, I have almost 20,000 people who love me on Linkedin. I hate every one of them. It doesn’t work for me. They send me sales messages. I screwed up at the beginning. I have so many because they aren’t actually connections. They’re like friends of friends and they’re like whatever.
Sean: They’re like that guy over there on the corner.
Tara: Well, I think they’re that guy in India, a lot of them. Which is fine. I have a lot of great connections overseas, around the world, but it’s not the same as having some sort of relevant connection to people.
Sean: Right.
Tara: So Linkedin is not my thing. Pinterest I adore, but I adore it mostly as a user. And I think Instagram is an amazing tool that we just don’t necessarily know how well to use yet. I get some good results from it.
So you asked about 80/20. I think that you should spend 90% of your time on whichever social network makes you happy.
I think you don’t have one that does.
Sean: Well, I do, it’s iTunes.
Tara: Okay, okay. So perfect. So it’s iTunes. I don’t spend a tone of time on actually social media.
I spend a ton of time on my website. I actually make a blog post almost every day. I obsessively watch my stats. I look at my SEO key words and try to figure out how I can get…
Sean: Yes, but that’s still social traffic so it very much is. I spend a long time blogging, a lot of hours, more than I can count. I love podcasting because it’s verbal and I can save my writing time for writing. But I think it accomplishes the same end, right?
Tara: Right.
Sean: Like that’s my social space of choice.
Tara: Oh, exactly and that’s the whole thing. I think that in 80/20 or 90/10 or whatever, one of the main things that I think people need to do this year, okay, and I love your Iterate and Optimize and that that book’s coming out. I can’t wait until I touch that book.
Because I think that we keep trying to figure out all the other things we could do. And I think the number one thing you should do is figure out what you like to do best and do that.
Sean: Yes, I totally agree.
Tara: And any other time you have left over, that’s awesome. Like for a really fun conversation about design on Facebook on Friday, which is not one of my big days, but I wouldn’t have that conversation on a Tuesday, which is a big production day for me.
Sean: Yes, that makes absolute sense and that’s kind of where we all ended up because we did try to get so into social media and it just seems like so against the grain of what we wanted to do and what we were naturally happy doing.
But look what happened later in the year. We launched a podcast network with 10 shows.
Tara: But to you that doesn’t feel hard.
Sean: No, not at all.
Tara: If I said you have to post something on social media every day, you spend a half an hour trying to avoid it and figure out what it is…
Sean: Yes, absolutely.
Tara: …and then you might do something half-assed and then you go and do it finally, where you could product three podcasts then.
Sean: Right. And that’s exactly where we ended up and I’m very happy with that.
What is your worst habit?
Tara: My worst habit. I like to think it’s not procrastination.
Sean: That’s good because that’s an easy habit to have.
Tara: And I am really good at functionally getting things done. And the reason why I make work sheets and all kinds of stuff, and the reason why I do that is a coping mechanism. Like if I didn’t have worksheets and checklists and things like that, I would just go down the rabbit hole of marketing every single day, blissfully doing that.
But I do think that I procrastinate about certain things.
Like just today I was going through my services, and even as I’m doing it I’m like you cannot pick any services that you don’t like to do. And so I got to one and I’m like oh, but it makes money. That’s kind of the problem is it makes a lot of money. But I don’t like it.
Sean: Well, often the stuff that makes a lot of money is stuff that we don’t like as much, for sure.
Tara: Right. Well, I kind of split the difference. So I have two big huge graphics with things I like to do and then at the very bottom I said, you know the availability is extremely limited. And what I’ve gotten to is just that if I don’t like you, I’m not going to work with you, which is helpful.
So I don’t know if it’s actually procrastination. It’s that not being able — because I can do lots of things, not being able to constrain what I want to do.
Sean: Yes, that makes perfect sense. I have the same issue. Well, on the other side, what is your best habit or one thing that you consistently do that’s been the biggest contributor to your success? And besides not being a procrastinator because you clearly implement, you get a lot of stuff done, but what more specifically?
Tara: I’m prepared.
Sean: Okay. That’s good. Like with worksheets and things like that?
Tara: I’m prepared with everything. It’s so funny because I’m going to be on this fabulous podcast later and so…
Sean: I’ve heard those guys are jokers.
Tara: No, they’re awesome. But literally I have not obsessively but I listened to some of the podcasts beforehand because I watch people go on John Lee Dumas’ podcast and his audience is huge and your opportunity is huge with him. And they have no idea what he’s talking about because they never even bothered to listen.
I listen to podcasts of people that I’m going on that are little podcasts because I want to find out what their audience likes. I literally, I’m going to be going and speak in Florida in two weeks. Like I prepare obsessively for it, and that way I don’t have to feel weird.
Like I am very of the moment. I don’t like to have a written script or anything like that. But I am so totally prepared for things that you can’t ask me a question that I don’t know.
Sean: I love that because we always say that great writing is prewriting and rewriting. And it’s just being prepared to hit the page. I feel like writer’s block is not being enthusiastic or it’s not being prepared.
Tara: And so I was listening to the gal who’s doing romance superhero.
Sean: Julie Huss.
Tara: Okay. And I thought oh, well, that’s cool. And then you listen to her and why it took so long for her to be able to do that, and because I guess she had a really good idea of the conventions and rules of romance, but then when she was going to be writing in that superhero genre she was like, okay, well I have to know what it is.
I think a lot of people would have just gone hey, I’ve watched Ironman, I know what’s going on.
And that’s why people are successful. Because they understand that the people who care about superheroes really care, a lot.
Sean: Yes, and I hadn’t read the book when she was on the show, but I’ve read the book since and you can tell that she was prepared to write that book. That’s what we do with all the character stuff and all of the beats.
It’s like what you said, it’s not like you obsessively have every line detailed ahead of time, but there’s no question that’s going to come at you that you’re not going to be able to respond to.
It’s the same. We don’t go line by line this has to happen and this has to happen, but if I give Johnny an outline he can ignore 95% of it, but it still keeps him moving.
Tara: One of the big questions I hear a lot from people who listen to you guys is are you…
Sean: Do they ever shut up?
Tara: No. Of course that. That’s Dave. But how can they do work if they’re going fast?
Sean: I think we do good work because we go fast.
Tara: Exactly. I think if you are immersed in that world, whatever you’re doing, whether you’re writing a horror story, or whether you’re writing a story about unicorns, or whatever you’re doing, if you’re immersed in that world and everything that you have as a being is in there, you couldn’t stay there for too – well, I couldn’t.
I know that there are writers that can write in a certain genre or for a certain audience for years and be okay.
I can’t.
I’m obsessed with author marketing this week. I’m like oh, my gosh, and I’m writing blog posts about it. And that will come and then in two weeks I’m doing horticulture.
Sean: That’s a big difference.
Tara: That’s a big difference, but it’s so interesting because it’s service and retail. And so then I get interested in that, and then I do that for a week.
They’re all in the same thing. They’re all marketing, but it’s just how you’re presenting it.
Sean: Right. Like Dave’s a good example of somebody. He can go back to that well. That makes him comfortable. He’s happy in that space. But I get bored. I’m a little more ADD in that way. I want fresh inspiration and new adventures and new experiences.
It really is about always finding flow, always being in flow.
We’re in the golden age of television, right. And those episodes come out every week. They’re not worse because they come out every week. If they took four months in between episodes, that wouldn’t make them better.
It’s just a different way of thinking about it, and I think that as artists, as authors, we’ve been conditioned by the publishing industry, the way it’s operated in the last few hundred years, and people don’t have multiple books.
First of all, it took a long time back with manual typewriters and things like that. But should we be moving at the same speed now that we have great tools that do help us go faster?
Tara: But I think that’s not exactly right because I am very – like my little ears are up for the big writers that literally were writing under pseudonyms.
Sean: Right.
Tara: Like they were doing it, it just wasn’t public.
Sean: Even back with Stephen King and they wouldn’t let him write any more. He was like well damn it, and Richard Bachman was born because he needed to write more. He had more to say.
Tara: Oh, yes, Nora Roberts and all of those. I love the fact that the publishing industry is still not able to squash down creativity. So there are two types of people, right.
We’re octopuses, that’s the thing, is we like to have a million different tentacles going every different way and that fuels our creativity.
And then there’s the elephants, and they like to plod along and do the one thing really well.
Sean: Dude, I’m telling Dave you called him an elephant. He’s not going to be happy.
Tara: I so did not call Dave an elephant. But I don’t think that you can turn yourself from an octopus. You can try and squish yourself into an elephant and you’ll die. Your creativity will die because you need that different stimulation from all the different places.
And if you try to make an elephant an octopus, then you have Dave. Like he just fritzes out and he won’t play anymore and then you have to let him elephant back up and then he’s fine, right?
Sean: Yes, it took me a while, five years, and then I realized oh, I can’t make you into an octopus and then along comes Johnny and makes everything okay. Basically I had a new outlet. I could do all the crazy things I wanted to do.
What inspires you most?
Tara: I really like finding new things. Not necessarily different things, but new ways to do things.
So I’ll give you an example. Today in that little design conversation I was having on Facebook, the guy had thrown down the gauntlet and he’s like okay, and you guys will love this, with your five star reviews go ahead and make a graphic that shows your five star reviews.
And immediately I went oh, my gosh. So I got the branding for one of my products and I put my five star review there and I made a beautiful picture and I’m like oh, my gosh, this could be one of the pictures for my thing.
It wasn’t anything different. I wasn’t learning new graphic skills. I wasn’t doing a new product. I wasn’t doing anything like that.
But I literally made a sale directly from it because the conversation was going down and then some lady was like wait a minute, what are you talking about? And I said oh, it’s this product. It was for Etsy. Oh, this little product for Etsy and she’s like well, I’m going to buy it and then my cash register rang.
And I’m like oh, my gosh, and I was thinking of you. I’m like why can’t you do that for your books? Like have a really cool series of just your great customer testimonials.
So that is what I find exciting, is figuring out something small that has a humongous impact.
Sean: So most of the stuff that inspires you just comes from real life, living day-to-day experiences that kind of come along.
Tara: Oh, yes.
Sean: That’s very cool. Do you have an ideal schedule?
Tara: Yes.
Sean: What is your ideal schedule?
Tara: I have a picture of it if you have to see it. Literally I have a thing, it’s called color coding your life, and you put down what you do.
This is sad but my very most important thing is from 5:00 – 6:00 in the morning. I get up at 4:15. From 5:00 to 6:00 in the morning I write.
Sean: Wait, you get up at 4:15?
Tara: Yes, I get up at 4:15.
Sean: What time do you go to bed?
Tara: 9:00.
Sean: Oh, that’s diligent.
Tara: So that’s my time. Then my children get up, right. So Johnny and I adopted three children which totally – for the first year I tried to pretend like there was no difference. That didn’t work out all that well.
But then I have that whole little band of time. But I do have in there I can check my email, I can do things, because they don’t want to pay attention to me for an hour and a half.
Then I come back. Then on Sundays I have quiet work. So literally I have plotted out my perfect day for the whole weeks and you use colors.
So pink is for personal. So every day at 2:45, no matter what happens, I have to stop because nobody else is going to the bus stop to get ‘em.
So what I like about that is that it makes me work when I work. I have to be working, otherwise I have to use my pink time and then my husband gets upset and the whole thing falls apart.
Sean: I like that. I do very simple blocks, 30 minute blocks, but there’s a certain amount per day and these blocks are dedicated to this. And they shuffle around a little bit. Like I have more editing right now than normal, or I have more beats than normal. But they’re blocks and I try to keep my blocks away from family time. That’s very cool.
What do you see in the future of social media?
Tara: Wow. First off , everybody’s sick of trying to do so much. Right? I really see it contracting. I really see people literally going to what they like.
I understand the concept of going to where your customers are. So if you’re a romance author, you can’t decide to go on Linkedin, even if you like it the most. Unless you’re trying to get corporate things or whatever.
Sean: Yes, that’s a really good example.
Tara: Yes, there are limitations to what you can do. But I think that the opportunity is so huge. I mean the fact that as a non-fiction writer I can go and talk on Twitter to actual people, is amazing.
You can make connections that you would never be able to make in real life.
Like I couldn’t pick up the phone and call Johnny, but if I wanted to talk to him sometime in the next two days, he’ll check his Twitter, I could literally talk to him on Twitter and he would talk to me back.
Sean: And that’s easier because you don’t necessarily have that person’s email address, but Twitter is more accessible.
Tara: It’s more accessible. On Linkedin, if you’re big into Linkedin and you have a lot of connections, you could reach out and do a message on Linkedin.
If you’re looking for groups of people with a genuine interest in something, you could absolutely go and join a Facebook private group, and then you have contact with all those people.
You don’t even have to make it. You just have to put in the time to take with that.
So I think that personalized making sure that you’re actually involved in it rather than just broadcasting stuff is important.
I broadcast a ton of stuff and that’s fine too, but I don’t try to say that that’s social media. That’s broadcasting. That’s old school advertising, and social media is when you actually get in the trenches and do something with someone.
Sean: And you’re social. It’s the social part instead of the media part, right?
Tara: Okay, yes, that.
Sean: What do you want your legacy to be?
Tara: I want my legacy to be that I was really smart but able to tell people how to do it.
I think that there’s a lot of people that like to know things, but not to help. And I want to help.
Like I sent out my newsletter today and I…
Sean: Oh, you’re very helpful. You’re one of the most helpful people I’ve ever met online.
Tara: I like being helpful. Like there’s no – oh, shoot, I don’t even know what it is. But there’s no – nothing you can do that doesn’t give you something back, right?
Sean: Yes.
Tara: And so today I sent out my newsletter. I asked all my little peeps…
Sean: What their word of the year was. I got that.
Tara: What their word of the year is. And I got back this one, I’m going to look at it, hang on. Because this lady said her word was justify.
And I thought to myself what are you, you know, huh? And she’s like I have to justify that my yarn colors I use are right. And I have to justify that my time spent on social media is worthwhile.
And I was like holy cow, I was just so excited!
So that’s the kind of thing, like I do spend an awful lot of my time just helping people. And people ask all the time, well how do you sell on social? How do you sell on your website?
You do nice things and people buy stuff.
That’s it.
Sean: That’s a very simple equation. Well, thank you so, so much for answering my eight questions and I always learn something from you when we talk and you always make me want to do a better job in social and feeling like my podcasting isn’t enough. But I’ll get there. One day I will fall in love with Twitter like I should.
Tara: No, no, no. How about Instagram?
Sean: You know what, I keep wanting to, especially since my daughter’s really into it and it just seems like it would be easy.
Tara: It is super easy. So like you walk around, right?
Sean: Yes.
Tara: So you could take pictures of anything – anything, literally. I have pictures of my dogs. I have pictures of my food. I have pictures.
I do try to occasionally put pictures of business, but the cool thing is, is it automatically shoots it to your Twitter and your Facebook. So you could actually just fall in love with one.
Sean: Ah, see, there you are tempting me.
Tara: And getting a three-for!
Sean: Yes, that sounds pretty awesome. You know what’s funny in 2015, one of our big things was do a better job in social media. In 2016 it didn’t even make the goals list, right. But I think it should. I think you’re right. I think I should spend a little time.
Because that would make my daughter happy, right there.
And I do like the idea of it going to Twitter and to Facebook.
But that’s the thing, it has to be a real organic part of my life or it’s not going to stick.
Tara: So two things. So I have an 18 year old daughter who literally knows what’s going on in my life, not because she lives in my house, but because she’s my friend on Instagram, right. They’re using Instagram.
Second off is I think that as a personality, because you’re a big personality, it’s hard to understand until you look at somebody else. So you would think to yourself well, why would anybody care about pictures of Halley. Or why would anybody care about a picture of me getting one of my new books in, or things like that.
Dean Koontz starts Instagram. Are you following him?
Sean: No.
Tara: Why?
Sean: Because I don’t pay attention to stuff like that. But I do see what you’re saying. Immediately my brain went to I was walking day before yesterday and I got bit by a dog. And I totally could have taken “Look I just got bit by a dog!” took a picture of my dog bite. That’s what I would have done because I was out walking.
I will, I will try.
Tara: But don’t you think that could be something that you would incorporate into a story or even if you didn’t incorporate it into a story, it could spark a piece.
So you don’t want to just have random stuff. You want to make sure that it is somewhat relevant.
Sean: Yes, and it’s just a matter of doing it. It’s like anything we talk about. It’s a matter of being consistent and actually making it part of our lives. But I’m going to do that some time this year.
You heard it here first, right. I know, I see you rolling your eyes. It’s fine. It’s awesome.
Okay. Thank you so much for all the Eight Questions and I will see you very shortly for Iterating and Optimizing. You can find Tara at her site MarketingArtfully.com
Tara: Yea.
Sean: Bye everyone. Talk to you next time.
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