Beyond the Spotlight: The Business of Being a Social Media Influencer

Your Dream Business

In this episode we explore the inspiring journey of Georgia Williams, the professional singer and content creator who rose to fame on the BBC's The Voice. Georgia shares her experiences of overcoming public scrutiny and severe online trolling, her tools for building resilience and how she has built an awesome career. We get into strategies for balancing professionalism and personality on social media, including the benefits of content batching and leveraging of personal passions. In my opinion there are some real insights for anyone looking to build confidence and create authentic, engaging content online.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

1. Overcoming Online Toxicity: Georgia's experience navigating public scrutiny and online trolling highlights the importance of resilience and self-care in the digital age.
2. Balancing Professionalism and Personality: Striking the right balance between showcasing your professional skills and sharing your personal story is essential for authentic online content.
3. Leveraging Content Batching: Georgia's use of content batching demonstrates how planning and scheduling content can save time and ensure consistency.

If you enjoyed this episode then please feel free to go and share it on your social media or head over to Apple podcasts or Spotify and give me a review, I would be so very grateful.

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE

Connect with Georgia on Website, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, TikTok, Threads Spotify Freebies about create content with more confidence and how to batch Connect with Teresa on Website, The Club, Sign up to Teresa's email list, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter

Transcript

Teresa: If you're a personal brand, then you know the importance of putting yourself out there on social media. But one of the things I think lots of people get nervous about is what people are going to say about us and what if people say something mean. Well, today on the podcast, I interviewed the amazing Georgia Williams. Georgia's career started off as a singer and that included going on The Voice and getting mentored by Tom Jones. But unfortunately, while she was taking part in that process, She received a backlash on social media, including getting death threats. Not only did Georgia come through that experience, but she now uses it to help her help others become confident on social media and show up exactly as they are. In this episode, she shares with us how we can use our own passions and things that we love about ourselves to show up. She also helps us get out of that rut of wanting to create some social media and never quite getting around [00:01:00] to it. So if you are not feeling the love for social media at the moment, Or you just need a bit of a confidence boost and a bit of motivation on a Monday morning, then this is the episode for you. Welcome to the Your Dream Business Podcast. I'm your host, Therese Heath Waring, an international bestselling author, award winning speaker, TEDx speaker, certified coach, and the host of this number one ranked podcast. I am so excited to guide you on the journey of creating a business and life that you not only love, but one that perfectly aligns with you and the season of life that you're in. Each episode, I'll share with you easy, actionable, and insightful strategies to grow your online business. Plus, we'll be diving into some mindset, tools and strategies that keep you focused, motivated, and are going to stop you from getting in your own way. So if you're a course creator, a membership owner or coach, you are in the right place. Let's get started. Hello, and welcome back to another episode [00:02:00] of the Your Dream Business podcast. I am your host, as always, Teresa Heath Wareing. We all know that a crucial part of marketing our businesses is social media. And I don't mind admitting that I have lost the love a little bit for it recently, and I'm struggling just a tiny bit. So it's perfect timing that this week's episode is an interview with the awesome Georgia Williams, and we are talking all about social media. We talk about confidence on social media. And Georgia shares a story about how when she was on a national TV program, that she got a really awful backlash on social media, including things like death threats. And I think as business owners, we often fear putting ourselves out there because of what people will say. And the truth is that will probably, luckily never happen to most of us listening to this, but it did happen to G. And [00:03:00] she now uses getting through that as part of her driver to help people with confidence on social media and put themselves out there and do it in a confident way. But also I pick her brain about how do I fall back in love with social media or how do I get myself out of the rut of actually posting because I'd fallen out of this rut and it wasn't that there's no short of content because most of us know we have loads of content, but sometimes we just feel like I don't even know where to start or I can't be bothered or whatever it is. So, G actually takes me through kind of her thoughts in terms of getting started, getting that love back, feeling some motivation, which I think all of us feel like this at some point. So this is going to be really helpful, even if you're not in this position at the moment and you are flying with your social media. I think this is a really helpful thing to listen to. But like I said, the story of G being on this national TV program as a singer and what she went through is. [00:04:00] Really, really, it's a great story. And I took a whole lot away from it. So Georgia Williams is an award nominated content creator with over a decade of experience in social media marketing and Canva design. She's also now a Canvassador. I don't think I've said that right for Canva. She's the host of Content T with G, her popular global podcast, where she delivers a unique blend of creativity, social media content, and Northern charm, inspiring listeners worldwide to embrace their own authenticity and stand out through content creation. Not only is Georgia a full time content creator, she also performs regularly as a professional singer and has been featured in the Mirror, the Daily Mail, the BBC, and others. As a singer, she has entertained crowds up to 7, 000 people, solidifying her status as an international performer. With a unique blend of marketing knowledge and stage performance, Georgia is on a mission to help business owners create social media content with more joy, show up exactly as they are, both off [00:05:00] and online. You are going to love this episode. I love G. If you need a bit of Monday morning waking up, then this is going to give you just what you need. Here's the awesome G. Welcome to the podcast, the lovely G. Georgia: Yey. Hello. Hello. Teresa: I am so excited to have you here. This is, you are podcast interview number four of seven. And I feel like I couldn't have had it more perfectly timed with you in the middle to kind of, reinvigorate me, wake me up and go for the afternoon. I realized that obviously I call you G because that's what you want to be. That's what you go by, but your name is Georgia. So maybe I should say that so that if people do try and find you, they can find Georgia Williams. Sorry, but obviously I call you G. Not just me personally. That's not like a thing, just that I, just a special name that I have for it. That is what people call it. I mean, this is [00:06:00] such a great, you know, great intro to a podcast. Like, honestly, I am so professional. So I have just scrapped The way I'm doing intros to interviews. So normally I would start with the question, tell me how you got to do the thing you do today. And I'm scrapping that and I'm going straight in with the content. However, you have such a cool backstory that like, This is all I want to talk about, and I know people will want to hear about it. So tell us what you used to do, and then tell us what you do now. Georgia: So I used to work in social media for a marketing agency, employed, also being a singer, also being a blogger, like a cat who has nine lives, did a bit of everything, basically a creative person. It's probably the easiest way to sum up all my past lives, I would say. Teresa: Love it. And it wasn't just Like, one of the things that we want to talk about because one of the things that you share on social media and helping [00:07:00] people with content and show up on social media is the whole confidence and if you were to go and look at G's social media, so if you were to find Ray of Social, you will see someone who on the surface has bags of confidence, like no end of confidence. And I have no doubt that you would look at it as the listener and go, well, it's all right for G because she has all the confidence in the world. Was it always that way, G? Georgia: Absolutely not. It's weird now to see like this present G because when I think about past G, speaking of myself in the past tense there. Teresa: I love it. Georgia: I'm kind of a completely different person and I would, I wouldn't have ever had the audacity to speak to somebody like yourself or even come on a podcast, like at all, let alone have my own podcast. Like that just wasn't in the mix. Yes, I've been a singer, [00:08:00] but I wasn't actually a public singer for quite a lot of my life. Even though I've grown up as a musical family, it took me a long time, a lot of self work, a lot of therapy, a lot of other good stuff in the background, to be able to be that front face of my brand. And it blows my own mind, never mind people who look at my social because I think, how are you the same person? Are you sure? Because that just, I wouldn't have ever done anything like this. Teresa: So you said that you weren't a front facing. One of the things that we're going to talk about and we're bringing up is the fact that you went on a BBC TV program called The Voice, which if you're in other countries, I'm fairly confident they have The Voice in other countries, they do definitely have it in the States. So that wasn't just showing up a bit, that was literally putting yourself on primetime TV, like, so at this point, when you said you weren't front facing singer, had you become a front facing singer by that point when you put yourself on The Voice, or was [00:09:00] that part of getting out there? Georgia: I've kind of done a lot of studio work under another alias, and it wasn't, I wasn't the face of that. I was doing a lot of dance music under a completely different name, didn't have my face anywhere. And I'd always grown up singing in church. So whilst I was in the public, like it was like a church public, it wasn't prime time or it wasn't out there on social. It was just kind of in my comfort zone, really. Teresa: What made you sign up for The Voice? Georgia: The real reason, it's because my sister actually signed up to it and I found out and I was like wait a minute, I'm the singer in the family, like, why are you getting on it? Teresa: I love that. Nothing like sibling rivalry. Georgia: Really much. I thought, what if she goes on this programme and gets further and I sit there on my sofa watching it every week thinking, why didn't I apply for that because I'm the singer of the family. So she applied for it [00:10:00] and I applied for it in secret and didn't tell her and then I just kept getting through, she didn't get through and it was very awkward. But that's why I applied, just a bit of sibling rivalry basically. Teresa: That is hilarious. So not only did you apply, not only did you get on the actual show, but you got picked by the one and only Tom Jones. Georgia: Indeed. Teresa: How was that? Georgia: I actually didn't know he turned. I was completely just in the experience on stage looking at the crowd. The crowd's about 300 people in the audience at that time. That was the biggest audience I've ever sung to in that, in that audition. Teresa: You must have been absolutely petrified. Georgia: Yeah. Pretty much. I mean, yeah, I was quite scared. Couldn't really breathe. Didn't really know what was going on. I just thought, let's get on the stage. Let's maybe get off, you know, live. And I was just in the element. The audience was reacting to the way that I was singing and I didn't realize that anybody had turned and he turned [00:11:00] right at the last split second. So I thought I was just going home. And then when I looked up, he was looking at me and I was kind of like, I don't know what happens now. Teresa: It's Tom Jones. So what was that like to be mentored by someone like Tom Jones? Georgia: Do you know, I always say that he reminds me of Aslan. Do you remember the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Aslan? Yes. He just has this presence about him that you can't, help, but he's just immersed in it. He has, and then maybe that's the star quality that people talk about, but when he is with you in that room, it's not a, I'm so scared, you know, he's Aslan. You're just like, oh my gosh, I just want to know everything about him. I want to hear his, his voice. And when he sings, it's like Aslan commanded that room. If anyone's ever seen me like in The Witch in the Wardrobe, you need to go watch it because it has that star quality, but The moment that he sang, he sang a Ray Charles song. That's my favorite singer. [00:12:00] And that's someone that he worked with when Ray Charles was alive. And he sang a song. And I remember just being mesmerized and kind of thinking, like, what is going on in my life right now? You know, this is incredible. So it was amazing to be able to work with somebody like that. And yeah, just an experience I'll always, always remember. Teresa: I've read the book, and I've talked about it before on the podcast, and I know I've definitely talked about it with you, The Gap in the Game. And I, I can't remember what I was watching. Like, I was watching some competition type program, which sounds very odd, because I wouldn't really watch that sort of thing. Anyway, I think I was watching something, maybe I was watching the Olympics, I have no idea. But basically, I was talking to my husband about the fact of like, You get through all these rounds, right, and then you end up being the last one of two people, let's say, and you don't win the thing. And that point, you should be so in the game because you have got through [00:13:00] every round to get to that point. So to even get on TV, how many rounds did you have to go through? Georgia: I lost count. It was that many. I think it was about a year worth of auditioning, backstage bits and pieces. Yeah, it was, it was a long time before it was shown on television. Teresa: And what happens is when people then don't win, or they get voted out in whatever round, the gap must feel humongous. However, like to reframe that to go, no, you look out of all the people that applied, out of the tens of thousands that applied. You got into the last x amount of people, but how, how was that? How was all of it really? Because I know you and I have touched on briefly the fact of like, there's, you know, an element of fame involved in that, and then obviously you get voted off, and then like, Just touch on what that was like. Georgia: It had some incredible highs but then [00:14:00] some really dark lows and some places that I went to that I was not prepared for. The show, they do have psychologists and they have people on board to kind of help me through that process and they are there every step of the way to make sure you're not going to lose it, you know. But the public The way the public are, it's just mad! It's crazy how, how strangers can have such an opinion of you and that can really shake you to your core because When you are, so obviously it was on all on Twitter back then and when the episodes came out there was the battle episode which is where you are paired with somebody and you battle against each other to go through to the next round and the person that I was paired with had had like four chair turns, you know, she had a really great story, she was a great person, she had great public support and During the filming process, they, they ask you, obviously backstage, in the VT [00:15:00] section, they ask you questions on repeat because they're trying to just get an answer out of you. They want that, that good TV. So they'll say things like, you know, how do you feel about the competition? And then they'll rephrase it saying, you know, but it's a competition. So how are you feeling about the battle to try and...