Episode 031 - Overcoming Pandemic Challenges With Technology

Well, we're back. It's a whole new season, season number 3 of the show. And well, the world is in a bit of a mess with this pandemic. We're seeing areas that are in the third wave, the second wave. There's a lot going on. Businesses are feeling stressed with that. And that's what this episode is all about, helping you overcome the challenges of the pandemic in your business using technology. And I've got a little bit of a surprise for you in this season. We have something new for you. Let's not wait any longer. Let's get started. Welcome to this episode of the Content Amplification Podcast. This is exciting. We are in season 3. Now, when I started this, I never thought that I'd be saying season 3. I was actually excited just to even get into season 1, but We've got a new format for the show, which the biggest change is that we have a co-host. Her name is Jodi. Jodi, welcome to this. Hi. So this is going to be, this is going to be a fun journey for us with what we're doing here. So tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and why you are excited to be part of this podcast.

All right, so I have just joined the Blue Cow Marketing team. I graduated NSCC, the marketing program. Even before that, in high school at my part-time job, just working retail, I got the chance to kind of dip my hands into the marketing world with creating some social media content, just kind of some flat lays, some, uh, setting up some shots of models, some outfits, that type of stuff. And ever since then, just kind of became obsessed with it. So did a big, big U-turn in what I thought my career path was going to be. Took the leap and went to NSCC and then stumbled upon Shaun.

That's a nice way to say it, I guess. But yeah, so I mean, the one thing that this show is about is about content. And when you came on board with us here at Blue Cow Marketing, it was a no-brainer for me to say, you know what, you need to be part of this show. You know, you have a very deep passion for content creation. Even what I've seen in the stuff that you've created for us, but also in, in working and talking to clients, you really have that inner drive for helping people with their content, and that's what the show is about.

Yeah, I— it's probably hands down my favorite thing about marketing. And it's really what it all revolves around, right? It comes down to what content you're putting out there. And it's not necessarily just about the platforms. They can't do it for you. It has to be you reflecting your company properly. And you know, that again, that comes down to the actual content that you're putting out.

Absolutely. And if you've been listening to the show over the previous two seasons, you know that we talk a lot about, you know, ways to come up with ideas for content and, you know, the different tools that are out there. And we even brought in some guest speakers and did some interviews along the way. Today's episode, it is May 7th, and today's episode we're talking about overcoming pandemic challenges with technology. Now, we are recording this from Nova Scotia, and that's the east coast of Canada for our non-Canadian listeners. And we're in a, in a current, you know, lockdown, I would say, with it. And this is probably The tougher one because we've been through the initial phase of the pandemic. We had the major lockdown and people didn't know what was going on. And then, we kind of came out of it. Things were looking good. And now, suddenly we're back in it and businesses and business owners are kind of scrambling. They're unsure of where things are at. And that's what we want to cover in today's episode is with these challenges, what can we do to overcome it and keep our customers engaged. So, Jodi, what do you— first of all, what do you think about the current state of where we're at here in Nova Scotia and even across Canada and what you've seen in the media? Do you think it's challenging for business owners?

I think there's absolutely no question that it is. You know, when you think about the bigger companies, those are the ones that you see that aren't really struggling because they have that, you know, emergency contingency funding to just switch everything online. But then you think about these small businesses who don't have that money that they can just pull out to, you know, spend tons and tons of money on their marketing efforts and setting up an online store in 3 days. You know, they just don't have those resources, which I think it's even more important that they focus on social media because it's such an excellent way to get your content out there for free. You know, like, you can run Facebook ads, you can do all these things, but you don't have to. You just have to know how to do it properly.

That's right. And that's key. I mean, you can do it for free. You know, a lot of small business owners, you know, are, are in a challenge right now, especially if schools have been shut down, your kids are at home, they're learning from home, you can't spend as much time at your business. And also the capacity of your business has been reduced. So, you know, the time needed for that is a little bit less in-store if you have a brick-and-mortar business. But you now have some extra time at home and you should be focusing more on your social media and shifting that focus over there to keep communicating with that customer base and even new customers. And I think you hit it right on the head is just knowing the way to do that.

Yeah, I think What people so often, their misconception about social media is, you know, it's entertainment. It was created for personal use. And so instead of just trying to sell and sell and sell, think about your business as a person, you know, really develop that brand personality. Think about who your companies and your brands friends would be, you know, because that's what we do. I post with my friends on my social media. I post my hobbies, my interests. You have to think about who your brand would be as a person and how you would, how they would post on social media. Because the big trend is people want to see authenticity. They don't, and then, and they want to be entertained. They don't want to look at ad after ad after ad. They're not going to willingly choose that. You know how many ads we're exposed to a day? You know, people are so frustrated with that constant selling. And so we have to find a way to do that while being genuine.

Absolutely. I mean, that fact about how many ads, I think it's in the like the 20 or 30,000 like advertisements you're exposed to, not all you consciously remember, but just the sheer volume. And a lot of times when we're creating, you know, content that is going to be used in the, let's say the advertising space. And we use that word lightly because really what it's doing is, Facebook or Instagram or even LinkedIn allows you to pay them money to reach an audience that's not currently following you on there. So, you know, you're amplifying your message. So, the more you can make that content seem like it's organic as if it was something that they would naturally be engaging with and want to engage with, the better it's going to resonate. And I think in these times, you need to consider the perspective of your customers and how you interact with them You know, they're going through the exact same kind of feelings, emotions with what the current state of this pandemic is that you are. And the more you can be relatable, the more you can be human, the better it's going to stand out.

Yeah, I think what people really miss out on too, a huge opportunity is there. You know, we have people say, oh well, you know, I post on social media. I only have 200 followers. Think about all the followers that those 200 followers have. If you, you know, if you post something about, oh, this is on sale or whatever, people aren't going to repost that. They're not going to share that with their friends necessarily. They might not even take an actual moment to read all the content and look at all the content that's on there. But if you post something that is funny or, you know, creates a reaction out of your followers, or, you know, if they find it relatable, or if something feels genuine about it, or, you know, really hits close to home for them, they're gonna share that. And then, you know, Susie, who normally just scrolls past your post, is gonna put that on her story and, you know, 500 more people are gonna see that, which is, you know, the reach that people are really looking for.

[Speaker:SHAUN] Absolutely. You know, and taking into account also something that I like to refer to as the offline share or the unshared share is, you know, you put something out there that resonates with someone You know what, they're talking to other people they know offline too. So even though they may be amongst that 200 follower base that you have and you have something of interest, they know somebody, maybe their parents need something, maybe their friends need something. There's that word of mouth side that isn't trackable because it's not clicked in a share, right? So you always got to be aware that, you know, you need to keep moving forward. And, you know, if you're just starting out, if you're in that position now where you decided Hey, it's a pandemic, I'm going to start my business. It's a bit of an uphill curve for you for that, but also you don't have the previous experience of what business was like beforehand for you. So you're really creating it that way. And I think what we can do is learn from this as, you know, a lot of businesses have taken this current state that we've been in for the last 15 months or so and used it as an opportunity. And I think that's what we need to think about is this is an opportunity. This is not, you know, a death sentence. This is not something that's going to be detrimental to you if you take advantage of it.

Right. And that's the thing. It really comes down to the glass half full or half empty, right? Like there are so many people who don't really know how to use social media in a business sense. You know, there are business owners who don't even have Facebook pages yet, you know, even in their personal lives. But those business owners and entrepreneurs who are willing and want to learn and, you know, do the work and put in the effort to create good content and get it out there, those are the ones who are gonna, you know, survive through this pandemic, I think.

Absolutely. And I want to share a story with you about one of our clients. Her name's Kathy. She runs a business here in the Annapolis Valley called Absolutely Fabulous. It's a home, I guess, home decor, home appliance, home, home everything kind of store. And for the last 4 years, we have been doing videos with her every month and releasing them every week. So she has this massive amount of videos that she talks about different products. None of them are talking about sales. There's no prices mentioned. It's just, you know, here's this great mixer by this company. This is what we like about it. And that's what the content is. Okay. So the pandemic hits, her capacity has been reduced, so she can't have as many people in there. Now the shift that you need to keep in mind is now people are shopping with intent. People are coming out knowing what they want to buy because they've done the research they need it. And her business has actually grown because of this, because now people are not spending money on trips, they're not spending money at Starbucks every time they drive to work. So they're investing in their home. So they're buying, you know, $700 espresso machines. They're, you know, other businesses are blooming because people are renovating and stuff like that. But the thing has been that she has now started to focus on building her business online and online sales because that's where we're at. And I spoke with her yesterday and she's working with another digital marketing agency. And when she did the consult, The thing that their consultant said to her was, what is different about you is you have a great amount of content already. Many businesses have not focused on creating content. So when this time comes around, they have to now struggle to create content. So if you haven't created content, start now. It's always going to be beneficial. And I want to ask you your opinion on You want— what is content? If somebody said to you, hey, you know, what is content? You're telling me I need to make content. What is it? What would you say?

I think that's a good question because I think that's a huge stressor for a lot. Like, as soon as you say like, oh, I need some content, people just, you know, turn on their back and are like, what? You have to have that creative eye and you have to know your business because really anything can be content. You know, you— and it doesn't have to be directly related to your business too, which is I think the thing that people miss out on. People want to know about you, about, you know, why you started your brand, anything about you and about your daily operations. You know, the thing is people love behind the scenes, they love vlogs, they love raw, genuine, authentic content. So Anytime you're sitting there and, you know, something funny happens, a problem comes up, you know, there's something you need advice on or something you want to know about your customer base, take out your phone, start a video, just talk and put it out there. And that is content. It's as simple as that. And I think that's what people don't realize.

It's raw. That's right. You know, you don't need to know anytime you think of video people. And I've, you know, I've worked with a lot of people that, that are doing video and they think it's expensive. I need like all this production equipment. Well, no, you don't. You're carrying your production equipment in your pocket 24/7 with you. Your phone can shoot the best video you could actually create. And it doesn't have to have like fancy intros and all these graphics and titles., right? It needs to be raw. It needs to be real and it needs to be you. And, you know, I think once you start to understand that and get over the fact that, you know, version 1 is far better than version none, right? So, get that out there and, you know, you're going to see it, you know, start to gain some traction. You know, obviously, your first video is probably not going to bring you in thousands of dollars in new sales or customers. But, you know, you look at it and you see those likes come in and you see, you know, people, you know, comment on it. And what you'll notice, and I guarantee this will start to happen, is the more you do this, you'll run into people, you know, in person when we can actually go ahead and do that again. And they'll say, you know, I saw that video, but they may not have clicked like, but they're seeing it, right? And that's the thing is if it doesn't exist, it's never seen.

Yeah. I think something interesting too with social media is at first, in order to be different, people were trying to make the highest quality, most perfect looking content out there, even on personal pages. And that was what made you different. Now that's the normal. Every single person's personal pages as well, it's their highlight reel. It's the perfect moments in their life, right? So now in order to stand out and be different, it's about being authentic and posting real everyday content that isn't Photoshopped, that isn't Facetuned, that isn't perfect, that has your mess-ups and you laughing in it. So I think it's interesting the complete turnaround that has happened in social media because that is what people are preferring, right?

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, Case in point, a couple of years ago, I was producing videos myself for some marketing assets. And in the middle of shooting this video in my living room, there was a fly in the house and it was flying around. And every time I shot and I was just like, I got so annoyed with it. I was like, you know, doing these kung fu moves. It was so stupid, but doing these kung fu moves, but the camera was rolling and I was like, you know what? I cut that little 6-second clip and threw it on my Facebook page and it got the most engagement ever because people are like, I totally get it, right? You know, if you've tried to do this stuff, even if you're trying to create content and you're stumbling along the way, those stumbles make great content because there's other people trying to do the same thing and they get it. They understand it.

No, exactly. And you know, it's been used for years in advertising, the humor aspect of things. Like think about Super Bowl commercials, you know, how often humor and relatability and those types of unique tones to advertisements are really effective. But for some reason, people are still thinking that social media has to be, you know, very clean and serious and perfect and, you know, all put together content. But really, I think it's the perfect platform to be just the opposite.

Yeah. And it's, you know, we talked about the personality and bringing that out. I guarantee there's stuff in your business or or people or objects or pets or whatever it is that's in your business that can become a character in your social media. If you've got an office dog or cat, right? Give them a, take pictures of them, give them a personality, give some thought and context to what they might be thinking or saying about the current times. People will grab ahold of that and they will absolutely love it. I mean, the city of Halifax many years ago, if you're not from the East Coast or here, at noon every day, Citadel Hill, the cannon shoots off. They created a Twitter account for the cannon, and every day, every day at 12 o'clock, the same tweet, it said boom. And people just started following this and following it, and they love it, right? Because like, for most people, it'd be like, well, it's so dumb, but it's unique. And you know, it's consistently something that, that people can grab a hold of, right? And you can build those characters and those, those storylines in your business.

Yeah, and that just comes right back to the fact that there's content everywhere if you have that creative mindset. There really is. Um, you know, the stuff that you see every single day or the stuff that you do every day in your, um, business operations, it might seem very boring and monotone to you, but if you start showing people that, they love it, right? It's interesting to them. They've never seen how it's worked before, and Businesses so often try to hide what goes on in the background to give the final result. But I really think getting into the, the background stuff that happens is what people want to see now. It's interesting, right?

So absolutely. And I know it's easy for us to say because we're in the industry and we're, you know, we're in social media all the time to say you just need to do this, you just need to do this. And the reality is you're probably listening to this and you're saying, well, you know what, that's easy for you to say. I just don't think about content. I don't know, like Well, what I should be doing, and just like anything, whether it's learning a new sport. So, if you want to learn to run faster, I mean, you're human, you can run now. But if you want to run faster, there's certain techniques that you need to do. It's muscle memory. It's, you know, moving certain, you know, parts of your body differently. And the more you do it repetitively, the better you'll get at it. And this is the whole thing is, you know, learning about content and thinking about, hey, that's a great piece of content, only comes when you start to make it a conscious effort to think about it, right?

Definitely. And I think a big thing too is just exposure to sources of inspiration too is a big thing. A lot of times I find myself just scrolling through Pinterest at different photography shots that I can just quickly remake or, you know, following brands that I really like their kind of angle that they take in their advertising or in their social media content. And even just following, you know, maybe my mom posts something on Facebook that I'm like, that would be a good idea for a business to try that, you know, like you can truly draw inspiration from everywhere. Like you said, it's just forcing yourself and kind of rewiring your brain to start actively thinking about content consistently.

Look at, look at what your competition's doing. Go to their Facebook page, go to their website, you know, check out, you know, their Instagram, all that. Look, you know, do a Google search for the type of business you are, you know, and put in like United States, you know, if you're in Canada and look in different areas and see what other people are doing that may not even be direct competition to you, but they're in the same industry and thrive off of that inspiration of what's out there. And you'll see that there's a lot of creativity that's happening, you know, coming out. And we talk about posts and things like that. That's not the only type of content. I mean, you're listening to content right now in a podcast. The tools are so easy for you to start doing this. I mean, we're using a site called Zencastr. It's a free account. We're not in the same location and we're able to do this podcast together. I mean, you can do it with Zoom if you want. Blog posts, if you like to write, just write. I mean, Seth Godin has made a whole living off of his blog, the number one blog out there, and he writes an article every day. And that's how he promotes it. I write a blog post article every day. But if you look at it, some days it's a paragraph, some days it's 4 paragraphs, right? It's not writing a 1,000-word or 1,000-paragraph ebook every day or anything like that. It's just putting content out that is, you know, relevant to who your audience is and what you think that they would be interested in hearing or seeing or listening to.

Yeah, definitely. It's always— you always think it's harder than it is when you haven't started yet, you know? And that's why people always say starting is the hardest part, because as you get going, you realize it's a lot easier than you thought it was, and you pick up on things a lot faster than you ever thought you would.

Absolutely. I mean, the hardest thing about, you know, getting fit is getting to the gym, right? At the gym, it's easy, right? You're there, right? It's just getting there. And that's getting started, you know, waking up and getting out of bed and actually, you know, making that effort to do it. And treat yourself, treat your business as, you know, one of your clients. And I know that most businesses seem to always neglect themselves. Because they're so busy working with other clients. But schedule some time to, to be your, your social media or your content time, um, that works for you where you don't have distractions, you don't have clients calling or, or staff members, you know, interrupting. Or, you know, you can make a tea or coffee and just sit down and just spend that half hour, an hour, or whatever, and just get that inspiration.

Yeah, definitely. That's a, a huge thing is that organization, planning, scheduling aspect. Marketing a lot of times, and content creation like we said, is one of those things that entrepreneurs will just kind of push away. And, you know, it's kind of the back of mind. It's not the number one priority until all of a sudden you have an excellent product or service. You have, um, you know, everything that you need to provide that service, but you don't have enough people wanting it. You don't have enough leads. And The one thing that helps with that is marketing. And so if you start getting behind on it, you know, it's, you're gonna hit a roadblock when, you know, when it comes down to it.

So. Now we call this episode Overcoming Challenges with Technology. We've talked a lot about content and I think the technology that's out there and it's been around for a while and what we're seeing is, it's starting to become more common in people's lives. You know what? More people because of these current times understand what Zoom is, right? Doing those digital meetings. And lawyers, accountants, all those professional services are using Zooms to meet with clients. And even retail is starting to do video calls, whether it's FaceTime or Messenger video. You know what? If you've got a showroom, right? You've got products in your store, Why not set appointments where you could actually talk to the client and walk around the store with the camera on and show them what it is and answer the questions? And if they want that, ship it to them, right? Give them that virtual experience. It's a way to change the way that we do business. We're not stopping doing business, we're just doing it differently. It looks differently right now. Yeah.

And I even remember, you know, I was guilty of having that really sour attitude about everything turning to technology. I remember in, uh, when the pandemic first hit in March, I remember being so upset that everything was going to be online. I, you know, went on and on to my mom about how I don't want to go back to school. It's ridiculous. How are we going to get the same experience? And then, you know, fast forward a couple months and I have learned way more than ever possible in school. You know, it's, it really is about that mindset. It's about becoming comfortable with technology and stop whining about it and start, you know, really, really just opening your arms to it, right? And getting the most out of it as you can because it really does have a lot to offer. You just have to commit to it.

For sure. And I think one of the, the biggest takeaways that, that I could give, and I'm going to ask you to give one too to our listeners, is that make sure that you are accessible online. Doesn't mean you're sitting there waiting for a chat to come in, you know, 24/7, but that people can find you and it's easy for them to communicate with you. Because what we're seeing in a shift is people are not necessarily only buying in a certain window now. They're buying late hours and they're looking online, you know, you know, late in the evening. They're looking at odd times where they would normally be at work because now they're home with their children and they're messaging, you know, Facebook. Make sure that people can message you there. They can message you if you've got an Instagram account. But more importantly, make sure you're monitoring it. Right. It's your new phone.

Yeah. No, that's definitely very important when you're making that transition into, you know, having that online presence, especially during this time. I think for me, what I, what I would say in terms of advice, because all the time you hear people say, you know, we've, we've thrown around the word creativity a lot and all the time you hear people say, oh, I'm not a creative person. There's nothing that makes me more angry than that because I know every single person out there is creative. It's about, you know, your mindset about it. It's about how you are looking at things. It's about truly your positivity and your attitude towards things. And another huge aspect of creativity is that collaboration piece. Talking to people about your ideas, talking to friends about what they would want to see for content on your business page. You have so many possibilities to create things that otherwise would not be possible than if, if you just tried to think of it on your own, as opposed to talking to your mom and, you know, she has something in her mind or an experience that is completely different and takes you in a completely different direction than you would have thought. So I think, you know, creativity is what, what needs to happen here, and that's what leads to success. And stop saying you're, you're not a creative person because It's not true.

That's right. And one of the things that we've done at Blue Cow Marketing, I'm going to— this is our, our shameless pitch portion of the show, is we're realizing that people want, you know, a second opinion. They want that advice and they love to talk to us, you know. So we have an actual social media assessment that we do with clients. And what it is, is you submit some information about the different social media accounts, you know, your challenges you're having. Jodi will actually do a, a review of what's online, come up with some ideas, and then you get to schedule some time to talk. I know you've done a couple today and they went really well, and we'll give you actionable improvements, advice, you know, an action plan that you can start to improve on your social media right now. And if you want to take advantage of that, it's very easy to do. Just go to bluecowmarketing.ca improvemy.social and you'll be able to get information there and how you can take part of that. And I know you've been enjoying them. You're learning a lot about businesses and people are getting a lot of great takeaways from it.

Oh, definitely. It's just a great conversation. I could talk for hours and hours with them, honestly, like both my meetings today. I had to remind myself, oh right, I have something to do after this. But yeah, it really has just been really awesome learning experience, not only for the clients but for me as well, right? Again, with that collaboration, when you have a conversation with somebody else, there's, you know, countless different directions that it can take and different ideas that can come from it.

Absolutely. Now, I know you prepped for this and you had some questions. I know— I don't think we got to any of them. I still want to include that in this episode. So you want to fire some questions out? And we'll— I have no preps. This is Completely candid, everyone. I did not get any of these questions in advance, so wish me luck.

One of my questions is a little bit more personal in the sense that I wanted to ask you what, what's your favorite content to see, even just on personal accounts or business accounts when you're just scrolling through your Facebook?

I absolutely love people shooting videos on their phones, right? So, you know, not on a tripod. They're out for a walk, they're walking around their office, they're sitting on their sofa or whatever. Whatever it is, and they're just talking about something that they're either passionate about or a challenge that they've had. And they're just being raw and candid. I watch that stuff endlessly. I love it. I watch that more than the polished type of videos with the professional backgrounds and all that type of stuff because I know it's relatable and they're being themselves. That's the content that I love. I mean, it's video. My background's in video, but video is still the number one engaged content on social platforms right now. And, you know, it probably will be for a long time, right?

Yeah, definitely.

What about you?

Oh, I didn't expect you to fire that back at me.

Well, it's fair game, is it not?

I guess so. I guess so. Honestly, the video content as well. I love seeing that type of vlog behind the scenes thing. I mentioned that a few times. In this conversation today. I love seeing, especially when it's bigger companies or, or smaller companies, I suppose, but when they're doing a very professional put-together photoshoot, and, you know, you have the models or directors just whip out their phone and take a video being like, this is what's going on right now. I don't know why, but it's just so interesting to see that type of stuff because otherwise I would have never seen it in my life, right? I've never been on a very professional photo shoot for a big company before, and obviously the majority of people haven't. So being able to see that, I think, is really cool, and it just shows that, you know, the company isn't trying to hide anything that's going on.

And I think that speaks to, you know, if you are in business, showing that behind the scenes, right? So if you get, you know, a shipment of products that are coming in, show it coming in, you know, you show the unboxing, right? Like, hey, what, you know, what do you think's in this box? Let's, let's take a look and let's look at it. I mean, unboxing YouTube videos are like huge online. People love watching people open stuff. It's weird. I mean, when my, my son was younger, he loved watching these YouTube videos of people opening these toys, right? And that's like, it's massive.

Yeah, it's like when you get an online package and you're so excited, you just start ripping it open. It's like getting to watch that, right?

So that's right. I love it. All right, question number 2. I survived one, everyone.

Good job. All right. In terms of social media and content and stuff, what do you think small businesses are failing at the most throughout this pandemic?

In regards to their social media?

In regards to their social media, yes.

I think what they're failing at the most is they're still trying to approach it as if there isn't a pandemic. They're still trying to speak the same way, talk the same way. Or they're just shutting down and freezing up because they don't know how to do it differently. So, they're just talking about, you know, here's, you know, we're down to lower capacity or we shut our dining room or whatever. I think the ones that are failing with their social media are doing either that. They're still continuing the same way they did for years prior or they're just not doing it at all. Um, and versus taking people on the journey that they're on, what they're feeling, what they're experiencing, because people will be empathetic to it.

Yeah, definitely, definitely agree with that. Avoiding is never the, uh, the answer. Um, all right, my last question here. Um, what do you think for a company is the most effective and kind of authentic tone to present on social media? Because, you know, we keep on throwing around the word, you know, authentic and real, but, you know, is there a line or, you know, somewhere that in the middle that it should, you know, the tone should be, centered around?

I think each business has their own personality, their own tone. You know, if you're a solopreneur and you are the business, there's a way that you come across as a person, as a human, and that should be the way that it's felt online as well. You know, I know of people that are very strong personalities, right? They're the ones where you come into a room and you know they're there. You hear them, and their social accounts need to follow that kind of feel. Because if you're trying to attract business and people are attracted to that, then it's going to be great. But if you're quiet and mousy and, you know, not as outgoing on your social, and people are like, 'I can resonate with that person,' and then they do business with you and you're just like, 'Wow,' in their face kind of thing, they're going to be taken aback from it. So I think That needs to be key is what is the personality, what is the tone of the business. But secondly, if you have a business that has multiple people in it, like, I empower you to look at who is on your team and can you give them roles in your social media. So for example, if you've got 2 or 3 different people posting, right, make sure that they put their names with the post because they may be a personality that's on there, right? So if they're in, you know, ship— I'm going to use shipping and receiving— or they might be, you know, you could have the business owner, you could have, you know, the sales rep. Give those three examples there. Those are three different people, three different roles, three different personalities, and people can start to like understand that, whereas, you know, the styles of writing would be different. Don't try to be something or someone that you're not.

Yeah, I think something too with the companies that have multiple personalities, people love to see interaction as well. So on top of having that raw content, it's super entertaining to watch different personalities interact, right? So it's like you're just sitting there like you're one of their friends, right?

So absolutely. Um, and just something that's not related to that, but it's kind of related about personalities in business and how you can take something that you would be doing normally and bring it to social. And I've seen these most recently are these sign wars that businesses are doing. And if you don't know what that is, it's, you know, the reader board signs you see outside restaurants and, you know, you put the letters on and write little phrases. Businesses, I think in the States is where I've seen them, there might be some in Ontario, have been challenging other businesses within, you know, visual distance of each other to a sign war. I mean, basically they're just like making little little digs at each other and calling out with puns and stuff. And they change the signs every week and it just goes back and forth. But they've been taking pictures of them and putting them in galleries on social media. It's just getting massive shares that are out there. So these, these brands are starting to get promotion, you know, just virally through social media. But people are finding the entertainment value in it. You know, outside of my office here, which I work at home, I had a reader board sign. When I first built the office here, and I would put little catchy phrases up. And even to this day, when I run into somebody or somebody says, hey, you know, do you know Blue Cow? And they're like, oh yeah, I know they have that sign, or they had that sign. You know, I used to love seeing the stuff written on it, right? It's just something that people will remember, you know, that is part of the personality. Yeah, for sure. Is that all your questions?

That is all I have for today. Yes, you passed.

Perfect. I have one question for you.

Oh no.

And again, she was not prepped on this one. What do you think is, is the biggest emerging social opportunity that's coming out? Like, we know Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram have all been around, but now you got stuff like Clubhouse, you know, TikTok's been around for a while, those type of things. What do you think is really going to catch on? In your opinion?

Yeah, so obviously TikTok took off because of the pandemic. I see a direct relation, and I don't think it's, you know, I think it's indisputable. People were at home and it was just the perfect entertainment piece, right? So I think again, because of the attention spans we have, it's gonna be those really quick flashy videos that keep attention, right? So I don't think it's necessarily going to be a platform or a certain trend. I think it's going to be the actual delivery. I think we're going to see a lot of faster content, I guess, or sped up, but just more concentrated, I guess.

And I think the key thing that made that successful was that the content was created in an app on a mobile device, right? Everybody had what they needed to do to contribute and create that content in their pocket the moment it rolled out. Yeah, right. So which comes back to use your phone, create your content that way, right? You don't need all these fancy tools and everything to do it. So excellent. Well, so how was it, your first episode with us? Season 3, Episode 1. You know, we said we were going to do about 25 minutes, 20 minutes. We're at 41 minutes right now. But I think the content, you know, it was relevant to keep it that length.

I knew we were probably going to go over because we're both very chatty people. So yeah, it was really fun. Just felt like a good conversation with you.

So excellent. And if you're listening to this and you want to talk to us, You can reach out anytime, bluecowmarketing.ca. If you want to reach Jody, her email is jody@bluecowmarketing.ca. And I'm Shaun, spelled the difficult way of S-H-A-U-N, but if you spell it S-E-A-N or S-H-A-W-N, it still comes to me. So spell it as you, as you wish, and we are here to help you. And if you haven't subscribed yet, please do so. We're gonna be putting out more content like this more frequently for you each and every week.