The Perfect Blend: Choosing the Right Social Media Platforms for Your Business

That's good.

And welcome to a new episode of Digital Coffee Marketing Brew.

And I'm your host, Brett Dyster.

And this week we're going to be talking about social media, business goals, videos, podcasts, all the content you want to know about and probably should be looking into for this year and next year since it's almost 2024.

But with me, I have Julia Pearson with me and she is a self employed marketer and she has scaled from her team from 1 to 12 and she has design work, culture and values and team we've.

And she's just had been doing a great job for the past five years with it and she's certified at the StoryBrand framework.

But welcome to the show, Julia.

Hey, Brett.

Thanks for having me.

You're welcome.

And the first question I ask all my guests is, are you a coffee or tea drinker?

I like, wish I was a coffee drinker.

Like I'm aspiring.

Like the smell, like give me a coffee candle any day.

But the taste of it, I don't know how you guys can handle it.

I am tea all the way, even though I wish I wasn't.

All coffees are the same, so that's one thing.

So Starbucks does actually burn their coffee.

So if you, if you only have Starbucks, then yeah, I could see why you would say that.

But if you actually have good coffee, it does cost more.

But if you actually have that, it does taste better, just taste smoother.

Also, cold coffee is less acidic than warm cob or hot coffee.

So I have tried, I have not tried cold coffee.

Maybe I'll try that next.

Yeah, so there are differences.

So if you don't like the acidity of hot coffee, try cold brew instead.

Because there's no heating process, it's less acidic.

Good to know, good to know.

And I gave a brief summary of your expertise.

But can you give our listeners a little bit more about what you do?

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

Like Brett said, my name is Julia.

I run what is called Stratos Creative Marketing.

Our mission and goal in business is to help business owners improve their relationships with social media.

Yesterday alone I met with three people and the first thing out of their mouth was, I hate social media.

And when it comes to doing social media for business, we can get really complicated feelings around it.

And I totally get it.

Because as consumers we might enjoy it, but as business owners, we feel pressure and really like a guilt around it.

If we're not doing it, quote unquote or whatever is making you feel guilty about your social media.

Don't feel guilty.

So we love doing social, we love doing content.

We occasionally build a website here and there, but our main love is social, both paid and organic.

Got you.

And then how can businesses get more leads from social media?

Because I know it's all about sharing content and we always get those annoying LinkedIn messages that always are hard sells.

And I'm like, nope, I'm done with that one.

So how do you do it effectively?

Yeah, for sure.

Half of the time when I get those LinkedIn messages, my response, my ideal response would be, is this working for you?

That's what I really want to know.

Because I agree it feels uncomfortable to get them.

It feels really awkward.

Did you even research me?

I had one that was like clearly scheduled wrong.

It was said.

The subject line said happy Thursday, but it was actually a Friday, which was just like, okay, are you even paying attention to what you're doing?

And so leads on social is hard.

And I admit it, especially if you have a colder audience or a smaller audience.

And in fact this is like originally I started as like an organic only social media shop and that's all we did.

And we started realizing like our clients were not getting the results that they wanted to.

So we took it to paid and tried something new out.

We love doing.

And this isn't just like, you're right, regular ads trying to get people to buy those work.

Sometimes they cost a lot of money, sometimes they don't work.

It's just like a lot of hit or miss.

But what we love doing are lead generating ads.

And so we couple these lead generating ads with your organic social to create a really vibrant social presence that is actually going to get people into your funnel, into your funnel, into like your sales process.

Whatever it is, we are getting them through there.

And so we're using both together because right now, like Meta Zuckerberg, they just want our money to be quite frank.

And, and as much as it sucks, like at the same time, if you do play their game, you can get like new leads.

A lot of our clients are getting them for a dollar a piece, maybe $2 a piece.

Like the highest one that we have is an energy company and they're getting them for $20 a piece.

But that's because nobody really wants to sign up for an energy company.

So yeah, so that's our approach is we're marrying these two sides and trying to create something that is really systematic for people.

Gotcha.

And that leads to what's a solid content strategy?

Because I feel like without the content, the leads are Never going to come.

Because if you just do straight hard sell ads, no one, everybody scrolls through quickly.

So when it comes to like your organic social, what we love doing is education and entertainment.

That is what people are there for.

People go to social because they want a break from their day, like they want a brain break.

And so if they're doing that's because they want to have fun or they want to walk away having learned something new.

So depending on a brand, like we will go one way or the other, figure out a hybrid.

We actually are doing less and less hard sells on organic social because they don't work and it's just a waste of a piece of content.

And so sometimes at most, like what we'll do is every fourth or every fifth post might be an invitation to do business or to further that buyer journey, like further the relationship.

But otherwise the rest of them are education and entertainment.

And then for the ads, what we're actually doing is we're coming up with a lead generator.

So some people call it a lead magnet.

Whatever you want to do, it's generally like a PDF or a quiz or a course or something that gives somebody something valuable.

A lot of our one that we're running right now for ourselves is we have 101 social media prompts and it's going like crazy.

Everybody wants to know what to write on social and so we have a PDF that outlines 101 different things that you could talk about.

And so we set those up on ads and people, what they'll do is they will trade their email for it.

So we say give us your email and we'll send this to you.

That's how we've built a list of several thousand people that then we're following up via email and we're selling to them via email rather than on social.

All of our clients have been super happy with this approach because it takes selling off the table or of social media.

It takes it off of the social media table, which social media has become or should be like such a relational aspect and the selling is what makes it uncomfortable.

So our clients are feeling like, okay, this feels way more comfortable to me, way more relational.

And then email is where it becomes a little bit more transactional.

So what I'm hearing, what I've been continually hearing is giving away something for free does help with the lead with generating leads.

Because no one just wants to sign up for your newsletter.

They want something in return.

Or a discount if you're E commerce.

Yeah, E commerce discounts are great.

Those are really effective if you're in like the service based industry and your like turnaround time with a new client takes longer.

Really good downloadable resource is really great.

We have had anything from tips on how to budget better.

We had one, one client who, she works in the therapy space and she wanted to do 20 conversation starters around the holidays that like, was so good because everybody's, ugh, we need better conversations around the holidays.

And so we try to find some that might fit seasonally or that are just really good evergreen because it's things that people know that they need.

And how does storytelling play into this?

Because content by itself without a defined goal or defined like, way of figuring out where the content's going leads people to, oh, I don't know what you just told me.

So we definitely want to make sure like everything that we're creating, especially like those lead generating PDFs, fits within the overarching story of what you want your client to do.

And I live and die by the storybrand framework.

If anybody, anybody's listening to this, it's a great book, it's a fast read.

And the whole premise of it is that as business owners, we are the guides and our customers are the heroes and they can't reach success without us.

And so when I'm thinking about my lead generator, my lead magnet, I'm thinking, okay, what does my customer need to succeed and how could my lead generator be the first step?

Step.

So I don't want them to be able to succeed without me, so I want them to taste a little bit and then say, oh, that was so good, Let me hire Julia to do the rest.

And so I need to know, okay, say for example, like one of our financial advisors wanted to launch a budgeting app.

So their customer wants to budget better, have more money, have like financial security.

And as a financial advisor, he's the guy to help lead them to that financial success.

We created three tips on how to save money or way 10 ways to save a hundred dollars in a day that gives people a tiny taste of his methodology and his expertise so that they have a quick win and that's related to their success.

If he suddenly was like, hey, eventually I know that I want to sell a budgeting app, but let me create a PDF about five things you should know about your 401k and retirement plan that has nothing to do with a story that he's trying to tell around budgeting.

If he was trying to tell a story around financial peace, financial awareness related to the retirement days, and that would be Perfect.

But like, we have to think about what story we're telling.

What's the end result that we want.

Just like you said, if we don't have a goal, like, why create the content?

And then all of what we created afterwards supported that budgeting story, which is a piece of this financial, of this financial story.

And now comes the Howard delivery with such as a diverse portfolio of different content.

You could do blogs, podcasts, videos, written newsletters through LinkedIn video, short form videos, long form videos.

How do you pick the right format for your audience?

That is a great question.

And I feel like it's something that we battle with every day, like both internally and then with our clients.

Not we're not battling against our clients, to be clear, like, we're battling alongside of them to figure out what fits.

And so I think it's a combination of what does a client feel comfortable with or what as a business owner do I feel comfortable with?

I had a great successful business owner who just the other day said, I will never do videos because I don't want to.

And I've been successful without them.

And so I'm going to stick, stay true to who I am.

And while videos perform great and I would say you, you might be missing out.

She has a point, like, and it like, she's successful without them and so, like, why, why do something?

I guess what I'm trying to say is if she's comfortable knowing, like, okay, I might be missing out, but I'm okay with that, then so am I, if that is true to her.

So we are trying to figure out what is true to the client, where is the audience, if their audience is more on Instagram, more on TikTok.

Like in the end you have a little bit of your audience everywhere, but where are they the most and where do they spend their time?

Also, where do they spend time thinking about you?

We've had a lot of business professionals who were like, you know what, we actually should be on LinkedIn because people are in more of a work mode when they're on LinkedIn and you are more of a work related service, whereas Instagram is more fun.

So they're not thinking about you when they're on Instagram.

So we're also looking at where the audience is.

Lastly, one of my things that I insist on is what?

Not what do you have time for, but what will you make time for?

Because in the end we can, we can make time for anything, but we're all picking and choosing what's a priority.

So if I have A client.

And I know video is going to be the best thing, but they will never do it.

Then.

Like, why?

I need something.

I need something rather than nothing.

So let's get to work on something that feels cohesive or that they will actually create.

Like, if they are more into writing, let's get them writing blogs, and then we can convert some of that into video or reels or things like that.

So those are three questions that I usually ask is, what are you comfortable with?

Where is your audience?

What kind of stuff are they taking in?

And then what will you actually do?

Because if you're not going to do it, let's start with something.

Gotcha.

And then does AI start to play a role now?

Because everybody's talking about it, everybody's trying to figure out how to use it effectively as well.

Is that, does that play a role with a lot of clients?

We use AI a lot to repurpose things.

So.

Because in the end, AI is a tool, and a tool is only as good as the people who are using it.

And so if I.

And we've tested this and you can see it online too.

Like, there's more and more.

Like on LinkedIn, you can tell what has been written by AI and what has been written by a person.

And so what we usually doing is having a person initiate the process.

So whether they're writing a blog or maybe they're just writing the outline, and then AI, like, fills in the gaps, but we want the person to be starting with the original thought.

And then if we're, if they've given us a blog, then we might say, hey, chat GPT, will you break this up into 10 social media posts?

That helps us save time.

But one of my rules with all of our team and our clients is it has to start with a person and it has to end with a person.

Like, we're like ChatGPT and other AI tools use very fancy words that we don't necessarily use every day.

And you can tell it to not use those words, but in the end it sometimes sneaks them in anyway.

And so you should be looking at it before and after and saying, does this sound like me?

So I think it's a great way to create multi, like to multiply the pro, the content.

But it's a very rare occasion that I would start with AI, unless if it was to help me brainstorm an original thought.

Got you.

And then we've done all this.

But like I think you mentioned before, but where's the right distribution way of doing it?

Because everybody Said nowadays, not before, when social media was new, everybody was on everything.

It was like, let's be on everything.

It's all great now.

Everybody.

Maybe you shouldn't be on every single one of them unless you have a very large team to disseminate all that.

So where should clients be?

Like, what right platform is for them?

Is.

Yeah.

One of my friends, Annie Schiffman, she just came out with a new book called Simple Social Media.

She talks about picking.

If you only have so much bandwidth to pick two things that are not owned by the same company.

So pick Instagram and TikTok, or Instagram or Facebook and Twitter.

Slash X.

Like things that are not owned by the same company.

Like, your two things can't be Facebook and Instagram because those are owned by Meta.

I think that's like a great principle and I thought it was brilliant when I first heard it.

For people who have a really limited amount of time, we are hired by clients to get the distribution out to way more platforms.

But what we'll usually do is we'll say, okay, based on the client's Strategy, we think LinkedIn should lead.

LinkedIn is going to have the most of their audience.

They're going to be in the right mindset.

But now that we've created that content, why don't we pop it over on Instagram?

Why don't we pop it over on Facebook?

Because why not?

We have it anyway.

And so that's how we think.

And that's what I would do for bigger companies, people that have more time, people that are using tools like schedulers.

But I think that Annie's tip on picking two places that are not owned by the same one is, like, a really good place to start because then if one goes down, you still have the other one.

But then also you're reaching, like, different sets of your audience for content creation.

What do you think the essential tool should be for creating this stuff?

Because maybe they can't hire someone like you.

Maybe they have to do it themselves because sometimes they'll just happen.

What are the tools you recommend for marketers that may not have a budget for outside help?

Yeah, I'm all about diying.

If it's free, all the better.

So I love.

I think a scheduler is vital.

Anybody can search like a free scheduler, like, later.

I think Canva is also, like, another important tool.

Canva is what?

Like, why I love diying and I love free.

Canva Pro is, like, worth every cent that you pay it because it has built in AI.

It'll save you time with their brand kit.

It's one of.

I have five, four to five tips that I always tell DIYers and that is actually one of them because it'll save you a ton of time.

And then what I love doing is I.

We actually use old school like Google sheets, spreadsheets to organize our thoughts, organize captions, organize like the hashtags that go with them, things like that.

Social media doesn't have to be hard in the end as long as you're doing it well and you're pacing yourself.

Would you use like things like Notion or.

I think Microsoft just launched their own version called Loop.

That's like a great one too.

All of the tools, I think that in the end you have to figure out which ones work best for you and what your suite is.

We just started using Cap Cut for reels and it makes them, it makes the process so much faster.

And granted, like we're making tens and hundreds of reels every month for clients, so like we, we need to make them faster.

But it's been like a really good tool to speed up the process.

Would that be better than the Canva video editor?

Because I think they now have a video editor, don't they?

Yeah, Canva has a video editor and it was.

It's really good and we started using that one.

But we.

The hard part is the captions, so.

Cause you have to almost like manually add them and so Cap Cut, like you don't have to.

So that was what was taking up the biggest amount of time.

And for those out there that want to try traditional video editors, DaVinci Resolve does actually have a free version of their video editor as well.

Doesn't have auto transcriptions, that's the studio version of it, but they do have an actual like video editor for free.

And in the end, I think that's what as marketers we have to think about is like, what is worth our time and what is worth our money.

And I get.

You have to have resources in order to be able to make those choices.

But I think that as marketers, we finally realize, hey, it is more worth me paying for Canva Pro than us having to go back.

Because Canva Pro, for those of you who are not familiar, you can create brand kits and have each client's hex codes and fonts together.

And so all you have to do is go in and select the client that you're using or if it's for your own business, like pick which brand you're using.

And then all you have to do is like, then you can just see the colors.

I started realizing, like, wow, the amount of time that my team is taking to look up hex codes, lookup font names, all of those things.

Like, it's probably worth, like, 15 bucks a month to pay for Canva Pro, even if it's just saving, like, a little bit of a headache.

And I think that's the problem as marketers.

There's so many tools, and they're so good, but you have to think about what's, like, the best use of my time.

And usually it's like, our brains are, like, the best tool that we have.

And so, like, how can we take the nitty gritty out of the picture so that our brains have more space and time to.

To really make magic?

Have you noticed your clients actually want to do more podcasts or be a guest on podcasts because of the evergreen side of the content as well?

Because not I.

And I always say, not everybody should be doing podcasts.

If you can't do podcasts, don't do it.

But are you seeing that side of, like, ads and guest spots for clients going, hey, I want to be on podcast now?

Yeah, I think we have a handful of clients who have their own podcasts, and then we have a handful of clients who guest on podcasts.

And that's usually the differentiation, is that when clients come to me and they're like, hey, I want to do a podcast, I usually say, why don't you go guest on a fee first?

Because it's a great way to give it a shot, see if you like it.

Like, not everybody.

Some people, like free.

Some people, like, get uncomfortable on podcasts, and that's totally fine.

But go guest on one before you start one, because starting.

Brett, you and I both know, like, starting and maintaining one is a lot of work, and it is worth it.

But I always advise my clients to test things before they.

They lean into them or at least lean in hard.

Because a lot of my clients and myself, we all have this, like, bright, shiny, like, object syndrome.

And so, like, podcasts, I think, have become bright and shiny objects for some of my clients because they feel like they should be doing it, and it's the new cool thing to do.

But I'm like, do you really want to do it?

And do you really actually know the time commitment that it'll take for sure?

And it's not just like, a time commitment for, hey, I get to write one blog or I have to do one podcast episode.

I think it's, are you willing to do this on an ongoing basis.

And what I love about podcasts is more and more people are doing seasons and things like that.

And so there's workarounds to it.

But, hey, you might not feel like recording, but you have a podcast episode that you have promised people will come out next week.

And so are you going to put your big girl pants on and go record it, or are you going to potentially disappoint your audience?

And so that's like kind of the questions that we help our clients process.

Because going back to what kind of content should you be on?

Are you actually going to do it?

Because if you're not actually going to do it, let's not start and then disappoint our people.

Yeah.

And it's also making sure the audio is good, making sure that you know what platforms to be on.

For example, Google podcasts is going away in favor of YouTube Music, which I saw in a.

I saw that happen.

I didn't know that.

Yeah, that's awesome.

Google announced.

That's interesting.

Earlier this year that it's going away, which I saw it happening because they were focusing on YouTube music and they were adding podcasts.

And I'm like, that's the next stepping stone for Google to get rid of Google podcasts.

For sure.

That's fascinating.

So it makes sense.

In the end, Google can do whatever they want.

And it's true.

We will all follow.

So, yeah, whether we like it or.

Not, we will all follow.

Just like Google Reader went away.

For sure.

For sure.

Well, I'll play the game.

And what do you think are some of the common challenges marketers face with content marketing?

And we've talked about all these different content.

What are the common challenges?

Is it the tools and finding the right tools for them?

Is it finding the time to do it?

Because with every new content you try to add on to yourself, video could take actual hours and not just minutes.

Podcasting does take hours because you not only have to edit the audio, if you're doing video, you gotta edit that.

You also gotta do the show notes, the timestamps, and everything else that goes in.

Involved with that.

Is it.

Are those kind of the common mistakes that you've been seeing with marketers?

The common mistakes?

I think I'm going to take everything you just said and sum it up in one word.

And I think the common problem that as marketers we face is burnout, because we're taking on, like, too much.

Whether it's for our clients, whether it's for our bosses, like, whatever, or for us, like we are exhausting ourselves because of everything you just said.

Like, we're trying to do it all because we feel the pressure to.

And there, there is space and time for all of those things.

But I think that we also don't always know our numbers or our analytics.

I always think marketing is like half science, half art.

And generally some of us fall in one camp a little bit more than the other as like a creative.

I definitely fall into like the art space.

And so many times I am like running like in a hamster wheel trying to do all of it, burning out because I don't know what's working or not, because I'm not paying attention to my numbers and my science.

And so I feel like that's something that if we can integrate those two sides better.

And I say this, like, for all my fellow social media managers, I know it is so hard to prove ROI for social media and it is like the bane of our existence.

So I get it.

Like I'm saying, know your numbers, but how do we even know them?

But because of that, we're trying to do everything to prove that it's working.

And in the end we're exhausting ourselves.

And I think that's one of the biggest mistakes and problems that we face is that, yeah, we have the tools, we have all these things, but in the end, if our brains are too exhausted to be creative, like, we've lost like our most valuable asset.

It is similar to pr because PR is definitely harder to actually show your roi because PR is very awareness driven and media hits and that's harder to correlate than marketing.

Marketing is more towards sales and you could actually correlate those better.

But PR is purely just awareness, brand awareness, media hits, and figuring out how that goes with your sales is.

Can be very difficult.

And social, I would say, like social, organic probably lives more in like the PR camp.

Social ads probably lives in the marketing camp.

And so that's where it's like really complicated to figure out.

And that's honestly like, why we started adding like, ads because we were like, hey, then we can justify the organic.

Because I also tell all my clients, you can't do ads without organic or else you're going to look like a scam and you don't want that.

So true.

And then with the evolving digital landscape, what do you see as the Future Trends for 2024?

Do you see more AI driven content with the human touch?

Because we always need a human touch to it.

Do you see more podcasts exploding even more than before?

Because All I see from the numbers and I keep up to date with all the podcast stuff is that it's still going up.

Podcasters are having had more influence now than influencers themselves right now because of just how podcasts are different than just social media influencers.

Do you see more leaning in towards podcasts as a content viable wise, or do you see AI more leading the charge than podcasts will ever will?

Gosh, I feel like that's a really hard question.

I see both of those things.

I.

I'm actually curious.

And so this is not a trend or a prediction or anything.

I'm curious.

Like, already I feel like the temperature around AI has changed since the beginning of the year where everybody was really gung ho about it to, like, the end of the year and people being like, wait a minute.

And maybe it's because I live in this creative writing space and where people have been like, is this really better?

Is it really better?

And so I think that.

I think in 2024, we're gonna get more answers on that.

And so we're gonna get more answers to see is AI.

Could AI do the same thing that humans did in terms of sales or marketing and sales in the end, or is it better or is it worse?

I think that's what we're gonna see is, like, this human versus AI, like, decision, and will AI take the front seat or the back seat?

That's what I'm curious about.

Gotcha.

And then where can people find you online?

Yeah, if you want to come and follow us, we are at Stratos Stratos Creative.

We.

I spend most of my time on Instagram, so come over to Instagram, but we are on almost every platform, so you can find us there.

All right, any final thoughts for listeners?

No, you guys, you know what?

I just come down to the fact that we are all doing our best with our marketing.

And even, like, those circling back, even those, like, cold messages on LinkedIn, they are trying their darndest to do their best.

But I think in the end, we have to really look at what is pushing the needle and what is making a difference and what resonates with us and our brands so that we don't burn out.

Because in the end, if we're doing things that don't align with our values, that's how we're going to burn out.

And so to all my marketers out there, you've got this.

All right, Julia, thank you for joining Digital Coffee Marketing Burn, sharing your knowledge on social media and content.

You're welcome.

And thank you for listening.

As always, please subscribe to this podcast and all your favorite podcasting apps with a five star review.

It always does help.

And join us bi weekly now since I've gotten so many great guests for another great talk topic with thought leaders in the PR and marketing world.

All right guys, stay safe understanding your content and your social media and see you next month.

Later.