More Than A Name Change: The Dawn of Mindful Marketing with Meg Casebolt

Meg Casebolt (00:00):
Hello and welcome to the show. This is not Andréa Jones. I am Meg Casebolt. I am here today to interview your usual host, Andréa. So Andréa, thank you for being here on your own podcast.

Andréa Jones (00:16):
I know I love this Uno Reverse moment. It feels great. Thank you for interviewing me.

Meg Casebolt (00:22):
I am thrilled to be here. You kind of put out a call and said, we're doing the big episode 300. I feel like the team should put in some cheering noises here and we'll make this into those graphic audio novels now. Yes. He put out a call and said, is there somebody who is the right fit for having this conversation? And I put up my hand and it just kind of came together from there. So thank you for the opportunity to be your interview. Were for episode 300. It's an honor.

Andréa Jones (00:54):
I'm excited. Yeah, this is going to be great.

Meg Casebolt (00:57):
So we are here today because we are going to be talking about kind of a retrospective of what has happened with this podcast and what are the things that you've learned from it, and after 10 years of business, how has the business changed and being able to look backwards, but also thinking forwards about what does that mean moving forwards, especially with some of those big changes that are going to be rolling out soon. So do you want to give us a sneak preview of what is happening with the podcast now that we're at episode 300?

Andréa Jones (01:32):
Yes. So as you may have noticed, our name has changed. The podcast is no longer called the Savvy Social Podcast. It's now called the Mindful Marketing Podcast. It's scary to make this big change because we've had this name since the beginning and even other products, I have Savvy Social in the name. So it feels like a huge shift that's going to have ripple effects in the rest of the business. But that's where we are. Big change starting with this very podcast. And I

Meg Casebolt (02:06):
Feel like although the name of the podcast has changed, the tone will continue to hold in a lot of ways. I think that your approach to social media has always been very mindful, has always been very much make it work for you, but don't let it take over your life. You can post, but you don't have to post all the time. You can hold boundaries. You can be clear about what it is that you do. I think you've called it the Situationship with social. So the messaging is different, the title is different, but much of the tone of everything is still consistent. So how did you make the decision? What was the thought process around the rebranding and the renaming versus just continuing as is?

Andréa Jones (02:54):
Yeah, I studied Gary Vee back in the day when my business in 2014. He was one of the people on Twitter back then where I was like, oh, this guy is really making a difference in marketing. It was very different the way that he was showing up. And I tried to replicate that model. I read a lot of his books. I would consume a lot of his content and some of it worked for me, A lot of it didn't, and much of what he just must live on social media and I do not have the time, patience, or energy to do that. And that was

Meg Casebolt (03:28):
Before you were married and had children and all the things that was before life kind of exploded for you and other people required your time and your body and all of those things.

Andréa Jones (03:39):
Oh my gosh, don't even tell me about life before kids. My mom-in-Law asked me recently, do you remember what it's like? I don't. I was like, oh, I remember what it's like. I don't know what I was doing with my time. I remember

Meg Casebolt (03:50):
Long brunches. I remember sleeping in, I remember all sorts of things.

Andréa Jones (03:56):
Yeah, I remember. But you're right. It's so different approaching things in a different way. And I basically have two businesses when I think about it. I have the agency and then I have programming, not even to mention the amount of content I produce. I was going to

Meg Casebolt (04:10):
Say, and the marketing is basically its own side hustle.

Andréa Jones (04:14):
It's like three businesses really. And so I kind of been customizing my own strategy over the years and something really resonated with me over the past couple of years because people would come to me and they'd feel apologetic. They'd be like, oh, I just shut down my Instagram, or I decided to leave LinkedIn, or I'm not active on Facebook. And it was almost like they're apologizing to me and I actually want to cheer that on. If you made the decision in your business to go, I tried this thing. It's not working for me, so I'm moving on. Hoo. Right. I'm excited. Tell me what you're doing next instead of feeling like you're backpedaling and backtracking. And so my name and what I'm known for is social media, and yet my approach to social media is different than I think what people's expectations is. So that's a lot of where this name change comes from, but the content is probably going to be very similar and will shift more towards that. Let's find what works for you and celebrate doing things in a way that works for you as well.

Meg Casebolt (05:26):
And the idea of mindfulness, of evaluating and sitting with the feelings of what this should, listening to your gut, listening to your brain, not just moving forward because somebody told you to, but almost like a detachment from the outcomes because you're also evaluating other pieces of the puzzle. That's such an important thing to the way that you've always approached it, that hasn't come through in the name, but has always been a piece of who I know you to be. Not just the business, not just the brand, but Andréa.

Andréa Jones (06:07):
Yeah, I mean, it's so infused in my content. In 2017, I had one of those burnout moments where I was, I'm lightly calling it an anxiety attack. I wasn't hospitalized or diagnosed or anything, but I was almost paralyzed to open my inbox, to open Instagram, to open Facebook notifications. It was debilitating. And so I had to make choices at that point based on me and what I could handle. And as someone who's an introvert, even though I love socializing with people, most of the time, I don't want to talk to anybody. Just leave me with my books. Books and my crocheting. And so to have so many demands on my attention was not for me, and I made a shift. Then I immediately turned off all my notifications and I've lived notification free since then. And even that to me is an example of this mindful approach of going, Hey, I tried this. It doesn't work for me. So if you message me on Instagram, I'll message you back tomorrow. It doesn't have to happen the second whatever notification comes in, I'll see it when I see it. And so that shift is an example of mindfully going, this isn't working for me. How can I make this work for me and a still show up in a way that I enjoy this? Those are the questions that I want to explore, and

Meg Casebolt (07:40):
I think to a greater extent to sort of zoom out. Also, I think once you make this shift of I am not available 24 7, I do not need to be posting 24 7, my business is not 24 7, it can also sort of bleed into other areas. So I'm assuming that you would also say, if you email me, I'm not going to reply instantly. If you're a client and you think that there's some sort of emergency happening, here's my calendar link and we can talk next week. There's a level of confidence that comes from boundaries and training people on the behavior that we want them to treat us with and the respect that we want us to receive in terms of our time and our energy.

Andréa Jones (08:21):
It's the mutual respect piece. And I think something as simple as simple, I'm putting that in quotes because it was a long process, but something as simple as not easy changing the name

Meg Casebolt (08:32):
Simple, not easy,

Andréa Jones (08:33):
Simple, not easy, something as simple and not easy as changing the name. My goal is to reflect that immediately. If you want a Gary V style strategy post 10 times a day to every platform, respond to every comment instantly, I'm not for you. And that's okay. There are other social media experts out there, great follow them. The way that I approach social media is so different in my opinion, and I want to be clear about that upfront, and it affects every area of my business. If you email our customer support gem, my customer service person who's fabulous, she's going to get to you within 24 hours. It's not immediate if you're a client, we don't work weekends. So if something happens over the weekend, we see it on Monday. So it does, it has that effect of the rest of the business as well.

Meg Casebolt (09:27):
Yeah, and I also like that it's not the mindful social media podcasts. It's expanding into social media as part of a comprehensive strategy. Because I know from having a front row seat to your business for the past decade, that although you are on social media, although you are an expert on social media, although you provide social media services and trainings, your entire business does not exist on social media. You're getting leads from your podcast and your content marketing. Most of your conversions come through email marketing. You're constantly doing collaborations. Your actual business is not dependent on social media, even though in the, oh God, I don't want to use the word meta here, but it's right. It's not that you are dependent on social media, it's just what you do. It's not all that you. It's not all that you are.

Andréa Jones (10:26):
Yeah. And it's something that I teach too, is I love social media. True. It doesn't exist in a silo though. So when someone, especially a new business owner has an incorrect impression about, I'm just going to post on Instagram and build my business, it makes me cringe because there are so many components that go into this. Instagram's just a part of it. It's like saying, I'm going to build a house with just a hammer. It's like, okay, well, you also need, I don't know. I was going to say a chainsaw, but that's not the tool.

Meg Casebolt (10:59):
Okay, well, we'll go with this. I'm going to build a house with just wood and all of my pipes will be made of wood, and I'm not going to put paint on anything but wood. No brick, no. Right.

Andréa Jones (11:09):
Yes. There's so many different layers.

Meg Casebolt (11:11):
It's going to be a very uncomfortable bathtub. There's a lot of splinters

Andréa Jones (11:14):
Involved. I mean, although that could be a tread wood, all wood anyways, I think that it would very Scandinavian.

Meg Casebolt (11:21):
It would be

Andréa Jones (11:24):
Very not. But I think there's this misconception about social media being a magic bullet. And so what I want to kind of break down is that social media is just one piece of a larger marketing ecosystem that works. And the funny thing about this is my two largest marketing arms of my business are not social media. It's my podcast where I consistently get 10, 15,000 downloads a month. That's more than any social media platform, by the way. And it's my email list, which has over 18,000 emails, again, more than any social media platform. So for me, social media is a tool to grow my podcast and my email list, which is where a lot of my more intimate marketing strategies happen. Social media is a key component to all of that. My podcast, I don't think I would have as many listeners without social media. My email, I definitely would not have as many emails without social media. So it all works together, and I want to talk more about how it all works together instead of focusing so much on just the social media side of things.

Meg Casebolt (12:38):
I love that. So what's your relationship right now with social media? Are you still in love with it? Is it a necessary evil, or are we somewhere in the middle of this spectrum of feelings?

Andréa Jones (12:49):
Yeah, no, I love it. I love it personally. There are moments in time where I feel less in love with it. And you're right, I do like to call it a situationship. That has been a thing in my framework since 2017 probably. It's very much a situationship for a lot of people. I personally love it because I actually don't spend a ton of time on it. I see what I need to see, and then I piece out and live my life.

Meg Casebolt (13:20):
You get in and get out.

Andréa Jones (13:22):
Yeah, I get in and get out. Exactly. And I feel

Meg Casebolt (13:24):
Like you have a really good system for, I'm going to log into this. I'm going to give myself 20 minutes, I'm going to respond to this many comments. I'm going to engage with people the way I know that I need to, but I'm not just going to linger and doom scroll.

Andréa Jones (13:35):
Yes. And I find that if I do want to scroll, I have very specific outlets for that. So right now that's threads. I'm loving the experience on threads, and I spend more time there than I do scrolling on Instagram or LinkedIn or TikTok. And that kind of cycles through my phases. And I consider that personal time because I'm there. I'm enjoying the atmosphere, the vibes, but I still love social media. And I think it's like the saying goes, too much of a good thing can be bad. I do find myself sometimes slipping into that. I found that with TikTok last year where it started to feel a lot like an obligation, and I wasn't having as much fun there as I had the two years prior. So I just pulled back on my time there. I think I check in once or twice a week to answer comments. And then everything else is prerecorded pre-scheduled content that goes out. So that's my TikTok strategy right now. I think that that helps me still the elements of social media, which I like, which is far more to me about community and conversation than creating content for the sake of creating content.

Meg Casebolt (14:50):
And I feel like you sort of guided me into my next question, which is when you're saying, well, right now I'm into threads, but a year ago it was TikTok, and before that it was Instagram. I don't necessarily, this isn't a question about what is the trend of how things are changing in social media. I know you have future podcast episodes planned on that topic, but you've been doing this for a decade, and I would say of any industry that somebody can be an expert in for a decade, this is one of the top three that has changed the most in that time period. So you and I have talked several times also in the content marketing, SEO generative AI bubble where it's like, what are the biggest changes that you've seen and how have you had to react to that?

Andréa Jones (15:41):
Yeah, I mean, if you don't like change, don't get into social media. Don't

Meg Casebolt (15:44):
Get marketing, digital marketing. Nope. Yeah.

Andréa Jones (15:48):
Both of us like you in the SEO space, me and the social space, the past two years, three years have been bonkers bananas with the amount of changes. So I think the biggest change over the past decade, and I'm going to keep saying decade, y'all for a long time, it feels good decade is the amount of content that's being published. And a lot of people try to blame the algorithm. They try to blame what's trending. They try to blame people's interests. But 10 years ago, we were not consuming content like we are today. Reesa puts out a 10 part TikTok, or sorry, a 52 part TikTok series that's 10 minutes each, and they get millions and millions of views on each video that is unheard of for a social platform. And so we're consuming content at a rate. We've never consumed it before. People are producing content online at a rate that it's never been produced before. We didn't even have Netflix to the extent that we did 10 years ago to today. It was

Meg Casebolt (17:00):
Still coming in an envelope. We had to wait for the DVD tour. Maybe that wasn't 10 years ago, maybe that was 15 years ago.

Andréa Jones (17:08):
Yeah, it was about 10 years ago where they switched over. I was just talking to about this with someone the other day because it was back in my day. We had to order the Netflix DVD, they mailed it to you in an envelope, then you watched it, then you had to mail it back wild.

Meg Casebolt (17:25):
You had the queue going. You had to move things up and down based on availability. Yeah, I remember the post office near my workplace had a faster turnaround time for Netflix. They would scan it in, so all my coworkers and I would drop off our work. We wouldn't put it in our mailbox, we'd put it in the work mailbox. It was a big deal how much we had to plan our Netflix queues. And now we can just go, now my kids are like, why is this commercial playing? How come we were watching football and now we're watching trucks? What happened? They don't understand

Andréa Jones (17:58):
Anything. You don't get it. So I mean, so much has changed. I think that the biggest, the biggest challenge for me for business owners is like it has changed so much and there's just so much content and there's so much competition now. So before this business, I worked for Marriott and I was on the social media team there, and we were concerned about what to post our one weekly post on both Facebook and Twitter. And that was it. That was our goal is to put out one post with just a photo of the restaurant or the spa or whatever the case may be. Marriott now has a very different social media strategy, and I guarantee you their social media team looks different as well. And so just those things alone, all of those changes have been good in a way that there's a lot of importance and value in social media and also challenging, and that it's very hard to stand out. It's very hard make a splash to make a difference, to go viral. And so yeah, those have been the biggest changes to me.

Meg Casebolt (19:09):
And then for you personally, being in the social media space is one thing. If you were an influencer, you'd have to stay on top of it, but I wouldn't call you an influencer. I would call you a subject matter expert. I would call you an agency owner. I would call you a mentor and a trainer. Over the course of the past decade, how have your services and offerings changed both in reaction to how the industry is evolving, but also how you've needed to change in order to have your lifestyle continued to not be dramatically different?

Andréa Jones (19:45):
Yeah. I started off freelancing

Meg Casebolt (19:49):
So many of us, right?

Andréa Jones (19:50):
Yeah. Freelancing. I was on Fiver, y'all $5 gigs. I would write 10 Facebook posts for $5. It was great, but I made my first $60,000 on Fiverr. I had to think about if that was the right number. Geez, that's

Meg Casebolt (20:07):
A lot of Wait. So if you were charging $5 for 10 posts,

Andréa Jones (20:12):
Yes. But I did have upsells. So in Fiverr, they can toggle, do I want extras? And so the biggest bang for Buck for me was when people would book whole month calendars or they wanted extra graphics. Good.

Meg Casebolt (20:29):
I was joking about, and I was like, that is 120 or no. Yeah, 120,000 Facebook posts in a year.

Andréa Jones (20:36):
In a year. I was turning them out. I even remember one point my husband that was helping me, I was like, can you help me write some captions? Wait, that

Meg Casebolt (20:43):
Would be like 2000 a week. But obviously you have the upsells, you, the graphics, you have other things like that, but

Andréa Jones (20:49):
And it was templated.

Meg Casebolt (20:50):
Yeah.

Andréa Jones (20:52):
Yeah. And then I quickly switched. So it was 10 Facebook posts for $5, and then it was five Facebook posts for $5. Then it was

Meg Casebolt (21:01):
Doubling your rent

Andréa Jones (21:04):
One Facebook post for $5. In the end, once I had a bunch of testimonials and things come in. So I did adjust my prices, but that's where I started was freelancing. I didn't call myself an agency for a very long time. I called myself a freelancer who just happened to have a team for six, seven years. It wasn't until recently that I started calling myself an agency. And the reason I started hiring people was I tried to go on vacation and I was so stressed out the whole time because social media doesn't sleep. I was like, I hope Hootsuite published this post. So then I would go check to make sure it was published. And so I started hiring team support, grew it to an agency, and then in 2016, I launched my first course about Canva. Back then, Canva was not cool. People definitely frowned at Canva.

(21:58):
That's how I was able to get those five gigs going. I was using Canva and templates that I made to turn out these graphics for people. So I made my first Canva course, which then by 2018 turned into my membership program at the Savvy Social School. And then in 2020 I added on the mentorship program to teach this kind of hybrid agency educator model. So that's how things have changed over the years for me. And it really has been about, one, what I want to create and what I want to teach, but also where I see a need for people to learn how to do this as well in a way that is sustainable and works for them.

Meg Casebolt (22:40):
And then we've already talked a little bit about how the podcast is a huge part of your marketing arm and how people are finding about, maybe they find the podcast through social media or they keep up with the podcast on social media, but the podcast kind of lives as its own entity under your brand. So when did you first launch the podcast? If it's 300 episodes, we know it's been a while.

Andréa Jones (23:04):
Yeah. Launched in 2018. I've only ever missed a few weeks, probably two or three weeks max. But Weekly Show launched in 2018. I launched it because at the time I had a bunch of clients who had podcasts, and it was a really big thing to start a podcast. Then again, not a lot of people had podcasts, and so since my clients had podcasts, I wanted to also join the podcasting space. I come from a YouTube background. I had a YouTube channel since 2007, so I have been in the YouTube world for a while. Yeah, podcasting to me seemed much easier than YouTube videos.

Meg Casebolt (23:44):
There's no video editing, it's just audio. I don't have to put on makeup to do my podcast. What? This is awesome.

Andréa Jones (23:50):
And you can press, play and navigate to another app. Wow. Imagine that. Innovative. So I joined Podcast Movement's 28 Day Challenge, launched the show Savvy Social podcast, and to me it was another vehicle to talk about social media concepts. I was already posting videos on YouTube, but again, I found the podcast a lot easier because I could squeeze it in between client work. Number one, didn't have to worry about framing and videos and all that. And two, I love the intimacy of it. As someone who consuming podcasts, you could just pop in your earbuds and go about your day. So that's why I launched the podcast.

Meg Casebolt (24:33):
And why at that point were the savvy social, you already had the school at that point. How did Savvy Social become the podcast name?

Andréa Jones (24:42):
Yeah, I launched the school and the podcast at the same time, which I don't recommend. It was a lot of stress, but I didn't have kids then. So it was like I was working morning, noon at night, but I launched 'em at the same time. So prior to that, I did have a free Facebook group that was called The Savvy Social Crew.

Meg Casebolt (25:03):
Remember when there were free Facebook groups as the

Andréa Jones (25:05):
Marketing strategy? That was my funnel. It was join my Facebook group. I would do lives in the Facebook group and help people there. But the book group was becoming too big for me to manage. And at the time, I think there was less than 200 people, so it wasn't a massive, massive group. It was too big for me to manage just for free. So I wanted a paid option for people. I kept that Canva course. I had edited so much that I was like, this needs to be a membership now because Canvas is changing very quickly. And I sold it for one price and would just keep updating it. And that model wasn't working for me at the time. So I launched the school and the podcast at the same time, and the name came from that Facebook group. The Savvy Social Crew turned into the Savvy Social podcast for the free stuff and then the Savvy Social School for more paid support.

Meg Casebolt (26:00):
Got it. And the Savvy Social Podcast has been happening for 300 episodes, and I thought it was going to stay Savvy Social for a long time. When you and I met up in person back in November, this free Brand and was not in the works. So was it just like we pulled the tarot card and you're like, oh, I'm the four Pentacles, so I have to change the name. Was that your card? I can't remember. Your 2024 card was your 2024 card.

Andréa Jones (26:25):
I can't think of it right now. I had the Four of Swords. I think

Meg Casebolt (26:30):
That

Andréa Jones (26:30):
Sounds right in reverse though.

Meg Casebolt (26:32):
I think Laney was the Pentacles.

Andréa Jones (26:34):
Yeah. So the retreat in November changed a lot of things for me. So 2023, my word of the year was community, and I was really focused on the people in front of me. Before that, a lot of my marketing was like, let's get new people, let's get new people. And I'm an introvert, and at some point I'm like, okay, I just want the people that are here and I want to spend more time with them. So the retreat was birthed. It sounds so cheesy to say, but it was like it changed my life. It was one of those moments where I was like, oh, this is more of what I want.

(27:15):
Because I know a lot of marketers, a lot of marketers were there. The conversations we were having were so much deeper than how many times a day should we post on TikTok? And they were business focused conversations. They were life forward conversations. I saw that word floating around on social media recently where people were talking about, yeah, this is my business and I have aging parents, or I have young children, or I'm getting a full-time job now. So how do I balance all of the things? And I was like, oh, these are the conversations that I want to have. And so when we met up at the retreat when changing things wasn't even on my mind, I'm going to have a baby, my life is very full. Is all of this

Meg Casebolt (28:01):
Rebranding just a very deliberate and nesting strategy? Is that what this is?

Andréa Jones (28:07):
It was not on my mind. It was not on my mind at all. But the funny thing is I have owned these domain names since 2020. So while the changing of the name wasn't on my mind at the time, suddenly it felt urgent because I was like, these are more of the conversations that I want to have. These are the more of the topics that I want to explore. And yes, social media is still my main boo. It's still what I do on a day-to-day basis. I definitely see that changing for me in the next five years into something a little bit more nuanced. I don't know what it is yet, but there's something there. I was like, oh, this is more of what I want to do. And so then it suddenly felt urgent and I felt like I was cheating where I was like, oh, I keep thinking about this thing while doing my job. And I was like, I feel like I'm constantly cheating and flirting with this idea in my head while still maintaining my current idea. And so after the retreat, you were

Meg Casebolt (29:16):
Having an affair with your new brand?

Andréa Jones (29:18):
Yes. I was wooing it. I have my Google Keep Notes app I've had since the last day of the retreat. I can go back and see all of my notes where I'm like, oh, this would be a great idea. That would be a great idea. And so I just kept spending so much time thinking about it and talking about it with people like you that I was like, we've got to start making changes now so that I don't feel like I'm cheating anymore and that I'm straddling this line. I got to move forward. It's now or never, 10 years, 300 episodes. Let's do it.

Meg Casebolt (29:52):
And I think also, I saw you post in a community that we're both in about this, and Diane in that community was like, this is not cheating. This is evolution. This is a transformation of identity where it can feel like, oh, but I'm the social media person versus I'm a marketing strategist who specializes in social media. And maybe this pivot isn't as much of a pivot as I think it's because my own identity has evolved over time, which is a funny thing to think about because this is why we surround ourselves, my therapist,

Andréa Jones (30:31):
That's it. It's like once I landed in the spot of like, oh, this really is just me changing the name. I've been this person this whole time, then I felt so much more comfortable with making the change because prior to that, it felt like a whole different person. And I don't think that was really the case. It was this is a change that's been happening for years and now just feels like the time to reveal my new identity.

Meg Casebolt (31:02):
Big reveal. It's like reveal day on. You know what? There's probably some sort of RuPaul's drag race thing that we should talk about here. I'm not a drag racer, I'm a top modeler. I'm a home, so I want to be like move that bus, but I don't know the right drag race.

Andréa Jones (31:19):
It very much fits the home Reno side of things. Move that bus for sure. So we're moving the bus. Here we go.

Meg Casebolt (31:26):
And I think also there might be something in here because you and I are both romance readers where it's like, maybe this is not an affair. Maybe this isn't cheating. Maybe this is just making your relationship open. Maybe this is polyamory of your business. It's not. I'm cheating on social media. I love social media and I love email marketing. I love content marketing and I love relationships and I don't have to choose. You're a reverse harem of a business,

Andréa Jones (31:55):
Honestly. Yes. So I've been playing around with this idea, and I don't want to scare people off with the idea of polyamory, and it kind of feels like that. It's like social media is the one partner that I spend a lot of time with and it's the one people see me a lot with. But I have other partners. I happen to have an email partner and a podcast partner and a YouTube partner, and I do a ton with community as well. So yeah, I'm in an open relationship with social media and it has really clarified things for me to put the label on it. That is so true.

Meg Casebolt (32:33):
I think this is the ad break.

Andréa Jones (32:35):
Yeah, ad break.

(32:40):
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(33:42):
And away you go. Away you go. So if you're ready to celebrate our birthday with us, come to a fab of Fiesta and let's have fun. Let's have a party. I'll see you there. [Podcast Ad break]

(33:53):
Okay, so we're back from the break. But before we get into everything, I got to tell y'all why I chose Meg for this episode as the host. Yes. She raised her hand and said, yes, I want to do it. But the reason why it feels like so right, is I met Meg on Instagram and it's like part of my story to meet some of the most important people in my life on Instagram. And so we met on Instagram, we had a little business bestie chat where we still are in, we exchange ideas all the time. We meet once a quarter. Now were we meeting monthly at one point?

Meg Casebolt (34:29):
We were meeting monthly at one point. And I want to state before we say that we met on Instagram, we did outreach on Instagram, but the way that I first heard about you was not on Instagram. It was my friend Sarah used to run a website called One Woman Shop, and they did the 100 best websites for solopreneurs. And you and I were both on that list. And our joint friend who knew both of us, Lanie Lamarre was also on that list. And Lanie and I were like, we want this sort of tight mastermind feeling of people who have aligned values. And so we went through that list and chose who to reach out to. And you were the first person Lanie reached out to. And I think she said to you in Instagram DMs like, we're thinking of doing this. And you said, great, how much? We were like, no.

(35:21):
And I think sometimes that's what we're talking about with social media and community is it can be a really great place to develop these relationships to get to know other people, but you can also find out about them through other channels. And social media can be an easier place to and grow and nurture those relationships, whether you discover a person on that platform or not, whether you remain on that platform. Because I don't know if you and I ever actually DM'd on Instagram. I think Lanie DM'd you and then you and I met on Zoom, and then we just moved to Voxer and that's where we've been for the better part of a decade. So the relationships can start there, they can grow there and they can move off of there. All three of those things can be true.

Andréa Jones (36:05):
Yes. Okay, I'm glad you clarified that because Instagram was just like a catalyst for conversations in other places. And I feel like this, you're right. This is why I love social media is because it made it easier for us to, well, Lanie and I to start that conversation, but the conversation actually started elsewhere, which I didn't know that the list is where it started. I think it

Meg Casebolt (36:28):
Was the list.

Andréa Jones (36:29):
I remember Laney just reaching out and me being like, okay, yeah, I mean this sounds great, but if she says it's going to be 10 grand, no. So I was kind of bracing myself for the price and she was like, no, we just want to meet and hang out. And we really didn't know each other that well at the time I knew of you, but I don't think we ever had talked before the first Zoom call. And so to me, that's the power of social media. But it's one of the reasons why I wanted, I was so excited for you to be the host of this is, I guess we started in what, 2017? Maybe?

Meg Casebolt (37:06):
It was probably eight ish years ago. We started having what were monthly check-ins where we were all freelancers building our first courses, and now we've been doing it for a decade. And the people who are meeting with us, we're still with Lanie every month quarter, and she shut down her business and we still hang out because now it's gone from we are business colleagues to, we are collaborators and then we are friends in real life and would hang out with each other even if we shut down our businesses, even if we just are actual friends. We have to do that because we don't have coworkers to hang out with anymore. This is our workplace.

Andréa Jones (37:50):
This is our workplace, this is our water cooler. And so that's why I'm so excited to have you have this conversation because you've seen the evolution of my business in a way that other people just haven't been privy to. And so also, you are a brilliant marketer. Y'all go check out Meg, Meg Casebolt, love at firstsearch.com. We'll put the links of course in the show notes. But I love your approach. It's very similar to my approach to social, your approach to search is really about helping real humans. It's not about the robots and the machines of it all. It's like, let's think about the human behind all of this and what their experience is like. And so that's really why I wanted to have you in this conversation as well is because your approach and my approach are very aligned.

Meg Casebolt (38:39):
You were like, I know who I should have interview me on the Savvy Social Podcast, a person who wrote a book about how to get off social media.

Andréa Jones (38:48):
Exactly, yes. See, and that's why I'm like, I'm celebrating that because it's not for everybody. It's not for every business. And to make that decision to me is so intentional. It's so mindful. You're not giving up on marketing completely. You have other ways that you market your business, and that's what this kind of rebrand of the podcast is all about. I want to have the conversations with people who decide to leave social media because that's also important.

Meg Casebolt (39:18):
That is a choice. It is not the only choice, but it is absolutely a choice. So with that in mind, knowing that we're going into this rebrand, knowing that you're kind of rolling it out as this episode is clearing, what are you doing? I know you, I probably have a color coded assigned deadline driven project plan. So even though you can say, sure, I had this domain sitting for the past four years, and yes, I had this idea on day three of a retreat in November, but it didn't just happen. What was the rollout plan? What else are you doing to do the reveal? How's the rebranding process working for you?

Andréa Jones (39:59):
Yeah, I mean, my first step was talk to Becky Mellencamp, who's my accountability coach because she helps me with all of the ideas that I have and I want to do everything. And she's also like, but remember, you're pregnant. Remember you said you wanted to pull back on working all these hours and blah, blah, blah. So my first step was to go to her and be like, so I have this idea. And to have her be like, well, you're, it's not actually changing anything you're saying. It's a rebrand. And to actually champion me to do more is very helpful. Shout out to Becky.

Meg Casebolt (40:34):
Becky's

Andréa Jones (40:34):
Amazing

Meg Casebolt (40:35):
At stuff like that, at really honing in on what matters and making sure that it's aligned with values.

Andréa Jones (40:40):
Yes, yes. And so she's been part of my sounding board for a lot of this. The name I already had, and I really tried to come up with a different name because this Mindful marketing, there's actually another company under the name Mindful Marketing. They work with e-Commerce brands, though they recently rebranded to a different name. If you search Mindful Marketing, they come up first. There are several podcasts with Mindful Marketing in the title. Usually they have other words as well, but Mindful marketing isn't unique. However, it's the only name that really truly to me embodied what I want to talk about now and for the future, I feel like gives me space to talk about it for the future. So as far as

Meg Casebolt (41:34):
My, I need to insert this because you know me, if we're talking about what shows up in search, when you look for it, yes, they have historically ranked for that term, but this is going to become your new branded search term. This is going to be something that you already have an audience that you have grown that can help you establish this brand underneath your own existing domain. You have the domain authority to capture some of that. So you and I can talk offline about a reputation management strategy, so that way you can rank first for that term and specify mind. Maybe it's mindful marketing for small businesses, mindful marketing for service businesses, mindful marketing without being dependent. There are different qualifiers that we can put on it as well as the definition of mindful. And we can play with it a lot in a way that it's much more open to interpretation and to you being able to define what it means to you in a way that Savvy Social was kind of locked in by its very nature.

Andréa Jones (42:38):
And first of all, I have you earmarked for when I'm fully back from maternity leave in August to redo our SEO strategy because

Meg Casebolt (42:47):
Well, you know where to find me. It needs

Andréa Jones (42:49):
To be done just

Meg Casebolt (42:51):
For the podcast, right? Because sometimes we need to think about our sub-brands as part of our overall brand too.

Andréa Jones (42:57):
Yes. And two, there are so many other people with the name Savvy Social that I'm not, I wasn't too concerned about it. If you search Savvy Social on Instagram, you'll see a bunch of people using that name, or even social savvy, socially savvy people, say socially savvy all the time. I actually own Socially Savvy School for that reason because people kept calling it that. So I just grabbed the name and it forwards Domain

Meg Casebolt (43:21):
3 0 1, redirect, boom, boom, boom.

Andréa Jones (43:24):
So to me, the name, it just felt so good and it was one that I already had that I wanted to move forward with it instead of I've been thinking about it for so long. Yeah.

Meg Casebolt (43:38):
What's so interesting is this, the relationship between your head and your analytical brain and then your gut and your reaction to it is exactly what we're talking about in terms of the approach that you take and you're taking that approach of mind and heart meeting each other, even in the choice of how to rename and reposition to be able to say, inviting Meg feels right or choosing this name. I went, I did the research, I looked at what my competitors were, and then I listened to my inner voice, I listened to my gut and I moved forward with it because it felt right. There's a lot of feminine energy there that you don't hear a lot in the marketing space, which is very much like, well, somebody else already owns it, so you need to find something different.

Andréa Jones (44:28):
And that's part of why I hesitated. It feels a little soft. Do you know what I mean? Even the word mindful marketing, when I asked my husband about it, he's like, I don't get it. And I'm like, oh, but you're not my target, not

Meg Casebolt (44:40):
My ideal client.

Andréa Jones (44:42):
You're not who I'm going after. And so that's part of why I hesitated on it so much because it does feel like leaning into the feminine energy. It does feel a little bit more on the side of like woo woo, if I'm hesitant to use that word even. But that's who I am. I pull tarot cards every year. I have 15 tarot.

Meg Casebolt (45:04):
They literally just pulled this out of my deck because I was like, I wonder what's going to happen. I keep my tarot cards on my deck and it's the Temperance Card course. It's the Temperance Card, which was your card for last year. It's my

Andréa Jones (45:15):
Card for last year. And so for me, it's like, okay, I am already living this life. Is this my coming out story? I don't know. It felt right.

Meg Casebolt (45:26):
It felt right. So in addition to rebranding the podcast, in addition, you've done a lot of web design work on your website to feel a bit more, I don't want to say laid back because I never felt like you were too in your face with the old brand, but it does feel a bit calmer in terms of the tones that you're choosing, the language that you're choosing. You're doing some definite messaging work in the rebrand. What else is happening as part of this overall rebrand into marketing versus strictly social?

Andréa Jones (45:57):
Yeah, this is where I think the retreat comes into play. I'm leaning more into the community elements in intimate communities. So for instance, this year we moved to a closed model for the Savvy Social School. So if you're listening to this right now, it may be open, it may be closed, it's probably closed. We're going to open it a few times a year perhaps, or maybe not. I haven't decided yet. So that's part of this is deciding what to do with things like my membership, my members who are in there loving on them in an intimate way, which feels very good for me. Focusing on my smaller

Meg Casebolt (46:37):
Mentorship too. You really started to grow that out, but I think at a lower price point than it used to be because you want it to be intimate, but affordable. There's some interesting choices happening there too. Tell me about that.

Andréa Jones (46:49):
Yeah, the mentorship, I raised the price because value. People were like, you add so much value. But the feedback I got from my members is the number of calls we were having was too much. They were like, this is too much. I actually prefer to have a different structure. So we changed the structure, lowered the price back to what it was before. We actually had no members come in at the new price. Now, I wasn't promoting it heavily, but it's 2 97 now, and it's a combination of one-on-one. So you get one-on-one time with me, and there's some group components. I will probably cap it about 25 members and just love on those people. Same thing for the retreats, upcoming events. For me, this is all about, I am past the point of the big numbers. I feel like I've hit a lot of milestones in my business. I feel very proud and happy of them. And 2023 was a hard year financially, and it forced me to look at these things. And I know there's this trend right now of descaling, y'all. I was forced to do this. I had to let go of people in my agency because clients left and we didn't have a replacement. I'm not saying that to romanticize it, it's just the facts. Those are the, I

Meg Casebolt (48:04):
Don't know, people are like, I'm not downsizing. I'm descaling. And I'm like, no. Descaling is something you do with vinegar in your Keurig. It's not something you do to your business.

Andréa Jones (48:14):
No, we had to be intentional about going smaller. And then in that process, I realize, oh, I like the coziness of it. This is where my introverted side comes out. So plans for the future, I don't know yet, but I do know I will be doing more mindful marketing things. I now consider myself a marketing strategist with a focus on social media. And that focus may change. I don't know yet. I still love social media. And when we have a new client come in, we also manage their podcast. We also edit YouTube videos for them. We also write emails for them. Some clients we even write and design lead magnets and build funnels for them. So we do other marketing things. We're just very social media community forward. So I'll continue with that concept, but knowing that as social media changes, as community changes, I'm flexible enough that I want to be able to change with it.

Meg Casebolt (49:11):
So where do you see that 10 years from now? Oh God, your kid's going to be 10. My kid's going to be 19. God,

Andréa Jones (49:22):
10 years. I mean, I know it's

Meg Casebolt (49:25):
Hard to vision, so it doesn't have to be the details, but what's the vision for where you're going?

Andréa Jones (49:31):
Yeah, I do have a vision for 10 years, which is the first for me. I'm usually like, I can do a year, a year, one year. I can't do ten one year

Meg Casebolt (49:41):
Plan, 10 year vision. I feel like there's a differential here of what to expect, but I feel you. I'm not great at future casting.

Andréa Jones (49:48):
I've never been able to do a 10 year vision. It's always been like what I'm doing now. But now

Meg Casebolt (49:55):
Think about 10 years ago when you did have that one Facebook post a week, how could you possibly have predicted what's happening now? Okay, so change of question three year vision,

Andréa Jones (50:06):
But I do actually have a vision. I don't know what it's going to be because I have young children. It's so different now. My life is so different now. I don't want to make big changes, and that's why I'm just starting slow with the podcast. But I do see myself moving more into community work, and I don't know what that looks like yet, but I've been talking a lot about this concept of dark social, where the power is in our Laney and I DM conversation versus creating content. And to me, that's community one-on-one conversations. It's smaller groups, but I don't know what that means yet. But I do see myself moving more towards being a facilitator of conversations, a community builder, less about content creation and more about conversation, what that looks like. It could be anything. I loved the event. If I could do three or four events a year and that was it, that would make me happy.

(51:09):
I love facilitating conversations like a round table panel. If I could do panels all day, that would make me happy. So there are certain things where I'm like, this part piece of it makes me happy. The piece right now that I know that probably 10 years from now, I probably would have an exit in my agency, either selling my clients or something like that. And then in my programs, I feel like they'd move away from tactical and move towards conversation. So it wouldn't be so much, here's how to upload an Instagram story, but more of like, do we even need Instagram stories in the first place? It's so cerebral. But I definitely see myself moving away from the tactical things into more of facilitated conversation.

Meg Casebolt (51:57):
I think that's perfect for you without forcing you into becoming an event planner, because that is a lot of work also in a completely different way. And how are you celebrating being in business for 10 years?

Andréa Jones (52:11):
Yeah, so we're doing a big 10 year fiesta, so they'll actually, that'll probably be the ad in this episode, pre-recording it. So they'll probably be the ad in this episode and check my socials and my email. So we'll be talking about it. I'm also having a baby, so that feels really good to just take some time.

Meg Casebolt (52:33):
That was on the schedule before the rest of this.

Andréa Jones (52:35):
Yeah, it's like the fact that I can step back is a huge celebration for me, and it feels much better the second time around. The first time around, I was way more stressed about it. The second time around, I'm like, this is going to be great. My team has got this. This is awesome. And so that's basically it to me. I don't really have any big things planned because honestly, having the baby is the big thing right now.

Meg Casebolt (53:00):
It's not that you have a countdown to 23 days from the time I'm recording this until when the baby arrive,

Andréa Jones (53:06):
There is a countdown. I'm ready. I'm ready for her to be on the other side so I can actually get restful sleep.

Meg Casebolt (53:15):
Yeah. Yeah. You can outsource the feeding. There you go.

Andréa Jones (53:19):
I can take a night off. I can't take any nights off right now. She's attached to me.

Meg Casebolt (53:24):
True. That placenta, that turn umbilical cord, you can't take a break from that. No. Any final thoughts about the podcast, about the agency, about where things are going for you?

Andréa Jones (53:38):
Yeah, I think that part of this whole thing is scary for me. I was just talking with one of my mentees about how I probably will lose some accolades along the way. I don't know if I'll still be in the top 100 marketing podcasts with this change. I don't know if I will win the awards for the show because it is a little less aggressive. It's a little more soft. I'm okay with all of that now. Wasn't at first. It took a lot of work for me to get here. I've been thinking about this for years, really. But the past six months, I've done the most reflection on this. And I'm at the point now where intimacy is more important than being popular. That's never been my goal in the first place. So to have those check boxes, I did it. It felt good. Sure, at the time, now it just doesn't seem as important. So I will probably lose some of my ranking. I will lose the opportunity for awards. I may lose some of my audience. I don't care. I'm ready.

Meg Casebolt (54:39):
Those weren't your people. And I think one of the things that has been standing out to me in this conversation is knowing who you are and grounding yourself in how you want to live your life, how you want it to feel, how you want to lead your team, how you want to engage in relationships with others, whether those are your clients, your team members, your audience, your peers, your collaborators. You are so grounded in this is how I want this to feel. And if social media is part of that, if email marketing is part of that, great, but I don't need to be the go-to person for this entire industry. I don't need to be the thought leader who is at the forefront of every single trend and showing up and having millions of followers. Your satisfaction and your measures of success are not numbers driven.

(55:31):
They are value driven. They are intuition based and their lifestyle reflective where it's like, I don't want to work all the time and I can support my family and be there training my people in the way that my approach is, so that way they're not burning out. I'm supporting their mental health. I'm supporting their outcomes and goals without it taking over everything. And I think that, especially in marketing in general, but social media in particular can be so invasive that having somebody who is aware of all the trends and able to say, let's define your KPIs and your measures of success and work towards your goals that may or may not be the meg gets on a pedestal about the patriarchy may or may not be what the societal norms of what success is supposed to look like, which is infinite growth at all costs. That's not your goal anymore. So I think that that will show up moving forward in the podcast based on the work that you've been doing, not just the outward external marketing work, but the internal journaling meditation work about your life and your goals and your business. So thank you for leading by example for all of us who are always getting that message of more is better, more have to grow, have to scale. Downsizing or descaling is failure instead of it's a conscious choice for intimacy. Yes.

Andréa Jones (57:09):
You nailed it. That's it. Perfectly said. Thank you, Meg.

Meg Casebolt (57:13):
Thank you, Andréa. It's been my pleasure to be here with you, and congratulations on 300 freaking episodes. Well done.