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Social Sessions
Brought to you by TJ Creative Agency, a social media marketing agency, this podcast that will take you behind the scenes of the world of social media. Whether you're an influencer, a business owner, a content creator or just an overall creative person we will teach you how to create the perfect social media strategy and build your brand online.
Social Sessions
2024 Social Media Ins and Outs
Join us as we dissect this social media trend with a hefty dose of realism!
Hashtags and content creation can feel like a minefield, right? We're here to guide you through it, presenting a strategy that fosters genuine connection on platforms like Instagram. Learn about the perfect hashtag mix and the tools that can help you unearth the top-performing tags. But remember, it's not all about the hashtags—creating an authentic, engaging community is paramount. We wrap up by exploring the crucial role of a professional social media strategy in transforming followers into die-hard fans and how influencers can monetize and maintain engagement, regardless of their follower count.
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Have you ever wondered what goes into your favorite brand's digital marketing strategy?
Speaker 2:I'm Tara, the founder of TJ Creative Agency and I'm Audrey, the Creative Marketing Director of TJ Creative Agency. Whether you're an influencer, a business owner, a content creator or just an overall creative person, we'll teach you how to create the perfect social media strategy and build your brand online. Welcome back to social sessions, everybody. It's still 2024. I was going to say welcome to 2024, but we already had an episode go up, so it's still. When you're listening to this, it is still 2024. Unless you're listening to this a year later. Happy 2025 to you. That's funny.
Speaker 2:We are talking about the ins and outs, and not the ins and outs as in the details, as in the trend that's been going on for the last month of like this is what's in and this is what's out. Yeah, so social media. I wanted to do it quick. Did you ever watch this was very much like a my time situation, but like in middle school. The books, the click Okay, that's what Massey Block, the main character. I loved those books and I love the movie. The movie, objectively bad, was, subjectively my opinion, amazing. But she did like the ins and outs list and I completely forgot. Like every night or when she was mad, she'd be like in and then, if like out. She would be like red scarves and then the other character's name was Claire and she would be like Claire is out, anyways. But I completely forgot about it until I saw a girl on TikTok be like the real girl that started this trend.
Speaker 1:That started this trend, like 15 years ago.
Speaker 2:That's hilarious.
Speaker 1:Who would have thought are connected the dots.
Speaker 2:But yeah, so that's what we're doing. Did you do one?
Speaker 1:yourself For your own person. I think a lot. I mean I was seeing a ton of personal ones and then I seen some in like our industry and other industries.
Speaker 2:I just like kind of I don't. It's not that I dislike the trend, but I'm there's so much reading, I'm not reading them.
Speaker 1:I know you're just like scan it.
Speaker 2:You're like, oh, maybe, yeah, that one, yeah, I'm like okay, Like the first few, I was like that's fun, and now everybody has done one. And I just they all kind of feel the same. I don't know, I don't mind them when they're funny, like sometimes they're funny, yeah, others I don't know. I just I've kind of gotten sick of them. I think it'll be different in this category because I feel like it's a little bit more valuable than it is just like writing it on the screen, but no by the time.
Speaker 1:I thought about it, I was like I think it's just another way to do New Year's resolutions that nobody ends up doing anyway, yeah. Or that they didn't.
Speaker 2:I also just feel like at this point, I'm so tired of New Year's content. Like, yeah, everybody, just every podcast that I listened to the last week has been like how to win your 2024 and tips to be the best version of you, and I'm like I get it. We're all saying the same things and I get it. Maybe, like your, this audience doesn't listen to this podcast, whatever. Like I'm not shading anybody, but I'm just like over the New Year's content.
Speaker 1:It really is.
Speaker 2:It goes on.
Speaker 1:But it goes on the whole month.
Speaker 2:The whole of January is going to be resolutions and goals which, again, like I'm not mad about, but like there's no hot takes, everybody's made. Everybody do the same things. Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1:That's so true.
Speaker 2:So I think it's.
Speaker 1:For us it was industry related, obviously, and I think a lot of these things can go both ways. I wanted to talk about collabs first, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, also, I just wanted to say, with all of that being said, I do like that we're doing this episode. I know I just said all of that, but I did mean to text you when you sent me the outline that I liked this idea. I know that just goes against everything. I just said Right.
Speaker 1:But I do like this idea. But she's on social, she's thinking.
Speaker 2:But I mean it's okay if we do it. I don't want anyone else to do it, though that's funny we did Tara and I were talking about. I do kind of want to get your guys's opinions before we jump into our list, because we were just talking about whether or not you guys find the tip of the week or the update of the week valuable. So I would love for you guys to kind of tell us about this. And I guess, speaking of the new year, like if we're going to restructure the podcast in any capacity, now's the time to do it. But if you guys like that, like it was intended originally for it to be kind of conversational, for Tara and I both work with different clients and so the idea was one of us is bound to have something come up and then we kind of talk through it in this section. Obviously, it's not always like that. Sometimes we don't.
Speaker 1:Nothing happens.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's nothing that we need to like, work through or talk through with you guys and it ends up being an update, but I don't know if you guys enjoy that, so let us know if you want us to keep that in the podcast. So this is a sidebar, but similar, like how conversational do you guys like this? Do you like the? Do you like the short episodes where we just get to the point, or do you prefer it when it's kind of like this, where we're like chatting and we're still talking about obviously the same subjects, like it's obviously still going to be social media related, but do you like more personality or more like quick to the point episodes.
Speaker 2:Would love to hear from you guys. That's either on Instagram, on the social sessions, podcast Instagram, or in this like Spotify FAQ section and anywhere you want to send it. Really, I'm just curious.
Speaker 2:But, speaking of the tip of the week, we actually do have one this week, because we had a discovery call recently where someone was wanting or was asking us about paid ads, right, which I don't know why. I was going to explain what paid ads are. You guys know what paid ads are, but they were, they were interested in that, but they didn't want to bundle it with social socials. And this is I'm assuming there's other businesses out there that are that kind of have the same idea because obviously the goal of paid ads is you're going to get in front of a bigger audience, you're going to, you know, increase brand awareness. If that's your goal, it's a great strategy.
Speaker 2:But it needs to be paired with organic social, because the main thing is, like, most of the time, if someone sees your ad, they're going to go to your page and if they can't determine what it is you do, what you sell, who you are, then they're going to leave. It's kind of like a dead end. So if you don't have some sort of social presence, some sort of clear social presence in a strategy like an organic strategy, doing paid ads is kind of like throwing money down the drain a little bit. Yeah, so I just want to talk to you on that. Did you have any other thoughts on that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I think that is exactly right. I think that you can't expect them to. I think they think that they can send them to a website or something. But I think initially, everybody is going to go to your social and if they don't see it, I mean this client, this person had absolutely no social. You know what I mean, like even a little social presence if you're running ads.
Speaker 1:But being consistent is going to, that's, if you're trying to get brand awareness, you're running an ad to get them to come to your page right, and then there's nothing there. It just doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2:But even like that doesn't necessarily mean either that you need to be posting every day of the week, but it just means make sure that if someone's coming to your page, there's some sort of recent post. Right, because I don't know about you guys. This happens a lot actually. When I look at companies and let's say they haven't posted since July, I'm like yeah, are they still open? Like yeah, are they still open? That's genuinely the question that I ask every time. If they haven't posted in a long time, especially if it's not a like brick-and-mortar type of store, if you're doing everything online, if you are like an agency like us, like if we hadn't posted since July, I'm sure there would be people that are that would be like, oh, they just don't.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that, or they, I'm like they gave up.
Speaker 2:Something, yeah, or whatever it is, but make sure you have some sort of recent post. And again, just make sure that when someone comes to your page it's clear what you do, what you offer, who you are. That all needs to be clear. There just needs to be something there. That's a great tip, guys. So before you dive headfirst into paid ads, just make sure you have some sort of organic social Going on going on. Okay, now We'll actually get into our list of ins and outs. We're gonna start with in's Tara, take it away.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're gonna start with in's. This is collabs with niche specific influencers or Industry leaders. This is something that we're actually going through right now, which is why it kind of it came to my mind right away, which is looking for people that are local to your community either in, you know, like everybody knows, like the city realtor, right, like. Those type of people are considered influencers. I don't think they not everyone understands that an influencer is just not a 20 to 30 year old woman with making ticktocks. You know what I mean. Like it's, it's a lot of its community, local community, and so I think the idea of looking for an influencer locally and kind of these niche markets, even Looking at other, just in different industries, right, realtors is one of them.
Speaker 1:I think I gave an example of Hair like. Within the hair industry, they have influencers, fitness influencers. So there's so many different categories that you can find these people, and most of the big ones you know Usually have some sort of like. If you're a local business trying to get that local Influencer, a lot of them are already been picked up. So this is just another way to find Somebody that even maybe fits more of your demographic or your.
Speaker 2:Audience. Yeah, that's like very the local one is obviously a very service-based Type of yeah. But I also think that this is why some people think influencer marketing wouldn't work for them. Like they have that, that misconception of oh it wouldn't work for my business because x, y and z, but there is usually I'm not gonna make a blanket statement but usually there is an influencer within each niche. Like I even was telling Tara I don't remember if I said this on the podcast or like off the podcast but my dad is a big car guy. He fixes up cars. He's quite the gearhead, his for you page like or his like Instagram reels. There's guys in their 40s and 50s fixing cars that have a following right because they have other people Similar to them. So like you might not think Off of like first impression that like an auto zone or something like that would work with influencer marketing, but there are people out there that that's going to work for. So it's not like Tara had said.
Speaker 2:It's not just like young girls that have aesthetic videos. Every influencer has their own Community, which then means that they kind of fall into different niches and can work with different types of Companies. I even have a friend who? Who is pretty big, not pretty big. She has a following on on Instagram, but it's all car related content and even within this car niche, like this types of cars that she's working on and Revamping and whatever are very different than like the things that my dad would. The types of cars like my dad's working on classic cars and she's like working on whatever other types of cars. There's different, obviously different types of cars. Obviously. Tell you about this, like within one niche of, like auto. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:There's two completely different sides of that right so there are so many facets right. So I just think that that's why there's so many businesses that are like influencer marketing wouldn't work for me and it's like, yeah, if you find the right people, it will, and I even think like thinking of numbers, because it's something that we were doing Obviously recently is doing some like influencer Outreach and like trying to find some people.
Speaker 1:2,500 people in a local community is a lot of people and so I think also not getting stuck on that Extremely large number of like they have to have Over 20,000 followers to have any value. I just don't think that's the truth anymore. So I think, great, in 2024 we'll see a lot more of these local it's local. I mean, it's a small town type people.
Speaker 2:I think it's Like you said. The follower count isn't as big, even like. Every city has those pages that are like Recommendations for for their city. There's influencers like that for every city that are great for local restaurants.
Speaker 1:That is true.
Speaker 2:That's a big one. That type of situation I've said for years like fitness influencers in the area are typically great because they have a following within a community.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah or like we've talked about real estate agents or like a local news anchor, things like that, where they might only have like 5,000 followers. But if most of that following is in the neighborhood or in the city that you're trying to reach and you notice that their Engagement is really high and they're getting maybe they get a bunch of responses to like questions on their stories or their comments Are really high or whatever it is like, that's probably more beneficial for you than finding someone with like 50,000 followers that lives an hour away from you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's gonna be more and more common, as long as people can Navigate it. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I agree.
Speaker 1:The other thing that I put on ends was community specific strategies. So I think it's leaning more into communities, like specific communities. One way we're seeing that is by they've added a broadcast channel and that is something that people can opt into or opt out of. But that is where you can give specific, more detailed information. Maybe you do specials there. I was trying to think of ways that maybe other people or you know businesses could use this. Maybe if somebody's a subscriber to your channel and you have an last-minute opening or these are kind of like your Client base, your close, you know what I mean that you would want them to have first come, first serve to whatever it was that was coming.
Speaker 2:And it's also like those people opt in right, so they want to know that information. That's probably your most engaged followers, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I think there's also ways to like Bring value there that maybe you're not sharing in your entire Page, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:I also think I've seen a few not a ton, but I've seen a few people talk about this using close friends in a similar way for your business, like it's almost like a yeah, like you're in curtain situation, like you might be unveiling a little bit more there, you might get a little more personal, you might get same thing like a first come. You have an opening that day and you want your most loyal people.
Speaker 2:So things like that, or maybe you give certain discount codes to those people I've seen. I think that's gonna be Big this year too. I do like that you brought this up, this like community Based type of engagement, because I think both of those are gonna be huge. I also wanted to kind of on this subject. One of the ones that I had put down was this was I was getting specific, but liking people's stories as a form of engagement. I've had that a lot on my personal account, yeah, of people that are like kind of in my niche but don't follow me are liking my stories, and obviously when you like someone's stories, it puts you at the top of that list and I'm always like who is this? And then I always go look at who they are and I followed some people because they've liked my stories.
Speaker 2:So, it's a good form of outbound engagement that I don't think we utilize enough.
Speaker 1:That's actually genius, that is that makes a lot of sense and they say the people that like that. That is one of the algorithm. Algorithm markers is how much people are engaging with your stories.
Speaker 1:So it helps people out helps move you to the front of the line on stories. Let's see, is that everything okay? Yeah, the broadcast group. I think that one is it Good.
Speaker 1:The next one, the in, is a targeted hashtag strategy. This is different from SEO, which Audrey and I did an episode last week where we deep dive into SEO and that is something that is super important To understand in your in your strategy. But there's some things with a targeted hashtag strategy and this came up because I, recent or Later, had done a blog it was one of your favorite get ready for 2024 and it said that it was about you know, having a hashtag Strategy and that they did some beta testing and to see if they still worked, and they do, and I, and then there's been some talk about if, how many is too many and like. But I think what is happening with hashtags is People are using them the wrong way. That's like how I see it. I see a lot of people like hashtag, like vibes or Just vague or slay all day, winning like things like that. That's not gonna bring. That's not bringing value to anyone. It's actually hurting the algorithm.
Speaker 1:So I think, but having a few of these targeted Hashtags and the five that they gave suggested that they suggested were industry-based hashtags, so ones that maybe, if you are a wedding planner or a cosmetic dentist or a real estate expert, that you are using that Hashtag because that is how Instagram is going to categorize you in the algorithm. And so I think those having some industry-based maybe and it's not having not overkill right, like no more than 10, I think that's a lot, but later did also say that they the more hashtags, the more successful the post was. So and I looked through our. That's one thing I love about later, um is that you can look at the hashtag.
Speaker 2:I Was just gonna say that that's something I enjoy on later Is that they give you analytics on specific hashtags, of which ones are working for you. So for example, I've noticed on our account social media strategy is one of is our top like that's what is Working the best for us. So and I'm sure I don't think later is the only one that does that that, like I said, I'm a big fan of later.
Speaker 1:I always have been, but I'm sure other scheduling tools have something that break down, yeah, yeah, but when looking at them and looking at, like some of the hashtags we've used on other accounts and things like that, the ones that work, the ones that have the higher numbers, are targeted to a specific industry or a specific location. So I think having a few of those is always better, even, and also being descriptive of what yours is in in the image itself, and not just like putting it because you know what I mean. Do you know what I'm?
Speaker 1:getting wet I.
Speaker 2:I also think it's not like Speaking on the numbers, like don't get too caught up. And do I need five, do I need 30? Yeah, that's just do I Mean test it out also, like again, even though they said the post with the more hashtags did better. Don't just be like throwing shit in there because you feel like you need 20 more tags, you know like I'm typically around like five or six.
Speaker 1:Yep, that's what I've noticed on your, on the ones that you do. I think that's a that's a good number and I think the it's always relative. They also suggested doing or using branded hashtags. No, not everybody has a branded hashtag, but if you do and say you're like for us we have dr Patel hashtag, smiles by stages. If somebody you know uses or tags, and we want them to use that hashtag if they've had their smile by them, that's just kind of like a, a motto or whatever. Yeah, so I think those come in. Laced hair has one. And the most important one, I think, is that location. I think that you can even combine that location with the industry.
Speaker 1:So, like ATX photographer, austin tanning, atx tans, like that's my favorite way to do location-based ones, because that's how I think people search Exactly so I think it, and then it brings the two together and it, from everything that I've looked at on all of our accounts, it's those location-based ones that have the highest numbers, that are with kind of paired with whatever service it is that there is. So I think that is a strategy that people need to incorporate. Still, I don't want them to see the hashtags don't work. They don't work if you're not using them correctly.
Speaker 2:Um and so I think I just also think I don't know how, but hashtags have become like a very Definitive topic, if you will like. For whatever reason People are like, they will make or break you and it's like the same as anything on social media. No one thing is going to make.
Speaker 1:I mean, the quality of your content might, but other than that, no one hack or I think they got a bad name when that shadow banning began, when people were like getting, they were like Copy pasting like 35 hashtags Even if they were not relevant to the content, and they were doing that over and over again and it was screwing with the algorithm. And so they're like if you do that, you're going to be shadow banned, which I mean it's.
Speaker 2:It's like I said, it's the same, it's. I just don't know why people have given it the insane amount of power that they have. Because it's it's not like if you don't Tag your location, that's gonna make her late. It's not like they're having that conversation. People aren't like if you don't use alt text, your post is over. Like I don't know why they've decided Hashtags are like you're all in or you're all out, like if you don't want to do them, don't do them. If you do, do it.
Speaker 1:I just challenge you to do them and see if your engagement goes up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just I, just I just don't know why I go up for sure it's become so like this will be.
Speaker 1:I see you're on, or it's going to break your post like I don't know why it's like that.
Speaker 2:It's like use it as a tool, like you would anything else that we've told you about.
Speaker 1:I'd seen it on a few of the outlets for 2023 and I was like y'all know, I mean I don't think that's true, I really don't, yeah.
Speaker 1:We just have too much data that points the other direction. These are some of the ones that you talked about, right? Oh no, yeah, I did. Oh yeah, that was the last one that they suggested. By the way, later Suggested community hashtags that could be like an event, like if you go to a wedding or something and you want people To like, use this hashtag so you can get all the pictures. Or if you're a real team and you have everybody tag your team. Yeah, like all of you. That's a good.
Speaker 2:Even for internally. You know you can get all the pictures or you can get all the pictures All use. That's a good idea to have like all of your agents tag, or like all of your injectors at a med spot tag a certain way and then you have access to all of that.
Speaker 1:Lacey does a really good job of it, actually like a lot, you know, like if they're, if you're a, use her hair or whatever she. You know they tag using that, and it's gotten her a lot of User-generated content.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Well, I will say that's how I find I usually go through tagged Personally if I'm trying to find user-generated content. But if they have a community hashtag like it's worth looking at, yeah for sure.
Speaker 1:And then there are the ones that you put in.
Speaker 2:Let's yeah, I have a few. We went over a lot of it just in terms of the community kind of engagement. I wanted to add to that and just say DMs that's not anything new but, like you, I think using your DMs to sell I know we've talked about that, I've talked about it on tick-tock, I've talked about it on here but using your DMs as a way to obviously communicate with your audience but also sell and have links be sent right to them, things like that I think that's going to continue to become more popular. But the other thing that I wanted to touch on is I think I put storytelling in a motion provoking content and I'm also gonna loop in Um, entertaining content.
Speaker 2:I think there are still way too many businesses that are taking themselves Seriously. They don't want to do like the funny content or they don't want to do whatever, and that's fine If. If the funny, like trendy stuff doesn't feel aligned with you, that's okay. But there needs to be a human element and not just like photos of your products and like. There just needs to be.
Speaker 2:Something, something else there it can't feel stale. People don't want to follow that, people are not interested. And, honestly, like you have to think about why would somebody want to follow a business in the first place? Because they provide something. Either it's the education or it's like oh, I love these stores. For example, patel is a great example for this.
Speaker 2:I couldn't care less about teeth personally on my personal for you page, but those smile makeovers even when I was creating them for one of our clients, they make me smile because there's an emotion behind it, right Like I'm really not one that I'm like I'm not really thinking about getting veneers, that's not it. I do connect with that emotion, right, with the confidence. That's something everybody can relate to. Everybody has had an issue with confidence in the past and seeing these people have this makeover and feeling good about it, you can see it and you can feel it that they feel differently about themselves. That's the emotion that I'm talking about.
Speaker 2:Or even we were talking about this yesterday too like injectors doing it's the same. I mean, this is similar in the sense of it's cosmetic, but the same type of situation where maybe it's a client on camera talking about like I've always been insecure about X, y and Z, and it's the injector also on camera, saying, okay, this is what I think we can do for you, things like that, where it doesn't have to be corny, entertaining, it doesn't have to be corny, trendy stuff. If that doesn't align with you, that's okay. I just think there needs to be a human element and it can't just be you showing like your product or just before and afters, like yes, that's great and that should be a part of your strategy. But if I'm just seeing before and afters or if I'm just seeing product photos that I can go on your website to see, why would I follow you? It feels stale.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it does Right. So I think the biggest thing I saw a client where it was like their entire page was one format of it's a real estate company, but it's basically just house after house. There is no like I want to even go like look, because it was only the front of the house. No like inside house pictures. It was just so like stale. It made absolutely no sense.
Speaker 2:And you just need to have and people want to know. Like, especially in the service based industry, people want to know who they're going to be working with, because that, yeah, your work can be good, but if they don't really like you or if they don't know anything about you, that's just as big of a selling point for people as your work is yeah. So I just think having something that they can connect with is huge and something that businesses really need to focus on in 2024.
Speaker 1:All right, those are awesome. So those are our ends and then we will go on to outs Outs. I wish this should been out forever ago. But Vanity Metrics follower account like that is not really something that matters anymore. And it's not something it matters, but you shouldn't focus on it. It doesn't make or break a business. Actually, this doesn't mean that you, if you don't have this many followers, that you can't benefit from social media marketing. I think people think that in order to have success, you have to have these large numbers, and it's just not true. One of the some of the things that we look for for our clients is the reach and the engagement is like comments, saves and shares. Those are usually my top things I'm looking at and so and that number is so valuable it's how many people have seen your account that didn't know you before? Right, and this is why social is so valuable, because you're getting in front of people that don't know your brand. They don't know anything about you.
Speaker 2:I will also add to that list of things metrics that we think are important. I always look at website external website clicks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for us.
Speaker 2:If your goal is conversions, that's huge. But I think the reason that like follower count has remained such like a number that people care about is because when it's A, it's like the only public number, right, it's the only thing that other people can see of your metrics.
Speaker 2:And also, we didn't always have all of these metrics with socials. Like, follower count really was for a while, one of the only ways that we could really gauge success on social media. But things have come so far and we have so many more metrics that follower count really does not hold a ton of weight. Is there some validity in it? Sure, yeah, sure.
Speaker 1:But it's also like it also takes time. It's also like something you can't fake, like buying followers. It just it doesn't work. I think people use it as a strategy because they think that maybe it like other if it's that first number they see, they take them a little more seriously. I think in some cases yes, but not in all cases it doesn't. Like you said I think a few weeks ago, like you don't look at a business and decide if you're going.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, that's what I say all the time Like I'm not looking at you for your follower count really, like that's not going to determine if I'm going to go to your restaurant or like go to your med spa or purchase a like jacket from you. Like your follower count really is not gonna impact that. And on the flip side of things I tell our clients this a lot someone doesn't have to follow you in order to purchase from you.
Speaker 2:You know like there's definitely companies that I purchase from on a regular basis, that are daily basis. That's not following on social media and that's okay. That's okay, so that's why I just I think I agree. Reach is accounts reached as usually one of my biggest ones in terms of brand awareness, much higher than follower count.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that is something that we're often explaining and so hopefully the message we'll get to everyone soon. Yeah, I'll correct that.
Speaker 2:It is something that I also think like as social media managers. I think that's just going to be something we have to explain to clients on a regular basis because they're not in the industry.
Speaker 2:They're not, honestly, you guys. This is also a sidebar. If you're a social media manager, your clients usually are not looking at analytics, even though, like, I just had this conversation yesterday and I go in the call, I go, I don't know if you're looking at your analytics and they were like, no, I'm not, but in my head I'm like it's so easy to access. I just assume that clients are looking at it, but they're not I just do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's probably one of the things that I need to really get better at is cause I'm like I assume that they're looking because it's so important yeah.
Speaker 2:But there's not that importance of them Not looking at it at all. That's why when I send over like content, calendars and stuff, I always in the first like section I'll put a sentence or two of saying this is up 200% or things are looking great Like. Every time I email them I add some sort of an analytics showing them that like things are doing well because they're not looking at it themselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and for influencers that could also apply, like not getting so caught up in what your number. You can be an influencer with 2,500 followers all day long. You can make money at it. You can have a very engaged audience. So I just think we have to get away from that idea. Yeah, the next one that bothers me and this is maybe a personal thing but not commenting like. Not commenting back, like I don't know why people, especially businesses, don't comment back if somebody leaves them a comment, or even just the recognition that I read your comment with a heart Like there's. I mean, it's such a simple way to engage and build community. And sometimes I see people that are just like completely neglected. I know that sometimes it can get overwhelming if you're a bigger person or if you have more, but I do think those touch points are so valuable in the in somebody's buying process. If they feel like a dentist comments back or answers back to them, it's like they heard.
Speaker 2:It's also a good opportunity to bring people to the DMs, to like extend the conversation where, if they're asking a lot of questions, maybe replying with something along the lines of send me a DM and I'd be happy to like go into this like in more detail and, to be honest, like I was gonna say the same thing If you're getting an insane amount of comments, then it's understandable that you're not getting to every one of them. To be honest, I can't think of that many businesses that are getting that many comments. Influencers, I think, are a different beast. They're probably getting a lot more engagement because it's a person versus a business. But even on those situations like they're usually on their phone for the first, however many minutes of posting engaging with people, so at least getting to some of them, and then that's also showing the audience right. Oh, he's engaged, or she's actually listening to her audience, even if she's not answering my comment one out of 400 comments but she's answering some.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Like it also just sends the message that you care about what community.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think that's so important and I wish that we did more of it. I wish influencers did a little bit more of it. I think they were built on that. I think that's how influencers got big. Is those like? It's the first, it's engaging constantly, and then building and building, and building and building, and then I find that once they get big, then they quit engaging. But it's just a way, and maybe the broadcast channel is a way to like communicate. I mean, maybe that will change, but I do think it's something that we should. I know it's so weird because it's like outs but not commenting. I didn't. I confused myself. Yeah.
Speaker 2:The out is not engaging with your follow-up account.
Speaker 1:Just not engaging in any way. Another out is relying on employees to take care of social. I see that we see this a lot.
Speaker 1:It happens a lot, yeah, where you are just having maybe your front desk girl or your daughter or your niece or whatever do your social and while it may be saving you money, it's probably not bringing you a ton of value, because there should be a strategy behind it and it's also a full-time job, like these poor people that are working these full-time jobs and then asked to add social. It's like that's a full-time job on top of another job and so.
Speaker 1:I think we need to get away from that, and either there's a lot of brands that can afford to have, like, an in-house social person I think that's really great for a lot of businesses to have somebody in the office that is dedicated to social, but not every business is like that and that's when you should outsource to somebody like us, or somebody a freelancer that can, that works on this stuff every day and is looking at those analytics and understands community engagement and understands how to make Emotional content, like there's so many things that it's just it's a lot more marketing and analytics and people understand and I also think, like the biggest things are that everybody thinks they can do it because they have a social media account.
Speaker 2:Like I said, it's a lot more analytics, it's a lot more marketing, even just like parts of Traditional marketing. If, yeah, it's a lot more that, it's a lot more strategy, and I also think people have a hard time justifying putting money into it. But let me break it down for you really quick if you are Paying, let's say, two thousand dollars a month for socials it's twenty four thousand dollars a year there's a really, really good chance that you are not going to find anybody in house. You're not gonna be able to find an employee to do that for you for less than 24, even 24. You're not gonna find anyone for under 45, and that's on the low, low end You're not gonna find anybody to find to do this as a job front.
Speaker 2:That's half the price to hire an agency. Now I'm not saying an agency is right for everybody. I think there are some situations where you might need more content, like if you are launching new products constantly and you are in constant need of Of new, like photo shoot type of content. Maybe an agency isn't perfect for you and that's okay, but there are a lot of situations where an agency does work for you. So Just keep that in mind. It's probably gonna be cheaper than hiring a full-time employee.
Speaker 2:And I think there there are Results in it. We've seen it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you just have to be patient with it. I think the other thing is is that people think when we see anybody find success on social media, it looks like it's overnight, like even. I'll even use skims for an example. Skims has been around, okay, but the last year, year and a half, they've really blown up on tiktok and they're launching shit left and right. They came out with only shapewear, okay, and nobody gave shit about shapewear when they came out. It was just Spanx really was like the only other company.
Speaker 2:They've been around for a while and then they came out with that cozy collection. If you guys remember that, they've completely revamped it. That doesn't even exist on the site anymore. So even a brand like that, that looks like insane overnight success, like they've been around for some time and they didn't just find success on social media overnight. Now they're like a social media powerhouse right, like everybody kind of looks to them for the campaigns that they're doing On Instagram and whatever things like that. But it all of it takes time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it does take time and I think you can't determine the ROI Month to month, like not necessarily month to month. That almost needs to be a long-term thing, because sometimes it takes somebody several months to make that purchase and then it becomes you know when the ROI goes up. So it just is a. I think it's a Long-term game, but I think it's. We've just we've not we've seen the success, so I just I stand by what I know can be done with it, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:You added one, yeah my last, which we you kind of touched on a little bit, but it's posting without a strategy, like we don't have time for that, you guys, you don't have time for that. We don't have time for that. Like it's a waste of your time to just be posting without any sort of strategy. I just made a tick talk about this this morning. But like, if your entire strategy is posting Trending sounds with hopes of going viral, that's not a strategy, because you're missing the other two parts of the marketing funnel and you're not going to make sales that way. And on the complete opposite end, if your entire strategy is Educating your audience to no end, why would that make you sales? They're just coming to you to learn something. They're not coming to you to buy anything. Same thing.
Speaker 2:If you're a product-based company, if your entire strategy is just Posting, like your product photos that are also on your website, that's boring, it's not. You're not finding anyone new. So that's why I'm like posting consistently alone is not a strategy. Yeah, and if you're doing that, if you're posting let's say you're posting five times a week I'm assuming you're putting a decent amount of time into making this content, but without the strategy it's a waste of time, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah so none of us have time to not have a strategy on social media.
Speaker 1:I Love it, but I think those were good and I don't know how they compare to any of the other ones that have been going around online, but I think, like I said haven't, haven't looked at that. This is great, but I think that we do have. This is just from experience. A lot of it's from experience, yes. So, if you know Well, you already asked him instead of rating a review in the podcast, let us know what you like or don't like or what style I'm not.
Speaker 2:Instead, I would love it if you did both, actually, but sure, if you want to do one or the other, that's fine as well. That's true, that's true.
Speaker 2:I also want to mention that we are. We never really like plug our services, but we have a deal happening right now of a pick two where you can do social management organic social and either influencer marketing, paid ads or email marketing for the lowest price that we've ever offered. This, and for a bundle of two Digital services, is kind of huge. So if that's something that you would be interested in, you can book a call with us. It's completely free and we'll kind of walk you through how it works, how it might benefit your business. We'll talk about your goals.
Speaker 2:So something like I said, we never really plug our services that often on here, but I did just want to say, like I said, lowest price. We've ever offered this, so I would Jump on that is something that you're interested in.
Speaker 1:I think the combination of email, email market, and we've also added email marketing solo, um, that's something that is a new service, yeah we've talked about.
Speaker 2:I think I talked about it a week or two ago. I put it in the the intro, but we've also talked about email marketing, just in general. So you guys know how important that is. If you don't. We have an entire episode about it. I think it's titled like how to get more email signups, or something like that. If you're new to email marketing, definitely check out that episode where we talk you through it why it's important. To sum it up essentially, though, your conversions are Super high from email marketing. Typically. That's gonna be a huge factor. If conversions are a goal of yours for this year, maybe that's something to consider. Love it All right? Well, that is that, and we will talk to you guys next week.
Speaker 1:Talk next week I.