Hey this is Kyleigh, thank you for taking time today to listen to Episode 5 of the Birthworker Podcast. 

In today’s episode, I’m gonna teach you the foundation of attracting the perfect audience to your offers, whether that means more in person doula clients, more e-book buyers, or more online birth course students…

You already know that I have all of those offers in my doula business, everything from in person birth support, to virtual coaching, and online courses… and in this episode I’m breaking down 5 very specific things you can start doing in your business RIGHT NOW to help you grow your audience like CRAZY, in order to get more eyes on your stuff, and ultimately more cash in your bank account and MOST IMPORTANTLY more lives impacted in the best way possible.

I’m gonna help you finally understand what type of free content you should be creating, how often you need to create it, which content is better than others, which is the easier to create, which will give you the most bang for you buck, and which type of content you might want to avoid altogether. 

And lastly, I’m going to introduce you to a tool that I use every single day in my business to make all of this content creation stuff SO MUCH EASIER. 

Stick around, cause this is all you need to know, all in one episode.

And hey!!! If you’re already subscribed to the show, thank you so much! You are incredible!

And if this is your first time listening, guess what? I want to send you some free birthworker merch!!! 

Every single person that rates and reviews this show, gets a free birthworker goodie bag sent straight to their door. 

And if you’re listening to this on the day it comes out… which is July 13th, 2022… That means it’s officially LAUNCH DAY, the Birthworker podcast is officially available to the public, and that means we are doing extra special giveaways this week. 

So, anyone who rates and reviews the show gets entered to win $100! And every day for the next week I’ll choose one amazing birthworker to win. 

As of right now, you have a 1 in 4 chance at winning $100, so take the 90 seconds to rate and review the show within the next week, take a screenshot and upload your review at birthworker.com/review, and keep your eye on your mailbox, because the mailman might just bring you $100. 

And if you’re listening to this months or years after July 13th, 2022… don’t worry, because everyone who reviews the podcast gets some free goodies… so submit your review at birthworker.com/review and I will package that up and send it out to you totally for free.

It’s my gift to you for you being here and loving the show…

Alright, cue the music…

INTRO Music

Hey there birth nerd! You’re listening to the birthworker podcast, my name is Kyleigh Banks and I’m totally obsessed with birth and equally obsessed with business, and this show is where I help women turn their passion for birth into a sustainable, profitable, and most importantly IMPACTFUL career. Alright, let’s get into it…

WHAT AND HOW:  

This podcast topic was inspired by what I am doing this week with the students inside Birthworker Academy, we are talking about how to show up online and give value in a way that turns strangers on social media into clients, students, and raving fans…

How to show up online in a very specific way so that you rise above all the noise.

So, here it is... The secret to standing out compared to the other gajillion doulas online… is to create original long-form content on a weekly basis. 

When you create original long-form content and release it at the same time, on the same day, week after week, you are building what we call the “know, like, and trust” factor with your community.

This is what’s going to set you apart from 99% of the other doulas out there… 

Creating content on a weekly basis will help your audience get to know you on a deeper level. This is how you’ll become their go-to source for information and inspiration.

And throughout this episode, when I’m talking about weekly content, I don’t mean creating posts on social media… I’m not talking about an instagram post or a TikTok…

The content we are talking about here is long-form content. 

It is longer than the 2000 characters that Instagram gives you. 

It's longer than the 90 seconds that you have to make a TikTok or make a reel…

And the reason you need to be making longer content on a consistent basis, is that this is where you’ll be nurturing your audience… this is where you build a relationship with them. 

Simply creating posts on instagram… that’s peanut compared to the longer content that we are going to talk about today… simply creating posts on Instagram is like meeting someone on Tinder, and just messaging them within the Tinder App… 

We want to move BEYOND that… we want you to invite your audience on long walk on the beach at sunset, with the sun setting over the water… 

If you want to rise above 99% of the other birthworkers out there… you need to be doing what 99% of the other birhtworkers out there AREN’T DOING!

Most doula out there are never moving beyond the Tinder App… 

But you… with your long-form content… are building a relationship with your audience… and nurturing that relationship and that friendship. You’re showing up consistently for your audience.

Which means they are going to show up for you too.

—

Another reason that you need to make original weekly content is because it will finally allow you to jump off that hamster wheel of creating content for social media with no intention… feeling like you always need to come up with new ideas… and always wonder what you’re even getting out of it…

The type of content we are going to be talking about today is where you start to play the long game.

Not only is it long-form content… but it’s content that lives on way longer than any Insatgram post ever will.

It's long LASTING content. 

Think about this… 99% of the time, social media content is a one and done type of thing. People see it as soon as it's posted (or within 24 hours or 48 hours)... and then after those few days, they literally never see it again.

99% of the time that’s what is happening with your posts on social media.

No one is going to find you on social media and scroll through all your old posts and read every word of every old caption. 

It just doesn't typically happen.

Social media is a in the present now, one and done, mindless scrolling type of thing.

But the content we are going to talk about in this episode lives on forever. 

How does it live on forever? Because it doesn’t live on social media, it lives on your website. Which means it can be found through google searches.

When was the last time you stoped to consider, “wait a second… my social media posts aren’t showig up in Google searches…”

Like, if someone types into google “homebirth doula in austin texas”.... Your 500 Instagram posts are not going to pop up for someone on Google… but your original weekly content will. 

Are you convinced yet?

Okay… so, there are three best ways to create original, weekly content and two additional things that we’ll talk about at the end… but for right now, we are going to talk about: 

Writing a blog, recording a podcast, or starting a video show. 

And I want to use this podcast episode to dive into the pros and cons of each of these three different choices to help you decide which one that you want to use as your platform for creating weekly content for your potential client and students.

Whatever platform you actually end up choosing is going to depend on several things, like the time that you have to dedicate to it, the content that you're delivering, and type of content that you like creating… For instance: Are you a writer? Do you prefer doing video off the cuff? Do you need to make scripts? Do you love interviewing people?

But also, it really matters where your audience is spening their time and how does your audience prefers to consume content.

Throw up a poll in your instagram stories and ask your followers, where do you spend the most time, listening to podcast, watching youtube videos, or reading blogs…

You’ll have your answer in 24 hours!

If you don’t have a social media following at all… maybe you’re starting from scratch (which, by the way, I did too less than 2 years ago…) instead you can put a poll in a Facebook group you’re in and just say, “Hey, where do you spend most of your time? Reading blogs, listening to podcasts or watching YouTube videos?”

And you are going to see very quickly where your audience is spending time… but just make sure that you’re asking your ideal client. You don't want to ask your aunt and uncle where they're spending time online. Of course, right? You want to ask people who are going to become your clients. 

So I would put it in my Instagram stories, I would post in a Facebook group that’s geared towards pregnancy, or my local mom’s group on Facebook, and just see where people are actually consuming content on a regular basis…

But… I do have to say… even though you do want to survey your audience, and take that into account, you have to choose a platform that feels in alignment with you.

What kind of content do you like creating? 

What kind of time investment do you have? 

What kind of financial investment are you willing to make? 

Because we'll talk about how blogging, podcasting and creating a video show… they all have different time commitments and they all have different financial barriers to entry. 

Okay. Now, before we talk about the pros and cons of each platform, I really want to encourage you to choose one platform. 

Just choose one and stick with it. 

Please listen to me when I say that, that there is zero chance that you can create content for multiple platforms when you are still just a one-woman show.

Unless you have a team behind you, of employees and contractors or other people to help you, there is zero chance that you are going to succeed at multiple platforms. 

I know this from personal experience. 

As I’m recording this, I have a team of three people and we still drop the ball in some places. 

So, if you are thinking, “I want to create a podcast AND a blog...” or “I would love to go live on Facebook every week, and create a YouTube channel…”

If you're thinking that… I love the enthusiasm, I really, really love the enthusiasm, but I just want you to start with ONE.

Nail down your systems and processes for just one right now, and then commit to it – rain or shine – and then potentially six months from now or a year from now, if you say to yourself, “Wow, it's actually pretty easy to create this content every single week. I'm loving it. I want to expand, maybe even hire on some contractors to help me.” Awesome! Then it's a great time to expand, but really focus on these next, like, six months to one year to nail down your systems, to nail down the step-by-step process and the workflow and be consistent rain or shine. 

And once you're consistent every single week for six months or more, then you can think about expanding. 

—

So, let's jump into everything you need to know in order to decide which type of weekly content ou’re going to create: either a blog, a podcast, or a video show. 

We're going to talk about what they are. 

We're going to talk about the pros and the cons.

And we’re going to talk about who is absolutely killing it in the birth space right now… 

The very first one that we're gonna talk about is writing a blog. 

Writing a blog that might be for you, if you are a naturally gifted writer. 

Do you love writing? Do you prefer to communicate through writing than through verbal conversation or through interviews or video shows? If the answer is yes – that you're a great writer and you love to do it – then a blog is probably the perfect fit for you.

Blogs are a great entry point into the world of content creation because they are so easy to produce, especially when we’re comparing them to podcasting or creating a video show – they are definitely the easiest to produce. 

Blogs also have a very low barrier to entry. So, that means you don't need a lot of money to start one and you don't need a lot of extra skills in order to start writing a blog today.

You don’t need to buy a microphone, you don't need to know how to edit audio or video. You just need to be able to write words on your phone or computer... And I'm pretty sure that you can do that already. 

Something else that's cool with a blog is that you can literally start today. And if you do want to start today, something that I would do is I would go back and look at your top five social media posts and go back and see which five of your social media posts got the most engagement – comments, likes,  shares, and all of that. 

Go find your best social media posts, and expand those into blogs. 

Take them from the 2,000 character limit that Instagram has and turn it into a 2,000 word blog post.

And since you know that that specific topic is already getting traction with your communities, it’s such a great way to start turning your short form, social media content into longer form original weekly content. 

So let's go over the pros of blogging.

I already talked about a few of them, but the very first one is that it's very easy to start. You can start this week, not today because it's going to take you some time to prep and get your systems in order… but you can literally start this week with writing a blog.

You don’t have to buy any fancy gear, you don’t need to teach yourself how to edit audio or video… just pick up your computer and write.

Another pro is that it actually helps your website get reached in terms of SEO, which is search engine optimization. If you're filling your website pages with the perfect keywords (AKA – what words and phrases are people typing into google), that’s going to help your website get reached.

So, when you're your blog post, week after week, rain or shine, and you're putting it on your website every single week, the amount of keywords that are on your website is just insane. Way more than if you just had social media content, right? 

Creating a blog – and creating it weekly, and being consistent – is really going to help your website get reached. Why do we want our website to get reached? Because our website is where people become invested in us. They get on our email list, they become students, and they become clients.

Plus, the more traffic your website has, the more you’ll be able to reach people who live in your city! 

All the more reason to create a blog ASAP.

Another way that a having a clog with completely level-up your doula busines, is that when you create a blog, you’ll also immediately establish yourself as an expert. 

Just think about it… if a pregnant woman is looking at hiring one of two doulas… and let’s say that “Doula A” only posts on social media every now and then, but “Doula B” is consistent on social media, but also consistently writing a blog and providing high value content week after week… 

Who’s gonna get hired? “Doula B” of course! “Doula B” will be perceived as a hire value doula because of the value she is providing FOR FREE through her blog every week.

Alright, so those are a bunch of the benefits of choosing a blog as your platform for delivering your original weekly content… 

If you want to take a look at a blog to get an idea of what it looks like – maybe it’s be a long time since you’ve read a blog, or maybe the only blogs you ready are cooking blogs when you’re searching for recipes – you can head over to birthworker.com/5 and you can actually read the blog for this podcast episode!

We turn all of the podcast episodes into blogs so we can double up on all the SEO goodness and reach even more people. 

To be honest, blogging is actually really simple, and I might even say it’s pretty easy – especially when compared to podcasting or creating a video show. 

If you love writing, or if you’re a photographer and want to show off your photography skills on your website along side some long-form content… blogging is totally for you. 

And if you want to get started FAST, and you have no desire to learn the editing skills needed for podcasting or creating videos, a blog is going to be your best choice, hands down. 

Alright, let's actually get into the pros and cons of starting a podcast. 

A lot of people argue that podcasts are better than blogs because they can be consumed a whole lot easier by your audience. 

What does that mean? Think about this… if people are reading a blog, they have to be on their phone or on their computer sitting there reading the blog, but with a podcast it's a lot easier to consume.

You can put on the epsiode and you can listen to it on your drive to work. 

You can listen to it in the shower or at the gym, or while you're walking your dog or while you're cooking dinner, right? You might be doing one of those things as you’re listening to this right now.

With podcasts, you audience doesn't have to be sitting in front of a screen and reading something to soak up your wisdom…

But that’s not the only reason podcast has a leg-up on bloggin…

Podcasting also creates a much deeper connection between you and your audience, because they're hearing your voice. They're hearing your personality. 

When they're reading a blog, they're just reading the words – and yes, you can have really great copywriting and add your personality to your words – but it’s very different than when you're actually hearing somebody's voice. 

Podcasts are amazing too, because once your show is live on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all the other streaming platforms, those platforms actually automatically help you reach a llarger audience.

They're showing your show to new people on the platform every single day. And what that looks like is when let's say I'm listening to a podcast that I love, underneath that podcast, it says, “Because you love this one, you might also like XYZ.” 

They're introducing your show to people who probably are going to like your show, so it helps you reach a much larger audience. 

That doesn't happen on a blog. 

You don't go to my blog, birthworker.com/5 is the blog for this episode... You're not going to go read my blog, and at the bottom, it's like, “Hey, If you like, Kyleigh’s blog, why don't you go check out someone else who has the exact same type of blog?”

No, that doesn't happen with blogs, but it does happen with podcasting, which is really, really cool. 

I do have to be honest, podcasting does take a lot more setup than starting a blog, but the pro is that once you actually have all your gadgets, once you have the microphone, and the editing software, and once you have your systems in place, it's actually pretty easy. 

And I promise you that I'm not just making that up. Obviously, I have a podcast. I love it. It's definitely my platform of choice.

And you might not know this, but this isn’t my first podcast. When I first became a doula, I started a birth story podcast for moms… and I ran that podcast for 45 episodes before retiring that show so I could come start this one. 

If you’re cursious how I grew my business so fast, ding ding ding… my last podcast had something to do with it. I was putting out valuable content – specifically currated for my ideal clients – week after week.

And, the best part, is that I have a lot of fun doing it. 

Okay, so, let's actually go through the pros and cons of having a podcast.

The first pro is that it's a more personal connection between you and your audience, because your listeners are actually hearing your voice. They get to hear your personality. They're putting a name to the voice, and they're just getting to know you. 

You're creating that connection. And thats the core mission of this whole “creating online content” and “attracting clients online” thing… the foundation is connection, and it’s no secret that a podcast cerates a better connection than a blog.

Also with a podcast, people are more likely to consume the entire piece of content than they are with blogs. 

With blogs, people tend to get distracted and click away. If there's a pop-up, if they get a notification on their computer or a text on their phone, if anything distracts them, they're way more likely to click away…

But with a podcast, typically what people do is they press play on their phone and they put their phone down and now they're just listening.

So, they're not actually actively on their phone scrolling. They're not going to get distracted and click away, which means that they're consuming your entire content, which – of course – is really important. 

Podcast are also really easy to consume, right? We talked about this… Your audience doesn’t have to be sitting in front of their computer reading…

They can be on a walk. They could be at the gym. They could be driving. They can be taking a shower. So, there is a lot mote opportunity to create a connection with someone.

Also, just like blogging, podcasting is going to immediately establish you as a leader in the community. Just think if someone is looking for a doula in your town, or if someone is looking for an online birth course, or a workshop, or just a coach, or whatever services you offer…

…if there are two doulas, the one doula who just posts on social media or the other doula who posts consistently on social media, but also has a podcast… it’s pretty clear which one has the better chance of making alasting impression.

I am serious. This is going to be life changing for you. It was for me. This is like the gasoline on the fire that's going to take your business to the next level. And I'm not talking about just podcasting. I'm talking about original weekly content as a whole. 

With podcasting in particular, something else that’s really cool is that you’re going to be able to meet other experts and other podcasters in the industry that you're in. So whether it's birth, or preconception, or postpartum, or breastfeeding, or whatever it is that you do, whatever your niche is, you are very easily going to be able to reach out to those other experts and invite them to come on your show.

It’s such an amazing way to create connections with other birthworkers.

I could go on forever about how amazing podcasting is… it’s like the pros are infinite… 

Here’s one more… something that would be a really cool idea for podcasting is if you want to really only focus on just serving your in-person clients in your town, you can actually have a podcast where you bring on other birthworkers in your area for interview.

You can gear your podcast to moms who live in your very specific area. You can have on the homebirth midwives, the obstetricians, the pelvic floor therapists, the perinatal counselors, the lactation consultants, and the yoga instructors, and anyone who works in the perinatal space in your city, invite them onto your podcast to be a guest!!!

This is something that I think when my daughter is a little bit older – she's just two right now, so I'm still holding back on births right now… I'm only supporting two births per month, max – but when she's older or even when she like moves away to college, if I want to take it up a notch and serve 5 to 10 births per month in my area, this is what I will do 100% without a doubt.

I will create a local podcast where I interview the other local providers. 100%. 

I think it's a phenomenal idea and I have not seen that many people do it. 

So, if you really want to grow a thriving in-person business, this is the exact thing that I would recommend that you do.

Okay… I want to move on to the cons of creating a podcast, because there are some… I won’t lie…

The first one is that it is more time consuming than writing a blog. 

Just think when you're writing a blog, you essentially just have to write it. When you're doing a podcast, you have to write a script or write out all the bullet points…

…Then you have to record the podcast, and then you have to edit the podcast. 

So it can take, like, 3x longer than just writing a blog. It is definitely more time consuming. 

Also, it can be stressful to keep up with the demand of producing a podcast episode every single week. Blogging is easier because you can just pull out your phone and start writing at any hour of the day, no big deal, no matter if you’re at your kid’s soccer game… or sitting bored at your day job… I know a lot of my listeners are still only part-time doulas tyring to make enough money to leave the job they hate…

Bloggin is easy, you can do it whenever…

Podcasting, not so much. 

For podcasting, it's harder to find the time to actually record the episode because you can't just create it 24 hours a day, right? You can't sit next to your crying baby and record your podcast…. I guess you always could, but to produce a high quality show, you shouldn’t. 

So it can be a little bit stressful to keep up with that every single week. 

Also with podcasting, there is a startup cost. So, all of the gadgets that you need to actually make a podcast: the microphone, the microphone stand, the editing software, the podcast hosting platform, the transcription software… it can definitely add up, especially if you’re starting your business on a budget of ZERO, like I was. 

The last con that I want to talk about is that there’s a pretty steep learning curve. You need to learn how to record, how to edit, and how to upload your podcast, and it can feel really overwhelming at first. I know it did for me. 

I consider myself extremely tech savvy, I can normal pick up new skills very, very fast…. But podcasting was still very overwhelming for me at first…

…But now that I did it and I've created 50 plus episodes, it's a piece of cake! And I’m just getting started!

So, even if it's stressful for you at the beginning, please just hold onto the fact that there is going to be a learning curve, but really soon, you're going to get to that plateau and it is going to be awesome. 

There are several people absolutely killing it in the birth industry right now with their podcasts. 

Katelyn has the Happy Homebirth Podcast, she is a good friend of mine I love her so much.

Also the Evidence Based Birth podcast, Freebirth Society podcast, Taking Back Birth which is a podcast by the Indiebirth Association.

So mamy killer podcasts, all with an incredible mission and all making a last impact on the global birth community.

All right, let's jump into the third way to create original weekly content that attracts the perfect doula clients for years to come.

And that is… creating a video show. 

So, creating a video show – like a weekly vlog or a YouTube channel – is by far the most time intensive way to create weekly long-form content but it does have the biggest payout. 

It’s a really powerful way to create a connection with your audience because not only do they get to read your words, not only do they get to hear your voice, they get to see your beautiful face. 

They get your personality, they get your energy, they get your passion… they get all of it. 

So, the connection you're creating with your audience – when you create a high value video show, week after week – is way higher than a podcast and double way higher than with just the blog. 

But I do have to warn you that in terms of the effort that it takes to create a video show, which let’s face it, means creating a YouTube channel, it takes a lot more time, effort, and even money than producing a blog or a podcast.

It does. There’s no way around it.

But like I said before, it has a really huge payout. 

Something like 80% of all content online is consumed in video format. 80% of content is consumed in video format. 

Video is definitely the content of the future, so, if you see yourself doing this decades from now, I think eventually you're going to have a video show in some capacity, whether you're hosting that on your website, or on YouTube, or whatever it is… maybe TikTok will come out with a long form video option here in the near future. 

When you create a video show, you combine education, connection with your audience, entertainment, your personality…  And you can combine that all into one hell of a place for your future clients and students, to go to soak up your wisdom.

So, the pros of creating a youtube channel are that you have a huge opportunity to grow a very large audience. 

YouTube specifically has way over a hundred million daily visitors, a hundred million daily visitors to YouTube alone. So, the audience is there. The people are there. Your future clients are there, which means the opportunity to reach a large amount of people is there. It's on YouTube.

Another pro that we already talked about is that when you create a YouTube channel, you have a really strong connection with the viewers… and really strong connection means that they feel like they know you, they feel like they can trust you. 

And when you can create a connection like that with strangers online, they're going to become your students and clients. And they’re going to recommend you to their friends, and to their followers, and their coworkers, and sisters, and to everyone they know. 

Now, when it comes to the cons of creating a YouTube channel, the biggest one is time. 

It takes a lot of time… And maybe time is something that you have a lot of. Maybe – especially if you don't have kids – you’re probably going to have more free time to actually record and edit the videos… so maybe this is something that really sounds like a great idea to you.

Another con is the cost of equipment. So, there is a very big cost that goes into creating a high quality YouTube show. And you might be thinking, “Well, does it really have to be high quality?”... And here's the thing… Yeah, it does. 

If your audio is not high quality, people are going to click away. 

If your video is not high quality, people are going to click away.

It's almost one of those things where it's like, if it's going to be blurry and the sound is going to be bad, then video is not the platform you should choose. You should go with a blog or a podcast.

You need to produce high quality content, and with that, comes the cost of equipment.

If you’re hearing all this, and you’re like, “You know what, Kyleigh… I’m gonna go for it, I’m gonna create a YouTube channel,” then I want you to go check out Bridget Teyler. 

Bridget’s company is called “Built to Birth” and her YouTube channel has almost half a million subscribers as I’m recording this episode. 

I actually know Bridget, because I hired her to come teach a lesson inside Birthworker Academy to all the students. So if you join us for the next cohort of Birthworker Academy, you’ll get to see behind the scenes into how she created such a successful video show and how it affected the rest of her business and life. 

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Now, those are the big three.

Those are the three most impactful ways to create original long form content online to attract the perfect doula clients and students for your online courses. 

But… you probably noticed that this episode is called “The FIVE ways to attract the perfect doula clients”...

So what about those other two ways that we haven’t talked about yet…?

Alright… here’s the thing…

Yes, blogging, postcasting, or creating a video show is what will set you apart from 99% of the other doulas out there…

But if you feel like those three things are just huge tasks, and if you are thinking like, “I'm just not going to do it. I'm not going to do it.”

If that’s you… I didn't want to just say, “Well, okay, sorry… you're just going to be like 99% of the other doulas and birthworkers out there. You know, good luck!”

No, I didn't want to say that because there are actually two other things that you can do. And we’re going to talk about them.

If you do not see yourself blogging, podcasting, or creating a video channel, I want to tell you about two other ways that you can get in front of your audience every single week to help you become that go-to leader in the birth community. 

Because like I said, 99% of doulas are just showing up on social media.

And to be honest, I would actually say that like 50% of doulas aren't even showing up on social media… and that's totally fine. We all have our own ways to network, and find clients, and some people just want to do birthwork for fun, and don't even really want to make it a career. 

That’s okay too. There's no right way to do it.

But out of the ones that ARE showing up on social media, the majority of them are not creating this original long form content. So again, blogging, podcasting, creating a video show. Those are the top three.

But here are the other two things that you can do. One, is you can go live on social media every single week. That's going to put you ahead of a lot of people out there…

Or two, you can actually use email as your main piece of weekly content. And so let's go into both of those a little bit – just like the pros and cons of going live on social media every single week or using email every single week as your main piece of content. 

So, going live on social media… the pros are that it requires nothing. It requires absolutely nothing for you to start except your phone, which I'm sure is in your pocket or your hand most of the hours of the day.

Going live on social media requires nothing from you. You can start 10 minutes from now with zero preparation. You can click “go live” and you can be live without scripting a show, without creating a website, without recording a video, or editing anything. You can just go live today. 

Another pro of going live on social media every week is that it’s a really great way to connect your social media following to your offers... to get them to your website, to get them on your email list, to get them to download your freebie or register for your classes… 

And so what you can do is at the end of your Instagram lives or your Facebook lives, you can invite people to your website. You can invite them to click the link in your bio and download your free resource, and voila, now they are on your email list (which is where we want them to be).

Another pro of going live on social media is that you can actually invite guests to go live with you, and then you’re getting in front of their audiences too.

So, that’s a great reason to go live on Instagram. 

Now I do just have to say, if you want to do a blog, a podcast or a YouTube show, and also go live on social media… Oh my gosh. Have at it, that’s a phenomenal idea. 

But what we're talking about here is going live on social media as your original weekly content. So it might be something where every Wednesday at 6:00 PM, you're going live for one hour every single week, week after week, rain or shine. That's what we're talking about here. 

So, when I start to talk about the cons of going live on social media, I'm talking about the cons as if this is your original weekly content platform. If you are already creating a blog and you just want to sprinkle in going live on social media, I think there are no cons to that. That is amazing. Go do that. 

But the cons of going live on social media as your original long form content, there are a couple.

The number one con is that your content will live on social media. It doesn't live on your website. It doesn't live somewhere else like YouTube or Spotify. 

So if anything happens to your Instgram account, you lose all of your content. It's gone. 

Me? If my Instagram account gets hacked – which my personal account did get hacked this year – I wouldn’t lose all of my content, because guess what? My BEST content lives on my podcast, and on my blog. 

Another con with using Instagram Live as your weekly longform content, is that it doesn't really have a long life. And remember when we talked about creating original, weekly content, it's a long form content, but it's also the long game. It has a long life. People find it years from now. 

That's not true on social media. Even if you're going live on social media, it's not really true. 

If people aren't watching it live, they aren’t likely to go back and watch it on their own time. 

People don’t go to social media to consume longform content.

Social media is typically very quick consumption – people are looking for that dopamine hit – it's not typically used for that long form content. 

Another con is that, for the most part, only your followers are going to see it – unlike a blog that would show up on Google searches, unlike a podcast that people would find in their podcast app, and unlike a YouTube channel because YouTube is also a search engine… so, you're not going to get the benefit of any of those things by just going live on social media.

The last con is that social media in general is very distracting. If someone gets a notification at all, they're gone, they're off to the next thing. 

If they get a text message, if someone sends them a DM, if someone comments on one of their posts… they get that notification and they’ll click away.

I know it probably seems like I just hate going live on social media… but that’s not the case at all. Remember, all of these cons I just listed are only when we are comparing going love on social media versus creating your original weekly content somewhere else.

Going live on social media as your weekly longform content is still definitely a step ahead of not having any long form content at all… but if you are in this to create a sustainable, long-term, full-time career, I would choose a podcasting, blogging, or creating a video show.

Now the very last one that we're going to talk about is using email as your long-form content... and this might be a little bit confusing because – no matter what – you should be sending weekly emails, but I'll actually just talk about my business for instance so it's not so hypothetical…

I have a weekly podcast. I release that podcast every week. Also, every week, I send an email that tells a little story and then invites people to click on my website to listen to my podcast. 

So, essentially my weekly emails are geared towards getting people to listen to my podcast. Now, if you don't have a podcast, or a blog, or a YouTube channel, and you just want to send emails as your weekly, original, long form content, you can kind of consider it like you're writing a blog, but instead of having a blog on your website, you're just sending people like the words in an email.

It's not as good as hosting the blog on your website for several reasons that we’ll get into in a second.. But let’s talk about the pros first.

#1 is that you can start as soon as you have an email list. You don't need a microphone, you don't need anything fancy, you essentially just need your phone to type up the email and send it. 

Another pro is that you can develop an amazing fan-base that opens every single email you send… and if you have a bunch of people opening every single email you send – every single week, week after week – by the time you have something to offer them or to sell to them – like a workshop, or a coaching session, or a new placenta encapsulation service, or whatever it is – by the time you're asking them to purchase something… they love you, they trust you, they're already opening your emails.  

That is a huge, huge, huge benefit. 

Also, the pro of using email as your weekly original content is that you have direct access to a very valuable space in their life, which is their phone and their inbox. If you're just posting on social media – or even if you're just posting on YouTube or creating a blog – every time you post something, it's not popping up to say like, “Kyleigh just released a new podcast” or “Birthworker.com has a new blog..” That's typically not happening. 

The thing is with email, that 99% of people get a notification on their phone that says you just got an email from Kyleigh, or from birthworker.com.

That is the very, very valuable space to have. It’s direct access to their life. 

Now, getting into cons. One con is that you have to be a great copywriter – you have to be a phenomenal storyteller – otherwise people are not going to be reading your emails. They'll open the first couple emails, they’ll get bored, and they'll unfollow and stop reading. You don't have many chances to hook them in.

Another con, and the biggest in my opinion, is that you are only ever reaching the people who are already subscribed to your email list. That’s not good.

You’d have to grow your email list before you can even share your content. You're not growing your audience with your content. That is a huge con. That alone should make you say, “Okay, I'm going to do something more than just sending a weekly email.”

If you have a blog, a podcast, or a YouTube channel, you can share it to the world. Anyone can see it! They can search on Google and find it. They can search on YouTube and find it. They could search on their podcast app and find it…

 If you are only sending emails to your list, someone has to be on your list first in order to read it. That sucks. That’s not doing anything for you in terms go growing your impact and audience.

And the last con – that is actually pretty huge – is that when you’re only sending a weekly email, you’re not doing anything to help get the juices flowing in terms of SEO, search engine optimization…

When you create weekly content and put it on your website, like you do with a blog or even a podcast, you’re telling Google that you have content that is worth consuming. And because of that, your website will start to show up in google search results… that doesn’t happen when you’re just sending emails.

So, which one are you going to pick? A blog, podcast, or video show? Or maybe going live on social media or sending weekly emails?

Remember, I want you to choose from one of the top three, and if you're not going to do that, I gave you those two other ideas just to help you step it up a notch so you can have an advantage over 99% of the other doulas out there. 

When you commit to creating quality, value-driven content designed specifically to improve the lives of your audience, you’re committing to creating continued growth, a loyal community, and a sustainable foundation to build your business on.

You are building that “know, like, and trust” factor with your audience.

But you don’t just want you audience to know you and like you… you want them to see you as the go-to leader in your very specific space. That’s why you, as a birthworker in some capacity, are not going to be creating content about surfing, or dog walking, or home renovations, or other things that you’re not able to directly relate back to your niche… make sense?

We want to have a very clear path from our social media, to our original weekly content, to our email list, and into our offers (whether that's in person doula support, online courses, workshops, whatever that is…) 

You should always be talking to your future clients and future students. Your messaging should always be geared towards them – to the people who are going to become your clients and your students. 

Now it's time for you to choose. And I don't want you to make this be like the biggest life decision you ever made. I want you to make a decision in the next week. Think about what platform is the right fit for you… What does your brain say? What does your heart say? What does your soul say? What does your intuition say? 

And then once you make that decision, I promise you so many other things are going to fall into place. It's going to be so much easier in terms of growing a business, growing an audience, and finding clients (both in-person and online). 

It's all starting to fall in place. 

Once you begin to create this original weekly content and put it out every single week – rain or shine – people will start to count on you for that valuable content. They will turn to you for your wisdom for years to come.

At the beginning of this episode I praised that I would share the ONE TOOL that I used to plan, create, and organize, all of my content for the Birthworker Podcast and the Birthworker Blog…

That tool is called AirTable. 

Airtable is like Google Sheets on steroids, sprinkled with the most amazingly nerdy fairy dust. 

If you want to learn more about how I use AirTable in my doula business, and if you want to learn about a dozen other tools that I use behind the scenes to make my life easier… head to the show notes or go to birthworker.com/tools, and that's where you'll find a free gift exclusively for you and my other podcast listeners.

It's a resource I put together of all my favorite business tools… and it is a HUGE hit with the students inside Birthworker Academy. Again, go to birthworker.com/tools and you’ll be able to see all of the systems I use behind the scenes in my business to save time and make my life easier. I’m all about making life easier for me AND you, so we can spend more time doing what we love, and for me that means more time hanging out with my daughter. 

If you’re already subscribed to the show, thank you, thank you! I appreciate you more than you know and I hope you enjoyed the episode. If you haven't subscribed yet, make sure you hit subscribe because in Episode 6 we have Sapna – the wild homeopath – coming on the show to talk all about  how birthworkers can use homeopathy with our clients ... Alright, thank you so much for listening, I hope today was helpful for you, and I’ll see you again next week.