Sam Kelly, Founder of Inspire Network & Twitter Authority | How to Grow a Twitter Audience

At Cummins, innovation is in our DNA, and we have a history of industry changing breakthroughs. Now, as we fight climate change and embark on a zero-emission future, we are on the verge of our next big breakthrough. Join us on March 8th and witness history in the making. Find out more at Cummins.tech-slash-nextbreakthrough. Welcome to Success Story, the most useful podcasts in the world. I'm your host, Scott D. Clary. The Success Story Podcast is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network. The HubSpot Podcast Network is the audio destination for business professionals who seek the best education and inspiration on how to start and grow a business. HubSpot Podcast Network hosts to act as on-demand mentors to entrepreneurs, startups and scale-ups through practical tips and inspirational stories. Listen, learn and grow with the HubSpot Podcast Network at HubSpot.com-podcast-network. Today, my guest is Sam Kelly. Sam is an internationally recognized Twitter expert, social media strategist, author and speaker. She is known as the tweeting goddess. She has a following of over 53,000 highly engaged followers on Twitter. She is also the founder of the Women's Inspire Network, a global support network for women-led businesses with another large following of over 16,000 on Twitter. Her path from lone parent on social welfare to highly successful entrepreneur is a testament to her incredible ability to make things happen. She's gone through a lot in her life. We're going to unpack that. She is now recognized as a digital influencer and social media expert. This is what we spoke about. Brand perception, how brands can build relationships with customers using social media. We spoke about how to use Twitter to raise your own profile, how to get your event trending on Twitter, how to sell products on Twitter, how Twitter can change your life as it changed hers, how to create communities online and bring them offline. We spoke about live events, live streaming, on Twitter, social media. We spoke about trolls, how to deal with trolls, customer success, why not getting on social and not getting on Twitter is the biggest mistake your business can ever make. And then we walk through some Twitter content and profile strategies. So all in all, this is a Twitter, a Twitter heavy episode, a social media episode for anybody that wants to learn how to do social better. This is what Sam does for businesses and she unpacks her playbook in this episode. So I hope you get something from it again. This is Sam Kelly, Twitter expert, social media strategist, author, speaker known as the Tweeting Goddess. Okay, well, first of all, I never even went to college. I just did normal high school, the equivalent over here in Ireland and my story kind of starts really about 13 years ago. I decided to stop drinking alcohol because I'm 13 years sober now. And because I felt like it was holding me back and it was stopping me from reaching my full potential. And I loved it as well, which didn't help. So I decided it was affecting others around me. So I did that first and that's kind of how my journey into business started. Because when you get rid of one thing, that's holding you back and it could be a person. It could be Coca-Cola, it could be cigarettes, it could be, you know, something, whatever it is, it's holding you back. But that's when you really get a chance to shine and be the best version of yourself. So that's where my story started. And then three years later, my father passed away and I was devastated and I was kind of going through grief at the time. But then my daughter, she got her first period, which is a real taboo, big taboo topic. So this is where my journey into business started. So it was like, oh my god, I felt so sorry for her. I went over to the shop and went over to the supermarket and I said, I'll get her some kind of beginner's set or something that's going to make this transition a bit easier. I couldn't believe there were no beginner sets. So right there in the supermarket aisle, I don't know, maybe it was my dad speaking. I don't know, I was hitting 40. My marriage had broken up. My other daughter was about to start mainstream school. And my ducks were kind of lined up in a row to do something. But you know when someone passes away that you love, you kind of start thinking, oh my god, life's too short. And you only live once and you know, and I was kind of looking at my life and thinking what impact did I made, you know, in my life. And I think that all those things together made me decide, I know I'll create this gift box for welcome to womanhood or whatever. And so right there in the supermarket aisle, I decided I would do so that's what I did. And my sister built me a website and I started using Twitter to market the business. And that's how my whole journey into Twitter started. And the business was called funky goddess. And I know there's a version of a show that we have over here called Dragon's Den. It's called Shark Tank over there. And so I went on that TV show here in Ireland. And at the time, I had about 5,000 followers on Twitter. And when I went on the show, I was telling everyone, I'm going to be on Dragon's Den blah blah blah. And then when I went on the show, a butterfly landed on the makeup girl's life when she was doing my makeup for the TV show. And she said, oh my god, there's a butterfly here in January. And I was like, well, actually, that's my dad, I'd say, you know, because me and dad used to watch it together. He used to think, oh, that's a great idea. That's a great business idea and all this. And so when I went up to the judges on the TV show, I kind of. The emotions got the better me and I ended up being the girl who cried on Dragon's Den. So that kind of. It propelled me into the public eye because everybody loved the story. They loved the fact that this business woman all of a sudden showed the human side. And it kind of showed me the power of storytelling and it showed me the power on Twitter of that episode and showing the real site, you know, the authenticity. And that's really where my kind of journey in the public eye started. So yeah, so that's where I started. And then I sold the business after a year because I didn't get the investment after the TV show. And my followers and my PR and everyone wanted to interview me and I was on TV and I was on radio and everything. And but still I wasn't making a profit. I needed that investment. So I shelved the business, a customer bought it off me and then a local hotel here said to me, you're really good at Twitter. Could you show us how to do it? We'll pay you. And that's when I realized if somebody has is willing to pay for something that you can solve for them. If you have a problem, you can solve it. That's when you have a business. So I decided to change my funky goddess Twitter handle to tweeting goddess. And that's how tweeting goddess was born. Wow. So so just to that was that was about four four or five minutes and you had made how many how many major life events you had. You were you you went sober. You had a parent father pass away. Go on drag and stand. Tell a story to the world break down on dragons from the world. Start a business. Sell a business. And then now pivot into a social media career. So the the I guess the the takeaway is. And sorry, just at what point like what were you doing previous to to this? Like what was the what was the career before you chose to be sober? I traveled. Yeah, I traveled a lot. I lived in Paris for two years. I lived in Hong Kong for two years. And I used to actually teach English as a foreign language. And I traveled. But also I was always working in customer service or sales. Always all the rules I ever had where I worked in the bank when I was younger. But I always had this thing where I couldn't settle. You know, I always wanted something else. Something else or you know, I didn't like a box. You were entrepreneurial, but you didn't you didn't have that thing to push you. Exactly. And then when my marriage broke up, my second marriage, my second marriage broke up. I know, I know my second marriage broke up by kind of it's like an elastic band that's pulled. And then I was just like, you know, it was like it was crazy. I just felt I was ready. I was it was the right time. You know, I was 40. Everything was lined up and around my other daughter is is deaf. She has she's hard of hearing. She has two hearing aids and she was about to start mainstream school as well. So I was caring for her as well. So I was at home. I was at home and I was I wasn't working at the time, you know, when I decided to do this. So yeah, but I always had great customer service skills and I wasn't sales as well. And I was a great salesperson, but I could have got more sales only for that integrity thing. You know, that's I always was conscious of doing the right thing. And there are some sales people that I worked with that weren't quite like that. But I used to get the sales anyway just from being myself, you know. And that's that's something I was always good at. So as you as you dive into this new new career. What are some of the what how do you find a way to to monetize. What you do for business is because you should have one hotel that starts to reach out and ask for you to help them with their Twitter. But to monetize and to build the brand, it's not a day one thing. I'm sure that all the steps that you took along your career obviously helped and ended up with somebody who could sell and market and tell stories and whatnot. But walk me through maybe that first client and some of the things that you learned and why you decided to continue along the path of. And how would you how would you describe yourself? What is the career that you describe yourself is doing now? Is it social media marketing? Is it Twitter consultant? Is it keynote speaker? Is it a combination of all of them? Absolutely. Well, actually, I'm a social client. Yes, I'm a social media consultant, I say, right? So I've moved from at first I was managing a can. So that first account that hotel. I found a very easy easy. It just came naturally to me. I said, so what I did was once I got into their account. I started looking at their customers that had already been there. So I started looking at their notifications and their engagement. And I started chatting to Mary in temporary and say, no, Mary, how's it going? I started looking at what she was tweeting. And then I commented and she would go, oh my god, the hotel is talking to me. And then she'd go, oh, yes, I haven't been down a long time. And then she said, oh, have you any offers at the moment we were due a visit. And then I put the link for the special midweek offer. Bam, she booked. And then the head office of the hotel chain, actually called the marketing girl in there and said, your clicks to sale have gone up 15%. How did you do that? And she said, well, we hired Samantha. And so she started telling people about me because she was getting results. It was making her look good. It was making the hotel look good. And that's all. And that's when I realized I had a skill that I was able to engage and find customers just by engaging with them on social media. And that's really where I realized that the power of just engagement and making people feel special. And I did little videos before people were even doing videos. You know, that kind of thing. I was doing little videos and little clips and, you know, taking pictures of behind the scenes and the team and the human side of it all. And they just did so well. So that's when I realized, OK, maybe I should start pitching to other businesses. But to be honest, once people started seeing what I was doing, they actually came to me and they said, look, will you just teach us? And then when I teach them, they go, oh, do you know what? Will you just do it for me? You know, and so they'd hire me. They pay to be trained, but then they go, oh, will you just tweet for us? So then what happened was I had so many clients. I couldn't handle it all on my own. But then some clients might want to Facebook or now there's Instagram. Instagram didn't exist when I started. And so then I had to get a team around me. So I started approaching people that I knew. All of my team I got from Twitter, by the way. I was watching them, how they respond to people, how they are, the stuff they were putting out, the content. And so I outsource to people who are better at the other stuff that I'm not good at. And so now I have a team. So now I'm more about the strategy. And then I support the team around me. And I don't manage accounts anymore. But my team do, you know, if someone does need it. And I found that I was very feeling very isolated working from online in particular. Because especially here in this little village where I live, they didn't really understand Twitter. They didn't understand what I was doing. They, you know, a lot of businesses still don't, you know, have an online presence. So I found that my customers were actually outside of Ireland. We're actually all over the world because it didn't matter where they were, because it was online. And I knew that if I could reach other women like me. That I wouldn't be on my own. And so I created the Women's Inspire Network, which was just for me to not feel as lonely. And I created a hashtag on Twitter and it was very successful. And it was so successful people said, oh, can we have a Facebook group? And God, that grew to 8,000 and I was exhausted. I was exhausted doing all this good stuff for everybody else. And then I went, hang on a second, Samantha, you need to start thinking like a business woman. And I decided, you know what, if I charge a small fee of like 20 months, people would be willing to pay that if they knew they were going to get value. And they were going to learn and they were going to get opportunities. So that's why I started the Women's Inspire Network. And now we've members all over the world. We're 470 members from all over the world. And the pandemic certainly helped a lot because people needed that human connection. But it's all about stuff I've learned along the way. For anyone listening, the thinking is starting a business. It's all about relationships. It's all about people. People buy from people. And that's the secrets and how you make people feel. If you didn't like me, I wouldn't be sitting on this podcast right now. You know, people work with people they know like interest. I won't interview someone if I think they're a bitch like, you know, I need to be with people who are going to give value. And they're going to give value to my audience because my audience, if you notice my Twitter profile, it says nice people collector. Because I don't want. Yeah, I don't want. And what does it do with attracts nice people? Like the trolls and the negative people would just see that go. Oh, she's too fluffy for me. I'm not going to follow her. You know, so if I just it's the psychology behind it all. There's a whole psychology behind Twitter. So yeah, so that's really where the journey has gone. And now I 60,000 followers on Twitter and the women's inspired network is growing every day. So it's been amazing. There's so many so many things that I want to go into. So let's see, we got community building. We got brand perception. We got, you know, scaling an agency. We got different types of social content. So there's a, you just touched on like five or six different things. I'm probably trying to fit it all. I'm probably trying to fit it all into 280 characters each point. Yeah, yeah, right. No, this is this is long form. This is. No, it's very good. So I guess well, let's, let's go into a few of these things. And I'm just trying to, I'm trying to align the topics with how, how your personal journey progressed. So I'm going to go back to, to use scaling out the agency. So I think that that's important because a lot of entrepreneurs and people try to start side hustles are, are, are, are audience or, you know, that's our audience. So what are some of the steps that you said you said use outsourced. But let's talk about, you know, early learnings in perhaps outsourcing and finding talent that would fulfill the requirements of the customer. Properly. And then I also want to talk about building out a recurring revenue or predictable revenue model, what you did with your community. So give me some insight on how to build out basically a service based business that isn't so easily, easily scalable day one. Yeah, well, what I did was I just made sure that I knew my stuff. So learn, learn, learn, there's so many courses out there. Get a coach. If you, if you have the budget for a coach, get a coach, but get a good coach, get someone that's aligned with what you're doing or someone who's done it already. You know, for example, now I coach people one to one and I show them how to raise their profile, how to get to the right people. And you know, there's a lot of learning, but you know, it's about expand your network first. Get the right people around you. The team I hand picked because I was watching them already. I saw how, how good they were. And then, you know, get a really good communication thing going, you know, either a Facebook messenger or, you know, that you're all in contact and you're all helping each other because one of the girls might feel unwell. And then one of the other team members will jump in and take over that account. But you have to have the right person for each account, like we have Ben, for example, who is great at the more serious accounts. And then we have Sharon who's great at the kind of, you know, outgoing accounts. You know, you have different personalities to suit each kind. Like I wouldn't put certain people in front of certain accounts. And but also, you know, the client has to know, you know, well, she's not going to be rerunning the kind is going to be Ben or Sharon or Anya. You know, so it's about transparency as well. But if they want me, they'll have to pay triple the amount. So, you know, usually they're happy enough once I'm guiding them and they're getting results. All about making sure the client understands what they're going to get, setting realistic expectations, but look and after them, you know, and giving that little bit extra, I always give extra. So like, for example, I have a client. She's a music school. Sanya and she has a music school and it was in Terranure and Dublin. I don't live in Dublin, but it's a great music school. But what we did was before the pandemic, I had already trained her. And I was already working with her. So then when the pandemic hit, she pivoted all her lessons online. And now she has my daughter doing violin lessons because she can do it online. You know, and so now she has a global, global students, not just in Dublin. And this kind of thing is really important. So I helped, you know, with other opportunities, like giving her a speaking moment at my conference. You know, that kind of thing. So I look after my clients, always look after them. Like surprise and delight your customers. That's what I always say. Surprise and delight. If someone joins my Women's Inspire Network, I send them a Bond Juro. If anyone wants to write that down, Bond Juro, it's an app where you just support. I know Bond Juro. I love it. He's one of, I had their head of growth on my podcast. I love Bond Juro. I love it too. It's just so powerful because if someone signs up to the Women's Inspire Network, I send them a message straight away. And the other time I had the towel around my head, I just come out and had washed my hair. And I sent the Bond Juro. And the girls started laughing and saying, Jesus, you know, that's so funny. I feel so apart of this network already. You know, it was real, you know. And so, yeah, so the biggest tip I can give is like, you know, surround yourself with good people who are better at the stuff you're not good at. Look after them. And make sure your clients are looked after and they will stay with you. But also not only that, they will send you business. And if you look after your followers and your audience on Twitter, they will, they'll do your marketing for you. They will tag you. They will recommend you. They, they love people to do well. Like people have a lot of negativity and fear around Twitter. But people on Twitter, actually, the demographic would be age 35 to 55. And the highest growing demographic at the over 55s. So they've been there, done that. They've probably been through some kind of divorce or tragedy or illness or house move or something. And they want to hang out with good people and they want to help the small business owner if they can't. You know, so a lot of people don't know that a bit Twitter, but that's just so much. I mean, I'm very proud of where I am now, but it took a lot of hard work. So another tip I'll give is, oh my god, keep at it. You know, surround yourself with good people. Like have good people around you that you can bounce ideas off. Forget about the haters, the naysayers. I was told to get off my high horse. I was told, who do you think she is? And, you know, I, and I hurt, but you know what? I kept going and I was determined. So you do have to have that resilience and not give up. If you really, if you're getting sales, if you're not getting sales, you don't have a business. And unfortunately, that's just the way it is. If you are not getting money in the door, you don't have a business. And that's why when I had funky goddess, I wasn't, we had no coal. The fire was lighting and I was sitting around the fire at my two daughters. I made no coal. We had no money for coal. And I said, right, that's it. You know, this is not worth it when I'm doing to my family. So I shelved funky goddess as it happened. A customer bought it off me. But I had face reality that it wasn't bringing in. Money and keeping me going. You know, I needed to make a profit. So be really, really careful. If you do have a business idea, get a mentor, get advice from the right people and just say, look, if it's going to work, if you start getting sales, if you have something that solves the problem for someone and that people are willing to pay for, you have a business. And let's, let's talk about now. So that's how, that's how you've built out your business. Now let's talk about some of the, some of the things that you try and do through your clients accounts to help them build business sales through Twitter because I feel like most people just miss the mark on Twitter. It seems to be almost like a thing that businesses feel they have to have. But my goodness, if you ever see, if you see the average business Twitter account, it's like, what, what, you know, I know why they're bothering. And also it's like, why are you bothering? Because it's just horrible. It's just, it's not doing anything that positive. I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode, Faraday Brand Close. Faraday is the spot you should be going for summer outfits. We've been cooped up for far too long and cooped up for the past year and a half, two years. We're going out, we're getting dinner, we're traveling, we're dating, we're doing whatever it is we want to do outside of the house. You want to look good. Faraday Brand has got you. It is a family run business making high quality, timeless clothing, modern design, extremely functional. You know, whenever you're looking for the perfect summer outfit, you want to put on something that you feel like you've had for years, it fits you perfectly. That's Faraday, except that's Faraday, the second you order it. They produce exceptionally high quality clothing that fits you the way it should fit you day one and looks high quality, timeless and modern. 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It's posting me, me, me, me, me, and it's not about that at all. And sometimes I see big accounts, like a big business and they've got like 100,000 followers and they're following 500 new. That's the worst and it looks so snobby. And especially, you know, one like where, you know, if you follow back someone, if you follow someone back that's following you, like it's kind of courtesy, but also it's like if they're normal. I'm not talking about weirdos or anything. You know how to follow them. But like, you know, if you're following someone that's that's a genuine person, you're going to make their day and it's going to make them feel special. So I always follow back people who I think will add value to my feed. So don't forget it's not about me at all. It's about my audience and I go and I make Twitter lists. And so you can keep an eye on the people who might be potential clients or potential customers. I also help them and add value. So what I do is, for example, a Christmas time. I created an Irish gift ideas Twitter list. So to kind of help the businesses that it's suffered through the pandemic, I did an Irish gift ideas Twitter list. And people started buying from that list. So I asked anyone that had a business to let me know and I would add them to the list. So I had like 700 on the list. No, I think I only had 250 on the list, but then 700 followed my list. So a lot of people actually message me sent me letters sent me flowers and said they got loads of sale from the sales from the fact that I made that Twitter list. So what I was doing was I was helping the people who were selling. I was also helping solve a problem for people on what to buy, especially if their family were abroad and they couldn't see them at Christmas. They wanted to send them something Irish. And then I also added value to my audience because they knew that that list was there. They could just click on the list and see and help them do their shopping for Christmas. So just it's about adding value and helping your audience. Like I get many businesses saying, you know, oh, you know, we want to do a webinar and it's a panel discussion. And I'm like, God, would you not just do what do your customers need right now? Well, they need more sales. Okay, why could you do a webinar and how to get more sales? That would be more useful and more valuable. So it's about thinking about the customer all the time and what they need. I hope that answers your question. It does. No, I think it's very smart. And and I guess the the follow up or the the other point when businesses put themselves out there and they start to build a profile. They're probably concerned with falling outside of the box or doing things that are a little bit differently. Like when I look at the average business account, again, it's just it's very boring. But then I look at something like I'm just using one reference point, like a morning brew, which is all, you know, it's a news. It's a news outlet that's very off the off the wall when it comes to their Twitter account. And that's actually probably how they've built a lot of their following. But brands are always concerned about if I put myself out there. I'm going to get some negativity. I'm going to get some like you said some, you know, some trolls or whatnot. So how do you deal with with that? Is that just in your own head? You have to get over it or are there actual strategies that you have to deal with when you start to get some, you know, colorful comments that call them on on social. Well, you won't really start getting those till you go over like 5,000 followers or so, right? And if you do just block them. If you get a customer complaint, that's a different story. Okay, so let's say you get a complaint. I had a coffee shop. I was running their Twitter account. And this lady said, oh, I was in there yesterday and the waitress was wagon and, you know, she didn't and my coffee was cold or whatever she said, right? So I said, right. Okay, hi. So the first thing you do is you engage. You engage. I said, I really, we're really sorry to hear that you had this experience. Could we please DM you and get more details and investigate. So you take it offline. So even if she doesn't go to DM, you've shown the public that you're dealing with the issue. So you've shown the public that you've tried to deal with the issue, which which looks good, right? And then if they do call offline, what you do is you follow up. So you say, right, give us your number, give us your email or whatever. And then you get the person in charge of the decision maker to contact that person and find out what happened. What we did was we found out what happened. We sent the lady a gift voucher to come back in and have lunch. She came in and had lunch and guess what? She did a lovely tweet saying thank you so much for the gorgeous lunch. She became a brand advocate because we helped her and we dealt with the issue. So that's the only thing about like people here about these big stories, big mistakes, get the right person running your Twitter account or get them trained properly and that will never ever happen. So it's having social media strategy, having a policy as well. Like so that if such and such happens, this is what we do. You know, have it all in place so that they know what to do. But the worst Twitter accounts I've seen have been bigger companies that think they know their audience, but they actually don't and they just don't engage. They don't say thank you to simple things like if someone like I mentioned a brand a few times because I liked that brand. And I used to mention the brand because I'd be sitting there with my cup of tea and I'd mention the brand and they never even thanked me for mentioning them, which was a huge missed opportunity because if they had retweeted me or if they had engaged with me, I would have actually retweeted that to make them look good, you know, because I'd be impressed by that. So I also always give kudos when I get great customer service and I never complain. I never get involved in controversy. I stay away from all of that and I just keep it positive, add value, share my knowledge and help others. And I help others by retweet them. It's not about me. My audience would like to see other people as well, you know, and usually my audience want to support businesses. So I did actually have a great story from last week. This lady rang me. She's a member of my women's inspire network and she had ordered 500 lots and lots and lots of this vegan chocolate covered peanuts, right, because she does vegan chocolate. And she rang me. She was quite upset. She said, I don't know what to do. That customer has canceled the order and I've got it already ordered. I don't know what to do. How do I get rid of this much chocolate? And I said, wait, don't panic. I said, let's do a tweet. So we did a tweet. And the tweet said, hang on, I'll find it now for you while I'm talking to you. The tweet said, I have this amount of chocolate. Can you if anyone is interested or whatever it was, we told the story basically in the tweet. And I helped her compose the tweet. And oh my gosh, it went viral because people said, oh my God, let's help this small business. And they all bought chocolates. Everybody, she got 100 orders. She got three new stocks. And you know, she just was inundated with help from Twitter. And one guy just bought a box of them and she got the chocolate. She didn't lose that any money. Isn't that just lovely, lovely story. And that's the kind of thing I do. So we just did, we just did a tweet. And I supported her. I said, come on guys, let's support this small business. So we got behind her and everybody went and bought chocolate covered vegan chocolate covered peanuts. So it's just a nice little story. But for everybody, pair of bucks, it only costs like 10 euros, you know, so, you know, just every little bit. Yeah, it's it's usually when you get when you get a crowd involved to like the crowdsource, you know, the crowdsource the brand, especially small business can make a huge difference. Yeah. But you know, one thing that I think always happens and I don't really know why still in 2021 is that brands don't place value on the person or the person who runs their social media. I feel like it's, I don't know why that is. It's like an extra priority. Yeah, it's it's like, oh, you know, you're you're marketing and then tweet once in a while. Yeah. There should be so post on Instagram. I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode HubSpot HubSpot is the CRM platform that is easy to implement and is even easier to get your team to adopt and ask anybody that's implemented new technology in a company. The biggest issue is not finding it or buying it. It's getting your team and your company to actually use it and adopt it. And when it's a piece like a CRM, one of the most critical pieces of your business infrastructure and your tech stack. If people don't adopt it and use it, that means you're getting incomplete data. You're getting missing data. You're getting garbage data. It could impact quite literally everybody in your company as well as it could negatively impact your customers and your revenue. So how does HubSpot solve for this with their CRM platform? There's two components that they focus on that allow for organizational wide adoption. This is the contact timeline as well as the mobile app. So the contact timeline gives a historical context for all of the data that is associated with a certain contact in the CRM. That means that anybody across the organization can see all the actions and all the interactions that have taken place against that particular contact. You can also use that timeline to make calls to these contacts and roll them in sequences, put them into marketing or sales campaigns. Schedule a meeting, open tickets. The historical timeline makes it easy to take action as well as to track the action that's been taken against all of your contacts. And it's not a pain to enter the information which means that it doesn't take somebody a long time to putting great data which can again positively impact your whole company. The second piece is the access from anywhere, meaning if I have a phone and I'm on the road, the world's opening up a little bit more now. People are traveling again. I can use the HubSpot app to access my CRM anywhere on the go on the fly doesn't matter. So I have complete access to the CRM. I have access to my spreadsheets, my calendars, my notebooks, all of my contacts. I can send messages across my team with the HubSpot keyboard. I can access my contacts, call them through the HubSpot app. I can take quick notes. I can take contact information. I can all log it into my HubSpot app so that I can pull it up later on my desktop when I'm back at home. It's simple, it's intuitive, it's meant to make it easy, frictionless so that your team sees the value in properly using the CRM to the fullest of its capabilities and gives them the tools and the tech to allow them to do it without spending too much time and causing them more headache. The best thing about HubSpot is that it can be set up for any size of business and it will scale with you. If you're just starting out, you can take advantage of certain features and then as you scale your business, you'll notice that HubSpot will support almost anything you need as you grow. So if you do want to learn how to scale your business without scaling complexity, go to HubSpot.com. It should be someone who has assigned this role and a plan and a strategy or if you don't want to then outsource it to someone like me or someone else who does that. I don't understand that they don't make it a priority and it's so important because I remember seeing, I remember I put a tweet up saying, okay ladies, best-tinted moisturizer. It was just for fun and I put it up and I got all these responses about the best-tinted moisturizer which by the way for the guys listening, it's like make-up, light make-up for the summer. So I got so many responses and I was like, where are all the brands? Not one brand topped into that conversation and said, hey, Samantha, we have a tinted moisturizer. It's really good. Here, there's buy now, click to buy. Not one brand did that. And that was such a missed opportunity because the tweet went crazy. We had about 200 responses. So that was 200 potential sales. And 200 responses on Twitter is like thousands of impressions. Like thousands of people saw that. Yeah. For sure, for sure. Whereas the brand had hopped in and said, you know, oh, hi, Sam, I'm actually, we have, but look, we'd love to send you one to try. And if anyone else wants to try, here's a discount code. You know? Yeah. That's what I would look at. Now, okay, so now let's dive into to why Twitter versus Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube. So why Twitter? What's the, what's the opportunity for Twitter versus everything else? Well, the demographic on Twitter are CEOs and decision makers and small business owners. So they are my audience. No, it might not work for everybody. So if you are, you know, trying to get to a younger demographic, maybe you need to be on TikTok. So you need to find who your customer is and understand who your customer is and understand your audience before you even choose which platform. Now, if you're really, really brilliant on Instagram, but your customers are on Twitter or LinkedIn, you know, you need to kind of, you know, you're going to have to decide what you're going to do. You could have the TikTok or whatever it is for your fun site and then just for business, you need to be where your audience are. And so it's about getting to know your audience. It's also, you know, a lot of people say, oh, I'm going to hire an influencer on Instagram. I'm an influencer on Twitter, but people seem to not think of an influencer being on another platform. There are LinkedIn influencers, you know, there are different influencers and different platforms. So it's really about deciding where your customers are. Twitter is where my, that's where my audience are. I'm on Instagram. I'm on TikTok, actually. I'm there, but that's more for fun, but I do mix a little bit of Instagram because clopets, a lot of your Instagram, your Instagram is connected to your clopets. And I use clopets and Twitter spaces social audio a lot, which is something people should look into if they're an expert in their niche. Definitely go onto clopets or Twitter spaces. So there's just so many. It's about finding where your audience are and where you're getting the results from. If you're on Instagram and you're getting lots of sales, then yes, stay there, you know, but could you be missing out on other sales and another audience on Twitter? People on Twitter are professional urban. They have more disposable income. They're more likely to click by now. And that's what I've noticed. And I just, I just love the Twitter community. It's a community. You only hear the bad stuff in the media about Twitter. You don't hear the beautiful stories like about the chocolate go root panels, like about the self isolation help hashtag that I started during the pandemic. I started a little movement where well, I just started. I just a tweet saying self isolation. If you wanted to connect with other people self isolating and then I started a whole movement and called hashtag self isolation help and it went global. And I end up on the news that night on the RT news crew came into my office here and that night because people just embraced it. They wanted to help in some ways. The only way they knew how to help was to actually, you know, if someone needed delivery or if someone needed the dogs walked or something like that or a pharmacy prescription picked up. They were able to do something so people felt so helpless during the pandemic. So if you can bring hope on Twitter, you'll be a hit. A lot of a lot of the success that you've had has been based on your ability to build a community. It could be with a hashtag. It could be with thrive. So let's talk about let's talk about thrive network. Let's talk about what that is. How are you built? That's right. That's why I think. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm you know what I was thinking. I was thinking of Erie in a huffing. I know. Yeah. Yeah. Just for everybody listening, it's it's now 7.50 a.m. in the morning when we're recording this and I was trying. I was trying to make it so that we could get it with a with a Sam having to stay up late because she's overseas. And anyways, so I haven't really had a coffee yet. So I'm so sorry. It's okay. I like that. That's like a great network. Anyway, women's inspired network, not thrive. Anyway, you see women's inspired. W. I. N. C. W. I. N. Win. W. I. N. Okay, that's all. I think I had known that acronym ahead of time. I thought about that. I wouldn't have screwed it up. It's okay. Stick with the winners. Stick with the winners. It's fine. Do you know what? And this is another thing as well. You're allowed to make mistakes, right? Look, stop being so serious, everybody. Oh, my God. This pandemic of anything has taught us, has taught us like the importance of family and life and there's so many people have suffered through this. So, you know, we need to have a bit of fun, a bit of joy in our lives. And if you're not having fun, run your business, stop doing it because it's just clear. And I've seen it. I've seen my dad work really, really, really hard. And, you know, it's so important to have joy in your life and hang out with good people. Forget about the one that drains you. You know that person who drains you and it's all about them. And every time you visit them or you hear from them, you're just exhausted afterwards. Get those people out of your life. They won't even notice. They'll go move on to someone else. And it's something I always say. But yeah, don't be worrying about things like that. And I just think it's funny. You know, and you know, we need to laugh at our mistakes as well. And I did loads. I made loads of mistakes. Okay. So, you know, the women's inspire network, like one of the mistakes I made, as I said, was I had this Facebook group at 8000 members, but it was just all. And then it turned into kind of spammy and I said, okay, there has to be a better way to do this. So what I did was I made it more structured. We do weekly webinars on topics that they need. We have a Facebook group that's really engaged so people can come in and say, look, do you know what I actually don't know how to do a Facebook messenger bot, for example, or how do you set up a Facebook ad or can anyone help me and all those little things. So we're helping each other all the time. And then we celebrate the wins. Somebody got featured in the magazine or someone got featured. Their podcast reached 25,000 listeners and things like that. You know, we're able to celebrate the wins and the lows as well. And that's what you need. So it's not just about business. A lot of women actually have joined who are actually in jobs for companies, but they're just a lot of guys working there. So they like to kind of have that kind of touch, but they're thinking maybe you've started a business later. So, you know, what are the mechanics of doing that? I've actually building out like a paid membership community. How did you set that up? Well, I just said with the 8000 members I already had. And then my followers on Twitter, I just said, look, if you want more value and you want to get the weekly webinars, the PR opportunities, all of that is 20 months. Here you go. And I just said the link for them to join and it's a monthly payment thing. So it's like my web lady, my web person did it. You know, so that set up, they click and it automatically comes out every month. That's it. And did you have trouble getting people who were consuming all the free content to convert? Because that's actually I'm just asking now selfishly for me because that's something that I'm trying to figure out. And that's something that I'm always concerned like I'm always putting a free stuff into the world. How do you just buy? Well, I did as a post. I did a post and I said, look guys, you know, thank you so much for your support in this group. I've decided to create a paid membership. I'm going to close this group at the end of the month. But in the meantime, if you want to join the paid one, we're opening a new Facebook group over there. So they felt like they'd be missing out if they didn't go to the new group. But also it weeded out the ones that like they were like, I'm not paying. Why should I pay? I'm like, okay, thank you. No problem. No two different network. That's fine. But you know what I mean? The ones that did understand off value they were going to get and already had that really engaged and wanted to learn more and I knew they were get value and knew me. The people who knew me knew that I would make it work. Really, so you do have to build that no like and trust factor. So if people know like and trust you, they will buy from you. And it's so important. I know it's a cliche. We hear it all the time, but it's so important. If they didn't like me and they didn't trust that I was going to give value, they wouldn't have joined. And now you're running your running webinars on there. You're running events on there. You run live streams as well. I do. I've actually got an interview tonight with two of my clients. They're a couple. They live in Spain and they have a beauty, a beard oil. Actually, they do a product of beard oil and so it's kind of high end. And so I'm interviewing them tonight and going live with Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, all the same time. I'm using Restream. So I do that as well. Yeah. And then how do you? So last question on that because I saw and I'm asking this. I love these because I get to learn from the world. I've done it before. So when all these things that you figured out, they make a lot of sense. The one thing that I also I personally haven't figured out. So I know that other people are still trying to start or still struggling with this. When you run a live stream, I find that when when you run a live stream or even when I find when you run social audio, you go into clubhouse, I find that very small percentages of your audience convert in real time for the first time I've ever done. I've tried to do live streams before and whatnot. So what are some tips that you may have for somebody's trying to do a live stream because I see the value in that. But to get it so that more of your audience joins perhaps you get the event to trend somehow. Do you have any any best practices for a live stream or for an event that's to do like an event. If I do an event, let's say for an event, let's say for an event. So it's social media bootcamp. We did there in May and we charged 30 euros a ticket. We had 160 people came and it was just two hours long. So we did TikTok, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter. You know, we just covered the basics beginner's guide to social media and it was so cool. We trended because people were putting comments up. We're watching the thing that we're using the hashtag. And so what I did was I just told them a value they were going to get. If they think they're going to get value, they're going to learn something they'll pay for it. Because one girl went, oh my god, TikTok brilliant. I'm going to buy that ticket now, you know. But they always trust me. Anyway, anytime I run events, they know they're going to get value. So it is about building up that trust factor and delivering and giving them a brilliant event to talk about. Like the first conference we did, like I remember I had some, like I'd one or two kind of star speakers, but really they loved the normal member who I gave an opportunity to to be on the stage. So I give one or two members an opportunity to get on the stage and that probably wouldn't get before and then they get more speaking moments after that. So when in the audience saw them and said, you know, I'd love you to speak at our chamber event or our event next week. So what I do is I give them opportunities, but I make sure the topics are relevant. So I used to go to so many events and I get a babysitter and I stay in a hotel and I drive up and I leave the event going, do you know what? That was all about them. I didn't get any value out of that. Whereas if I know what issues people are having. I asked them before this next event in October, we have our annual conference and I'm going to do it online again this year just because people are still a bit afraid, you know. And I will ask them what topics would you like us to cover in the conference and I'm going to have a team of let's get back to, let's get back to business or let's, let's rock and get ready for 2022 or whatever. You know, I'll put the team around what people are going through at the moment. So that's what I do. So if you have a topic that's relevant, people will buy, if they think they're getting value, put a call to action always in your tweet. And if you are talking about the event, put a call to action in your live stream. So say, look, if you want to connect to it, Scott, and you want to be a guest in this podcast, here's his link and drop it into the live stream. Another thing you can do is you could actually say, look, Scott has a webinar coming up next week. If you'd like to come to the webinar, here's the link. Do your free webinar, Scott, and most of the time when people do webinars for my network, the conversion rate, like let's say 10, let's say if 10 only turned up, three of those would book for her workshop or her masterclass. So the conversion rate is really, really good from free webinars. So I always suggest people start doing their videos, doing their free stuff, like you're doing now, and now you're ready to go to the next level. So add value. What do people need right now? What's going to make them sign up? Make it, make it compelling and like a no brainer or that they're going to miss out on something. Hope that helps. Very smart. Yeah, no, it definitely helps. And did you have, and I guess the just to finish off that thought because yes, so that would be incredible advice for webinars. And then you have any additional advice for live streams because live streams are a little bit of a different beast. Always just put the Twitter handle of the person underneath so that it make it easy for them to connect with them and just give value because you use re-stream as well for that. Yeah, and then what I do is I go back and I reply and I get the guests to reply to all the people who commented. So go back to the comments and say, thank you so much for joining us. Oh, thanks for thinking that and thanks for your kind words. Just engage with them, connect with them on LinkedIn, then connect with them on Twitter, follow each other and start building, build a Twitter list of live stream audience. It seems like such common sense. Sometimes that people don't, they just don't do it. I know. Right. Just to engage. Look, I had a 50 birthday in lockdown, right? I had a, sorry, for introduction, I had a 50 birthday in lockdown. No, no, no. And I just put a picture of me with a balloon in the kitchen from my 50th birthday because I couldn't have a party, right? And the amount of people that wish me happy birthday, obviously you can imagine, right? I went back to every single, if you go and look at that tweet later, you will see I went back and I thanked every single person who wish me happy birthday. There were a lot of them, but I did it because I just felt it was so important to acknowledge them. And I think that that's a really good point. Social media is not just this megaphone that you have that you use to talk to the world. But then you go, you go into the comments, you go and respond, you go engage. And that's, that's where the true relationships are built. That's, that's, that is where the true relationships are built. Absolutely. And it's like walking into a room and ignoring them. They don't know the half. And I think it's like walking into a room and ignoring someone. Like someone says hello and you just ignore them. You know, that's what it is. And one girl actually said to me, I was in club has doing a Twitter room and she actually did a tweet. I've actually bookmarked the tweets. She said, after seven years on Twitter, 15 minutes for tweeting goddess and I know a hell of a lot more than I ever knew before. You know what I mean? And it's just like, like a lot of people don't understand Twitter and they don't have a lot of fear around it. But that's why I'm very lucky. I chose this niche. And I didn't, I think the niche chose me really. You know, I didn't actually just kind of happened. So I'm very lucky, blessed. Incredible. Okay. So I want to, I want to finish up with some rapid fire questions. But before we pivot, was there anything any other points with inspire or with the work that you're doing or any other lessons that you wanted to go into or to recover a lot? I think the main thing is, you know, decide what it is you want to be an expert in and become that expert show people you are the go to person. Surround yourself of good people join my women's inspire network. You know, there are good people there. And if you don't even join mine, join a different one, but make sure you're surround yourself with good people. If someone's bitching about someone, they're probably going to be bitching about someone else tomorrow or you. So I always stay away from people like that. So, you know, surround yourself start by following myself and Scott, you know, follow us on Twitter, engage or just tell us yet you listen to the podcast. We'd love to hear that you listen to the podcast. And we'd love to see you tweet. And so I will retweet your tweet if you tweet to me. So just start by helping others and supporting them and they'll support you back. And just be yourself. You don't have to look, I just be myself. And, you know, I'm not your normal business woman either. And you know, when I do walk into a room, I do get noticed. And my husband was laughing, you know, because the people come up and they say hello to him because he's my husband. Like just because I put pictures of him on Twitter, they all know him so funny and he hates the limelight. But just be yourself and treat everybody with respect and everybody the same. And you just never know who you're speaking to. I agree. Very, very good advice. And especially, especially just because actually I thought I was thinking about this other day, but everything you put online. And that's another, just an aside, everything you put online is there forever. And that's something that people, I think, may not think through sometimes. Yeah, they're having a rant or something. And they'd be bitching about me like, and I just I can see people send them to me. They send me the screenshots. And don't just you just never know who's watching. Keep doing the right thing. Keep being the best of what you do. Ignore the copycats. Just keep being the best. And, you know, there's just so many good people out there. Just most people are good and they're kind. And, you know, just stick with them. I want to, I want to capture all the socials website. Where should people go to connect with you on Twitter, on other social, your personal website, just so that it's it's on the on the show. Yeah, tweeting goddess.com, tweeting goddess.com. And I'm tweeting goddess more or less everywhere. Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok everywhere. Oh, it's easy. Okay. Yeah, that's another little tip. Actually, keep your branding all the same as well. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Biggest challenge that you've overcome in your own career and your own personal life. It could be professional. It could be personal. You've you mentioned a few, but what's one that stood out and how did you overcome it? Getting sober, so 13 years sober and the biggest. Congratulations for that. Thank you. But biggest tip is, you know, go to meetings. Do the right things. Do what's suggested. Biggest tip in business. Don't ever take criticism from someone you would never go to for advice. That's very smart. That's Morgan Freeman. It's not my quote, but I love us. It's still good advice. Yeah. Is that from a movie? I don't know. It's just a quote I found it. I was fan Morgan Freeman just popped up and I just loved it so much. It's so true. Why would you take criticism from someone you never go to for advice? Like, you know, no, very good. If you had to choose one person who was incredibly influential or impactful in your life, who was that person and what did they teach my dad? He taught me the value of hard work and kindness. He used to help a lot of people like a lot of young men who were going down the wrong path. He'd say, Oh, I need a hand. Build in this shed or I need a hand doing this and he'd kind of take them under his wing and he'd have them work and wait for the day and then he'd bring them fishing and you know, try and help them and find out what's going on for them. Yeah. What would be a podcast or a book that you recommend people go check out? Oh, sorry. Yeah. Well, there's my book, little book of Twitter magic. I know. One book, one podcast. Actually, one or the other. Scott's podcast is the best one. And book. Also, God. Book. I suppose that there are lots of books. There's so many business books, but there's none that really kind of, I'm not a great book reader. The best book I have is the, the A A book. I'm afraid that's my, my Bible. No good. That's very good. That's fine. That's, that's completely fine. If you could tell your 20 year old self one thing, what would it be? Stop drinking. Let me see. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. I suppose that are you are good enough. You are good enough. And what does success mean to you? Success means not worrying when the doorbell rings or when the bill comes in the door. Then I'm able to pay it. And that my family are happy and my girls are content. Amazing.