Celebrating 2 Years of Serve Me the Sky Digital
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Picking a business anniversary is a funny thing. There are many dates I could have chosen: June 2017, when I signed my first freelance client. July 2018, when I got my DBA. But the day I chose to celebrate is May 6th, because that’s when it felt most real. That was the first day I sat down to work for myself full-time after walking away from my stable day job.
When I celebrated this milestone last May, we were two months into a global pandemic that no one would have guessed we’d still be living through a year later. Running a business during a global pandemic is hard! It seemed that with many organizations, when times got tough, marketing was an easy thing to slash from the budget. To get me through a slow time, I picked up some part-time work as a contact tracer, which was fascinating and engaging. Business has been ramping back up, and I’m so excited about that!
In addition to running a business during a global pandemic, I also had to navigate doing so while helping care for my mother as she declined due to stage 4 cancer, then grieving and taking bereavement time while self-employed. This year was a lot to handle. I’m proud that my business is still standing here strong today, after a super difficult year.
Favorite Projects
I work with so many amazing clients that it’s hard to narrow it down to just a few favorite projects to highlight! Here’s a small snapshot of some of the projects that I loved working on this year.
Social Media Audit for BOA Editions
As a voracious reader, I was thrilled to be able to work with a small publishing house last fall! BOA Editions is a small, independent press that publishes poetry, fiction, and poetry in translation. They received a grant from the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses that helped fund our work together! I reviewed BOA’s presence on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Pinterest, then provided best practices, recommendations, and creative tactics they could utilize to take their social media marketing to the next level.
“Emily’s work for BOA was invaluable! My first implementation of one of her tips provided immediate results. Emily was invested, thorough, and able to answer every question we sent her way.”
Virtual Presentations
Over the course of the pandemic, I grew more accustomed to virtual presentations. I gave two with Rochester Youth Year and one with the Rochester Brainery, and have learned different ways to make content more engaging in the Zoom format! One change that’s been helpful is incorporating more questions throughout my slides. This gives me a chance to pause, catch my breath, and gauge where the audience is at. It helps makes things more interactive in a medium where it can sometimes end up feeling one-sided. Utilizing the chat has also been useful! Great conversations take place there throughout class, and reading the comments out loud can help those participants feel heard.
“Emily’s workshops get rave reviews every time! She embraces researched statistics, best practices, and specific examples to illustrate concepts. ”
Social Media Audit & Strategy for Genesee Country Village & Museum
More and more clients are opting to do both an audit and strategy together, which is awesome, because these two types of projects work well in tandem. The audit allows me to review the current social media performance and processes, laying a strong foundation for the strategy, in which I do research and benchmarking against peer organizations and develop thoughtful strategies and tactics that can help organizations effectively tackle their social media goals. The Genesee Country Village & Museum project was especially fun since I was a history major in college and visited their living village many times growing up! It was so interesting to do a deep dive and benchmark against their peer institutions in other states.
1:1 Consultations
I always enjoy sitting down with folks for one-on-one consultations, and I was lucky enough to do several fun ones this year! One of my favorites I’m sadly not able to tell you about, because I had to sign an NDA. I’ll just say that I helped an individual with some degree of fame learn how to navigate Instagram so they could grow their following and start getting deals with major brands. They were wonderful to work with! I also did 1:1 sessions with fellow freelancers, a literary magazine founder, and a higher education professional.
Lessons Learned
Don’t Waste Your Energy
Last year, I wrote about how difficult it is to find the right fit with clients. It’s hard to say no, especially when it’s a pandemic and business is slow! I’m trying to implement “don’t waste your energy” in two different ways.
Stop chasing. If I have a call or Zoom with a prospective client and send a proposal, I may send one follow-up email, but I’m not going to chase them down. I want clients to be excited to work with me. If it’s like pulling teeth getting them to respond to me, that’s a sign they may be difficult to communicate with as a client.
A no is a no. I’ve niched down a bit in the past year, which is great! I love working with nonprofits and small businesses. If it’s completely outside that realm, it’s okay to just say no. It’s not worth an awkward exploratory call and in-depth proposal if it’s not something I’m excited about.
Keep Going
I think I already knew this one, but this past year has really driven this point home. There will always be ups and downs with running your own business. That’s extra-true when a global pandemic is going on! It has been reassuring to see business pick back up--there are highs and lows, and the pandemic was a particularly low low. But I kept working hard, writing helpful blog content, teaching classes to business owners, and crafting my unboring email newsletter. All of those things kept me top of mind for folks when they were ready to invest in social and digital efforts again!
Looking Ahead
LinkedIn Profile Writing -- Recently, I offered LinkedIn profile writing as a service for the first time, and I would love to do more of that in the future! I’ve given presentations on LinkedIn and personal brand before, so this type of project was the perfect fusion of that knowledge with my writing skills.
Strategy Work -- I’ve continued to enjoy strategy work more than day to day social media management. My plate is full with ongoing social media management, so I’m looking to keep booking more social strategy projects moving forward!
Creative Writing -- Last year I wrote that I wanted to do more ‘fun writing,’ like humor writing or author interviews. I didn’t expect that just a month later, I would throw myself into creative writing! I ended up writing 26 short stories last year and now am dabbling in memoir writing. I can’t wait to keep writing creatively; it’s fulfilling and meaningful on a whole other level.
Thank you for reading and supporting me along this journey! I can only imagine what opportunities and challenges the next year of Serve Me the Sky Digital will bring. For more reflections, subscribe to my unboring email newsletter.
