One day a week I block off the afternoon to spend some time working on my business. I want to make sure I stay up to date, check in with my online presence, and really put in some time over all on making my business into what I dream for it to be.

One day I was looking around for ideas from other creative businesses on things that they do to work on their business and I could find very few resources. I might have been looking in the wrong spot but I thought this was a prime opportunity to share with you some of the things that I do and that you can start doing today to work on your business.

1. Work on cleaning up your Pinterest boards. If you are anything like me when it comes to Pinterest I do total binge pinning. I get a topic in my head and pin a whole bunch that are related to that. It’s good to go back and organize, remove and make sure that the pins you are pinning are working for you. Check out so and sos guide to pinning for business for more in depth strategies on Pinterest.

2. Check in with your bios on all the social media platforms. Each platform has its own personality so tailoring your profiles to match is an important first step. The other thing you should look for when checking in on the bios is does it still match your brand? Does it align with your business goals.

3. Use an editorial calendar to help plan posts. Editorial calendars might sound scary at first but they are really benefitial and have been something I use daily. It helps me long term plan posts around holidays and other events as well as helping me stay consistent with blogging.

4, Plan & schedule social media posts. Social media can be overwhelming at the best of times. Questions I always ask myself is “When is the best time to post on each platform? What do I say? How do I connect with others?” Planning out these interactions can take the guess work out of the process and really help you get the most out of these platforms. Using services to schedule the posts can help you too but I’ve not gotten into those yet so I can’t speak to the differences between them.

5. Strengthen a business skill like photography. Spend some time strengthening a skill that you can use to help your Buisness. If you are an Etsy owner maybe spending a few hours working on your product photography technique would be helpful, or creating some blog posts on your blog to feature products.

6. Add an opt-in to your site. Growing your email list is huge when it comes to growing your business because you are connecting with people who are your ideal client. Creating an opt-in for your site to grow your list is a great first step.

7. Boost your SEO. SEO is something that no one likes but everyone has to work on to appease the algorithms and getting our content shown. Spending and afternoon applying the SEO principles that so and so discusses will be a great start.

8. Brainstorm some new marketing ideas. Spend time making a list of marking ideas that you can start implementing. As with all marketing ideas some may succeed and some may fail but being active in your marketing strategy will help you discover what works and what doesn’t.

9. Freshen up your cover photos. All the social media platforms now have a place for cover photos. Make sure you spend some time creating some new ones.

10. Reach out to past clients and see how the work you did for them is going or if they have new work you could help with. Communicating with people that you have worked with in the past can help lead to new work or referrals which can help grow your business. If you didn’t ask for a testimonial to use as social proof on your website when you finished up the project go ahead and ask them when you reach out to them. Then update your website with what they said. If you need help figuring out how to get testimonials check out XO Sarah’s advice.

As a creative service provider I spend a lot of my time working with others on their businesses it is very rewarding for me to help my clients make their dream job a reality but it is equally to spend some time each week working on our own businesses and making them the best they can be for our clients.