I joined Facebook 11 years ago today (July 13, 2008).

I have connected to people I would never have been able to create any kind of relationship with otherwise. I have reconnected to the people I missed. I have discovered the true colors of others.

I have gotten distracted by political arguments, memes of the day, those dang Goalcast videos that are like inspircrack (inspiration + crack), and stalking the pages of people I haven’t seen in the newsfeed in a while. Like every picture in your albums. Sigh.

I have learned so, so much. I have connected to people who have taught me more about marketing than any college education ever could have. I have learned more about nutrition and even helped a few people ditch some bad habits because of what I shared (THIS is one of my favorite things about social media).

I’m reading a book about morning routines, and this guy devotes almost an entire chapter to the dangers (to your success and society in general) of digital distraction. I could not agree more.

While I have seen social media make small business owners millionaires, literally hundreds of thousands of businesses and families supported via the audience they were able to reach on the platforms, I have seen the damage it has done as well (as we all have).

I post when I feel like I have something meaningful to say. Maybe something that I hope will make you laugh (most likely because it made me laugh), will inspire you or will cause you to think. I run my business pages the same way, and I run client pages this way as well.

Here’s what I’ve discovered is the key to “healthy” social media:

I put a time limit on it and try to remain very strict about it. That’s why if you comment, I may not respond for 24 hours, but I am always grateful to read what you have to say. Even if you are disagreeing with me. 😜👌🏼

I very carefully curate my feed. I unfollow a LOT of people. I search out people who are positive and inspirational. I never follow news channels. Ever.

I make it a point to look at my “most recent” feed to see new things and curate my feed more.

I actively take note of when I’m reaching for the phone out of boredom or because I want the distraction from work that just got hard… 😬

In the end, I still can’t help but wonder how many total hours of my life so far I’ve “wasted” on social media. The time that truly had no point other than scrolling. The times I got caught up in trying to make points with people who just can’t see past their own immediate life vision. The ones who don’t understand that we are all connected.

With all the media uproar of late around the social platforms and breaking them up (I am still undecided on my stance on this one), I still say it’s been a good thing. What’s been not so good is the way bad people have used social media to their own benefit and to manipulate the masses.

BTW – manipulation is not possible where education is in place. In other words, the more people are educated (not by the news) on any given topic, the less they will be manipulated around the opinions of others on that topic.

My suggestion: limit your time and commit to the limit. It’s still a great way to connect, create helpful communities (I’m in private groups for marketing that are literally BEYOND helpful. Help I could never even pay for and from thousands of people who want to help), and grow a business.

In other words, use it for good. Which I see most of you do. 😘👏🏼

The success in the details.
Every little thing counts. I’m a detail-oriented person and always have been, so seemingly small efforts are noticeable and important to me.

I love little touches of creativity that take something mediocre and make it great. These are the stories of 3 companies that used the smallest of details to capture their target market’s attention and sell more stuff.

We don’t support trips to the past. Yet.
Alexis Ohanian, the founder of Reddit, and an early investor and later the Marketing Director for Hipmunk, the uber-cool travel planning website, says people still tweet about Hipmunk’s error messages.

“We don’t support trips to the past. Yet.” is the message that appears if you try to book your return date in the past. “Why don’t you just move there? 30 days is the max.” is what you see if you try to book past the 30-day time limit. The 404-error message (for a website page that doesn’t exist) says, “You’ve gone off the map.”

Ohanian says this is simply “giving a damn” about your business. The smallest of details help you stand out in a big way.

In the case of Hipmunk, these creative error messages provide a smidge of entertainment during a tedious yet necessary task if you want to travel anywhere.

When was the last time you tweeted about an error message?

Your order has shipped.
Derek Sivers, the creator of CD Baby, a global music distributor for independent musicians, decided that the automated email copy to confirm shipment of a CD order (it started with CDs and is now all digital) simply wasn’t congruent with part of his mission—to make people smile.

Instead of the industry standard “your order has shipped,” Derek sat down one day and wrote this email notification, in his words, “in about 20 mins:”

“Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist lit a candle, and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterward, and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved ‘Bon Voyage!’ to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Friday, June 21.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did.

Your picture is on our wall as “Customer of the Year.” We’re all exhausted but can’t wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!”

A Google search for “CD Baby private jet” will get you many pages of results for this now-famous email. People have talked, tweeted, studied, and written about this non-automated, automated email confirmation for years.

Sivers says it is still his most successful email to-date. In 2008 he sold CD Baby for $22 million.

Welcome to Mr Porter, Mrs. Pizzolato.
My Husband is hip. Way hipper than me. This is how I know about Mr Porter, and this is how I came to receive this box, which is one of the most fabulous packaging efforts I’ve experienced in all my years of online shopping.

Granted, plenty of items on Mr Porter.com will run you big bucks. Those are not the ones my Sweet Husband ordered for me. But no matter the price of what you ordered, you still get the sweet unboxing experience everyone who shops at Mr Porter.com gets.

We seriously lamented having to throw away the box. I’m still hanging on to it, and the shirts came on Wednesday. They gave Jeff the opportunity to write a personalized note to include in the box (which he did, and it was super sweet).

I got a welcome packet, printed on the most fabulous paper I’ve ever touched and sealed with a ribbon that says Mr P on it. It tells me all about the style advice I can get, the same day delivery in certain cities, that they hope I’m delighted with my choice, and how I can get weekly style updates.

So much attention to detail has gone into the packaging and unboxing experience Mr Porter provides.

Thank You.
I’ve gotten personalized, hand-written thank you notes from online courses I’ve purchased, dried flowers and extra samples in my Jane Iredale deliveries, and stickers, makeup pouches and super cute notes from Glossier.

Even the business cards I get from Moo have a love note in the box. I love to get mail that’s not a bill (or junk), and I love to open cool packages. Sometimes the package-opening is better than what’s inside.

Confirmation emails, thank you pages, shipping boxes, and error messages may seem like small, inconsequential business necessities. Most people leave them programmed with boring, standard-issue messages.

I hope this has inspired you to up your game with the small stuff and make everything about your business meaningful at every turn.

The most overlooked things in most businesses can be what catapults your business to rock star status. Tiny tweaks can lead to Big Changes.

Always behind you 1,000%-
Julia

I have a Twitter account, but I rarely look at it. I don’t teach anything about Twitter marketing (though the basic principles I use and teach apply there).

But even I can’t resist the story of Lil Nas X and how he became an (almost) overnight celebrity 140(+) characters at a time.

Enter Lil Nas X.
I’m not really a rap fan. Unless it’s “Rapper’s Delight” by the Sugar Hill Gang. Back in the day, I could recite every word.

“Everybody go: Hotel, motel, Holiday Inn
You see, if your girl starts actin up, then you take her friend.”

Still love it. 😂😜💃

But this summer, everyone was singing “Old Town Road.” I’m pretty sure I was one of 5 people in the world who had not heard this song by July.

Until Lil Nas X landed on the cover of Time. In record time, I might add. Less than 9 months from his debut of “Old Town Road” on SoundCloud as a complete unknown to the cover of Time magazine. Unheard of.

How did he come from nowhere, overnight? (It’s never overnight, btw.)

He did it, almost exclusively, on Twitter.

Less than a year ago Montero Lamar Hill was a college dropout living on his sister’s couch in Atlanta, Georgia.

He was promoting comedy videos and his music on Instagram and Twitter but getting no real traction.

Last October he bought a “beat” off BeatStars from a Dutch guy named YoungKio for $30 and made a song. That song was “Old Town Road.” He released it independently on SoundCloud.

It got some traction on Twitter, so he kept it up. Lil Nas has a great sense of humor, so he started creating memes for Old Town Road. One after another…all day, every day.

He anonymously asked about his own song on Reddit. “What’s the name of that song that goes, “take my horse to the old town road?” The account has since been deleted, and the post archived but the comments tell the story of the “new marketing.”

He replied to Twitter stories by the hundreds always adding to his comments “…I made Old Town Road, by the way.” Social skills any marketing guru would be proud of.

The song went viral on the video-sharing platform Tik Tok. Everyone was doing their best cowboy impression of Lil Nas X and Old Town Road. #yeehaw

“Social media was one of the biggest factors in the song’s success. Social media is the biggest factor in every song’s success nowadays.” -Lil Nas X

But perhaps the biggest mover for the song was a social media controversy on Twitter. When Billboard decided that “Old Town Road” didn’t have enough “country music elements” to be listed on the Billboard Country Charts, it got the boot. This created a firestorm on Twitter. Which helped pushed the song to its meteoric rise. Thanks, Billboard!

Billy Ray Cyrus, a country legend (depending on how you look at it), put Billboard in its place on Twitter. He loved “Old Town Road.”

So he and Lil Nas X paired up. A snazzy video shoot, a little remix, and bam—no. 1 on the Hot 100 for 19 weeks and the first of what’s sure to be many awards (two MTV Music Video Awards including Song of the Year).

Billy Ray’s advice to Lil Nas? “Think like there is no box.” Amen, Billy Ray. Amen.

Lil Nas X decided he wanted to go viral, and he made it happen. He stayed focused like a laser beam. And he got a little help from his friends.

Time named him one of the 25 most influential people on the internet for his “global impact on social media” and “overall ability to drive news.”

“This is no accident. I’ve been pushin’ this hard.” -Lil Nas X

When Lil Nas X recorded this song, and up until the shooting of the music video, he had never been on a horse.

You can make whatever happen you want to have happen. And you can use social media to grow your business. If you don’t know how I’ll help you. We all get by with a little help from our friends.

Always behind you 1,000%-
Julia

PS – To get help all you have to do is click here.

This day (really the whole dang week) could have gone to hell in a handbasket. Fast.

It’s been one challenge after another (super sick pup, bank screwups, delayed flights, and more). None of it, of course, was on my schedule, so it was a lot, as in hours, of wasted time. (Would that we could schedule in time to deal with these kinds of ugly surprises – crystal ball, perhaps? Tea leaves might be helpful? They work on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel…😜)

As I was walking back into my office today, I thought, “it’s really tempting to sit down and wallow in aggravation and self-pity for a bit. To let myself get whiney and yell at the air.”

Instead of giving in to self-pity and despair and a bag of Ruffles, I sat down and got back to work. With a song in my heart and a smile on my face. 😘

It would also have been really easy to let my frustration come through on the phone with the representatives at the bank who were trying to help me. But instead, I had all three of them laughing.

I’m not a spiritual guru. I am not so enlightened that nothing bothers me. I don’t have an extra stash of willpower.

I’ll give yoga some of the credit but not all. What’s helped me more than anything has been books.

In the past, I would have let this week’s challenges control my thoughts. I would have used them as an excuse to call all my girlfriends and complain, snap at everyone I ran across, and eat my weight in Ruffles. But now it’s a mere blip on the radar screen.

I’m sharing with you the three books that have helped me the most. I read parts of them over and over. I cling to them like Elbie with a beef bone.

These books don’t teach you how to treat other people or control your temper. They teach you how to treat yourself. Once you have that down, treating others with the same respect, love, and compassion you have for yourself is easy.

These books are about habits, thoughts, and your brain. Read and use the information in all three and you will literally be unstoppable.

1. Atomic Habits by James Clear

The bad habits you continue to repeat will compound and wreck your life. The same is true for good habits.  Practice them over and over, and it will create so much good in your life, you will hardly be able to stand yourself. Creating good habits is not about willpower or energy or finding more motivation.

Chapter three of this book tells you what creating good habits IS about. I’ve read that chapter about 28 times. The rest of the book lays out the exact process so that the good habits stick and the bad ones fall right off you.

You don’t have to get it right 100% of the time. He says the 80/20 rule applies to forming good habits the same as anywhere else in life (nutrition, exercise, marketing…).

The quality of our lives depends on the quality of our habits.

No truer statement has ever been written.

2. You are a Badass by Jen Sincero.

It’s tough for me to describe how good this book is.

I have clients order it when they are stuck in their businesses. I have gotten thank you notes for recommending it and testimonials on how it changed their lives. Even though I didn’t write it. She says everything I would say and saves me the trouble. This is what that looks like:

Stop flip-flopping between freaking out in your head and “breathing into the now.”

No matter how smart you are, you are not aware of what’s available to you.

You get to choose how you perceive your reality.

We invest in what other people believe we should invest in. Stop doing that.

When you think, after the fact, “I should have listened to my gut,” you need to learn to listen to your gut.

The moment you have the audacity to start believing in the not-yet seen, your reality will begin to shift.

Stop talking about how busy you are.

Nothing has any value other than the value we put on it.

Jen Sincero’s background (punk rock band member, lesbian dating coach among others) reads like that of someone who should be living in their mother’s basement instead of coaching people to more success than they ever thought possible while making millions herself.

Jen uses her real-life stories of failure to illustrate how you can achieve success.

I’ve had clients order the paperback, read it, and turn right around and order the hardback. They loved it that much. Because it’s the manual on how to “get over your crap and start living an awesome life.”

It’s stuff you’ve probably heard before but, as my good friend and expert book reviewer Jesse Kornbluth said, “It’s straight-up Eastern wisdom, translated into current lingo.” And as Jen Sincero says, “This shit works.”

3. Back in Charge! A guide to harnessing the magic of your brain to create the life you’ll love by Dr. Adrianne Ahern

Let’s get right to the fact that I think the title of this book not only stinks, but it also doesn’t do it justice.

This book was buried in a Google search I did on a story about a tiger named Mohini.

There was a .pdf download of the intro, and that was so powerful I bought the book.

You see everything you need to see precisely when you need to see it.

Dr. Ahern, a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, teaches you everything you need to understand about your brain to make all the stuff you read in books 1 and 2 above work.

Ever wonder why not everyone who reads “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill or Zig Ziglar’s “Secrets of Closing the Sale” is filthy rich? It’s because all the ideas, motivation, processes, and affirmations in the world will never work until your brain gets on board with it.

And our brains are stuck in subconscious beliefs that don’t serve us.

This is not a book full of warm and fuzzy Eckhart Tolle ideology or Oprah Winfrey quotes.

It’s cold, hard facts about what your brain is up to when you’re not looking, the physiology behind it, and the scientific studies and processes on how to get control back and rewire your brain to accomplish what you want to accomplish.

And it’s old school—the book comes with CD’s (my computer doesn’t even have a disk drive anymore) with all the brain-rewiring exercises she teaches her clients in her private practice (the exercises are in the book too, this is just a bonus).

I have loved every single word. This is the book that will make all the self-help books on your shelf work for you.

She talks about fMRI’s, neuroplasticity, psychoneuromuscular theory (the science of training muscles with visualization), and cultural conditioning (more importantly, how to reverse it).

But the chapter that surprised me the most was Chapter 5—Power of Breath. I was ready to be so bored. Breath? Really? I’m a yogi. Don’t talk to me about breath. Humph.

But as much as I’ve loved every chapter, this one held my attention word for word. Did you know we lose 10-27 percent of our lung capacity every year starting in our late 20’s?

“Think about that statistic: if we lose 10 percent to 27 percent of our lung capacity every year, we are losing 10 percent to 27 percent of our ability to exhale toxins as well. Our breathing is responsible for releasing 70 percent of all toxins and waste entering and produced by the body; elimination and sweating release the remaining 30 percent. The volume of waste and toxins entering and created by our bodies certainly doesn’t decrease as we age. So if our lungs lose capacity over the years and their ability to release toxins is compromised, where do all those unreleased toxins go? Research shows that these unreleased toxins sit in our cells. As scary as this sounds, the good news is that we can reverse this process by learning how to breathe properly.”

Well, thank goodness. Chapter 5 teaches you how to breathe properly. And yes, this is relevant, in fact vital, to rewiring your brain for success (at anything). And it’s a sneaky reason as to why yoga “works.”

If you only order one book ever again in your whole life, order this one. And FYI—Dr. Ahern is still practicing in San Diego, California. If you want to skip the book and go big, look her up.

What does this have to do with marketing, Julia? 🤔

I can teach you strategies all day long. What to say on video, blog topics to cover, how to update the backend of your WordPress website, the keys to social media ad success—all the things. But if your habits, thoughts, and your brain aren’t aligned with the activity, it won’t happen. I see it every, single day. In myself and my clients.

Teaching marketing strategy has become the easy part of my business. I watch clients pick that stuff up faster than Superman can leap a tall building. Once they get going. AKA as soon as the fear of failure, the fear of success, and the comfort zone get out of the way.

And that’s why we talk about how to rewire the brain, build good habits, and control our thoughts. It has everything to do with your success.

Always behind you 1,000%-
Julia