relatable
adjective: relatable:
- enabling a person to feel that they can relate to someone or something.
“Kerry’s chaotic life makes her more relatable“
I’m not really big for over-sharing on social media. I don’t like to be in the limelight and I definitely don’t like to draw attention to myself.
Before getting a business mentor my social media profiles were strictly professional. However, the first thing I learned was that keeping myself ‘professional’ was a HUGE mistake.
When it comes to business, especially small businesses, people buy from people. If I wanted potential clients to trust me to take beautiful portraits of their children I had to show them who I was. My personality, my beliefs, my morals and my passion had to be shown in my business or potential clients would not know what I am about.
So I started to share more about my life outside the studio.
It was freeing to share funny stories and photos of the kids, to complain when I was having a bad day and to shout about any special achievements we had made as a family (i.e. getting dressed before 10am).
It shows my clients that I am relatable and has actually meant I have made much more of a connection with clients than I was doing.
So who are these potential clients with which I am relating with? Although I don’t want to be sexist, and would never turn down a client for being a man, it is Mums that I am relating to. More specifically, Mums who are struggling to feel adequate each and every day. Mums that know they are not perfect, and know that it’s ridiculously impossible to be a ‘perfect parent’, but still strive to be. Mums who put their kids to bed every night and make a promise to themselves that tomorrow they will spend more time focused on them.
These are the Mums I want to attract to my studio. I want them to know that if needs be they can show up with sick on their shoulder, without having brushed their hair and in their joggers. They can show up with a crazy two year old who will not listen to a word they say. They can show up with siblings who fight like cat and dog. They can also show up with kids who repeat some ill chosen words that have slipped out in moments of frustration.
I WANT them to come to me, because I’ve been going through it all for the last 4 years and if anyone can relate to you and your perfectly imperfect family then it’s me. And trust me, there will be no judgements in the studio.
How else can I get my message of all this across unless i’m sharing my own adventures that I am going through as a parent? I need to put myself out there in order for others to relate to me. Makes complete sense!
So I started having more fun with my social media accounts-and I enjoyed seeing which posts were getting the most engagement. It gave me an amazing insight into what clients, both past and future, would relate to the most. I did this consistently for about two months. It didn’t feel like a drag at all, in fact, I loved scheduling lots of posts with interesting content, with photos of my kids and with portfolio pics from the studio. I told myself that when Mary (baby no.3 in the space of four years) came along I would put time aside each day to keep it up. After all, consistency is key.
It only takes two minutes to pop a post on Facebook or Instagram, and I would have a newborn baby-and tons of relatable content to share!
Did I keep up with the posting? Did I put aside five minutes each day to do something that felt so important to me and my business?
NO
I have a 3yo, a 18 mo and a newborn to contend with. And let’s not forget the benefits that come with childbirth, stitches and leaky boobs being two that I will mention, I won’t mention the rest for fear of scaring off any Mums to be.
I got down on myself for failing this one simple thing I had promised to myself. The more days that went by without posting the harder it felt to start again.
I ‘should’ve’ been doing it from day one.
They ‘should’ be in a nice organised order-not random and all over the place.
They ‘should’ be relevant to the business.
The same went for my home life. It ‘should’ be more organised. I ‘should’ be having more fun. We ‘should’ be happier and not tired and grumpy.
Sound relatable?
Of course, after Mary had dropped a feed and I was getting a bit more sleep, I realised how ridiculous I was being – and completely and utterly relatable!
If there’s one thing Mums feel after just having had a baby then it is the feeling of not having control. It’s not having time to eat a hot meal, or having to ask your friend to come round and sit with the baby while you get a half decent bath, it’s having no time for anything other than your child(ren), whilst you settle in your new family member.
So it really hasn’t mattered that I’ve slipped off the grid for the last three months that she’s been here. There wasn’t a chance I could’ve pulled off the 5 Facebook posts and 7 Instagram posts, complete with 30 hashtags per week, that is recommended to keep your clients engaging with you.
I would’ve had to have been a complete alien to pull that off, or to have had to schedule my posts four months in advance which wouldn’t have felt genuine anyway.
So here I am typing up my first blog post three months after Mary was born, whilst two babies nap and the other sits on his tablet. I’m actually copying it from a scrap piece of paper I wrote on about a month ago while I was sat at a play area, a new mother of 3, with baby in arms and two boys playing in a ball pitt.
My life feels amazingly imperfectly perfect right now. Sound relatable?
P.s – from now if I say the word relatable five more times then I will have said the word relatable or one of its variant forms twenty times by the end of this blog post.
Relatable, relatable relatable.
Relatable.
Overkill?