Creatives Like Us Podcast - Ep:20 Angela Lyons
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Making social media work without the overwhelm: Tips for your business
Do you love or loathe social media? In this episode, I'm sharing how I was someone who absolutely loathed social media to using it with purpose for my business - Lyons Creative.
I talk about practical tips on managing social media without burnout, including how I use time limits, content planning tools and the content pillar method to stay consistent.
You'll learn about my approach to LinkedIn and Instagram, why the long game matters for service-based businesses and how to repurpose content effectively. Plus, I'm sharing some exciting personal news about being nominated for the Black Podcast Awards and details about the final Creatives Like Us event!
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A collaborative knowledge sharing and networking event for Black and Brown Creatives who run their own businesses.
Thursday 16th October 2025
16.30 - 8.30 pm London
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Transcript
Hello and welcome to creatives like Us, where I speak with creatives of colour, who share journeys and stories and ideas and how they can inspire and open up avenues in creative industries. I'm your host graphic designer Angela lives, and with the help of my guests, I will bring you insight interviews and compelling stories that can inspire you to think about things differently or shape your next move.
Being a creative of color can bring its challenges. Highs and lows and inbetweens, but this podcast is about amplifying our voices and celebrating together. So are you ready? Let's get started with creatives like us. Hello and welcome back, and today I'm going to be talking about social media from your business, and this follows on from the chat I had last week with Yolanda Sising social media strategist.
And she was talking all about social media, about her business, and obviously how she got started in the world. So I thought I'd talk to you today about social media and how I use it in my business. It's one of those [00:01:00] things where you either love it or you hate it, and then sometimes you're really consistent for it for ages, and then suddenly you think, I can't be doing this anymore.
Or other times think, am I the only one doing this? Why am I doing this? Am I gonna get clients? Am I gonna get lots of work from this? And you just keep on carrying on, showing up. And then sometimes you think, why should I bother with this anymore? That's how I feel most of the time. But whatever works for you is great, and whatever works for your business is great too.
You have to do you. So I came on here to give you a few tips and share how I do things, because up until now I absolutely loathed. Social media. I'd say now, I'd say about five years ago, I didn't want to be on there. I didn't want to mingle on there. I didn't wanna talk to anyone. Uh, I think I, I've still got a Facebook account.
I had a Facebook account from years ago where I'd share things about my life and catch up with old school friends, that kind of thing. And that's just about still going, but I don't really post on there. I've got one for my business, but, um, I just repurpose anything from there, from Instagram [00:02:00] to there. So, as I said, up until about five years ago, I didn't really promote my business on social media.
Most of my work came from word of mouth or from people who I'd worked with before. So I didn't really feel the need to be on social media, and I've mentioned it a few times before. But when I started working with, um, Sophie Cross, Sophie Cross from Freelance Magazine, something changed. One of the magazines went to press.
It was a first issue, and I saw a popup from Instagram on my phone, and I was like, what is that? I'd never seen that before and I'd totally forgotten that I'd created an Instagram account. So this one picture, I'd been sitting there for ages. So anyway, this. This, um, what's it called, notification pops up on my phone and it said, um, that I had, um, people liked my post and people had mentioned me.
And then people started contacting me on Instagram. And honestly, I've built up from there. And the same with my LinkedIn profile, really dead for ages. It was more one of those things where you'd go there to check out what other people were doing or using it as a CV to say, hi, I'm open for work. But now we know that LinkedIn [00:03:00] and Instagram has changed massively over those.
Five years since I started. Really posted on there. So social media, I call it the long game, trying to get work from it. Social media can be such a long game unless you've got an event that you need to promote straight away and you have to tell people about it all the time. Keep on promoting, keep on promoting.
Keep on promoting, and that's when people buy from you immediately. Or if you've got a product that's on sale. But if you're a service based business, one of the things that I found out. That you have to do it for a while. You have to do it for a while to get some traction, to get people into your world.
And you need to engage with people too. And you have to, I suppose if they say be in it, to win it, you have to have purpose when you're doing it because there's so much noise on social media, so many people trying to sell you this, trying to sell you that and this amount of money. Join this webinar, join this newsletter, and sometimes it's just all too much.
So one of the things I do that saves my sanity. That I set time limits [00:04:00] and I have time limits on my social media accounts. I have one for Instagram. I have Instagram is half an hour a day. Sometimes I use it all, sometimes I don't. Um, I know that if I've got half an hour to go on some of those days, it might have been if I've used up half an hour.
It's one of those days where, um, I might have had something big happen or lots of, I might have promoted something and people were talk to me more on that platform. So I'll keep it open for a little bit. I've been on a podcast and I've had to reply to some dms again, I'll stay on there for a bit longer, but that's fine, and then I'll just shut it down for the rest of the day.
I have a night mode, so it'll switch off, I think around half eight in the evening. And it's the same with LinkedIn. I'll go there and I'll post, I engage, I'll comment, and then I'll shut it down. I've turned off all notifications on my phone. In fact, I've been on holiday and I've actually deleted the apps because it's great.
'cause otherwise you'd just be looking at the phone all the time and you don't really wanna doing that. Don't wanna be holiday those times and you want to. Engage with what's going on in the world, not [00:05:00] just being on your phone. But what I also use are planning tools. So for work, I say I'll go on LinkedIn.
I do use schedule posts, which is great, and LinkedIn has a schedule, um, planner in there, but I use metrical. Again, I'm not here to promote it, but, um, I'll leave a link in the show notes if you want to have a look at it. Uh, and it just helps me plan my posts so I don't have to think about things on the spot, especially if ideas come to mind while I'm out and about.
To post or what I'd like to talk about, I might put it on my notes app on my phone, and then I'll just go onto Metrical and schedule it there. So then it also takes that pressure off. Of posting things straight away on the spot. So I know that some people that doesn't work for them, they wanna just post straight away.
But for me, in my day to day and what I get up to, I don't really like doing things off the cuff unless I have to. So I'd rather put it out there on a planner again, I know what I'm gonna post about, I don't know what I'm gonna talk about. And then there are days when you just [00:06:00] think, I dunno what to post, but you know what?
There's always something to post about and it could be anything from, I saw a post the other day by my friend Mulley, and she posted about Thunderbirds and it's the anniversary, and she posted about that and somehow tied it back to her business. And then sometimes you can put a post out there and it has nothing to do with your business.
So yeah, it's one of those things with, um, social media, you can talk about your business. If you can add a little bit of personality into it too and get people into your world. I know that PR guru Lucy Werner says, show a little bit of ankle. You don't need to show your whole body when you're out there on social media.
So I suppose the analogy of that is you can just use show a little bit. You don't have to tell the whole world about your life or will your kids go to school. So what tools to use for your business? I know that I've got leads from LinkedIn and I've also got, I suppose, leads from Instagram, but in a roundabout way.
'cause whatever I post on LinkedIn, I will post on Instagram. But on Instagram I add more [00:07:00] stories. Again, I suppose I show a little bit more personality there, more personal life, I suppose, on what's happening day to day. Again, I don't show. A lot of what is happening in my life because I think it's private and, but I know that some people share everything that's up to them.
That's totally cool. But for me, I don't do that. And when I use Instagram, as I said, I also, I, as I said, I also use Instagram. I know it's social media managers say, don't do this, but I repurpose whatever I've got on LinkedIn. I put it on Instagram and then I'll shorten it down to threads. Sometimes I use Fred's every now and again just for a quick chat, quick conversation, see what people are up to over there.
And it's great to have quick chats and engage with people, but it's not, um, one that I use often as a, um, as a way to sell my services to clients, should I say. But again, it's also good for SEO. These things get bound. Google searches, so you never know. That's what I said about it. It's such a long game. But before we even start all of that, I have to say that obviously, you know that [00:08:00] I'm not no social media guru.
There are lots of podcasts out there, lots of people for you to follow that can teach you how to do it properly. But um, when I first started, somebody said to me to use, um, content pillars and I was like, what is that? Um, it's also been known to be called Content Bucket. One of the ways that people, you can get to tell people about what you do.
So people say you should have three or four content pillars. What I would suggest is to start off with an A four piece of paper, turn it landscape if you can, and break it up into three or four columns and course number the one to four and say, these are gonna be my content pillars. And that means things that you are gonna talk about on social media.
So you break it down. So I know that my content pillars, I have freelancing or small businesses. I talk about design and helpful content around design and also talk about my podcast. So that's kind of three things that I talk about when I'm [00:09:00] posting online. And also I talk about other people. I suppose I'm always picking up other people.
I wouldn't say they're my content pillars, but they can kind of be added in every now and again. My social media strategy, and as I said, there are hundreds of podcasts around social media and on YouTube channels. Have a look at them. Listen to what some people are saying, follow some people, and as I've done over the years, it's just pick things up from people.
There is a lot, as I said, so maybe just pick one or two for now. Just don't get overwhelmed with content. Jess Bruno. Obviously I've followed Sophie Cross and Mel Mel Barfield and how they do things on LinkedIn. I'm also part of Hannah e Group. She's got a group called The Best 90 Days Ever, and that was also, um, a book and it's a brilliant book.
It's around simple ways to market your business with just 10 minutes a day. Um, honestly, it works. So funny. I need to think that I, I just need 10 minutes. Sometimes I do go over, but [00:10:00] it's just a brilliant way. But she doesn't only talk about social media, 'cause social media's only some part of your business.
And I think that today we do have to incorporate it to our business. Whether you're service-based or a product-based business. So my final thoughts are, as I said, when I'm doing these solo episodes, they're meant to be just bite-sized tips of what I've learned around my business, um, from my past guests in the last week.
And obviously I had, um, as I said, I had er on and she was talking about social media and how she works with her clients and how she promotes her own business too. And that's why I thought I'd let you, I'd talk about how I do it in my way. And hopefully that can be helpful to you too. So yeah, work out your content pillars and work out what you're gonna say.
And if you've got any tips you'd like to share, um, put them in the comments. Spotify has a comments box or DM me and I'll share them. Again, I share this on my website so you can repurpose it there. And yeah, so good luck with your social media and promoting your business. As I said, it's a long game.
Sometimes they can, it can work straight away and you'll [00:11:00] get clients straight away, but then sometimes they'll see you and they'll keep on looking at you for a good few months or even years in some cases. Especially I've come back to, people have come back to me after a year or so. Funny, weird, but it happens.
So yeah. Just keep promoting yourself and as I said, it is a long game and hopefully some of those tips have helped you. So to end on, I have some big news. I have been nominated in the Black Podcast Awards in the US for the best art and best international podcast. The awards are actually in October, in a few weeks time, and it's so cool and it's amazing.
Unfortunately I won't be able to go. It's on Friday 17th of October, which is the day before the creative like US events. To be honest, I doubt if I would've been. Able to go all the way to America anyway at this moment in time. But thank you to Demetrius and his team at the Black Podcast Awards. And my gosh, how phenomenal is that?
This podcast only been going from this year in January, and to be nominated on a podcast already is just so awesome, the so called. [00:12:00] So I really appreciate the team over there and the judges that have, um, picked me. Um. This podcast, podcast, and also thank you to the listeners for encouraging me, sending me messages because I promoted it this week and said that I'd been nominated.
So thank you to everyone who's messaged me. So again, that's one of those things that maybe this wouldn't have come about if I didn't keep sharing and telling people about what I do. So yeah, you have to tell people what you do on social media. Otherwise how are they gonna come to you? Obviously we know that word of mouth works, um, but it's good to keep on telling people.
So join us at creatives like us. It's the event happening on the 16th of October, 2025. I'd love to have you, we'd love to have you join us. That's myself, Abba and Vanessa be, we're hosting it at US two again in, and this is going be the final iteration of creatives like us in this event as we know it. Who knows what we're going to do [00:13:00] in the future, but for now, it's not going to be in the workshop style events.
And this is going to be our last one in this iteration. If you can make it, that'll be amazing. That'd be awesome. Tickets are still available. Search for us on Eventbrite, and again, I'll also leave the link in the show notes and we'd love to have you. If you can't find us on Eventbrite, send me a DM and I'll send you a link to where you can get your ticket.
We have a few tickets left, and we'd love to have you join us on the 16th of October. To close on. Keep sharing and keep telling people about what you do and how you can help them with your business. Even you're product based or service based. Just keep sharing, keep telling people, and social media is one of those ways that you can do that, but try and avoid the burnout.
And another great top tip is. Don't compare yourself to other people. I know it's really hard not to do that. I've had it before and people see me think I'm [00:14:00] doing. I'm smashing it. I'm really not. I really am not. I am just trying my best, and again, as I said, I set time limits, so I just shut everything off anyway at the end of the day and don't really think about it.
And that's not being enough. I'm grateful or not caring about what people are saying or what people are doing out there, but I know to save my precious time and my sanity, I do have to turn it down and I have to turn it off. So my top tip would be keep sharing, keep telling people don't compare yourself.
Okay? I hope you have a great day, and I'll see you soon. Bye.
Tags: #creativity #businesspodcast #creatorsofcolor #blackbusiness #communityevents #entrepreneurship #creativeoutlets #personaljourneyssupport
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