Rebecca (00:01.394)
Hello and welcome to the Champagne Lounge podcast. If you're new to the show, this show is all about our fabulous members inside the Champagne Lounge and it goes into who they are, what they do and why they love what they do, having an impact out there on the community. Today I'm joined by the wonderful Erika McInerney. Welcome.
Erika McInerney (00:21.346)
Thank you for having me. It's lovely to see you. I haven't checked into any of the sessions in the last week. So it's nice to see your face.
Rebecca (00:29.574)
You know, it's lovely to see your face too. And you know what, that's a beautiful thing to open with because the champagne I'm just all about coming when you have the time and have the capacity to. So you've been to sessions this month at least, which is fabulous. Yeah. Now, Erica, you are now working, helping business owners navigate their social media and marketing. But what started your entrepreneurial journey and what has brought you to where you are today?
Erika McInerney (00:43.85)
Yes, absolutely.
Erika McInerney (01:00.026)
Ooh, that's a bit of a story, no. Well, I grew up in a regional area, which is where I am now, West Gippsland, Gippsland. And when I headed off to uni, I studied media and comms and ended up working in advertising for like, I think 16, 17 years in Melbourne and a little stint in London as you do. And...
Rebecca (01:26.766)
I think all Aussies tend to go over stint in London.
Erika McInerney (01:29.442)
Yeah, yeah, got to do the got to do the London thing. And then I met my husband. And at the time, I was a general manager at agency in Melbourne, and we got married, had a baby. And then I realized that life was really different with a baby. And I couldn't do the hours like work.
was so important to me for so long. And I realized how much time and effort I put into it. I just couldn't do that anymore. So we started thinking about moving to the country so that I could not work for a bit and have a second child. And then we moved to Warragul, which is where I am now. That was about 12 years ago. And I was going to just chill. I was done with advertising. I didn't wanna work in marketing advertising anymore, but...
Rebecca (02:00.754)
Yeah.
Erika McInerney (02:22.33)
after a very brief stint of being a stay-at-home mom, I just got bored. And so I started, the thing that sort of kickstarted this business, I started a farmer's market with a friend and that got really successful really quickly. And a lot of it was due to social media, which was just, this was sort of back in 2013. So it was really just up and coming then. And I just loved it. I just got so deep into
particularly Facebook at the time, just noticing how, you know, even just organic posting would bring crowds, would reach people, you know, everywhere. And I just, yeah, I just really fell in love with it. So I decided a few years later, after helping so many storeholders and other business owners get started for a coffee, I thought, well, maybe I could just...
Rebecca (03:19.518)
Thanks for watching!
Erika McInerney (03:21.462)
do this for a job. Maybe I could just train people on how to do this and charge for it. And so, so McInerney was born in... Yes, yes. Well, it's a very hard name to pronounce. And so, yeah, I used to always say, it's like McInerney is the way that you pronounce it. Yeah.
Rebecca (03:30.47)
Yep. Which I love, by the way, as a play on your name.
Rebecca (03:45.147)
Yeah.
Erika McInerney (03:46.814)
Anyway, so yeah, here we are. I think I went, I was working part-time in marketing at the time and I think it only took, I sort of launched about February, March and then by July, I was just full-time. I had to quit my job and yeah, just have not slowed down since it's been crazy.
Rebecca (04:03.451)
Wow.
Rebecca (04:07.706)
That's amazing. That's amazing. And so you said you've moved back regional, you've helped a lot of people when you were before you started the business in terms of those stall holders and the clients you're working with now predominantly regional as well or are they varying around Australia and different types of businesses?
Erika McInerney (04:24.438)
Yeah, well, I've really tried to focus in on regional areas. So I've got clients all over Australia. I've got clients in New Zealand as well, because a lot of our a lot of things have really good crossover. We're quite similar in the way we do things. And the reason that I focus on regional areas is that I feel like small towns and regional areas get a bit of a rough deal. And and they just they can't necessarily afford a big city agency. And even if they could
They don't get it. They don't, they don't, yeah, they just can't, they just can't, yeah, you know, you live in a regional area. It's a really special kind of vibe. And particularly if you are trying to reach a local audience, you really do need to have someone who understands that sort of country vibe. So yeah, so that's where my main passion is. I do have Melbourne clients, but generally I try to keep it regional.
Rebecca (04:55.166)
It's not right.
Rebecca (05:03.686)
I know, yeah.
Rebecca (05:24.062)
Yeah, amazing. And so in terms of the social media element, that is a changing beast, Erica, like all the time, all the time. How do you stay on top of all the changes so that you can help your clients navigate them?
Erika McInerney (05:38.894)
I see these bags under my eyes. I spend a lot of time, I've got, you know, like I go to trusted sources for all of my information and I do that regularly. And whenever a new, something new comes out, the first thing I do is I get my head around what it is. And then I...
Rebecca (05:41.912)
No, the lighting is fabulous, makeup is great. Perfect for a podcast.
Erika McInerney (06:07.27)
start to think about how that's going to be used or how that affects my audience, my clients. So really just sort of translating that. So if there's a trend that comes out and everybody's doing it, I always look at it and I think, okay, well, that's cool for that. But what about this? And how could these people use it? And yeah, so I really, I don't know. I mean, I've got
lot of, I've got a few degrees, got a master's in marketing, I've got a customer, you know, a degree in customer experience, I've got all of this education. And so it's really easy for me to apply that sort of marketing science, and my understanding of consumer behavior and my understanding of, you know, experience to, to whatever's coming out, translate, translate that for, you know, for like a small business owner. That answered that.
Rebecca (07:03.738)
Yeah, that does make sense. No, it makes complete sense because it is, it's hard I think being a business owner and having to wear all those hats to try and understand all these different platforms and be on top of it and be creating content and, like the list completely just goes off the rails. So working with your clients and from your experience, what would you say to a small business owner now, regionally or in the cities going,
But all right, do I need to be on every platform? How do I navigate this from the beginning? Do I need to be posting every day? Where can someone start? If they're just feeling the overwhelm right now.
Erika McInerney (07:41.394)
Yeah, do you know, I actually just had a mentoring session with someone just this week who she hasn't used social media since 2018. And I firstly, I was just so jealous. Can you imagine?
Rebecca (07:55.938)
I was just, that was my thing. Awesome. That sounds great.
Erika McInerney (07:59.662)
And then she's starting a business that really does require her to use social media. There's just no, there's no getting around it. So, so that was just that, that initial session, just even just talking about it with her was crazy because usually I, I work with people who are at least using it for personal use. So we really talked about prioritizing, just as one example, we talked about prioritizing and
and saying, well, get really good at one thing, get really good at one thing and then you can add another one into the mix. And we sort of settled on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram as three channels that she might use, but really going in hard on LinkedIn in the first instance to build those networks and those connections and use Facebook and Instagram more as like little mini websites. So not...
making sure they're all filled out, making sure you've got all the right information on there, and posting from time to time, but not stressing too much about it. So, and you know, you could flip that advice and say, if you thought Instagram was going to be the place where your audience was most likely to connect or buy from you or whatever, just trying to do everything all at once when you're just starting out is quite difficult. Instagram is a very, very
content hungry little beasts these days, as you well know. And...
Rebecca (09:29.346)
Yes. And in so many different ways as well, like posting lives, reels, videos, carers. Oh my gosh. How many different types of content on one platform? Yeah. Mental.
Erika McInerney (09:32.471)
Mmm.
Erika McInerney (09:36.138)
Yeah. And you, you gotta do it all. You gotta do it all. There's the other day I was, I was talking to someone about Instagram and I was showing, I actually just had it up and we were going through it all. And I was like, there's like 15, 16 more now surfaces where you can either post content or your content is displayed. And
Rebecca (10:00.495)
Wow, I thought that was five, that's 15.
Erika McInerney (10:02.538)
Well, it's like a, it's, there's multiple apps, but like, if you think about it, like even if you post a reel, your reel is shown in the feed. Your reel is shown in your reel section. It's also shown in the, um, in the song. Um, sort of discovery, you know, in the song page.
Rebecca (10:06.894)
That's true.
Rebecca (10:20.511)
Oh, okay. So you're not talking necessarily the type of content, but it's where it's shown in all the areas. Yeah.
Erika McInerney (10:25.074)
Yeah, yeah, like the Instagram calls them surfaces, which is I don't like it as a word, but anyway, but yeah, like it just goes to show you how, you know, how, how far you need to think ahead about where your, where your content is going to be and what it says and what type of audience is going to see that. Is it, is it a new audience? Is it an existing audience? Yeah. It's crazy, crazy. I could go on about it all day.
Rebecca (10:43.998)
Mm-hmm.
Rebecca (10:53.598)
I'm sorry.
Erika McInerney (10:53.854)
Sorry, my cat is doing zoomies around the house.
Rebecca (10:57.266)
I love it. You know what? I am, I'll let you into a secret about filming with animals and doing podcasts with animals. I was doing a podcast with, as a guest on somebody else's podcast and she saw my hand go down because my dog was squeaking a toy right next to me like squeaking and she didn't bat an eyelid and I'm like, I don't understand. So I sort of went, got to pause it and I stopped and grabbed the toy and she goes, I couldn't hear a thing.
You know, so the microphone I'm obviously using for this is phenomenal. And so I was getting distracted by this squeaker toy, which is what you just did with your zoomies, but I don't think I even clocked it. The joy of animal life.
Erika McInerney (11:34.212)
Well, he quite often runs and jumps up onto the desk in front of me. So I was just waiting, but it didn't happen. Thank you.
Rebecca (11:42.754)
I love it, I love it, I think that's great. And so one of the things, back to all things social, because I've got so many questions that I think are going around people's brains. I've started to just replicate and duplicate content every sort of three months in the process of, there's just so much to say. I change the pictures, I tweak the text, but you know, change it up, because actually I have a philosophy that you have to keep saying the same thing almost on repeat so that people know
Erika McInerney (11:49.839)
Moon
Rebecca (12:12.826)
It sounds boring to you, but it could be fresh to somebody else. Like what are the little hacks that you're giving clients or can share with us today that can take some of that pressure off and I suppose, am I doing the wrong thing by doing that?
Erika McInerney (12:25.55)
because I mean marketing has always been about repetition and we know that repetition builds that recognition so you're doing the right thing for sure I mean a lot of people take that idea of re-re-purposing recycling content to the you know to a bad place in my opinion when they just repeat the same content over and over again. But these days
because the same people aren't seeing your content. And if you're growing, if you're growing new audiences all the time, nobody's scrolling back. No one's looking at what you did six months ago. So the likelihood of someone sort of looking at that piece of content and going, oh, I remember she did that. It's pretty rare. And so no, I think you're doing the right thing. And I do encourage people to do that. I encourage people to
Rebecca (13:15.826)
She did that in April. Yeah.
Erika McInerney (13:23.666)
actually create content in other people call it batching and but it's really just understanding or getting ahead around what your key messages are and then if you're going to create content, if you're going to spend time creating content, focus in on a particular message on a particular topic that you know you're going to have to talk about time and time again and when you get in a
So you could sit down and you could create 10 pieces of content on that particular topic and then do that once a month. And if you do that 10 times with 10 different ideas, 10 different topics, then you've got 10 posts a month that are different, same, but different, that speak to your key messages, that have all the right calls to action, that do all the things that you want it to do that are valuable for your audiences, but they're different. And...
And that's if my maths, I'm not very good with maths, but that's like a hundred posts. And you can do it if you really understand your, and you've done the work on the key messages and understanding your audiences. And yeah, that's the kind of advice I love to give people.
Rebecca (14:40.03)
I love that advice too because actually being someone that started to put that into practice in the last six months. So previously I've found myself wanting to do things in that way, but kind of like chasing my tail on like, oh God, I've got nothing this week to post and I'm sort of doing it on the fly to actually dedicating time in my calendar, turning off all other distractions and going, this day is my creation day and I'm just gonna get it done. But the ability to create the amount of content and just.
schedule out a whole month in a day is quite freeing, particularly as a business owner that you're like, it's done, yay, high five someone.
Erika McInerney (15:12.766)
Yeah, it feels good.
Erika McInerney (15:17.471)
Yeah, that feels good. I'm a little bit behind in my own stuff at the moment and it sucks. On that like content creation day, another little tip that I give to people is to break your content creation up into chunks. So I like to break up, I call it one section of my content creation research and that's when you're looking in the channels.
looking for ideas, seeing what other people are doing, seeing what's trending, looking outside the channels, looking at the news. Like, I don't know, this will date this podcast, but you know, Britney Spears book at the moment is like super trendy. Can you relate that to your business or brand?
Rebecca (16:00.846)
You know what? I haven't even seen that come up. So like, there we go. That's how often I'm scrolling. Ha ha ha.
Erika McInerney (16:06.155)
But then, but if you if you do that research and then you move straight into content creation, you feel you get you can get overwhelmed, you fall into that comparison, either as you might start copying, because you've just seen it. So I like to do research. And then I like to do ideas. So just brain dumping ideas, looking at your calendar, seeing what's coming up, what, what do you
what are you doing, what's happening in the world, da, and you start to pull together a whole bunch of ideas and then have a session where you just create. So you're not feeling overwhelmed by what everyone else is doing, you're really focusing in on your ideas. And, you know, getting ideas from other people is great. It's a great thing to do, but you know, that straight up copying.
Rebecca (16:40.292)
Nice.
Erika McInerney (16:57.642)
whilst you can do it and you can get away with it and it's fine and all the rest it'll make you feel well most people make you feel icky it'll make you not connect with your own content and um yeah and that's uh yeah i don't i personally don't like that feeling i know a lot of people don't like that feeling when they make something that's not theirs and they feel like they're always worried they're going to get kind of caught out so that's my other tip is yeah
Rebecca (17:05.778)
Yeah.
Rebecca (17:20.438)
Yeah, no, I love that. I love that, Tevin. Actually, it's a really powerful one because that Comparinitis piece can creep up and just eat at you and eat at you. And so I actually love that doing the research piece. Maybe I just do that too late at night scrolling. Just, oh, that'll be good. That'll be good. That'll be fun. Yeah.
Erika McInerney (17:35.046)
Yeah well that's what this yeah save the save in uh instagram is uh it's great i never actually i've got so many things saved i never go back to them yeah
Rebecca (17:47.902)
Occasionally do, occasionally do, but it's normally when I'm like traveling solo for work and I go back and I've got time. Otherwise I really try and be, really try and be present. So like I'm trying to be present when I'm watching TV and not have my phone on, you know, I'm trying just to make sure that I'm present in all those areas. That means when I've scrolled and saved, I have to make time to go back in.
Erika McInerney (17:55.275)
Mm.
Rebecca (18:12.018)
have a look, it's the same for my photos. I don't know about you with your, when we're taking so many photos, we're like, oh, use that for social, oh, I'll do that. I use flight time, so time on flights, to sit and categorize all my photos into albums so that then I can go and find them in specific areas and I just take that time to just sort through them and delete the crappy ones, which when I shared that to people, they're like, that's a genius way to use that spare time. Yeah.
Erika McInerney (18:32.403)
Yeah, that's a great idea.
Erika McInerney (18:36.714)
Yeah, I use, I have my camera all hooked up to Google Photos, because I find Google Photos, once you've plugged in all the faces of everyone, you can search for location, you can search by fate, like person at location, so you can sort of remember, you can search for like red roses, or anything like that and it'll find it for you.
Rebecca (18:58.702)
Yes.
Erika McInerney (19:04.086)
I'm terrible at categorizing, but that sounds like a really good idea. I need to get on more flights.
Rebecca (19:09.074)
Get on more flights or on road trips. No, it's more categorized around, this was the event I was at, or this is a podcast idea or anything like that. So yeah, there's my little content creation hack as well to add to Erica's joy, joyous golden nuggets that we've got today. Now Erica, I love celebrating when I've nailed my content creation. I get all excited, like, yes, I've nailed it. At the end of this week of all my podcasting, because I batch my podcasts as well as my social content.
Erika McInerney (19:14.103)
Mmm.
Rebecca (19:36.626)
I'm going to celebrate the fact I've recorded 25 this week and I'm all for the celebration of things. In your business, you're a member of the Champagne Land, so this question shouldn't come as a surprise and to our regular listeners, it shouldn't either. But what was the last thing you celebrated in your business as a milestone and how did you go about celebrating it? And the reason I ask that question is because as female business owners, we're like, oh, next thing, next thing, next thing. And we never actually stop and go, oh, I did that. So
What was your thing? What have you done recently that you really either should have celebrated or have celebrated and how did you do it?
Erika McInerney (20:09.186)
Hmm
Erika McInerney (20:14.366)
recently I kind of I started planning for next year and in doing so I started to think about this time last year and this time the year before and the feeling that I always have every year as I just hurtle into Christmas as stressed as stressed and I realised that I hadn't that
solid, that I had enough. And so I actually for the first time ever I kind of said that. And I know that's not really a celebration, but I actually put it out there and I said, well I'm booked now and I'm not taking any more bookings, but I'll be reopened, you know, like from February on. And I don't know, I mean I guess I didn't necessarily celebrate that probably because I've got so much work to do.
Rebecca (20:54.592)
Yes.
Yeah.
Erika McInerney (21:12.034)
But, you know, for me that was a really great feeling because I often end the year stressed. I often then get to the end of like a three week break and I think, ooh, what's next? Am I gonna be okay this year? Is stuff coming in? And it always sort itself out. It always writes itself. So...
Rebecca (21:27.683)
Yes. Ha ha ha.
Erika McInerney (21:39.122)
One of the things I have done next year, and I've celebrated by booking some, I've got three trips planned next year, is that I have really sat down and really planned out my work so that I can take those trips and celebrate it actually just by booking flights to Greece with my bestie next year. So yeah, and I couldn't have done that if I hadn't really.
Rebecca (21:45.81)
Awesome.
Rebecca (22:04.548)
Fantastic!
Erika McInerney (22:07.498)
really genuinely planned out my years. So I'm, yeah, we'll see how I go.
Rebecca (22:12.402)
That's amazing. And I remember you saying, you know, in one of our meetups virtually that you'd booked out and I remember that everyone just being like, that's amazing. Go you like that's phenomenal. Because actually to recognize it and go, I have got enough now. Like you don't need to keep the hustle going means you can now go into that festive period or when this podcast episode drops, you'll be coming out of that festive period into an amazing, you know, planned out year where it's hopefully going to be a little bit less stressful, like in terms of, you know, you've got to organize, which is phenomenal.
Erika McInerney (22:38.519)
Yeah.
Rebecca (22:42.214)
Phenomenal work. Um, Erica, I think this podcast has been absolutely amazing for me, for our listeners. Um, I've loved our conversation. There's been some golden nuggets in it and I cannot wait to celebrate with you more when you nail more of those goals next year and see those snaps of those photos. So thank you for coming on the podcast and for being part of our beautiful champagne lounge community.
Erika McInerney (22:57.207)
Yes.
Erika McInerney (23:03.374)
Thanks for having me. It's been great Ali. I see the little notifications pop up and yeah and I always just want to jump in and see who's in the room. It's been really fun.
Rebecca (23:16.434)
Good, I'm so glad. I look forward to the next virtual meetup, my love. Have a fantastic day and thank you for coming on.
Erika McInerney (23:20.782)
Yes. Thank you. Bye.
