Social Media Spotlight - Debbie Clarke
Social Media Spotlight - Debbie Clarke
Tell us about your history in marketing:
Ooh!
Well, my first job was in Boots in the marketing department working on the Health & Beauty magazine around 17 years ago, so I got thrown in a makeup covered deep end. The Boots Advantage Card was new and everyone wanted to copy us - it's all about the data! Since then I had a few jobs mostly in Comms really. But in 2011 I helped set up a new CIC from scratch and had to build an entire membership community and from then I was hooked.
I started my own Digital Agency in 2013 working with Charities, CIC and councils helping them make sense of this new form of marketing 'social media'! In 2016 I relaunched as debbiedooodah coaching entrepreneurs to do it for themselves.
In 2017 the local Universities approached me and asked me if I would come in a lecture on digital. I now pop in a deliver a module a year for BA Fashion Management, MA Graphic Design and MSc Digital Marketing.
What made you want to become a business coach?:
Well people kept asking me to help them. And offered to pay me for doing so. So I though 'ah ha' there's money to be made here! And I much preferred upskilling people to do it for themselves, than doing it for other people.
When I'm coaching people in their business, we're looking at all aspects of their lives that can affect their businesses. Partners, self-limiting beliefs, their business model. I love it. I really get to know people and am proud to be a small part of their journey.
What are your biggest challenges?:
Well, challenges can also be opportunities. Failures are moments to learn. When we're stretched and challenged, this is generally when the good stuff happens.
My own personal challenges are always myself. My own self-limiting beliefs. My doubt in my delivery or in the services that I run.
In these moments I'll have a quiet word with myself. Write it out, read through my amazing testimonials, remember the positive impact I seem to have on others.
You recently won Digital Woman of the Year, how did that make you feel?:
Wow! It made me feel amazing. It was overwhelming. Women asked me who are you, why did you win it?
I've worked really hard to get where I am and had to get over a lot of my own personal shit to do that.
And that's been hard. Being poor, being a 'bad' young adult, being a single parent, having cancer. It also has a knock on effect on your psyche.
But it's also given me the drive to support other women to grow their businesses and have financial freedom.
I work in my local community with women on the poverty line (where I was when I started my business) and help them to develop and grow their business ideas and that feels amazing.
I love working with women and getting them to see their own value and their worth in the world. To feel confident to do out there and tell people how they can help them, and to make money doing what they love in a way that makes them happy.
Sorry - back to winning Digital Woman of the Year! It also made me feel like I should be doing something with my new found title. Helping more women, talking about the issues we face and the place we have in the world. But then someone reminded me that maybe I was already doing that and that's why I'd won.
I suppose that's back to those self-limiting beliefs, always feeling like we have to prove our worth and our place in society.
What advice would give to someone struggling with their business?:
Get help! And I don't necessarily mean 'come over here pretty one and buy my services'.
More find a community, ask questions, google things, share your feelings.
Whatever you are feeling you will not be the only one.
Running a business can be a scary and lonely place. Or it can be a place full of hope and community and freedom.
I bet there's someone else doing what you're doing and killing it - so that means you can be doing it too!
You just don't have to do it on your own. And of course, hiring a coach is amazing. Investing in yourself, in your learning, in your skills is the best investment you will ever make because you can never unlearn that stuff and it will make you a stronger person.
What advice would you give to someone who is debating whether they need a coach or not?:
Well we all need people to talk through stuff with. Another pair of eyes. A different perspective.
Sometimes I have amazing breakthroughs with my clients, and sometimes they feel silly for not seeing the solution or the answer themselves, but it's not about that. You can't see everything, you can't know everything. Having someone on your team who has your back or is there for some is priceless.
As great as your partner and friends are, they don't generally really get it. A good business coach will have worked with 100's of businesses - imagine all the different scenarios they've seen and options they've come up with - how invaluable is all that knowledge?
Plus each coach will have their own specialism that they can help you with.
My one advice, find a coach who you get on well with, who you get and who gets you.
The number of people who've worked with coaches who just have one method of running a business and will try to shoehorn you into their 'tried and tested' method is beyond me.
Find someone who will listen and who makes you feel good. At the end of a good session you should be buzzing with excitement and possibilities.
What do you love most about Social Media?:
The sense of community it gives us. The possibility to develop relationships across all sorts of divides. The options it is has given small entrepreneurs to build a business online and have access to a much bigger audience than just those in their hometown.
What do you dislike about Social Media?:
Well! As part of my Driving Digital module for the MSc Digital Marketing at Nottingham Trent Business School, I asked and then created a session on social media morals.
I felt if we're sending these new marketers into the world, we better try and instil some sense of values in them and also get them to appreciate the power they have.
I dislike the effect it can have on women. Tim Berners Lee recently wrote an article about how the internet wasn't working for women. I dislike the algorithm that shows us more and more of what we like so that we end up in a weird echo chamber. Fine if you like cats, terrible if you're a crazy racist, as that's the only view of the world you'll see - people who agree with you.
I dislike the effect it can have on society, politics and democracy. Reuters has called it HateBook. But I also accept the it might just be a mirror of the madness of the world.
However, we could manipulate it more to be a force for good.
As there are so many changes to social media, how do you keep up to date with the latest information?:
Oh goodness, I'm quite lazy and I might say I don't!
New things do come and go, for someone who teaches digital I can be a bit of a Luddite!
I'm more in it for the community element, rather than the tech - although I teach it, that's not my favourite element.
I mean I obviously do know what's going on - twitter tends to be a great news resource!
Finally, what would you like the future of social media to be?:
For good!! For community!! For Collaboration!!
Want to connect with Debbie?:
www.debbiedooodah.co.uk
@debbiedooodah everywhere!