We were lucky to catch up with Linda Vogt recently and have shared our conversation below.
Linda, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
Growing up, my family didn’t really have a lot. My brothers and I learned as kids to be content with what we had, to make the best out of sometimes difficult situations, and to be patient. Throughout my life, I’ve had to pivot my plans quite a few times; and, as everyone does, I learned a lot of lessons when things didn’t work out exactly how I wanted or planned! Those early values of contentment, patience, and endurance are so necessary when building resilience – and things that I hope I can instill in my kids, as well.
Starting and growing a business are continual lessons in resilience. When I started my business, I really wasn’t sure how it would go (or grow), and found myself trying a lot of different things just to see what might work. Early on, I began to remind myself that being patient and growing slow were just fine. And I set a goal for myself to do one thing each day to move my business closer to where I eventually wanted it to be.
Eventually, as I took small steps, I began to see results – sometimes more slowly than expected and often not in ways that I had anticipated. I began to understand better what things I could control, and to hold more loosely the things that I cannot control.
I think my own resilience is still growing. I’m not always great at pivoting in my professional or personal life, but as I’ve had the opportunity to grow, I can begin to see my own improvement.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
When people ask what I do and I tell them “social media strategy & management”, I often get responses like, “Oh, I HATE social media!” As a business owner myself, I understand the feeling! Gone are the days where you could create a magazine ad or TV spot and have that run for the next month or two. Instead, we’re now constantly creating content for our businesses, and that can feel overwhelming and often fruitless.
But, I love social media marketing, because it’s such a natural part of how we interact with businesses now. We recommend restaurants, dentists, and accountants to our friends on social media. We love watching creative and insightful content from our favorite brands and organizations. And, if we need help or support with a more niche problem, we can probably find a content creator or group that supports that need.
Brands and businesses have a unique opportunity with social media to really reach their intended client or customer – whether they live just down the street or across the country. But too many times, solopreneurs or business owners are left wondering how or what to post on social media, and end up posting things that don’t serve their brand – or even stop using social media all together.
I am a social media manager who believes that all good social media marketing starts with a really great strategy. Once you have a strategy in place, content creation becomes easier, because you know exactly what and how to post to get the most benefit for your business.
That’s why my most popular service is always a Social Media Strategy Session. This one time session is targeted and individualized for each particular brand or business, so that you can finally begin to see what success in social media might look like for your business.
I also have several full-service social media strategy & management clients who benefit from having a lot of the “tasks” of social media off of their plate, so they can dive in to their areas of expertise in their business.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
I think three skills or qualities that have really benefited me along the way have been teach-ability, playing to my strengths, and a growth mindset.
I don’t have a marketing degree. All my degrees are in education – which means I’m really great at two things: teaching people how to learn new stuff, and learning new stuff! Even if I HAD gotten a marketing degree, so much has changed about marketing (Facebook was just getting started when I was in college… dating myself a little, here.), that learning new things, keeping up with changes in social media, adjusting to how people now buy and discover new things would all still need to be a part of how I do business. So, no, I don’t know all the answers. But I absolutely am confident that I can find out and learn whatever I don’t know yet.
I have two kids who are neurodivergent, which means their brains think and work differently than most people. At times, this means that they feel not as smart or as capable as their peers. But that’s not an accurate view of themselves (and some of the world’s most genius people were/are neurodivergent!) So we focus a lot on identifying strengths and playing to those strengths. As a business owner, I know how to play to my strengths – and outsource the stuff that I’m not so great at.
Whenever you start something new, you’re most likely going to suck at it at first. And no matter how great (or bad) attempt #3 looks like, it’s going to be so much better by attempt #57. A growth mindset allows me not to see setbacks as failures, missteps as critical mistakes, and stuff that doesn’t work out as opportunities for change. I’m not going to get it right on the first try at least some of the time, and things can feel like failure that really aren’t.
If you’re just starting out as an entrepreneur, it can be really overwhelming to realize all that you don’t know about running a business or selling your product, or actually finding the best way to get your offer to the people who need it the most. It was so helpful to me to have a couple people surrounding me, reminding me that small steps forward were still growth, that my imposter syndrome wasn’t facts, and that they believed in me. Finding the right people along the way has made all the difference.
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
I love this question! Collaboration is one of my favorite things as a solopreneur, because too often it feels like I’m going along on my own – and it’s always better to go with others.
I serve businesses, entrepreneurs, and online coaches/ course creators, with organic social media strategy and management and am always looking for people who provide services that these types of businesses need, too, like branding and messaging, copywriting, website creation, funnel building, and paid social media. I’d love to be a resource for your clients, and to be able to refer my clients to qualified professionals that can help them with their other digital marketing needs.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.lvsocialcontent.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lvsocialcontent/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lvsocialcontent
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/linda-vogt-033206247/
