“How can I show up consistently online but maintain my creative freedom?” – Lissa Watson

Jessica: Welcome back to Intuitive Art Sales. I am here with Lissa Watson, who is a photographer who has recently gone from digital to film photography, which she loves because it is forcing her to slow down, just trying to figure out where she fits in beyond wife and mom. And she's about to release a new collection and has about four markets coming up. So super busy. This new collection is based on Monet and her travels and capturing awe and wonder from a place so that both she and her audience can get transported back to it. Awesome.

How you doing Lissa?

Lissa Watson: I'm good. How are you?

Jessica: I'm great. I'm hoping that we can take what you said when you first jumped on and said, actually I'm really busy right now", and we can actually do something about that today. I know that we can't change that there's a collection coming up and markets and all of that, but how can we help you get a little bit more centered, take some stuff off your plate, figure out what's important, maybe some of that stuff. How does that sound?

Lissa Watson: That sounds great.

Jessica: Cool. You want to tell me a little bit more about what is keeping you busy? I mean, I have an idea, but I'd like to hear it from you.

Lissa Watson: So the hard part with selling art in general, but in prints, you have no idea what's going to sell until you get there. And I've been doing markets all this year, just trying to figure out what does sell what doesn't sell, thinking I would have it figured out by the end of the year. But every single market's different. So one market I'll sell stuff from Europe. Others, it's all local and coastal, so that has not helped me in any way. So I sort of have to keep everything on hand. Of course, it's holiday season right now, so I'm trying to figure out ornaments, what pictures to go into the ornaments, trying to photograph the entire collection. I'm releasing it on Instagram live, which I've never done before.

Jessica: Fun!

Lissa Watson: Yes, I'm so excited, but very nervous and then I'll have to figure out, you know, if it doesn't sell there, am I going to put it on the website? Then you have to upload all those things, so, it's just

Jessica: Think about that as a step in the process, as opposed to the end all be all?

Lissa Watson: Yes.

Jessica: I think that that might help.

Lissa Watson: And it's more than it's more strategy, I think, which most creatives are probably like this for like chickens with our heads cut off instead of having a structured strategy. I feel like it boxes me in, but I have to figure out. Strategy with freedom.

Jessica: Yeah. That's what I like, strategy with freedom. So what would you feel like is an example of something that boxes you in? What is too much structure?

Lissa Watson: Social media is probably the number one. You have to do this to follow the algorithm. You have to post every day, but then it doesn't feel authentic because you're scheduling it out. And what if I don't feel like doing what I have scheduled on Tuesday? What if my intuition is wanting to go out and create instead of doing something business related? So I want to be able to have a strategy laid out for the week, but I can move it if my energy is just not there. Because I've noticed if the energy is not there, it's not going to happen. 

Jessica: I want to be really clear here, you are describing a social media overarching strategy where sometimes you want to be more inspired and sometimes you want to do what you've scheduled. Does that also apply for the collection launch, or would something like that having more structure be a more useful thing?

Lissa Watson: Collection launches are, I don't want to say they're easier for me, but they are because I'm very focused. Yeah. That has to be completed. Now, over the past six months that I've been creating it, not so much, but now that it's releasing on Sunday, I've literally been doing nothing but. Finishing up, you know, all the things you forget you have to do about this collection after you've created it and done the fun part, now it's getting it put on the website and all of those, so all of those things have to take precedence to anything else that I had scheduled this week.

Jessica: Inspired or not.

Lissa Watson: Yeah, inspired or not. Yeah, I have to let it all go to the wayside and stay up till two o'clock in the morning.

Jessica: Yikes.

Lissa Watson: Yeah, but so yeah, I think collections are easier for me.

Jessica: Is it because you know what to do?

Lissa Watson: Yes, because, either that or it's just, you know it has to get done. You cannot wait on it. You cannot procrastinate when you have a deadline. I think deadlines help me to not lose focus.

Jessica: So if you had a deadline, this is theoretical, if you had a deadline every month or every week, would that be productive for you or would that burn you out?

Lissa Watson: Probably a little bit of both. I think the problem with me setting myself up an actual deadline, I know that it's not a real deadline. Like, I like, I need to get my SEO done on my website, been needing to do it for two years, but the rest of my business can actually run without doing that. So I just keep putting it off and putting it off, even though I've set myself a deadline. Does that make sense?

Jessica: No, it makes perfect sense. Yeah. So all of the things that you have decided are the most important, not even the most important, but the most related to the current deadline will take precedence over everything else.

Lissa Watson: Yes.

Jessica: Okay. So if I could ask you, maybe you know the answer, maybe you don't, if there was one thing you could walk away from this conversation with, is there a thing that would be the most useful for you?

Lissa Watson: I don't know that I do know the answer to that.

Jessica: That's okay. I just wanted to ask it because otherwise I'm going to pick my own rabbit hole and we're going to go down it.

Lissa Watson: Yeah. And I actually think sometimes other people can like, I can't see the forest for the trees. I can give other creatives amazing business and life advice, but I can't give it to myself. Yeah. Like I just can't see it because there's just too big of a picture.

Jessica: What if we looked at kind of a timeline for you of what is important to do when, taking into account the things that get pushed off on the burner for two years?

Lissa Watson: Yeah, maybe something quarterly to where I don't feel like, Oh my goodness, I have to get this done. Cause then I'm frantic. Like I am this week.

Jessica: Yeah. So let's talk a little bit more about specifics about what already is happening for you. So you told me you're about to release a collection. What are the dates on that?

Lissa Watson: So the collection is going to release live on Instagram on this Sunday, the 29th. I'm releasing a few pieces to my newsletter subscribers on Saturday because I always let them get first dibs on a few things.

Jessica: Which, just because I'm not looking at a calendar, is that the 28th? Sorry. Okay. 

Lissa Watson: No, that's alright. I only know it because it's my birthday.

Jessica: Aw, happy birthday.

Lissa Watson: Thank you.

Jessica: Scorpio.

Lissa Watson: Yes, 100%. So those are those dates, and then whatever doesn't sell on the live, I'm going to upload those to my website. I'm not sure that I'll actually take all or any of them to my markets because I don't usually sell framed pieces very well at markets. You don't have a lot of space at a market to have a ton of, I can hang pieces like from my tent. But tabletop pieces that only have stands, I just don't have room.

Jessica: So, in theory, we want to upload to website the 30th? Is that kind of what we're looking at?

Lissa Watson: I'm actually already uploading everything now. It's just not visible. It's hidden.

Jessica: Gotcha.

Lissa Watson: So that I can just go ahead and click a button.

Jessica: And when are your markets? Do you have dates on those or approximate dates?

Lissa Watson: I have one November 4th. I have one November 11th and the 12th, and then the first two weekends in December, the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. That's a huge market in Charleston. It's two weekends. It's going to be the longest and biggest market I've ever done.

Jessica: Very cool.

Lissa Watson: Yes, I'm very excited and very nervous about that one because I've got to order more stuff that correlates to, it's an actual German Christmas market. They bring everything over from Germany.

Jessica: Perfect.

Lissa Watson: So I have to get some more European pieces. . I have some Charleston pieces. So I've got to get all that ordered too.

[00:09:23] Gather data about what sells better at markets.

Jessica: Okay, I'm gonna switch gears real quick here and say you told me, I forget if this part was recorded or not, but you told me I'm going to all these different markets and one thing will sell at one and one thing will sell at another.

Lissa Watson: Yes.

Jessica: And that can feel very confusing. But have you ever looked at it, I don't know on a spreadsheet or something, like overall this is 25%, this is 50%, anything like that?

Lissa Watson: Have. Have. And believe it or not, it is, there is no clear winner. It is evenly spread. It's crazy to me. I think it's because, so the North Carolina, I have a lot of coastal stuff that's local here in North Carolina. And I thought those would sell at most markets, but no. The more art related markets, like if it's specifically an art market, it seems like my European stuff sells better, but I've only had one of those this year. The one on the fourth is my second art specific market. So I'll have a little bit more information to try to figure that part out.

Jessica: And then when you are at a less art market, it's mostly Carolina.

Lissa Watson: No, it's

Jessica: Half and half.

Lissa Watson: Yeah, it's half and half.

Jessica: All right. Well, that's kind of annoying.

Lissa Watson: I'm just now, so so I just had a local market, but it did not do well. It rained all day. And I had just created some more local things cause I don't really have a ton of local stuff. As in the city I live in, but that sold really well at that market, even though only a few people came. So I'll have some more information about that too on the 4th.

Jessica: Yeah. All right. So let's say for the rest of this year, at least, we're still gathering data to see if we can make it lean one way or another, but if it was not going to lean one way or another and you just wanted to say, you know what, I am streamlining because I can't continue ordering all of these prints every single time. And I can't carry them all, and I can't display them well because I'm displaying everything. Is there a direction you would lean?

Lissa Watson: Probably Europe, travels, I don't know if this is going to make sense. So a lot of places here, you know, still can look very European, especially Charleston, Savannah. So those kinds of things can sort of be bunched in with... so more European charm kind of things is what I would lean towards.

Jessica: That aesthetic, that type of building. Yeah. Okay. All right. So, okay. We've got our collection release and for markets November 11th, November 4th, and the first and second weekend in December. You also mentioned something about wanting to SEO your website, which I think can be a really good idea for someone like you, who is very specific in a location and a medium and where things are coming from. So I would agree that that would be a productive activity for you. What else?

Lissa Watson: So I'm actually, I'm going to hire out my SEO with, I'm on photobiz.

Jessica: I don't know that one.

Lissa Watson: Yeah, it's for photographers only.

Jessica: Makes sense.

Lissa Watson: It's pretty affordable. I don't have the time to do it. But I want to wait until the collection is completely uploaded so they can do the SEO on that too. So I'm going to do that in November.

Jessica: Okay.

Lissa Watson: So when that's finished. I want to then put a lot of time into Pinterest because my stuff is so visual.

Jessica: Makes sense.

Lissa Watson: Those are the two huge things that need my time.

Jessica: Okay. What about more collections? What's the next?

Lissa Watson: I sort of work on multiples because as a photographer, I mean, I'm going to different places.

Jessica: Yeah.

Lissa Watson: All the time, and so it's sort of hard to just work on one. So I've already started working on it. It's going to be low country. I don't know if that's what I'm going to call it, but. You know, Spanish moss, it's a European vibe again to.

Jessica: Okay.

Lissa Watson: So that's already started. And then next year I'll be going to England, the Cotswolds, and then Italy and hopefully Paris again, so those are the two definite collections for next year.

Jessica: And those will all become their own separate collections, I assume.

Lissa Watson: They will. Paris. If I do get to go to Paris, you know, they're doing the Olympics next year. So prices are ridiculous in Paris for next year. But if I do Paris, it'll be included with my. Paris collection from last year.

Jessica: And how often do you do collection releases online?

Lissa Watson: Depends, this year is my first year doing this. Before, I was a portrait photographer, sports photographer, seniors, and I had to give that up because I was diagnosed with lupus and I I just could not do, especially sports, I could not do it on the professional level anymore.

Jessica: Yeah.

Lissa Watson: So I'm only into this portion of my business for a year, year and a half. I'm still sort of in that data collection. I'm hoping next year will be less of that and I can start implementing more.

Jessica: So when we're in the data collection phase, which for some people last a really long time and other people, it doesn't, it just depends how well your data collection goes. How many collections would you like to release a year, now that you've kind of got a feel for what all goes into it and how much work it is?

Lissa Watson: If I'm not traveling that year, I would say probably two, maybe three. If I am traveling, like I have some larger trips scheduled to places that people would actually want to buy something of, probably five. Like, next year's going to be pretty big. I have the possibility of three really large trips, yeah, I would do two are definite. England and Italy are definite. So those are two collections that I'll definitely be doing next year.

Jessica: I thought you were gonna say if I'm traveling less than that, but you said if I'm traveling then no, I have things to put out, so I want to do more.

Lissa Watson: Yes.

Jessica: I like that. Not where I thought you were gonna go though. Okay, so next year we are going to release, let's say, four Low Country Collection England, Italy, Paris. Maybe it works out exactly that way, maybe it doesn't. But we're having kind of a structure here, which means every three months or so, you're releasing something. So that gives us three month intervals. The rest of this year is pretty booked up because you've already planned all of these markets and then there's the whole holiday season, which most people kind of want to take off. So what I'm assuming is you've pretty much got the rest of this quarter planned out.

Lissa Watson: Yes.

Jessica: Okay. So we're really looking into next year.

Lissa Watson: Yes. January and February are going to be my off months.

Jessica: Which ones?

Lissa Watson: January and February will be my months. I'm not scheduling any markets. I'm not doing anything those months. Those are for business tasks, and hopefully get in some, I really want to start creating beyond my photography, incorporating caustic wax, painting, something. So I'm hoping to have some time for that January, February, and throughout the rest of the year. So honestly, next year I'll probably just do three collections.

Jessica: Okay. So that first quarter is more about getting set up to try some new things?

Lissa Watson: Yes.

Jessica: And also, I'm assuming Pinterest would be a good thing to stick into that hole.

Lissa Watson: It is. Another thing I have to learn, I mean, I know Pinterest, but not from a business standpoint of it, you know?

Jessica: I don't know if it still exists, but I took a course on Pinterest. Oh, I don't know, five or six years ago?

Lissa Watson: I'm actually in one, but I haven't had time to do it.

Jessica: Who is it?

Lissa Watson: It's called Pen Potential with, what is her name? Williams? Something Williams?

Jessica: What I'm wondering is, the thing that I found really helpful about the course that I took is it included information on a program called Tailwind.

Lissa Watson: Yes.

Jessica: Do you know if they talk about that?

Lissa Watson: They do, and unfortunately Pinterest does not like you using Tailwind anymore.

Jessica: Yeah, whatever. It'll still work for me.

Lissa Watson: Exactly. Yeah, I did really well when I first joined the class last year, and then yeah, that didn't last very long.

[00:18:05] Lay out a plan for the coming months to help you be successful.

Jessica: So, am I correct in assuming that January, February, March, we're not extremely concerned with bringing in an income?

Lissa Watson: Well, I don't bring in an income now, so yeah, whatever. It's not going to change anything. I have not made a profit yet. So yeah.

Jessica: But you are bringing money in. We're just getting it back.

Lissa Watson: Yes. Yes. I'm selling, but no profit.

Jessica: Okay. So is there anything else that , you feel like you would like to make a priority in the next six months?

Lissa Watson: One big thing that I hadn't even mentioned that I forgot about. I would love to have things like prints to sell behind the scenes. It's something I don't have to physically be constantly doing, like what I do with collection or getting prepared for a market. I would love, and it's not passive income, but it would be amazing to have print selling from my website in the background while I'm focusing on all these other things that needs to get done.

Jessica: Yeah. So are you printing those yourself or are those in your mind, is this a drop ship type of thing or what's happening?

Lissa Watson: So I, if it's a larger print, anything over 11 by 14 is drop shipped directly from my lab. If it's smaller than that, sometimes I have it in stock because I have it for my markets. Otherwise I do an order I don't know. I don't really get a lot of print sales from my website. Yeah. Not yet. They're mostly at my markets or through Instagram. I get a ton of sales through Instagram. So, if it's smaller than that, I like for it to be shipped to me because part of my brand is packaging. I love packaging. I love throwing little handwritten notes in there, little freebies, that kind of thing. So yeah, anything smaller than that. . 11 by 14 and smaller gets sent to me and then I ship out.

Jessica: Okay. So Pinterest and SEO are both good tools to get a lot more people to your website.

Lissa Watson: Hopefully that will fix that problem.

Jessica: Hopefully. I'm also assuming that the prices are, you know, you're not charging 600 for an 11 by 14, so it's something that people could go in and say, you know, I want that. I'm just going to buy it.

Lissa Watson: I mean, my five by sevens are 28. And then it's 48, 88, I think, I can't remember.

Jessica: Okay. The reason why I asked that is because SEO, Pinterest, it's more of a cold traffic where it's going to require a higher volume of people to come in to make purchases versus your Instagram audience, where they already know and love you. And they see something and they're like, okay, as they actually do want it. Versus, let me click through and see a picture and then decide to buy it or not,

Lissa Watson: Which I much prefer that. I actually love selling through Instagram. It's my number one priority.

Jessica: So earlier when we were talking about having a structure with more of an inspirational, flexibility to it, what I actually thought I heard was I don't really like doing social media. But now what I'm hearing is. I do like the interaction and it's my best moneymaker.

[00:22:44] Interact with your followers to find leads.

Lissa Watson: Oh yeah, I love Instagram. It's my favorite. Facebook, it goes from Instagram to Facebook automatically. I could probably incorporate that a little bit better, especially, this sounds horrible, but at my age. A lot of people my age are on Facebook still.

Jessica: Right, they are.

Lissa Watson: And I could probably do, I think they do live sales on there, just like they do on Instagram. I think it's an older demographic. So that would be an option, but I do love Instagram. I already have an audience there. I love interacting with them every day.

Jessica: So what if for last quarter and next quarter, we actually talk a little bit more about the social media side. We've got our overarching projects. Making a collection next year, working on Pinterest, this year working on SEO. Those are great. They're going to take a little while to start working, so what can we do in the meantime to hopefully increase your revenue to where it gets to profitable? Some of those things are not necessarily SEO and Pinterest. Those are the long term profitable, but what's the short term profitable? And you said social media.

Lissa Watson: Yes.

[00:23:59] Interact with your followers to find leads.

Jessica: I love that you're doing a Instagram live to bring in that more interactive element to the release. I think that that's something that more people should incorporate, whether it's, okay, here's the release. Let me show it to you live. Or whether it's, you know, a couple of days after the release, hey, let's walk through some of these pieces together or come ask me all your questions or whatever it is. Just so there's that more human element to it as well as just the content.

In a perfect world, having something that you can invite people to once a month is really good business practice. So that could be as simple as, I'm hosting an Instagram live about this collection. I'm hosting an Instagram live about ornaments. I'm hosting an Instagram live about this past collection that I would like to just move, so I'm going to do a sale. Whatever that is.

What if twice in November, twice in December, and then January and February and March, you do one on, not twice, let me back up, one on Instagram and one on Facebook. It could be the same day. You could do them back to back. It doesn't really matter.

Lissa Watson: Yeah. I like that.

Jessica: From there, when we're doing those lives, what we're really doing is paying attention. Yeah, hopefully we make sales off of it. But what we're really doing is paying attention to who came, who commented, who asked questions, who asked what the price on that was or how long it'd be available.

We're looking for our leads. And those are the people that we can then go out and interact with afterwards and create that more personal connection with them, so that they feel maybe one, a connection to your artwork, maybe a connection to you. Maybe you have a conversation about the place or the thing or whatever that is so that they are more inclined to buy. Not every conversation you have is going to lead to a sale, but you're going to find the people who are the most currently interested are the people who show up.

Lissa Watson: Yes.

Jessica: I think if we just, not even necessarily a release every time. Maybe sometimes it's a release, but just featuring something that you have for sale or something that you want to talk about or whatever that is so that we then know, who's the people on my list to interact with this month?

Lissa Watson: And do you ever attend lives?

Jessica: Do I attend lives? Honestly? No.

Lissa Watson: Okay. So it's really huge in the vintage resale market right now on Instagram. So I do them to to find frames. So most of them schedule them out, and they'll like show This is when it is. This is the time. That's the other hard part is trying to do it when the really hate saying this, but it's almost like high school over again, but the really popular ones that have 10, 000 followers like, there's a couple that I do not miss their lives.

So, I definitely cannot schedule when they're on because we have a lot of the same audience. I actually have gotten tons of clients or customers from their lives because they've bought from me, too. So it's like this beautiful community.

Jessica: Yeah.

Lissa Watson: Yeah.

So I love scheduling out 1 once a month. I just have to figure out when to do it. Like doing this live, it was supposed to be Tuesday and I had to reschedule it because, and one of the girls was having a huge candle live and she has like, I don't even know, a million followers or something. I was like, yeah, nobody's going to show up to that collection release. So yeah, that's, I'll just have to figure out when.

Jessica: I wouldn't just assume that they're all the same people, but taking into consideration that those are probably a lot of your people that's smart. So there is one particular person I can think of that I do attend lives, but it's a YouTube live and they sell rocks.

Lissa Watson: Okay. You sound like my son. He graduated with a geography degree.

Jessica: Nice.

Lissa Watson: So yeah, he likes his rocks too. And

Jessica: I like to buy from these people. It's Almanac Supply Company. I buy candles from them. I buy rocks from them, whatever. But if I just order a rock from their website, I don't know exactly what I'm getting. Like I know what type it is. I know about how big it is, but if I go to their live, I can see it and I can say, I want that one. So

Lissa Watson: That's exactly what I want with mine, because my prints are different. Like most people in their mind think of the glossy. Mine look like paintings because they're on that beautiful textured cotton paper, and you can't really see that on my website.Whereas if I do a live, I'm hoping you can see that a little bit more. Like in person, that's the number one feedback I get.

Jessica: Yeah.

Lissa Watson: Wow. So my prices are a little bit higher because of that, because that paper is very expensive, but I don't care. So yeah, that's one huge thing. Same with you. I want people to be able to see it and see the texture and the quality. And for how much I put my heart into this collection. I just think you get that.

Jessica: That comes across as opposed to, I've made this collection because I love la la la la la.

Lissa Watson: Yeah, exactly.

Jessica: When you can say it.

Lissa Watson: Yeah. Yes.

Jessica: It has a higher impact.

Lissa Watson: Yes. Even for me when I'm buying. I just love that interaction, I guess.

[00:29:39] Setting deadlines helps keep you on track.

Jessica: You know what I think might be nice is I assume a lot of these auctions that you attend have some sort of set schedule. If you could find a time slot that works for you that's around those and say like every third Friday, this is what I'm going to do. So people can start to expect and it's not just, Oh, when is it that? Oh, I missed it. It's third Friday, second Saturday. Something along those lines. It's always at this time. I think that would be useful. Also advertising it beforehand. Here's the main thing that I'm going to be showing, but if you want to see something else, you can ask. That gives you another deadline, which you said is something that is productive for you. For me, deadlines, like you said, don't really work because they're not really real unless there's an appointment. If there's an appointment associated with it, I'm not going to miss it.

So like I recently with my team, for years, we've just communicated on Slack, but if I'm overwhelmed or I don't have time to go and communicate my ideas to them, I don't. And then they don't get the help they need, or I can't express where I want to go. And so we were just kind of Flowing but not in the best way. Like, they were doing the things they were supposed to do, but I was not using them to their full potential. So I recently realized this and decided every Monday we're going to have a 30 minute meeting that way there is a set time, no matter what, I will be there. They will be there. It'll get done. So maybe that's useful for you. Maybe that sparks something, but like the more appointments you can set in your life the more you're going to get done.

Lissa Watson: Yes.

Jessica: So that would be one example of that. Also thinking about is there anything else we can incorporate into social media? I mean, there's always things to incorporate, but you're craving that organic feel to it.

Lissa Watson: So I definitely use stories more than I do posts.

Jessica: Do people watch them? Do you look at the numbers?

Lissa Watson: They do. I mean, it's not huge amounts, but yeah, which honestly is fine with me. I want people there that want to be there, that connect with me, they do interact.And I think the algorithm is getting a little bit better. It seems lately that I'm seeing people that I want to see, so hopefully that same thing is happening for me. But posts, I save those for, I don't know, aesthetic and something I really want to say in the caption.

Jessica: So almost like a bulletin board.

Lissa Watson: Sort of, but a pretty one. Like, I don't like posting, and maybe this is where I probably need to get better. I don't really post things for sale on my page. I put those in stories or in a reel. I never wanted my page to look like a storefront, but. I mean, I sort of am. I don't know. That's a hard one. Maybe all creatives are like this. I think everybody thinks just because you're a photographer, you know how to do all photography, which it's not true. So I'm learning how to do more lifestyle branding shots with my work instead of just like a flat lay, so you can see how it feels in your home. As I get better with that, I will start implementing and putting those on the actual posts.

Jessica: When you say posts, are we incorporating posts, reels, carousels, like all of that is posting to you?

Lissa Watson: Yes.

Jessica: Okay.

Lissa Watson: Like on my feed, I should say. Yeah.

Jessica: I have an idea. Okay. So you want it to feel more organic, but also you want to have more structure. And also I think what you just said is I want to tell people I have things for sale, which is a good thing to do in a business.

Lissa Watson: That's a hard one for me.

Jessica: It is hard and you will always have to get better at it. So yay. I think it could be fun to say... I want to have a certain amount of posts per week, but have a theme for the week where you can really post anything, but it leads back to a specific purpose.

Lissa Watson: Okay, I actually tried that this past week and it worked pretty well.

Jessica: Yay, there you go.

Lissa Watson: But I missed a couple of days.

Jessica: Well, we can forgive that. So what is your optimal number of posts?

Lissa Watson: I'd say four.

Jessica: Is four, I think I can reach this or is four, this feels doable?

Lissa Watson: Four is probably, I think I can reach this.

Jessica: Okay. What's. Actually, let me ask a different question. On the high end, what would you ideally want to post, and on the low end, what do you know you can do?

Lissa Watson: Four is the high end, and I'll say two.

Jessica: Okay, so let's cut the difference and make it three. And then if one week you get four done, the next week you get two done, It evens out. So let's say, for example, you're live is on the third week. So the purpose of those posts is come to my thing. We are not necessarily saying, okay, the image or the video has to match my thing. It doesn't have to be a poster or pictures of the thing. Like it can be, but it could also be more of that lifestyle that you're trying to capture and saying like, here's the things I'm doing behind the scenes today. And here's what I'm thinking about. And, oh yeah, you should come to my thing. So the purpose usually, in my thought process, is kind of associated with the call to action at the end.

Lissa Watson: Yeah, I stink at those.

Jessica: So it could even be, here's my latest print that I'm working on, and oh yeah, if you want to see my last collection, I'm doing a live. It doesn't have to be matchy matchy. It can still be a pretty grid, if you want.

[00:35:44] Think about your IG grid as a journal or sketch book.

Jessica: I've been talking to my... Consistent Income group recently about the people who have more of a hard time getting stuff out, thinking about it as a, a journal or a sketch book in your feed. And then you can tack on a purpose to it.

Lissa Watson: Okay.

Jessica: So then the first week might be, and I'm making this up. You can change it around, but prepping for an event, like we're talking about the event We've got coming up. And the second week might be like a little collection focus, so Here's the thing I've been working on maybe in a carousel, maybe in a reel, whatever it is. And oh, yeah, by the way, it's for sale.

What would you want the last one to be?

Lissa Watson: I do like incorporating, and I don't know what you would call this. Which is probably why I have a hard time posting more than one or two a week. I like incorporating things that are going on in my life, so it's a little more personal. And I think a lot of women relate to the things I'm going through.

We just never talk about it, especially at my age. Your kids aren't little anymore, so nobody cares. And yeah, so those kinds of things, just life things. Menopause. I mean, you know, all these things that nobody wants to talk about, but we need to talk about or what do you do after your kids move out, you know, or

Jessica: It could even be, if you don't have a particular thing, like an event or you're releasing a collection, like there's, there's not a message you feel like you need to get across. It could be rotate collection, going on in life, come to my thing, collection, going on in life. So it, it doesn't have to be one week Is this. One week is this. But when you have something coming up, like, come to my thing, you probably wanna, you know, spend that week focused on that thing. I don't know if this is helpful or not. Are you finding this like

Lissa Watson: Yes. Very helpful.

Jessica: A useful structure for you?

Lissa Watson: Yes. I have three pages of notes over here.

Jessica: Oh wow.

Lissa Watson: Yeah,

Jessica: I got one.

Lissa Watson: Well, I write like scribble scratch.

Jessica: So when we're thinking about this social media structure, where we've got the live and we've got, say, three posts a week, and every week has a different purpose, or... We have three different purposes every week. Where do you feel like you're going to get stuck or it's not going to feel organic or it's too much structure or not enough?

Lissa Watson: Probably scheduling it.

Jessica: You mean like the actual, I am scheduling it to post on this day?

Lissa Watson: No, I think I'm still trying to figure out what works for me, like batching it at one time, which I've tried that. That is hard for me. I don't know how people do that. It's, you're trying to think of all these different things at one time and sitting down and doing it. No, so just trying to figure out, okay, when do I do this? When do I do that? It's almost like I have to get prepared to then hopefully start implementing this like December 1st. Does that make sense?

Jessica: If it was more structured, would that help you with trying the batching? I don't, I'm not saying you have to batch, but it sounds like you would like that to work if you could figure out how. I don't necessarily mean defining every aspect of it, but like, giving yourself more parameters?

Lissa Watson: Yeah, like saying, okay, Monday, go ahead and try to create three posts. Save them.

Jessica: Right.

Lissa Watson: Or three reels. And then I can just use them when I need to use them.

[00:39:37] Creating a structure doesn’t mean you can’t be spontaneous.

Jessica: So if I were you, if you could make that work, which is actually what I'm have been doing right now is Mondays is my content creation day, which doesn't usually work for me, but it has been this month for some reason. Go ahead and like scheduling them into Instagram to post at a later date, because then if during the week you feel something more organic and you want to post it, great. Just do it.

Lissa Watson: I'm actually really good at that organically. I got it as soon as something sparks, I will draw up everything and just do it.

Jessica: Does that happen often or is that like some weeks? It's 14 times another weeks It's nothing.

Lissa Watson: Yeah, it depends on the week. Like last week trying to move our oldest back home from Charleston and, yeah, nothing happened last week business related. It was all life happened. So yeah, it just depends. Most of the time It's not that hard. This week's been pretty hard because I'm, you know, trying to release the collection.

Jessica: Or easier because you know what you're doing.

Lissa Watson: Or easy. Yeah, exactly.

Jessica: So let's say, let's give it a little bit more structure. And you can throw this out later if it doesn't serve you. But let's say Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 12 p. m. And, again, like, you might go back to your stats and say, Ooh, 12's not the right time. Let's do 3. But just so we don't have to think about, When was that thing going out? And when should I send it? Like, we're just gonna pick a time, and we're gonna do it for a month, and we're gonna see if it works or not.

Alternatively, you could do Monday at 10, Wednesday at 12, Friday at 2. It's up to you, but we're just picking some more structure to make it easier, hopefully. Then we could say, Monday's a carousel, Wednesday's a reel, Friday's a still.

Lissa Watson: Should you alternate it like that? I mean

Jessica: Every single account is different.

Lissa Watson: And see, I don't even look at my stats. I just do whatever I want to do. Yeah

Jessica: Well, it depends what you're looking for too. Yeah, like you can really drill this down and say well, okay Reels do better for visibility for me. Carousels do better for Interaction. Stills do better for sales. Like you can go down a rabbit hole, but right now, in my opinion, the rabbit hole is not the place to go. Because we just want to post.

Lissa Watson: Yes, I don't care about all the other stuff. I know I should care, but right now I don't care.

Jessica: So then we could have three options for each one. So like the carousel could be three photos of a particular collection. A carousel could be, and I'm just using the number three arbitrarily, three photos from life. It could be three ways to display one photo, whether or not you're giving them ideas or you're just doing it for yourself. The reel could be, just, and just play with these. I'm giving you a structure, but like, if you decide, I don't want to do that one, throw it out and do something else. I'm just trying to make sure you have ideas.

So then the reel, what kind of reels do you like to do?

Lissa Watson: What do you mean?

Jessica: Of the reels you've done recently? How do you do them?

Lissa Watson: Well, now that Canva has a reel section, I've been doing them in Canva.

Jessica: Cause I haven't even paid attention to that.

Lissa Watson: Me either. A friend told me there's so much easier than Instagram, even though Instagram prefers you doing it in there. But this week I've been doing them in Canva, and they're much easier. Honestly, I cheat and just use templates that our Instagram.

Jessica: We've got a Canva template, a reel template. We're saving those when we find ones we like, so we can have something to pull from.

Lissa Watson: I have a ton of those saved and music. I need it easy, or it's not going to happen.

Jessica: Mm hmm. And then let's say maybe one is a process. Something you're doing in your process.

Lissa Watson: I have to get better at that.

Jessica: That's a real intentional choice

Lissa Watson: It's hard to do it when I'm out in the field because I should film so trying to hold my phone and record while I'm loading film. So I need a 2nd person, honestly, that's literally attached to my back or something.

Jessica: What if for now you take your phone? You set it up against a tree, and you hit record. Then you do your thing, and then you use that as one of them.

Lissa Watson: But I do have to get better at those, because I've had a ton of people ask about film. I need to do a film thing.

Jessica: Not necessarily, unless you're going into classes.

Lissa Watson: I wouldn't mind. That is, that's one of my goals for next year is to do a film workshop.

Jessica: So I'm adding a how to reel.

Lissa Watson: I hadn't thought about that. It's a good idea.

Jessica: So then if we had on Monday, I need to do a carousel and my choices are three photos, three what's going on in my life or three, ways to display this photo. And I'm going to post that on Monday. And my purpose this week is, focusing on my collection. If you add that as your parameters, do you feel like it'd be pretty easy to get them out?

Lissa Watson: Yes.

Jessica: Okay. Well, now you have a structure.

Lissa Watson: Yes. It was just having someone do it for me.

Jessica: Yeah. Well, feel free to change the details. Once you get this down, you've done this for a month or two, I would add another layer to it where I say, these are my themes, but that adds another layer of difficulty to it. So maybe just stick with what we said first and then think about, do I want to teach? Yes, I do. So I'm going to do some how to's, that kind of thing.

Lissa Watson: Perfect. This is very helpful. Do you see the stress away from my face?

Jessica: I think I do. I see a little radiance there. It's nice.

Lissa Watson: Yes.

Jessica: We kind of went round and round in circles and talked about a lot of things. So good luck to Julie figuring out what she's going to call this episode.

Lissa Watson: I know. That's the story of my life. I am a Scorpio. I'm so sorry.

Jessica: No, it wasn't you. Normally I hone in right on something, but this time it was just...

Lissa Watson: It's Scorpio season. You know, we just left Libra, which is the easy peasy laid back. Now it's like,

Jessica: I know astrology, but I don't know it like super well. When does Scorpio start?

Lissa Watson: So my son is a Libra, which he's really not a Libra, and he's born on the 15th. So Scorpio starts right after that.

Jessica: Okay.

Lissa Watson: . Well, thank you so much. This was so helpful.

Jessica: I'm so glad. Hey, before you go, can you tell people where you would like them to connect with you?

Lissa Watson: I'm at Lissa Watson Photography on Instagram, and it's Lissa with two S's.

Jessica: You could spell the rest of that. Lissa Watson Photography.

Lissa Watson: Lissa Watson.

Jessica: You wanna say your website too, since we're working on getting more traffic there.

Lissa Watson: Yeah, it is Lissa Watson photography.com.

Jessica: Easy peasy.

Lissa Watson: Easy peasy.

It's just my name gets people every time. It's two S's .

Jessica: Yeah. Okay.

Lissa Watson: It was nice chatting with you.

Jessica: You too. Good luck on your release.

Lissa Watson: Thank you. Bye.

Jessica: Bye.