The Real Reason Social Media Marketing Feels So Hard | IP 196

What if your marketing problem has almost nothing to do with algorithms, social media, or even consistency - at all?

In this surprisingly deep and insightful conversation, I asked content strategist and Content Queen founder Mariah MacInnes  to unpack why so many practice owners struggle with marketing — especially healing arts professionals who care so much about helping people, but get super squirmy when it comes to being seen themselves! 🫣 

We talked about the difference between a true marketing strategy and simply posting content, how to choose platforms that fit your personality and audience, why storytelling matters more than polished perfection, and how authenticity, mindset, and even energy impact the way people respond to your work.

If you feel like you should be online but you HATE the idea, I think you’ll like this.

It’s funny, affirming - and practical.

In this episode you’ll learn:

1. Why a posting schedule is NOT a marketing strategy. (New idea!)
2. How to choose marketing platforms that actually fit your personality and business goals. 
3. Why therapists and healers often struggle with visibility and self-promotion. (Built in for so many of us…)
4. Why storytelling creates more meaningful connection than “perfect” marketing
5. Why no strategy is going to work unless you actually believe in the message you’re sharing

Here’s what I loved most about this conversation. 

Mariah teaches that social media is less about “selling” and more about creating an authentic exchange of energy with the people you’re here to help.

And when you nail that, you’ll be able to create marketing that feels sustainable, aligned – human (!) – without burning yourself out trying to perform online.

If this one clicks for you, go through it again with a notebook close by – because Mariah dropped a ton of wisdom here. 

Then - what if you chose one small step to try? Start the email list. Make your first video. Ttell the story. Post the imperfect thing… 

Or just start paying attention to what your clients are already showing you every day.

Are you seeing how visibility, mindset, money, and sustainable growth are all more connected than you thought?

Good.

Because you’re exactly the kind of person I created this  podcast for. :)

~Wendy

P.S. I think “Your social media is your shop window… ”is going to stick in MY head forever now! 

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TODAY’S GUEST:  Mariah MacInnes  

Mariah MacInnes is a content strategist, entrepreneur, and the founder of Content Queen, a marketing agency and education platform focused on helping business owners create better content online. With a background in journalism, PR, and more than nine years in marketing, she’s worked across social media, podcasting, blogging, and digital storytelling. Since launching Content Queen in 2019, Mariah has built her business while traveling the world as a digital nomad—sharing both the strategy behind great content and the adventure of building a life with more freedom and flexibility.

Her Instagram: @contentqueenmariah
Her Website: www.contentqueenmariah.com

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MENTIONED: 

• For my interview on her podcast, Content Queen Mariah: click here. 
• Platforms: Insight Timer, Instagram, Facebook and Linked In
• AI Tool: ChatGPT
• Marketing Experts Seth Godin and Gary Vee

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LET’S CONNECT: 

• Quick Start Consult: If you’re ready to get out of your own way, this 1:1 coaching work session could make all the difference. Learn more here.  
• Want to be a Guest on Ideal PracticeTM?  Submit your application here.  
• Follow me on Facebook or Linked In. 

Transcript

Wendy Pitts Reeves 0:00

You're listening to Ideal Practice episode number 196. Today, guys, with my guest Mariah MacInnes, we're gonna dig into why your online marketing isn't working. So, stay tuned.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 0:26

Hi, I'm Wendy Pitts Reeves, and with over two decades of experience in the private practice world, I've built my six-figure business while learning a lot of lessons the hard way. This is the first podcast that shows you how to apply the principles of energy, alignment, and strategy to build a practice that is profit-centered, but people forward. This is the Ideal Practice

Introducing Mariah MacInnes

Wendy Pitts Reeves 0:53

Podcast.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 0:57

Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the Ideal Practice Podcast. This is Wendy, Wendy Pitts Reeves, your host. And as always, I am really excited to be hanging out with you today. I have got a fast-paced, thought-provoking, really interesting conversation on tap for you today. Today, you get to meet my guest, Mariah McInnes. Mariah is like she is just absolutely delightful. Her energy is infectious. That's that's I guess that's the best way I can say it. Mariah is a content strategist, okay? Listen to that, content strategist. She's the founder of Content Queen. That's her business, that's a marketing agency and an education platform where she focuses on helping business owners create better content online. With a background in journalism and PR, and more than nine years now in marketing directly, just working in marketing. She has worked across social media, podcasting, blogging, and she has really tuned into digital storytelling. Since launching Content Queen in 2019, Mariah has built her business herself while she's traveling the world as a digital nomad, and you know how much I love that. Today she talks about the strategy behind great content and about the adventure of building a life with more freedom and flexibility.

Strategy, Storytelling and the Mindset Piece of Marketing

Wendy Pitts Reeves 2:18

And in this episode today in particular, I think you're really going to enjoy it because we are going to dig into some of the sort of common misperceptions that folks like you and I have about how we need to be showing up online, if we even need to be showing up online, why what we do there may or may not be landing with our audience, may not be connecting with the people we want to connect with. There's a lot that goes into this, and some of it surprised me. So without further ado, let's get in to the interview. All right, everybody, you have already heard a little bit about my guest, so I am just gonna bring her right on board. Mariah, tell everybody hello. Say hi.

MARIAH MacINNES 3:02

Hi, thank you so much, Wendy, for having me. I'm so excited to be here. So thank you for having me.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 3:07

You are very welcome. So I don't remember if I told people this or not, but you and I have now met a couple of times because you were kind enough to have me on your podcast. And today, though, you're returning the favor, which I'm so grateful for. Um, we're gonna talk about it. We're gonna talk about why your marketing is not working, which actually we don't people don't go there. So I'm I'm really excited about that angle. I really want to dig into that. But before I do that, I love this question so much. Tell everybody where you are in the world, and then a little bit about who you serve and how you serve them.

MARIAH MacINNES 3:41

Amazing. Yes. So right now, as we speak, I'm from Australia and I am living in a bus. I have a six-meter Toyota coaster that my partner and I had renovated, and we travel Australia. So right now I'm in Australia in quite a cold town at a free, like a camping ground, um, just outside of like a, you know, one of those towns everyone stops to get petrol on their road trip. So it's um we stayed here last night. So that is in the bottom of Australia. So as we're coming into winter, it is a little bit cold. Um it's getting a bit chilly.

MARIAH MacINNES 4:17

But yes, um, my name's Mariah. I'm the founder of Content Queen, and I help small business owners and entrepreneurs create their ideal content marketing plan, their organic marketing. So if we think of organic marketing, we

A Posting Plan is Not a Marketing Strategy.

MARIAH MacINNES 4:30

think things that we don't naturally put money into, but we put our we put our resources in, our time and our energy, social media, blogging, podcasts, email marketing, doing webinars, masterclasses, anything life is content, I say. So I help small business owners and entrepreneurs uh really create their ideal plan. And I do that blending storytelling and strategy. And a little bit that I've been diving into a lot more lately is that sort of mindset piece. If we're not sort of in that headspace or we don't have that frame of mind, or we we don't have that mindset or we feel unaligned, then of course the marketing doesn't really work. But I work in agency, so I I help people content and then I do educational stuff, workshops.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 5:12

Yeah, I try to help people where where I can. So that's um so y'all, I hope y'all heard that she's living in a bus because that's the living in a bus, traveling around Australia. And it's very funny because at the time of this recording, it's late in the afternoon for me, it's crack of dawn for her. I'm moving into the summer, she's freezing. We couldn't be just starting opposite, right? I love it. It just blows my mind.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 5:38

Yeah, it's fascinating to me. Okay, so all right, small businesses, marketing, um, all different versions of content that you were just right, you were just sharing there. So tell me, um, so so let's just talk about like why is our why is our marketing not working? Like what are we missing about this? Talk us through this a little bit.

MARIAH MacINNES 5:58

Yeah, so I think there's a few elements to our marketing. I think the first thing that we do when we start to market our business is we we kind of get a feel for what's going on around us. And we don't first thing is we don't stick to the foundations. I would, you know, I want anyone to put their hand up who's listening. I don't care where you are on the bus, on the train, in the car, like hands up if you have a content marketing plan, because whenever I do that, people look at me very blankly. Because they don't. No, and and we mainly, if we have anything, we have a posting plan, right? So we know um that, yeah, I know on a Monday I might post this, or on a Tuesday I might post this. And that is not a strategy, that is just a posting plan, which is kind of like one element of your content strategy. So, and and you shared this, Wendy, and you share this with your clients similarly. It's like, you know, sort of going back to those foundations as well, like who are you serving? But who you're serving from a target audience lens could be different to your people as well, because when we're on these online channels, for example, me, I have two different target audiences, one of them being the people that want to outsource and one that want to do the education. Want to learn how to do it themselves. Yeah. I don't do content for the people that want to hire me. I don't need to. It's a network thing, it's it's a different or like a different marketing plan. But for like content and organic, I focus on those small business owners who aren't ready to outsource, that want education, support, etc. So that's sort of the first thing that we we often um get stuck on is we're we're just posting stuff. We've got a posting plan, but we don't go back and look at those foundations, similar to what you teach, but then from that kind of content and marketing lens.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 7:42

So that's interesting. That's interesting. What you just said a strategy, a marketing strategy is different from a posting plan.

MARIAH MacINNES 7:50

Yes.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 7:50

I'm gonna post this on this platform, on this, I'm gonna put this on Instagram, I'm gonna put this on LinkedIn, and here's what I'm gonna write on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. You're saying that's not anywhere near what a true strategy strategic plan is.

MARIAH MacINNES 8:03

Yeah, that that's just like a tactic within the strategy, right? So that is just the the execution part. But a lot of the times what I try to bring people back towards is that research phase. So your target audience, obviously your goals. So like if and and I asked this at a workshop the other day, who here has business goals? Everyone looked at me like I was like, rant. Like who, what? Why would I have a business goal? Okay, we need to take a step back for a minute because if you don't know where you want your business to go, how are you meant to show up and unmark it if you don't know what you want to do?

Wendy Pitts Reeves 8:37

Yeah.

MARIAH MacINNES 8:38

So that's why it's really important to go back. Okay, what do I want to achieve? Okay, how many clients do I need to begin with? How much money do I need to make it sustainable? Well, help me work out where I need to market and what I need to talk about. Because if I only need, you know, I mean, if I'm thinking about me as a service-based provider, maybe I only need 10, 11, to like I've had 16 clients. That was too many. So I I can go to myself, well, I don't really like, you know, 15 clients. Yeah, cool, that can come from my network. All right, I don't really need to market that. So that's how I made that decision to go down that training path that I could help more people. So, but if you are a practitioner, like, you know, how many people can you ideally take per week? Like we've only got a certain amount of hours in the day and we don't want to just spill it because I even I've seen a um a friend of mine who is a a counselor. He, I don't know that he had that goal in mind, and then he went quite viral on social media, and then he all of a sudden had a booked calendar and then had to kind of think on his feet really quickly and build a team, probably before he was ready to do that.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 9:42

Yeah, I can relate to that. That happened in my group practice. We had more business than we could keep up with, and we had to and we had to roll our marketing back because of that. We had to scroll down.

MARIAH MacINNES 9:51

Right. But then the ego doesn't like I I I imagine in my friend's mind, his ego is getting all those good viral videos, right? So he doesn't want to scale back. But he's you know, so knowing your business goals and where you're heading will then help you decide what marketing goals you need. For example, if you also in your as a practitioner, um, maybe you yeah, you you do yoga or meditation, it would make sense for you to use your voice because

Stop Chasing Every New Platform

MARIAH MacINNES 10:20

that's something that people hear. So, oh, you know what? My goal obviously is to do X amount of uh so maybe Insight Timer is a channel that I could market myself on. So then you can start going outside the box rather than going, oh, well, here's what I've got, this is what I'm doing, I'll just sort of follow the rest of the crew. So that's what I see a lot. Okay.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 10:42

So you're saying is that that we tend to, I'm sorry, I didn't tell you that I was gonna interrupt you, but I'm gonna interrupt you.

MARIAH MacINNES 10:46

Please do.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 10:47

Because I want to make sure people catch things along the way, right? So I'm gonna like put a pin in things. You're saying that our that if we don't do this thoughtfully and intentionally, our t our tendency is to just quote follow the crowd. Just everybody's on Instagram, so I should be on Instagram. But that when you have clear business goals, a clear target market, your ideal client, your ICA, um, business goals, you said then you know where to market and what to talk about.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 11:14

And what you're just now saying is how, like what's the platform, what's the place that you would do that? I would never think of Insight Timer. And those, y'all, if y'all are listening to this, if it many of you will be familiar with this because it's a it's a major one and we've talked about it here before. Insight Timer is a very, very, very, very popular meditation app that has a gazillion people on it. I would never have thought of that as a marketing platform. But you're right. So if you're if your type of business is sound-based, something on your voice, maybe that's the place to go than Instagram or Facebook, whatever. Interesting. Wow, that's great.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 11:53 Wendy Pitts Reeves 11:53 Wendy Pitts Reeves 11:53 Wendy Pitts Reeves 11:53 Wendy Pitts Reeves 11:53 Wendy Pitts Reeves 11:53 MARIAH MacINNES 11:53

Yes

MARIAH MacINNES 11:53

es

MARIAH MacINNES 11:53

es

MARIAH MacINNES 11:53

eah, so then then it just allows you to think a little bit more outside the box, right?

MARIAH MacINNES 11:57 MARIAH MacINNES 11:57

And I and I have this happen all the time. A new platform comes out, threads, I don't know when it was 2023. I remember I was in Europe. My client, oh my god, threads has come out. What should we do? And I'm like, we should do nothing, we should go back to the strategy and remember what we're here to do. Because we we scroll social media all the time. We have people like, this is a new channel, jump on it, like it's gonna change your life. And it doesn't. Like, you know, people that have success on platforms will always tell you why you need to be on that platform. Yeah, but they don't understand the nuances of your business, they don't understand who you you know, and I think we need to take ownership. The reason why our marketing doesn't work either is we don't take ownership of the fact that we are the expert in our business, and anyone outside of that doesn't have the knowledge that you do. And whilst yes, I am an expert in marketing and I can give you so much guidance. I'm here to guide you. You know your business more. You know the clients that come through the door every day, you know them so deeply. And I don't think we trust ourselves enough because I don't know marketing, I'm a practitioner. I don't know marketing, I am a product-based. Like, you know, like there's that narrative like, oh, I'm just a uh a yoga teacher or I'm just a Reiki healer. No, you are an expert in the people that you serve. And that is what and we look at it with content creators and influencers, right? They have built their platform on purely connection with their audience because they know them so deeply. That's why when you hire an influencer to do content, it's not a lot of the times, yes, you can give them a brief on what you want, but at the end of the day, you'll get the most results if you take guidance because they know their audience. So why aren't you thinking the same thing when it comes to marketing your business? Then using obviously external guidance and resources and support on the execution and the how and you know, all those things. And obviously, if you're not an expert in Instagram reels, of course you might lean on someone for expertise. But I think we let the algorithm of social media dictate what how we market our businesses rather than going like, oh, I'm in a room with my ideal client every single day. That's true. We forget that a lot, I think. I I even me, right? Like, I think we all forget like the client meetings that I have on a weekly basis is basically stems my whole what I actually talk about. Because if if one person is sharing that concern or that problem or that win, everyone else is is feeling the same thing, usually collectively, especially in the energetic space, right? We know that like with things like Reiki and Yoga, like usually you go in a in a in a room and you do a yoga practice, and if anyone like shares how they're feeling nine times out of ten, we're all feeling the same thing, right? It's like so usually if you're if one of your clients or people in your audience and and your direct um, you know, who you're working with on a day-to-day are sharing those insights with you, that's sort of the key to what you can talk about. And and it's funny because I work with lots of different business owners and one of them is a financial, like uh accounting, financial planning, etc. And there we always get them, and they're like, oh, but I don't think one client is the rule of everyone else. And I'm like, no, but we collect that as data, right? Like it's not that they're talking about we have an Australia superannuation which is like 401k. So everyone else is concerned about it. No, but it's like it's a collective of like what is the current trend and the current climate in which we're talking about, then we find the threads, right? So that is um, yeah, like I guess that's the the trust in self that you should have.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 15:33

Okay, I want to I want to follow we just covered a couple of different things there. I want to make sure that we we get the thread.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 15:38

Um, so I'm hearing you talk about two different things. On one hand, well, first of all, the when you talk about the foundation. So the foundation of a marketing plan is first of all, know what you're gonna, like you said, how many clients do you even need? If you only need three more clients, then you're you may not want to do this kind of marketing, whatever. Or maybe you've got tons of people, a business coming in, it may be time to develop a new product, a program, a group, a service, a course, whatever. But you said your your foundation is like start there. What is it I want to build? What is it I'm trying to accomplish? Why do marketing at all? Like, what's the point? Right. And so I want it to get me this amount of traffic. I want this amount of folks to come to my website, I want this number of phone calls to get whatever. Um, start with all of that.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 16:23

But then you said I'd like to go a little bit more into this, like finding the right place, because then you you were going from place to voice to what to say, what to do with it. And I think that's a whole different topic. So before we get into that too much, can you talk to me about how where do I market and how do I know where to market? How do I know where to even share my story or my client's stories or whatever the message is I want the message is a whole different thing by itself, but how do I know the where? Let's start with that.

MARIAH MacINNES 16:53

Yeah, so I guess obviously those two steps lead you to a lot of those answers, right? So the first thing is my target audience, where where are they spending their time? If you are in meditation, like you want to attract people that like meditation, insight timer could be a space. If you if you have uh clients that are mainly an older generation, maybe they would be more on Facebook, for example. If so, if you are working with, if you're a therapist that works with burnt out, high achieving women, LinkedIn, right? So we think about that from one lens. Then we go on our goal. Okay, so what am I what am I trying to achieve? All right, I I want to build, obviously, from those goals, we have marketing goals. All right, I need an email list because I can't rely on social media for one. I need to I need to showcase my voice because that is a big part of so then we start to go, okay, from those goals, all right. If I need all right, if I need to build a client base and I need an email list so I can keep engaging them, then I need to do something about that. So email being a platform for one, which I do believe 90% of businesses should have an email list.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 18:08

And you know what? I don't think people think of email as a marketing platform, but it is. We think about right, we think about social media, we think about social media, Instagram, TikTok, whatever. But you're making you're making me think, you're and this is a this is a conversation I have with coaching clients all the time that I don't think they always understand. Your email is your first most direct version of well, you could also do in-person stuff, like so speaking, things like that, right? But online, your email list, your client, your database is your number one, and your website is your first first line of defense when it comes to marketing, right? Yeah. Most of the people I work with don't have an email list at all. It's like a new concept that they even need to create that. Much less a lead, right? A lead magnet and all the stuff that goes along with it.

MARIAH MacINNES 18:59

They're not alone in

Why You Need an Email List You Actually Own.

MARIAH MacINNES 19:00

that, right? I think we we I mean, I um I did some work with a local trout farm. Trout farm and back where I'm from. And um, yeah, I said, you know, you're collecting emails at the door, you're collecting postcodes. Like, where are people coming from? And he's like, nope. You know, so this is how like if we if we think about it, at the end of the day, social media is an owned, uh, uh, a borrowed channel. We don't own it. It's owned by someone else. The borrowed channel is owned by some very rich, powerful men. And at the end of the day, if they decided that we don't need this platform anymore, or the government says, shut it down, how are we going to communicate about it?

Wendy Pitts Reeves 19:45

Yep.

MARIAH MacINNES 19:46

We have nothing. I last year, and I don't want to scare anyone, but this was the reality of working as a marketer. I had six client six clients get banned in one week from Instagram.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 19:57

Wow.

MARIAH MacINNES 19:58

Six. It sent me to hospital, to be honest with you, Wendy. Oh, goodness. That's how stressful it was. I do have a chronic illness, so that doesn't help. But in the end, I worked out what had happened. It was nothing that we had done. It was I use Starlink. Starlink pings different satellites, which means different IPs. So they locked the accounts as like a secret.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 20:18

So you have to tell people you're saying Starlink because I hear STAHlink. She's saying Starlink, y'all. Elon Musk probably. Yes, no one's gonna know what you're saying. Starlink. And you were using Starlink, and that you said it pings people differently on the address on the um, yeah, so with the internet.

MARIAH MacINNES 20:37

Basically, so anyway, that's fine, but at the end of the day, that's pretty scary, right? Like, what if and it happened to 6,000 business in businesses in Australia? Uh, Meta's AI is now everything is moderated through AI now, and the AI obviously needs practice. So it was actually um penalizing people for child pornography and inappropriate content for posting photos of their dogs or posting, like the AI had not at and to the point where banned locked, never to be returned businesses that had lost all their client contact. So if anyone needs motivation to start an email list, I think that's it.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 21:13

So this is an important point, y'all. If you are posting online through any social media platform, I don't care which one it is, the point that Mariah is making is you do not own that list. You do not own that content. It is somebody else's control. When you create a mailing list, an internal email mailing list of your clients, and you could actually have a physical mailing list too, but when you have that, you own that. And then if the world goes nuts and whatever Instagram shuts down, you haven't lost your client names, you haven't lost their email addresses, and you can still reach out to them and market to them. This is a real I also, Maria, I have heard these stories. I had a coach that had over 2,000 followers on Facebook, and Facebook decided that she was spamming people and they they cut her out. And she could and she was a very like she was a force, she never got those names back. She had to start from scratch. So you're right. Good point. Yes. Okay.

MARIAH MacINNES 22:09

There's there's so many stories, right? So if I go back to it as the goal, okay, so we we understand our goal and we know okay, these are our goals. So this can give us me a little bit more indication into what channels. So you might be left with a list of potential channels. And and I always urge anyone to think outside the box. You know, don't um organic marketing can be anything that you

Choosing Marketing Channels That Fit YOU

MARIAH MacINNES 22:30

do without you pouring physical dollars into, like paid, for example. So we we have our list of things, it could be blogging as well, a YouTube channel, a podcast. Um, you could run monthly workshops. So anything, just try and get as many ideas if you do use AI, I'm sure you could brainstorm with ChatGPT. And then from there, we can't be on them all because that is just a pathway to burnout, and you are a business owner at the end of the day, you're not a content creator. I know sometimes I know maybe not so much your audience, but we can get caught up in the the fun of being creative online, and sometimes we forget we've got work to do. So we have our list, and then we narrow it down into okay, we need definitely an email list as one of them, and then potentially two other channels.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 23:21

Okay.

MARIAH MacINNES 23:21

One of them could be a social media, and you can repurpose like Instagram to Facebook kind of repurpose is pretty easy. Uh, some things on in Instagram could go on LinkedIn potentially, or you could reframe it. So you can repurpose, but you you want to choose one top of funnel. So I know there's no video in this, but if you imagine a funnel at the top of the funnel, more more liquid goes to the top of the funnel, and then what comes out the bottom is is sort of uh it is always the content, but it's a refined version of what comes out of the bottom. If we think about that in marketing, more people will see your stuff, less people will buy.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 23:58

Yeah.

MARIAH MacINNES 23:59

Remember that. So we need a channel where we can reach people outside and always bring new people in because not everyone is going to buy from you. If you have an Instagram post that gets 200 views, 200 people aren't going to buy from you. Probably 1% of those people.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 24:16

That's right. 1%, y'all. Did you hear that? 1%. 1%. So if 100 people log in and are curious about you and follow you, maybe one of those will reach out and call you, much less hire you, right?

MARIAH MacINNES 24:33

So I like to think that as small business owners, because we are personal, we're relatable, and we are connected, you would want that a lot higher, right? Like I would want to see your conversion rate at like 10% or more, right? But let's go with a benchmark, right? Let's be realistic. It could be up to 1%. So that's why we need that social media channel in some degree to expand to more people. So that's when you look at it from that. And then potentially, if it resonates, a long-form channel. So something like a blog on your website or a YouTube or a podcast or something that's not going to disappear after 24 hours. This might be something you work towards. I would definitely start with the email list and the social channel and then maybe have a goal of popping some blog articles up on your website. Or maybe you don't have to do like a consistent podcast like Wendy and I, but you might do like a series, or it could be your channel's Insight Timer, and you post monthly new meditations or quarterly new meditations or something that is evergreen is what we're so evergreen means it is there and people can access it whenever they want. You could potentially update it. It's not like a social media post that is gone. People have to find it on your feed and it's never to be returned.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 25:48

That's so really good advice, Mariah. That's really good. You're saying email one, number one, because you control that, you own that, but a short form social media, right? Which is what so I hope y'all didn't hear that ding. I put I put my I put my focus thing on so my phone doesn't ding, but my mom can still get through. Blessed her. That's my sweet mama texting me. Um neither here nor there. Distraction. But anyway, you said email, then you said short form, which is what like IG would be, and then long form, like someplace where you are building a body of work is how I hear that. So for me, you're right. This the podcast is for me. But it could be a blog, it could be a YouTube channel. You just said it could be a monthly meditation on but you're building up a body of work that people can find at any time. That's really good advice. I love that. Yeah. Great.

MARIAH MacINNES 26:44

And I think to and and from that, we go, okay, what what is that for me? This is where our mindset and our self comes in. This is where we go, why would I be on TikTok when I despise that channel? Yeah. Why would I be on Instagram if I go on that and it makes me cringe? And I actually have this like, you know, um, nervous system dysregulation every time I'm on there. So obviously, some things can be can be changed. I used to have a client who despised LinkedIn and out's her favorite channel. So if I think we should never say never, I said I would never wear jeans to a nightclub, I would never not wear heels to a bar, and I would never live outside.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 27:27

And you live in a bus.

MARIAH MacINNES 27:30

I live in a bus. I always wear jeans when I go out now, and I hate heels. So we can never say never, right? I love it. We're always changing and evolving. But from this current time of where you are at, what feels authentic and aligned to you, and also what content do you like to create? If you were to create content, do you like speak? We all like something. I have one client, she loves writing. Yes, she does have to do video, unfortunately. So she tries to find ways in which she loves it, right? So if you really do, like, I don't want to hold people to something and be like, you have to do it this way. Find a way that you like it. So what I've recommended to her, you love your long form. She could write research for hours and days. She does um, she does energy healing, she does, she makes her own skincare. So she she just loves the research and she she loves it all. So I said, write it, go for go for gold.

MARIAH MacINNES 28:21

Then quickly grab your phone and tell me what you researched. Because that's that's her that's her just like talking about it, right? Just just have your camera and just talk about it, and I will do the rest, don't worry. Yeah, so even if you know I do need to be on video or I need to create some kind of video because I feel like my audience would really like video, not because uh uh Gary

The 3-Part Organic Marketing Strategy

MARIAH MacINNES 28:45

Vaynerchuk, the biggest marketer or Neil Patel, told you to, yeah, but because you know it will make a difference, find ways in which you like it. Maybe you like to do voiceover instead of like, hey everybody, I you know, talking to camera. Maybe you like to yeah, film yourself working or doing something, and then you could have text over the top. Like, how can you show yourself in a way that feels authentic to you? And I think that's something that we often dismiss because we think, well, I've got to get my business out there and everyone's telling me what I have to do. I went with coffee catch-up with a friend from high school who now runs a successful bakery, and she told me if I'm not on TikTok, like get on it, it's gonna be amazing for me. Everyone's always gonna have ideas for you. If I had a dollar every time a client went out for coffee and come back and said, Hey, so just had coffee with a friend and they told me I should try YouTube. That sounds great.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 29:38

So you know how you know But you're saying two different things, you're saying, you're saying two things here that I think are important.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 29:46

One is don't do something just because everybody says it, first of all. I'm sorry, maybe three things. Don't do that.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 29:53

Two, do find the platform, or the the not the platform, the delivery method that works best for you. So if you're a writer and you want to write, then write. If you are a speaker and you want to speak and speak, if you are not comfortable on camera, then don't get on camera.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 30:09

But you're also saying if your audience is there and your audience is gonna need, is gonna respond better to audio, writing, video, whatever, find a way. Creative using what comes natural to you. Find a way to meet them there, which is different. That's a that's a place in the middle between what comes natural to me and what my audience needs. So if I'm uncomfortable on camera, but let's say, help me out, Mariah. What's an example of something that really works better on video? Like maybe you're teaching people how to cook something. Maybe that's right. Um and I need to show it. I need to show it. Um I've been watching a lot of home improvement videos. That's where that's coming from. I was watching videos about how to wash your car over the weekend. Yeah, that's the exciting life I'm living. But I'm the same. So I said so so let's say the message, whatever it is I want to teach, and the people who I want to reach, it really does lend itself better to video. But I hate camera. I don't want to be on camera. You're saying find a way to get something on video for them, but it doesn't have to be you on camera. It could be that you are filming slides with you talking through it in the background, or it could be I'm sure there's probably some other ways you can do it, but honor what comes natural to you, but still recognize your audience and the message you're sharing might require a certain format. Figure out a way to make it work so it still works for you. Is that true? Am I getting that right?

MARIAH MacINNES 31:43

Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. And I think also, like, I mean, I don't know that I really need to say this to people that listen that are practitioners, but also be curious as to why you don't like it too. You know, um, do a little therapy on yourself.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 31:57

Go there, go there. Why why do you say that? Why do you say that?

MARIAH MacINNES 32:01

It could be something blocking you, like a oh, I I worry about what people like my my friends and family think. Is it because you just actually hate it and don't like it, or is it because you care what people think? Is it because you you don't trust that your voice is the right like I think you also have to be curious and be open to shifting that way. Um, but if it I mean, you we all know ourselves best, and especially if you're more trained in it than I am. Um but I have blind spots.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 32:29

We have blind spots too.

MARIAH MacINNES 32:31

I think everyone needs therapy, right? Um, but I know for me personally, when I first started, it was really that like my housemates followed me on Instagram and like I lived a very different life before I started my business. And I was a party girl, and I was just like the you know, I was uh you could probably imagine Wendy, right? Like I loved loved to go out, I loved to be with my friends, and then all of a sudden I started this business, and I not that I had to be more serious, I just had to like be an expert in something, and I felt like people were like, I don't get it. Like, and some people don't, to be fair, and now I just don't care. Um so showing up on video probably felt a bit icky to begin with, but I sort of was able to kind of push through it because I did like speaking. So I think there is obviously we do it's not permission to not do the work and not like show up. I think it's just while you're starting out, and if you haven't shown up on social media consistently, or if you haven't done content creation as a business uh marketing tool, that you start slow. Always never say never, like always be curious as to how you can evolve it. Like that client that doesn't necessarily love video, I think it's more like a um, yeah, like a mindset and a timing thing, right? She just feels like it's gonna take her ages because she has to set up, you know, do all the thing. But I just say, like, if you've already written a piece and you're really excited about it, just like as if you're videoing me to tell me about it. Like nothing.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 33:56

Quick and easy.

MARIAH MacINNES 33:57

And then also the mindset, oh, well, it has to be polished, it has to be perfect. Like nowadays, people are responding to videos that feels like you are FaceTiming me, that you have just picked up your phone and hit call, and I'm on the other end

Authenticity vs Perfection Online

MARIAH MacINNES 34:10

and you are speaking to me. So don't let the perfect like that, and that's a perfectionism work, right? And that I know everyone has their own inner perfectionist that needs work, but I think that's when we go, okay, what are people responding to as well? So there there is like a bit of a yes but I guess to that.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 34:28

I love that. I think you are calling us out, and uh I appreciate that. As a coach who has worked with people to try to get them to get themselves out there, I have seen a lot of this. So, what what you're saying is um, yeah, if you really, really hate it, you know, we want to listen to that, respect that, and which is a great question to ask therapist, you might want to be a little curious about what that resistance is about. Imagine that's kind of interesting.

MARIAH MacINNES 34:53

The audacity of Mariah would say that.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 34:56

I love it so much. Because I have seen, and this is part of why I wanted to talk to you about this subject, because I have seen this a lot. Um, and I think that one of the problems with my particular tribe, my group, not just therapists, but healers, yeah, is they tend to be introverts. They tend to like doing deep one-on-one work with folks. And we are so trained in every way about being client-centered. It's not about me, it's about the person I'm working with. And that energy filters through literally every aspect of running a business. So it runs a lot into the money side, which I talk about ad nauseum here. Um sometimes I think people are probably tired of hearing about it, but then they wouldn't be here if they were. But you know, it it filters into our pricing structures a lot and our how we handle the money side of our business, but it also filters into marketing because why would I want to go online and act like I'm all that? Why would I want to uh put my face out there and say, you should come see me because I have this level of expertise and I can help you because I feel like I'm bragging or I'm feeling like I'm making it about me. It's not, it's not about you at all. It's about connecting with the people who need you. But it's hard. And also what you just said about that client who thought video was time consuming. I also run into that a lot. I'm exhausted, I'm busy, Wendy. I've got a full caseload of people. I don't have time to sit down and write a bunch of social media. So it's it's time. It's not knowing what to write at all, what to even post. But it's but a lot of it is I don't want to put myself out there because people will think I'm I'm all that and I'm not. That's a that's the mindset piece very much.

MARIAH MacINNES 36:45

Absolutely. And also uh at the same time, we want, we we all have a mission to help people. And I think imagine the disservice you're doing by not showing up and sharing the work that you believe in so much. Yeah, because there's people that don't know this stuff exists, there's people that really are looking for help but don't know where to look, don't know where to find it. And if you're showing up, and it's interesting, I had a conversation with a client that's doing work in the domestic and family violence space, and something in Australia that's heavily focused on as we had a really, really high rate of it in the last few years. And they're doing working in the AI world of creating stuff to help, because now in Australia, workplaces are personally liable for the disclosure of domestic and family violence. So if someone comes to work and discloses, you have to help them and and you are liable for helping them. So anyway, digress. And I said to them, Oh, you know, we want to share, but oh, maybe you don't want to share because obviously you're worried someone will copy it. And they said, the more people in this space, the better. Like and I and I imagine in in the world of energy healing, it's the same. You're all here and energy healing therapy, everything you you have a deep passion to make sure as much people get help as they need. And in places where there is high lists of wait lists for anything, the more you put yourself out there, the more people are going. And and maybe they don't go with you, but they know that there's help out there and they know what exists. And I think that should trump the um the mindset of oh, but I I don't want to look like I'm all that. Because if you do it in a way that's authentic to you and you show up in a way that feels natural and you find that way, it's that energy exchange. People are gonna feel your energy as opposed to if you're forced to do and you feel really forced by it, again, it's not going to resonate as much. So finding and just remembering that, yeah, we we all um we're all and and people that judge as well at the same time, it's because they're not doing it. It's because they're not on social media showing up, like they're not putting themselves out there, and you know, I always try to remember that when my my brother's a detective, so there's he he doesn't do social media at all, and he'll always say, like, make jokes. I'm like, well, you're not doing it, so you know, right, bless them. Yes. So yeah, I think I think just trying to remember that. But obviously, it's it's all good in theory, but it putting it into practice and then trying to build that habit is very, very important.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 39:24

Like anything that we do, it's but you're you're saying something here that I really think I really want people to hear, which is like people resonate with someone who is real, right? And when you I was just thinking, there's a therapist, there's an actual therapist in New York City that I have started telling people about. I don't know her from Adam. I've just seen her content on YouTube and she does short and long most, but she does a lot of like sort of like TikTok level, like one-minute, two-minute videos. And her stuff is so I might have mentioned her to you when we talked on our first call. Her stuff is so good that the business coach and me can't help but like, wow, this is really impressive because every video has a there's a definitely a formula. She starts with, have you ever felt this? And then she says, Hi, my name is so-and-so, I am this, and then she goes, What no one tells you is this. So here's the there's the pivot, here's the problem, here's I'm positioning myself as the expert. Here's the piece no one tells you, or no one says, or no one talks about. And that's like that's intriguing. Like, what is that? What's the secret? And then she tells you the advice, and it's good, it's real, it's legit. And she films herself getting out of the gym like she's hot and sweaty, or she's cooking dinner, or she's walking on the beach, or like wherever she is, with makeup, without makeup, in bright sun, in the half dark, like no matter where, in the most random places. And I am so impressed with her as a marketer and as a coach, but I'm also like, if I if I was a client and I'm suffering in some way, man, I would call her if I live in New York City, she'd because she is real and relatable and predictable and genuinely helping. And this is what to this is what I hear you saying. The people who are suffering and they're out there, they don't even know where to turn. And if your content is real, not polished, not perfect, but steady, predictable, genuinely helpful, sure, it doesn't have to be fancy, but real, and it's coming from you. People are gonna resonate for that and they're gonna get the help they need. That's what you're telling. You're saying this matters, y'all. This is more important than your ego. Get your ego out of it.

MARIAH MacINNES 41:45

Yeah, exactly. We have to uh Eckhart Tolle ourselves into destroying the egos.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 41:50

Eckhart Tolle ourselves. That's funny...

MARIAH MacINNES 41:55

But also when you say steady, it's that consistency as well, right? Like it's so important, and I don't mean consistency, you have to show up every day, but consistently show up so you're real you're reliable. I mean, when we apparently Seth, um what's his name? He's a marketer, can't remember his name.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 42:11

Seth Godin. Seth Godin. Soden, that's right.

MARIAH MacINNES 42:14

He said, people don't want, which I don't agree with, people don't want your authenticity, they want your consistency. And I would say they want both. They want you to authentically show up, yeah, but they want you to be consistent with it. And I think that just showcases how you are as a service provider. And I know we say, well, I'm I'm serving clients, so you know, isn't that you know evidence enough that I consistently show up? But people don't see that, they see what you're putting out there.

You’ve Gotta Climb Cringe Mountain

MARIAH MacINNES 42:40

And your goal may be for social media to just have a presence because you know, I've I've got my pipeline of clients, that's okay. I just want people to know that I'm here, and that's one of my clients. That's what we were there to do.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 42:53

Just to remind people that you exist, just remind them.

MARIAH MacINNES 42:55

Yes. Yeah, exactly. B ecause when they're and and then, of course, as you grow and evolve your business depending on your goals, you might go, you know what? Now I have some free time because I've built my practice up. I've got people, I actually do want to create impact. And actually, the best way I can do this is through social media, is through building a mail, like scaling my mailing list and helping people in different ways, is building a membership or a group program, you know. But if right now you're like, okay, this is where I'm at, obviously meet yourself where you're at. But then also have that sort of vision of like, okay, this is where I would like it to go. And and and no, nothing is ever fixed. Like things will always evolve and change. Just because you don't like video now doesn't mean you won't like it in a year's time. And and and also the one point that I want to add, and I know I always like to go on tangents, but the one thing that's important to know is like what you create now will not be the same as what you put out there in a year's time because you will get better at it. And I think we always get stuck on like, oh, but I don't I don't really know how to do this. So if you saw what I did, you know, when I started this. You'd be like, there's no way she creates what she creates now. Like it just looks so different, and she looks different and she speaks different. I also don't drink alcohol anymore, and I found alcohol impacts my voice. So that was an interesting discovery looking back on all my old videos. And and now from what I create now, I'll look back in a year's time and I'll be like, oh, cringe. But also, if you don't, one of my uh mentors who does voice coaching, you've got to climb cringe mountain and you are going to feel cringy. And that and that's just the the trade-off of being able to do that.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 44:31

You've got to climb cringe mountain.

MARIAH MacINNES 44:33

You've got to climb you will feel cringy until you get more comfortable with marketing yourself. It everyone feels it. Doesn't matter if you're introvert, extrovert, you're really deeply passionate about serving your clients one-on-one, or you love serving one to many. We all have those moments of did I actually just put that out? Even if it's just you talking, even if it's something very we all feel it. I mean, I am very extroverted. I have done, I used to be the one filming music videos on the camcorder when I was, you know, 13 years old. I still feel cringy sometimes, but you've just got to do it anyway. Sometimes I post and I throw the phone.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 45:14

I was just telling somebody yesterday in a uh I was being interviewed on another podcast and was talking about taking action on your big idea, how to do things that are scary. And in that process, um I shared that one of the hurdles I had to get over was making my first video. Because I knew that I mean video was coming, this was when it was first beginning to happen that everybody was doing video. I knew for two years that I had to get over that. I was gonna have to do it for two freaking years, could not make myself go there. And I was coaching someone that video would have been perfect for what she was trying to, the work that she was trying to get going. It was just, it was she had to do it. And she was afraid. She was hesitating. And I told her, if you'll do it, I will. If you'll make your first video, I'll make my first video. And I and of course I would do it to support her, right? And I had a deadline, like it was like by Monday night. I made my first video sitting on my front porch in a rocking chair with my arm propped up on a stack of books, holding my phone. It is so bad. And then when I got it recorded, the sound didn't work. So I had to go back, and I don't know why it took me forever to figure out why the sound didn't work. It was so bad that it was like it was totally cringy. But you know what? I did it. And then the second one was a little bit easier, which was also terrible. But from there, I learned it got better. Right. Yeah, you are so right. You have to climb cringe mountain. I love it.

MARIAH MacINNES 46:46

And even now when I film videos, I'll find myself naturally going to that very like formal way of doing a video. And I was like, the other day, I was like, no. So what I did is I was like, I just started rambling about something, and you know, it sort of was more authentic to me. So you will find yourself if you have done video before or if you've like seen formulas of videos, which do are really helpful, but you might go, oh, that just doesn't sound like me. Sometimes you you still got to post it, but it's just sort of morph it into what feels and resonates with you. I I I have this like personality switch when I'm in like a really um motivated space. So I try to embody that because I talk differently and I I have this like very um interesting humor, which I've used a little bit on this show. And I I I try to tap into that when I'm doing videos because I know when I'm at that space and when I record podcasts from that space, I could see my partner Mitch laughing as he's recording because he knows I'm in that kind of space. And that's usually the content that I find resonates because it's my it's my most authentic self.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 47:52

Sometimes feel good, find a way to feel good, like find a way to get yourself into a place where you feel good writing what you're writing or recording what you're recording. That's good. Yeah, get into the flow. That's good. Can you say a little bit more about if I am let's say I've done the work that you're teaching, I've created a strategic marketing plan. I'm clear about my goals, I'm clear about my audience, I have understood where they're gonna be, and I have figured out a way to show up for them. But now I got now I do actually have to create the content, the posting schedule, whatever. When I think of authentic, I think of sort of off the cuff. But if I'm creating something for the next month's worth of social media content or the next week, it's not gonna be off the cuff. So how do I how do I what's the best way to sort of like effectively and efficiently create a m media content in advance that is still real, still authentic, and not gonna make me crazy?

MARIAH MacINNES 49:00

Yeah. Great question, Wendy. Um, so I think the first thing is yeah, like understand your cadence in which you create, right? So I do two-week content sprints because I find that one month of content, like I will hate what goes out on the 30th of that month or the 31st, because I'll forget about it. So I do two, I used to do like at least a week ahead, but now I try to do two-week content sprints because I find it works much better. So the first thing is that, but with that, you

Why Therapists Struggle With Visibility

MARIAH MacINNES 49:30

can leave room for spontaneous content. And I think I like to blend, like, you don't have to be so structured that you have to go like that's it, like that that's what it's getting done. Obviously, if you have people like VAs or content mar managers or content marketers helping you, you do need to work to this. Like you can't say, like, oh, we're changing this all the time, because that is very not fair on everyone involved. But if you have a video, oh my god, I need to but just film it. Just film it. Like, don't hold on it, just film it. You can and I think the beauty of working with someone is to go, here's a video, use it whenever you want. Like, or if you're like, hey, I really do think this needs to go out now. Like, I don't know, for example, maybe a pandemic happened and you feel like you have to get the content out because it's very timely. Um, something like I just remember that happened to me as soon as the pandemic was announced. I completely changed my podcast topic because it was about um, you know, because I had a PR background. So I sort of gave a PR lens on like how we manage situations like this. So there are going to be times where you've got to, you've got to jump on something because it is, it is really timely. You know, maybe, maybe there are people in the energy space that, you know, there was some bad press about them, and maybe you want to add some social commentary, or maybe you don't want to at all, right? Like sometimes there are times where you want to jump on that, and sometimes the posting plan kind of gets pushed to the side. But try to build that because what will end up happening at in the beginning, you'll be like, oh my god, I feel like I just created way too much content in advance. Maybe I'll over time you'll start to think less about like you you won't be caught up in the fact that that was filmed two weeks ago or that was filmed a month, whatever is gonna work for you. You'll start to be less particular about that because at the end of the day, there is that balance between authenticity and consistency, right? And sometimes you can't burn yourself out by going, oh my god, I've got to post a video a day, or I've got to film in the moment because it's the when I'm my most authentic. I would recommend filming when you do feel at your best and trying to batch a few videos. I have a client that talked about the moon, like creating content to the moon phases or your menstrual cycle, which I think is very cool because there's certain times where you feel more energized than others. Yeah. That can be like if you are really in alignment with your cycle or you're really into like aligning with the energies and the moon, so cool. Like I feel like that's amazing. And then you can sort of build out a bit of a plan that way. Um, so I think it is about yes, finding that authenticity when you're at your best, but then making like knowing that consistency is really important as well. So you do have to kind of there is a bit of a trade-off, I guess, in that respect. But knowing it's you can do whatever you want. It's your platform. Like if tomorrow you have a great idea, like don't hold on it. I always say I always used to have this with clients because I have clients who are very intuitive, very energetic, like lots of them are very energy based. And if they had an idea, I said put it on Instagram, put it somewhere, like Instagram stories, like get it out of your system. We can repurpose that later. Like I can save that and use that as a video. I think the thing is like there's instant content spaces like your Instagram stories, etc. And then there's like more your feed style content, which is could be like more planned. And then, for example, you've got your um long form evergreen content, which just because you posted it now doesn't mean people are gonna see it now. Right. So you can if you are creative, just go to town, like clear your calendar, film everything. And then if you've got a strategy, the beauty about this is you can start to see where the pieces fit. You might go, oh my god, I've just had like a week of amazing client sessions, which like people have got to know this, right? You got your notes, you film what you're gonna film, and then if you've got the strategy, you can go, oh, well, that works out amazing because in winter is when people really feel this. So I might build a little campaign around winter and use these videos or something like that.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 53:26

So what you're saying is that like you're sort of thinking um sort of a multi-tiered appropri approach. Like, first of all, like there is the planned stuff that you have written in advance that's part of rather, but then leave space in there for spontaneous stuff. Yeah, which I could see. Yeah. And I also think I hear you saying create a library of stored content. Like go ahead and create the stuff and just tuck it away in a folder somewhere so that when you want to pull something out, you've got something to pull. Yeah, you don't have to use it all right now, and it doesn't even have to necessarily if it's not, if it's not time-specific for some reason, you can just save it and you'll have like a little stash of stuff you can lean on. I like that's a really great idea.

MARIAH MacINNES 54:04

I used to email myself a lot and then snooze the emails to a time where I could think about it. But you've got to store them somewhere you like that's why I I have a content strategy template, and in part of it is like a storage for content. So it's all kind of there and you it's visible because there's nothing worse than like having notes and notes on your phone. Like now with like AI, you can you can automate stuff, like you could have notes in your phone, go to Chat GPT and go somewhere else. I don't know how to do it, but uh people know there's people out there that know. But also if you are working with an assistant or a social media manager or something, that stuff is gold for us. I always make my clients voice note me. Voice note me what you did this week. Just voice note me. Like, I'll have a client that she always voice notes me on school pickup, so she'll voice note me while she's going to school pickup, um, and just give me a recount of things that had happened. I transcribe that, and now with AI, like wow, there's endless stuff we can do with that. So yeah, I think if you do have someone supporting you in some capacity, like that stuff is absolute gold. And if you do have someone supporting you, that doesn't mean you you're you're void from this conversation, right? You still do need to be part of it if you want it to grow. Like, because I mean, there's been clients that have gone, okay, like it depends on the size of the business, right? But there's been clients that are like, okay, I am like a one-woman show, goodbye, and then they go, Oh, why isn't it growing? It's like I do still need you.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 55:30

Well, what you're saying, you like you you can you can hire a team, you can have help in this, like I have I have people who help me, but you you cannot abdicate your responsibility. As first, you're the CEO. You need to pay attention to what's going on. It is your voice, it is your thoughts, it is your experience that is going out there. So you yeah, you can have someone who is the the the one that fine-tunes it and polishes it up and puts it out there, whatever, but it's still you you cannot you don't turn your back on it. The other thing I'm hearing from you when you said this is gold, but a coach I my the coach that I did the most work with would say mining for content, you're mining for content, right? And what you're saying is everything is content. Well, you said life is content at the beginning. I used to, I think I can't remember if I told you this or not, Mariah. I had a blog for years and years and years. Did I tell you that?

MARIAH MacINNES 56:18

Yeah.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 56:19

Um, like seven

Marketing as an Equal Exchange of Energy

Wendy Pitts Reeves 56:20

years every Sunday, seven days. Oh my gosh, about killed me. But I was religious about it. I was really committed. And and I used to, when I was making notes for myself and the tool that I used to store stuff back then, the heading was BPT, which stood for blog post title, I think it's or blog post topic, blog post topic, but it just became BPT. And it it got to where all day long, every day. They were like, oh, BPT, BPT. Everywhere I looked, oh, there's a blog. Oh, and I would say there's a blog post in that. There's a blog post in that, because there is in everything. It's so true, so true. So it's learning to see with those eyes, learning that this is content, that there's something in here I could talk about. There's a lesson here. And y'all, those of you who are listening, especially if you're a therapist, especially, we think in metaphors, everything means something else. Everything. And do you not constantly with your clients try to find some way of making a point of teaching something, getting them to understand a concept? That's what marketing, that's what this is. It's like taking your everyday experience and translating into like using it as a jumping off place to make a point, to teach something, to share something, to inspire something, encourage something. And it's everywhere. Once you start getting used to it, it is literally everywhere.

MARIAH MacINNES 57:42

Yeah, it's building that habit for sure. And like I think, I mean, to be fair, anyone that has one-on-one client time is like endless content. I mean, I always tell my clients, if you do, I mean, a lot in in in therapy, obviously you have case note, like notes you've got to put together. Where's the next pen and paper there to like note down some content topics, right? Like I had a client that always had a 15-minute buffer after every call. She was, she does um, she did coaching, but she has a psychology background. And she'd make a tee and she'd reflect on the session. And she not everyone has 15 minutes after a meeting, but if there is time where you are writing your case notes and putting things together, like what you know, now with obviously with AI is a lot easier, obviously depends on how people use AI with ethics, etc. But like now with that, there's really no excuse as to why we don't we don't have content ideas, right? Like that's true, everything, like even just common themes. And obviously, we know with like being confidentiality with clients, of course, like but there's a common theme or a thread or something in that. We love stories, everyone loves a story. A story makes engaging content, but it it helps me because I'm like I'm doing actively doing things every day. It's it just becomes part of the content that I can do.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 58:56

So true. All right, Mariah, before I wind this down, talk to me about mindset. Talk to me about one of the things that that you shared with me before that made an impression on me was that you said that if we don't believe in the message that we're sharing, it doesn't really matter what strategy we use. Could you say a little bit about that?

MARIAH MacINNES 59:18

Yeah, so I had this theory the other couple months ago about consistency, right? Because I pride my my friend says my middle name is consistency. So I'm Mariah Consistency, Emily Mechkiness. And um because I like to the point where I really struggle to let go of things, even if they're like not working, because I'm like, but I'm really consistent with it. So why why? I can relate to that, right? Yeah, so yes, consistency is important. But I went, hmm, this is interesting because yes, of course, but if you're consistently putting something out there that you don't believe in, what is the point? So I I I I saw this with a client years ago where the content plan and this is that it was just putting stuff out there, and then every time we'd have a meeting because I was mentoring, oh, but it's not working. None of that's working. I I don't think that works. So then it's like, okay, so you've created a strategy, you're doing it consistently, but you don't believe in what you've written about. So obviously you think the content's a bit rubbish. Right? And this is where sometimes, and I know it happens in healing, etc., the quote tiles and the you know, maybe you have a month's worth of quote tiles to put out there and you just shove them out and memes and things, and you go like, oh yeah, that's funny, we'll just chuck it up. But there's no substance, you don't believe that that's something that people would engage in, you kind of think it's a little bit, but then also it's because it's just filling gaps in so that you don't have to show up yourself, right?

Wendy Pitts Reeves 1:00:49

If you're bored with your own content, that says something.

MARIAH MacINNES 1:00:51

Exactly. But then if you don't really believe in obviously you believe in your work and you believe in the message that you have to share, but do you believe that you're the right person to deliver it? Do you believe in yourself? So then there's that I need to do the work on the belief in what I've put out there. And I think that's something that I questioned, and I didn't, I don't have the expertise to tell that because I am not trained in any mindset, etc. etc. So I put actually put something out there on a Facebook group, meet a podcast, find a podcast, something like that. And I had so many messages from um, yeah, like uh subconscious neuroplasticity hypnosis, like so many people reach out to me who agreed, right? Agreed with me and validated by theory. So yes, I truly believe that yes, you can be consistently putting things out there, but if there's not that belief and you're sort of feeling things, putting things out there for the sake of it, you're you don't you're not putting the energy into actually going like, oh, this is an energy exchange on these channels. So I need to put my best foot forward. In saying that, it doesn't have to be perfection, but then also believe, like, yeah, I'm I'm the person that needs to share this message. You really have to believe in that.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 1:02:10

Mariah, that is gold, what you just said. That's gold. If you don't believe in the

Your Social Media Is Your Shop Window

Wendy Pitts Reeves 1:02:15

energy exchange of what you're putting out there, I have never heard anyone put it that way. Honey, like serious, I've never heard it said that way.

MARIAH MacINNES 1:02:22

I become I become wise in my slow state 20. This is me and for the same.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 1:02:26

If you can I I it is so we talk about that with money, that money is an exchange of energy. And when you like your client is showing up and investing in themselves as they work with you, and you are bringing your expertise to the table, it is an equal exchange of energy, and it's beautiful and good and rich and whole and and worthy. But I've never heard it put to marketing.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 1:02:51

So you're saying you're I I I feel like I keep repeating myself, but you're saying two things. You're saying if you're just marketing because you've got to say something and it's a bunch of fluff, or it's a you're just like going through the motions, it has no soul to it, it has no heart to it, it's it's not even real, it's just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever. That's never gonna work at all because it's out of alignment. But but when it is real and you believe in the value of what you do, it is an equal exchange of energy between you and the listener, you and the reader, you and the viewer, which I have never thought of before. I think that it's freaking brilliant and quite profound, actually. And then you are again calling us out and like, and if you don't believe it's equal, then you got some work to do here, darling. Yeah. Is that not true?

MARIAH MacINNES 1:03:40

Yeah. Yeah, I and I think too, like we, you know, we I think we we underestimate the value of social media, but we underestimate now the we know people have short attention spans, right? And like if we want to, and it's just like you have that energy exchange with a client that comes in, you're you're talking to potential clients on this platform.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 1:04:02

Yeah.

MARIAH MacINNES 1:04:02

So you wanna you want people to see what they are going to expect. It's basically, and I use this analogy a lot, like your social media is your shop window. So like all we stop at a good shop window. Showing what people can expect. And and often if you're putting up things because you know you need to put something up there, and you don't, you you're just chucking up, you don't believe in it, but you've also not giving that energy back to the people. They're like, they're just gonna keep scrolling, and that's why we go like, oh, social media doesn't work. And also, I want to put out this is what happens with AI and ChatGPT because we oh, I can create a month's worth of social media content with ChatGPT, and it's just garbage.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 1:04:46

Garbage. Yeah.

MARIAH MacINNES 1:04:47

Like I'm sorry, it is, and like I use AI, I'm not saying I don't, but it's you've got to put the input and you've got to you've got to give it what it needs. Like mostly the most times I use AI is actually from the voice notes I get from clients. So it's AI is just compiling their thoughts into a concise way. So I don't have to, um, because otherwise, like it just builds the structure that makes sense and doesn't go on a ramble and a tangent. But a lot of the times it's like if you I I actually had a um marketing research call with someone who said they hired a VA and they saw a post go out and it seemed a bit generic, and then they saw another post go out from another person in the same industry that it was exactly the same because AI had literally not this, they did not have the same VA. It was just AI gave the exact same content, right? So I I think obviously um it is a balance because social media can be that like we can get so locked in it because we can you can go the other way where you're like, oh my god, I gotta post on social. So it is that's why I always come back to the foundation of the strategy. If you know, okay, my posting plan says I post X amount of days in alignment with this foundational strategy I've built, you stay on track and you stay. Focused. And then, of course, if you want to show up more because you have capacity in one week, like again, it's your platform. Do whatever you want. But don't just go, oh, well, I need posting for the sake of posting it because I need to keep the lights on. I did say that sometimes social media is for presents, but we still want it to be a good one. We don't want it to be like quotes and canva carousels that people just scroll past. Because otherwise it's just a waste of your time.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 1:06:24

Mariah, this is so good. Like you have dropped so many little jewels in here. Your social media is your shop window. I love that. Climb the cringy mountain. Like there's a lot of good stuff in here today. Um this is really, really, really delightful. And there's a lot of people who talk about social media, but I will say you have said some stuff today that's different than what I've heard before. And that's hard at this point in my life, that's rare. So I really, really appreciate the wisdom that you've shared with our listeners today. And um your sense of humor is delightful. Your joy in what you do is really obvious. It's like you were just, you were so much fun to talk to, but you have also taught really good content. And the whole thing about your marketing should be an equal exchange of energy. That's a that's a writer-downer. Tell people if they are like, okay, okay, okay, you got my attention. Like, how do people find you? How would they, if they were wanting to work with you, what would be the first step? Like, well, how do people explore what you have to offer? Like, tell us what to do.

MARIAH MacINNES 1:07:28

Yeah, well, thank you for having me, Wendy. I no matter what time of day, you could wake me up at 3 a.m.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 1:07:33

Y'all, it's like six o'clock in the morning where she is. She's doing this like literally like 6:30 in the morning. It's crazy.

MARIAH MacINNES 1:07:38

I literally, my friend tells me, like, I went to Europe for six weeks, one of my really good friends in like years ago. And she's like, You literally wake up talking.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 1:07:46

I can believe that - you are a talker!

MARIAH MacINNES 1:07:49

Doesn't matter what time of day, I'm here for it. So I am on social media, a lot of lots of different social medias, but I find Instagram is the place where I'm the most active. So um at content queen Mariah, I have a podcast called the Content Queen Podcast. Wendy came on recently and her episode was fabulous. So you can go and listen to it. Thank you. And if you really want to focus on yes, the mindset work, I would definitely outsource that to an expert, but I can help with the strategy piece. Um, so I have a secret podcast. So basically you can listen to it uh in your entire bite size. There's 10 episodes, they're about seven minutes each. Okay. You can download that from my website if you go to www.contentqueenmariah.com, it'll come up as a pop-up and you can access that and listen to it. I'm not rambling, it's very concise.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 1:08:38

So contentqueenmariah.com

Storytelling, Connection & Imperfect Action

Wendy Pitts Reeves 1:08:41

is your website, and there will be a pop-up for the secret podcast of 10 very specific episodes. That's lovely. Um, I hope people will take you up on that. And um it cracks me over to hear you say it's not rambling, it's very focused. But Mariah is a talker, y'all. And as you can tell, yeah, you have to kind of rein her in a little bit. But there's so much good in there once you do it. So, Mariah, thank you for that. Thank you for being here today. Thank you for uh having me on your podcast. So we that was also a very different but also fun conversation. Um I think where I'd like to close, which is one of my favorite places to go, is is of all the things we've talked about a lot, we've covered a lot of ground today. Um, is there anything that we haven't talked about? Is there anything I haven't asked you, or is there anything that you just feel called to share that would make this conversation complete?

MARIAH MacINNES 1:09:34

Yes. There's something that so we've talked a lot about strategy, but the one thing that I'm really passionate about as well, and mindset we've talked about that, but um storytelling. We all are we all have a story to tell, we all have client stories to tell, we all have things that are happening in the world that we could comment on. We are 22 times more likely to remember a story over facts and figures. And it depends on if you're analytical, like sometimes you can go down that analytical path, but we always resonate with a story. So if you don't like selling, if you don't like going on social media and promoting your services, tell us a story. Tell us how you helped a client who had an irrational fear of birds. I have irrational fear of birds, um, navigate that and now can go to a bird zoo. I don't know. Like something like that. Like tell us the stories and the transformations that you've been able to have. Don't tell me that meditation will help me sleep better at night. Tell me the story of someone who slept better at night because of meditation. So tell me your stories because otherwise it's going over my head or in one ear and out the other. Like I think that's something that is comes so naturally to everyone because that's what we've done for you know, centuries, generations and generations of storytelling. In in Australia, we have a beautiful indigenous community, and storytelling is such a big part of that community, and it's the oldest, you know, um, indigenous population in the world, and they have been telling stories for a long, long time. So I think if we start to embody that storytelling, that's what like we naturally gravitate to people who tell stories. Don't think you're a bad storyteller, you just haven't worked out the way that you tell stories. So just start. Tell us your rambling story, don't get to the point. Then start getting to the point at some point.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 1:11:26

That's such great advice. I'm so glad you brought us there at the end because you're right, we didn't cover that at all. And if you're a therapist, that's what you do all day long is you hear people's story.

MARIAH MacINNES 1:11:38

Goldmine.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 1:11:39

And you challenge them on that story and you encourage them to rewrite that story in some way. That is literally what you are doing for a living. And I don't know this for a fact, but I'm thinking if you are some kind of a body worker, like a massage therapist or a Reiki practitioner, or I'm thinking that their the your clients are telling you a story in other ways. Maybe through their body or maybe through their energy. Um, but this is that is literally what we are doing is helping people access, understand, share, and rewrite their stories. That's exactly what we do. So that's brilliant. That's a really great place to leave this. So thank you, Mariah. Thank you so much for being here today.

MARIAH MacINNES 1:12:20

Thanks for having me. I really appreciate that. So thanks, Wendy, for letting me talk on your platform.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 1:12:25

Because this is my platform. And y'all all all the stuff that Mariah's taught today, like this is exactly what I have lived through. Like I've tried all kinds of, I've tried blogging when I'm and I've told her I was, I think I'm a very I'm a very good writer, but it ran my life because I'm so obsessive that it I spent like days and days on every podcast, every blog. So that wore me out. Um, I tried YouTube, that was not a good fit for me. This is the podcast is the fit for me. And it's taken me many years to discover that. And when Mariah said you might want to be curious about the resistance that you had, which makes me laugh. I um I fought that for a long time because I kept having people say, You really should try podcasting. You should try podcasting. Have you ever thought of it? And I'm like, nah, I don't want to do that. Nah, I don't think so. Nah. What is that about? Hmm, I don't know. So it's really, really, really funny. Yeah. Whatever the thing is, we are resisting is usually the thing we need to be doing. So guys, I hope you all have gotten a lot out of it. I hope you, I hope you like, like go back and listen to it again. If you need to, Mariah talks fast. Slow it down. Slow it down. She was talking about people listening at one and a half time speed. I'm thinking maybe more half time speed.