Social media has become a force to be reckoned with across the world. Not only has it connected friends, family and loved ones, but it has also seen an uprise in small business success, from freelancers and entrepreneurs to small business owners and everything in between.
There is no doubt that social media has some serious power behind it and gives people the opportunity to create content about topics and causes they are passionate about.
We sat down with multi-passionate entrepreneur Amy-Lee Farr who has seen social media rise, built a successful social enterprise and helps domestic abuse survivors reconnect with their true selves, empowering them to pursue their own business.
Amy lifts the curtain on her success with social media, how she’s connected with clients and created a podcast called ‘It Stops With Me’. Let’s jump into Amy’s story below!
Navigating the world of business during the uprise of social media
“At first I grew my business organically through Facebook, before there were any easy-to-use or inexpensive scheduling tools like Plann. The algorithms were a lot easier to get past back in 2014.
I studied for a Bachelor’s in business and marketing and learned all the best ways to grow and gain loyalty from the people who like and trust you. I also held Gala dinner events, which were hugely successful in helping fund the Mission Beautiful Australia magazine (I created and made it from scratch myself and printed and put it on Joomag so victims could read it for free!).
So the brand grew organically very quickly on Facebook until I began suffering from my marriage breakdown, and I had to put it on hold for three years.
After I recovered enough to begin posting again, I started growing my following on Instagram under my name and driving traffic to the MBAU Instagram account and the podcast or my website, where I developed merchandise to help victims feel good about themselves. We stock clothing with slogans of ‘you are enough’ and ‘Be-YOU-tiful’ or ‘Be somebodies reason to smile’ printed on them.”
Sharing your voice and connecting with others
“I love social media because it gives us a great platform to help others and gives us a voice. For someone like myself who has suffered horrific childhood abuse and violent partners in the past, it feels good to be able to share my story and have a voice when I didn’t have one before.
I love that we can share and engage with people from all walks of life and know we aren’t alone. I love creating content for social media as my first love and career were as a photographer.
Social media gives me that creative outlet to step out of my comfort zone and make graphics or videos in Canva, and Plann makes it so easy for me to post straight from Canva and bring the aesthetic to life that I am striving for. I love everything about social media. Social media makes work much more fun for a communicator like myself!”
Life before and after Plann
“Before using Plann for scheduling and auto-posting, life was clunky, and it took hours to make sure I had posted on each platform and made new content for each channel.
It is a lot more time-consuming creating posts on the fly and posting, rather than auto-posting and then having the time to engage with my followers and build my online courses. Or do what I do best: helping and connecting with people.”
Growing a community through social media
“Without social media, growing the kind of community I have would be very difficult. People affected by DFV aren’t easy to get in touch with. Usually isolated by their abuser and they can’t really do anything without being watched or judged.
Social media allows me to connect with the isolated victim survivors, so they don’t feel so alone. I’ve had haters, too. That is to be expected when standing up for people without a voice. There will always be those keyboard warriors who just want to try to put you down or stop you from making a difference.
Still, I coach mainly women to reconnect with who they are and build a business in a niche they love so that they can escape or make a new life from scratch, and social media has been a critical factor in helping reach those people.”
How has Plann helped connect with clients?
“As a social media marketer, I love using Plann for my clients because I can develop their grid look and present it to them in a way that shows them how their feeds will look without trying to make up a grid in another app and then transfer it.
Now that Plann has the Team Chat, approval flows and collab features, it’s made my work as a social media manager even easier. I also love that Plann provides strategies for many different industries so I can help my clients build their social media around their core topics. If they can’t offer imagery or videos, Plann has free media covered too!”
And Amy’s favorite Plann feature?
“OMGOSH, this is a big question. I live in Plann, and I love all of its features. Still, if I had to pick a few, it would be the ability to repurpose my content across multiple platforms, the caption and hashtag templates, the first comment capabilities and the analytics. Oh, and the cost it’s very affordable for startups.
The first thing I noticed about Plann when I started using it was how easy it was to schedule my posts and find the best times that my audience was online or the best times for me to post for the highest engagement. Not to mention learning about the best aesthetics for my Instagram palette. I also used Plann in its early days and have watched it grow into such a powerful tool.
Now I love that I have captions to use when I get writers’ block, the best hashtags are all there for me, and I can post the first comment on Instagram, which has been an essential feature for my feed and growth. Now that Plann has the capabilities to post to every platform I use, I will never turn back from using this tool to grow my audience.
I can post to Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn AND TikTok! Not many affordable and easy-to-use scheduling tools can do that. The others are clunky, messy, and don’t have the same power as Plann for me these days.”
Building a successful strategy with Plann
“Use Plann’s strategy builder, find your industry and take some ideas from that and make it your own, then customize the colours for the placeholders for your feed. Decide whether you will post in a pattern or if you want to look raw and natural and have all sorts of colours, but decide to stick to it for as long as you can. Consistency is key.”
Top tips for brands looking to succeed on social media in 2022
“Engage with the people who follow you. Social media is about being social. It’s in the title. Don’t post and forget. Use the Reply feature in your Plann account and reply to comments, or click on the commenters’ name and the link will take you straight into your Instagram and reach out to your audience in their DM’s.
Don’t be shy to thank them for being part of your journey. Imagine all of your followers were in your lounge room; how would you converse with them? You would do the rounds like at a party and connect, thank them for coming and offer them something to eat or drink. Social media is not that different from that. Remembering that your followers aren’t just numbers on your feed will build a loyal and connected audience.
Social media brings together like-minded people and builds a community by making money. When you are authentic and engage with people, creating an income from social media is a given. People buy from people they like and believe can solve their problems. So be that for people, and you will succeed in your business and grow a loyal healthy community of followers.”
What’s next for Amy?
“The sky is the limit. I hope that when I release my ‘Journey To You’ course in October for MBAU Academy, it will be a huge success. We can help lots of people in abusive situations and, in the meantime, reach as many people as possible with my podcast ‘It Stops With Me”.
My focus is growing a community using Instagram @amylee.selflove & @missionbeautifulaustralia plus TikTok @itstopswithme & @amyleefarr to help people recover from DFV. The free 14-day break the cycle challenge e-course will be released in October on the 4th via email and online through my private Facebook group.
So, I will use Instagram and TikTok as the launching pad for the course. In this short introductory course, I will teach people how to reconnect with themselves and find the strength they already have inside them, break the cycle of violence in their families and pass the information on to their children.
Once they go through this part of the course, we work on helping people to maintain this and find their dream careers and jobs or start their own business. ”
Ready to supercharge your success on social media?
Looking for an all-in-one content creation suite that allows you to manage your social media channels effortlessly? From mapping out your strategy and designing your graphics to saving plug-and-play hashtag sets, you’ll find everything you need inside Plann.
Go on, redeem your 7-day free trial of Plann Plus. If you don’t like it, keep using Plann for free!
