Q & A on Running In Heels Insta (Part One)

I am really loving the new question feature on Instagram. I used it on my "blog" account (a mild misnomer since I haven't blogged for 12 months), and was genuinely surprised at the things people wanted to know (mainly about #farmwifelife).

I decided to use it on the Running In Heels profile (which I'll confess I've been neglecting for some time), and a lot of the questions were really good! I answered them on my stories, but as they disappear after 24 hours, I thought I'd pop some of them up here for future reference.

In my opinion: no. I think that business advisors and business coaches are a bit of a buzzword at the moment, and if you've had great results using one - amazing! I prefer to engage specialists in the are that I need help with at the time.

So if I need help with digital marketing, I'll get in touch with a digital marketer. If I need help with professional indemnity insurance, I'll speak to a business insurance broker. If I need help with my tax obligations, I'll speak to an accountant. You get the picture...

I do possibly have an unfair advantage because I'm an accountant, so numbers don't blow my mind (Photoshop on the other hand...Mind. Blown.). I am also a big advocate of business besties. I lean heavily on Rachel from Clever Social and Tamara from Little Palm Creative Co. when it comes to picking brains and bouncing ideas.

The short answer to this question is, "no". I think it's more valuable to stay in your lane and focus on your business journey. It's really easy to get into the compare and despair trap, watching their social media followers grow, or seeing the new products they have that you've been meaning to enquire about.

I spoke briefly about competitor research in the Running In Heels Bidness Tips & Tricks Facebook group the other day. I do think it's important to look at their pricing, and see how you compare. It's also worth noting if they are constantly running promos, discounts or sales - to me that says their pricing is off.

It can also be helpful to check in from time to time and make sure that you're still differentiating your business from your competitors. If you're posting similar content, using similar images, your branding is similar and you're using the same influencers, you really need to be changing it up!

I know that small business owners are time poor. Believe me, I know. And it's easy to post the same content across both of the main social media platforms. It's even easier if you link them and automatically post from Instagram to Facebook.

I don't. In many ways it's personal preference. My Instagram audience is usually online at a different time to my Facebook audience. I also find Facebook thankless AF, so am definitely guilty of focusing more of my energy on Instagram, especially Instagram stories.

I am not a fan of @instagramusername tags on Facebook that lead to nowhere, and hashtags. I also find that longer, emotive captions perform better on Facebook, while short, sharp captions do well on Instagram. Facebook is a great platform for sharing links though, like to blogs like this!

If you've got questions that you'd like answered, connect with Running In Heels on Instagram (or with What Renee Writes if you like lamb spam), or join the Running In Heels Bidness Tips & Tricks Facebook page.