Jeff Stanislow Radio Show (Podcast during COVID-19)
May 1st, 2020 - AM 820 Radio Tampa Bay - Business and Marketing Show.
Presented by: Chief Internet Marketer and Jeff Stanislow
Today's special podcast features Jessica Spivey owner of Social Media Squared
Cynthia and Jeff talk about the CMO's role regarding Digital Marketing. What does the CMO really need to understand and how it impacts the overall strategy. What can be delegated to others, and what should just be assigned and move on!
Digital Marketing brings a lot of data and understanding how that data roles up into the KPIs set by the CMO in their marketing plan. Learn more about how the CMO thinks or should think about Digital Marketing.
Listen in to our conversation.
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For convenience the Transcript of the conversation is below as well:
[00:00:00] Hi, this is Jeff Stanislow the chief at Chief internet marketer. Hope everybody's doing well, and we're going to talk about social media. And today. I have a special guest with us. It's Jessica Spivey from social media square and how are you doing today? Jessica doing great. Thanks for having me. My pleasure. My pleasure. So you've been doing a little marketing is specifically social media for quite some time now watch tell us a little bit about yourself and your agency sure so about four and half years ago. I was renting a block my own and ended up at a an event with a business owner and they said hey, is this something that you do for other businesses and I was like, yes sure. I had no idea what I was doing and that was four and a half years ago. I added to our team I now have five ladies on our team and we help companies all over the map. So we handle karate Studios CPAs restaurants event companies florists. You name it.
[00:01:01] Probably have touched it in some way. We help clients with full management. We also help with consultation. So we help with they don't know where to get started or how to get started and they don't really have the budget to pay somebody. That's really where we come in in a handy for those people. That's great. I do a lot of hand-holding early on and help people through the process. So tell us a little bit about I guess what what are some of the biggest challenges that you're seeing in in social media today, you know, just maybe from a small to medium-sized client's perspective.
[00:01:37] One of the largest challenges that they're seeing is posting on Facebook a lot but it's not generating me any sales. And so they think that because they're posting that it's there for going to generate skills or people in their doors, whatever they're looking for. And unfortunately, that's just not the case. You know it just because you're posting doesn't mean that you're posting the right content or the right things to get them in in the dog. And so I think that's one of the biggest misconceptions is that if I have content out there that it's it's good content any contents good content and unfortunately, that's just not the truth. If you're not providing value to your clients. If you're just selling it every term they really will start to tune you out and they you will start you will stop appearing in their feed. So I think a lot of business owners think well, I'm posting a lot on Facebook, but it's not doing anything else but are we doing it with intentionality? And I think that's one of the biggest misconceptions that business owners have
[00:02:30] Yes, I mean I think it is right and I mean one of the things that I see is a digital marketer is you know, social media like email marketing it'll find it. It's kind of like it's water over time, right? You can't expect the engagements rates to be the same nowadays that social media has been around for a period of time that you did early on with social media when it was just kind of like all the rage so similar with email marketing, you know, you couldn't expect people to have twenty, you know, 30% open rates, you know now through email marketing. It's kind of that to to 3% range. Do you think do you think that's a good kind of analogy?
[00:03:17] Absolutely. I think that there definitely is a saturation in the market. And so if you're if you're not doing something different than your competitor, yeah, you're just noise at that point four people and and it's not something that they find valuable. I think a lot of people are looking for how can you provide me value so that then I can turn around and become a client. Absolutely. Yeah part of it too is like wage. You know, how many social media accounts does does a kind of person really handle? You know what I mean when there's you know, kind of maybe Facebook and Twitter, but now you have, you know, ten major social media accounts or you know, I mean between LinkedIn and and Facebook and and Twitter and Instagram name Pinterest if you like that as a model in the like, you know a new platforms like Tik Tok which is taking the World by storm off.
[00:04:16] So it's like how much time does one really have to engage in the into social media if they're managing so many profiles and so much content. Yeah, there definitely is a limit and I'll tell you even offer me as a social media specialist. There's a limit that I have and that's why I have a team because they're not all clients are going to fit my personality or their way that I've talked or the voice that I have and so that's always a team but even you know, managing two or three responding to messages responding to two different things making sure that stories are updated that can all be very taxing. So yes, definitely spreading them responsibility out is helpful. The other thing that is helpful. If you're not able to have somebody that's on staff. It's having somebody that can give you hints and tools to automate a lot of those things off whether it's reminders for your stories or it's scheduling posts out so that those happen without you having to post them live. So there's a lot of tools and tricks that we can give clients to help them.
[00:05:16] Automate some of that process.
[00:05:19] Yeah, that's great. That's great. One of the things that I see is like diving a little bit and you mentioned the word Story. How are people using stories correctly or they not using stories correctly? Cuz I see most people just like using it as their posting like a Content that they would post in their in their, you know, their normal posting activity. Just posted to their stories. Can you talk to us a little bit about like, you know your strategy and thought process behind the use of stories sure story should be more of a behind-the-scenes place and I say that with a little caveat if you have a post that you've posted on your normal, let's say for Instagram for for example, and you've posted something it's great content. You want people to see it making sure that it's a long story as well. So sharing that that photo into your story so that they can click through and actually get to the rest of the content. I think it's incredibly important but allowing the rest of your stories aside from that that wage
[00:06:19] Content share be kind of a behind-the-scenes. What is the day look like if you're a restaurant show your team, prepping food show your team prepping to-go orders or whatever that looks like behind the scenes in your strength to really kind of open the window and let people behind the scenes.
[00:06:37] Yeah, and I mean, I think that some people just like they just click the button cuz it's there and it's up top and it's like okay. This is my post. So you do really have to differentiate how you use those two types of posts and there are so many tools that you can use within stories. You can ask questions. You can take surveys you can there's so many engagement tools that you have in store that you don't have a normal post that if you're not using those tools, I highly recommend that you that you get interactive with those things so that you can not only have a conversation with people but it creates some thought. Oh three dimensional version of who you are and not just hey, I'm here to show you information. I want to hear from you and that's important for your clients. Yeah. I think it is important to be different and actually showed, you know, you're kind of authority as a business owner by using those tools that other business owners that you may compete with that don't so, how do you do?
[00:07:36] Differentiate yourself you can differentiate Yourself by utilizing the tools better built into these systems like in Facebook. Yes. Absolutely. How often should people post
[00:07:52] I think that really depends on the business and it really depends on the bandwidth that the business has. I like to tell small business owners. If you can post two to three times a week and you're doing it yourself off. That's great. You're at that is a win. You're you're producing content on a regular basis. That's great. I would say for a medium to large-size business four to five times a week and then for you know, a larger company that has a marketing department that can produce that kind of content posting daily or even multiple times a day would be valuable for them. I say that with a caveat of that really applies to Facebook and Instagram Twitter is a whole nother animal in that if you're not producing content, you know, seven to eight times a day seven to eight weeks at minimum. You kind of become irrelevant on Twitter. So if you're not able to produce that content and you don't already have a Twitter, I would recommend just kind of staying away from Twitter at the moment until you're able to handle that kind of content and interaction from people. That's what I recommend to clients home.
[00:08:52] Interesting now Twitter with that frequency and you say we kind of become a relevant, you know, what recommendations that would you provide if you need to tweet that much in one day. I mean, it can't be for every business, right, you know a small, you know, service-based company, you know probably does not have that much time to tweet about so yeah, I know they they likely do not have their own content but there are articles that they could share there are things that they could retweet and share other people's information and content share in the community that they're a part of the other thing that you can do is because Twitter moves so quickly. It's okay to post the same content again, so versus Facebook page Graham where if you're posting the same picture again, people are going to wait a second. I just saw that that's not necessarily true on Twitter. So, for example, I have a client that has a live event today. They'll be posting five or six times during the day and suck.
[00:09:51] The content is duplicated. So in that okay, it doesn't have to be varied because who sees it now is not going to see it in an hour. It's going to see something different. So I do think that it's important that they understand that you don't need to have eight pieces of original content. But you do need to have at least maybe four or five pieces of original content two or three that get duplicated during the day.
[00:10:13] It's that's a good note. And this is Jessica Spivey from social media squared and she's talking to us about social media. This is just denisovich Chief internet marketer, and that's an excellent point the speed of Twitter. They call it right so you don't you can actually and you don't have to be the authoritative figure out of them as long as it's relevant and provides value. I think it's good. That's kind of a rule that I have. You know, if it's relevant to your network and even if it's someone else's content that provides value you can share that way. It's beneficial.
[00:10:51] Yes, as long as you're not, you know, stealing the content and trying to pass it off as your own. That's definitely a No-No, but I would say that if you're if you're re sharing an article, that's from someone else and you're able to tag them. That's a wonderful thing. Yes. Okay. It's it's a good point is very remembers always, you know, make sure that you if you're originating content, that's great. It's always the best if you're an authority and you can write original content and creative but if you're using other people's content as well and like maybe writing an a teaser to it or summary or your opinion, you know, make sure you're citing the source and make it available and identify that was that a good rule of thumb. Yes. Absolutely. Excellent. Excellent. So I mentioned Tik-Tok a little earlier Jessica and I mean, this is the fastest growing social media platform on the internet now tell me a little bit about what your thoughts.
[00:11:50] Are on it. I know it's it's a little bit early. I know it skews relatively young teenage, you know to to early twenties age, but you can't doubt phone number of downloads and the number of you know, just the the raw numbers of you know, it's been like number one or two on the most downloaded apps for the last, you know, three to six months and months. So tell us a little bit about your thoughts on Tik-Tok. So I do think that it is a great place for people to create fun original behind the scenes silly content them to two examples that I'll share with you. One of them is Parksdale there a market out in Plant City and they're actually showing behind the scenes of how they make their milkshakes and different things as to make amazing strawberry milkshakes and down there. They have a Tik Tok and they're showing things like that. They're letting their staff do some of the silly dances and stuff. So it really it humanizes who they are and shows their staff having fun, you know even during this time.
[00:12:50] Which can be a little bit crazy. They're still working. They're still wearing their masks, but they're doing the silly dances and having fun. The other example that I'll share is with a church and within about 48 hours. I help to church crazy. We posted some consistent content for a couple of days and within about Forty-Eight seventy-two hours. We had over 4,000 followers. So if you are engaging people and moving in the right direction providing them content that they want to see the potential is amazing. So that audience is and probably still is their largest segment, you know, Facebook Instagram. That's their largest segment. That's where they see the most amount of viewers. So the potential is great. The the difficult part is that you have to make sure that you're ready to engage especially the church be ready to engage with people that maybe commented with you know things that they were dealing with or whatever. So making sure that you're available to respond needs that platform likes to see you respond quickly.
[00:13:51] Yes. Yeah, that's for sure the I'm I'm doing you know a little bit of you know, kind of tic toc as the you know, watching, you know, understanding the platform seeing what's going on. How is it utilized? You know, what type of content on it? And then I see you know it it's got a lot of promises Thursday. I mean, it's really it boils down and say a short video messaging platform, you know, it's not really designed for Content. It's designed for video game and but I think they're doing some things like they're going to be able to you know, you can set links to content on Mike Instagram for so many years. You know, I spoke back to the to the profile page to go to a link. They're starting to change that Instagram now because I think Tik Tok is is making them change that a little bit but you can also they're going to wage.
[00:14:50] You know adopting e-commerce integrated into the system some some fairly forward-thinking things in the social media platforms where I think Instagram owned the market took a long time, but you know has to wake up and smell the coffee. What do you what do you see this all shaking out? We we mentioned, you know, all these different platforms and you know, we're what platform think are struggling right now. I know my kids were having the snap Snapchat and they're barely on it anymore. Do you think that one's kind of going away? How do they reinvent themselves or you know, where do you where do you see the shaking out and what they call the rule of three? We have three kind of big major players and in the business, I think Facebook's going to be there. What are your thoughts on it off? I think if if another year I would I would project that probably Facebook Instagram and Tick Tock and I think there for three different audiences. I think there's a different job.
[00:15:50] Kind of person what they're looking for is different and I think that's important for us to understand as marketers. So on Tik Tok I want to go see funny jokes. I want to see silly dances. I want I want to laugh and it's it's this month. It's kind of empty white space if you will that allows my brain to just kind of Disconnect and and have fun if it's been a rough day or whatever. And so I think marketers need to be very careful when they enter into that stage as a marketer that you're aware of that and that you're communicating in a way that relates to that versus on Facebook. We're looking for pictures of our friends and family and that kind of makes it's a little different as to what they're looking for a job. And I think if marketers aren't aware of that. I think they could potentially do damage to their own brand if they're not Marketing in the way that they that the user wants to view them.
[00:16:37] Right, right. I think you know it would be interesting to see how it all shakes out and everyone has kind of its Channel but you know, you just don't hear as much about Snapchat anymore. You don't hear as much about Pinterest and as much anymore. I mean even Instagram I think has suffered a little bit with wage, you know Tik Tok coming out but you know Instagram, you know has the backing of Facebook, right? So I think somehow some way that those two platforms we'll figure it would be one of those one, you know, one of those big three leaders and in the space, so let's talk a little bit about I guess.
[00:17:25] You know some of the other challenges that you're seeing in social media or pitfalls that you maybe like to share with small to medium-sized business owners that that you're seeing, you know, I am in the market there's a couple of things that I'm seeing and I encounter this when you know, somebody wants, you know, they want me to come in and and do their social media and the two things that I see is that they expect first of all the expected immediate return and unfortunately, that's not the way algorithms work algorithms. You have to play nice with that means it's going to take a little bit of time if they've damaged their reputation with Facebook what I mean is that they've been pushing sales sales sales sales sales and they've not provided any value value to their customer. They've likely devalued the engagement that they've had with their customer. So we're going to have to build that back up. We might have to spend a little bit money in boosting or an ad's to get more engagement on your post to increase your visibility and that's going to take some time unfortunately. So I think knowing that it's dead.
[00:18:25] No, social media is a little bit more of a long game versus a short game. And so knowing that going into the process is helpful. The other thing is and I kind of touched on this but in content you can't save every post. So if every post is about a product or service that you provide your failing and you're going to see a difference in your engagement, so providing value providing a part of your content for free or a part of your service for free to give them a teaser to get them in the door to buy the rest of what you do, you know and that applies differently to each two different markets, but you know, making sure that your content is based off. I like to tell people fifty-fifty. I would love to see more of a 70/30 so 70% being value-add 30% being product-based but if you can get to a 50/50 cuz most people are off the 3070 s side of that meaning that 30% is value-added 70% of their their product or service but if you can get to a fifty-fifty we're moving in the right direction, so that's what I like to tell clients, Georgia.
[00:19:25] Thing that I see is that there are a lot of people that feel like any content that's out. There is theirs for the taking and that's not true. There are some free stock photography sites that you can use but just because an images on Google doesn't mean that you can use it and just because a meme is on Google doesn't mean that you should use it so being very careful with that content and or making your own different creative version of what you see so using what you see as inspiration not just taking it stealing it and using it for Content. So those are kind of the three kind of pieces that I've seen
[00:19:59] Yeah, I think you know, let's face it the way I take a look at it as social media is not like putting a ad in the Yellow Pages or putting a billboard. It is something that's living and breathing every day what you know as a small let's say a small business owner, you know, what kind of budgets could one, you know expect to get started in social media and not necessarily do they, you know have a a return on investment or make immediate sales and stuff like that. But to actually start building a presence. You know, what what are you talking about from that size?
[00:20:40] Sure. So Facebook and Instagram allow you to advertise for as little as a dollar a day. Now when you do as little as the dollar a day, you're going to get results that are as little as a dollar a day. So that that can be home can feel a little misleading. It's a great place to start. So if you started with a dollar a day and you you tried
[00:21:02] one type of add days and then
[00:21:05] another type of you know anywhere from maybe forty to fifty dollars of testing in a month allow that to drive where you go for for a bigger ad spend. So taking that took those tests and allowing that to to dictate where you go and then from there you can spend cross you could spend god-awful amounts of money, but I would say that honest realistic budget for a small to medium business is something between 100 to $150 a month and that can be split between a general ad that promotes your page to new people that don't that aren't you know, they don't follow your page or like your page and then break the other part out to advertise specific things or specific pieces of content that you're putting out there, you know.
[00:21:52] Right use that $150.
[00:21:55] Or segments not doing well. You can close that.
[00:21:59] Down and put money where you know shipped the money to the other segments that is doing well. Yeah. Yeah exactly. It's a good good recommendation. You gotta gotta get your feet while you got got also recognize them, you know, if you were to look at spending a dollar a day, you know, what do you think? You're really, you know, your returns are going to be you know on a $30 investment as well have to keep those things kind of in line. You can't expect the dollar a day to you know, $30 a month for maybe a test or whatever to return to you three to five thousand dollars in sales.
[00:22:40] So Jessica, I'm going to wrap up our call here. And I want to tell people how to how to get a hold of you.
[00:22:58] We may have less Jessica. So I'm going to continue on here and just tell people how I get a hold of Jessica. It's Jessica Spivey, and she is a social media Guru, and she can be found at social media squared and the website address is it is going to be social media, too. So social media to the number to EDD, and you can check her out. She is available in a social media too, and her email if you'd like her email give that to you. It's Jessica at social media to the number two. Thanks, Jessica Spivey for joining us today CEO of social media Square. Have a wonderful day.