In this informal walk‑and‑talk livestream, Sheryl Plouffe—formerly a 17‑year weather broadcaster and now a video‑marketing expert—shares her personal journey into social media marketing and offers a step‑by‑step, value‑first framework for beginners. She recounts spending the first two years absorbing courses and podcasts, then two years applying, experimenting, and learning from failures. Sheryl emphasizes that success starts with providing genuine value, teaching freely, and never expecting immediate returns. She advises marketers to (1) know their audience, (2) understand how people consume content, (3) prioritize video (live and recorded) as the most effective medium, and (4) create a concrete list of ideas, stories, insights, and lessons to turn into content. She presents a simple checklist method: brainstorm topics, then systematically produce posts or videos from that list. Throughout, she stresses that technology is learnable and not a barrier, encouraging viewers to experiment, fail, and keep iterating. She closes with her contact email (Cheryl@CherylPlouffe.com) and an invitation for further help.
Chapters
There's a little bit of wind today but not too bad at all, so we're just gonna go for a walk and talk about all this stuff. My name is Sheryl Plouffe. I'm a video marketing expert and I actually spent a long, long time on television as a broadcaster, most notably from the Weather Network. Most notably— Hi, everyone! Most notably from the Weather Network as a weather broadcaster for 17 years And now I do video marketing. I'm so passionate about social media marketing, and it's funny because back in, gosh, would have been like 2008 or 2009 when I first joined Facebook, and I actually went unwillingly in the beginning, a little bit kicking and screaming. And now I look back and I think, wow, like, you know, Facebook in many ways has changed my life, my business, and it can change yours as well. So we're going for a walk and we're gonna talk about where to start with social marketing. When I started out in this whole area several years ago, actually really this whole process has taken me about 4 years. For the first— yes, I'm seeing the messages, they're sideways but that's okay, I'll just tilt my head sideways to see them. Thank you guys for being here. About 4 years ago when I kinda started down this path I spent, I think, probably the first 2 years just really inundating myself in courses and learning and podcasts and education. And then the last 2 years have predominantly been spent, you know, actioning those things, actually trying stuff and experimenting and in some cases failing, learning from the failures and then getting right back up on the horse and trying again. So that's really where I'm coming from. The perspective that I'm coming from today is to give you really real-life ideas and examples of what I think would work if you feel like you're overwhelmed with social media marketing and you kind of don't know where to start. When I first started out, I did a lot of experimenting, and I don't know that I was overly promotional necessarily because I think coming from— getting better? Okay, great. Because I came from a long background in broadcasting, it really served me well because as a TV broadcaster, it's ingrained in you to provide value all the time. You're hired as a TV personality to work for a media entity. Yes, you're bringing the, the performance personality part of it to it, but ultimately it's about content and it's about providing value all the time. So we're somewhat at an advantage as a broadcaster because we're— it's ingrained in us to do that. So I like to bring a lot of these ideas and concepts and experience to the entrepreneurial space because I think that You know, that's ultimately what's going to get you further along is if you take the approach of always providing value in your social media posts, then you're going to go much further because people are— people now are paying money not to see advertisements. We're so savvy. We're so in tune with how to avoid the stuff we don't want to— we don't want to be sold. No one wants to be sold. But the truth is, is that we all sell. Ultimately, it's about systems, but it is about at the initial stages always providing value and never expecting anything in return. That's the biggest tip I can give you with regard to that. So where to start with social marketing? How do we give value? Well, it depends what space you're in. Give for free, give, give, give, teach, teach, teach. Give everything you got, you know, and really do a good job of— I think we're okay— do a really good job of sharing and teaching, and it's going to take you far because people come to know, like, and trust you. Well, if you sit down with a piece of paper and a pen and you just brainstorm— I will sit down, and I know I've done this exercise and hope you do too. Your ideas, your beliefs about whatever field you're in. If I find a solution, I'm gonna share that on social media, but that's super valuable. And it can be along the lines of sharing your thoughts, ideas, insights, experiences, stories. But, but the first step is just caring about other people and sharing and teaching. First of all, you have to know your audience. Secondly, you gotta look at what's working and how do people want to consume content. That's why I'm so passionate about video, because Video is the way, and look at this example today. You guys are watching me do this Facebook Live video, albeit it is breaking up, and I apologize for that. Not much I can do. You have to think about it. It's like, am I gonna write blog posts? Am I going to do videos? I hope you will. Is that gonna be a live video or recorded video, or is it gonna be a combination of the two? Where to start with social marketing? It's starting with your message. Start with value. Start with not asking for anything in return. Start with what can I share, teach, or, um, inspire people with in terms of, again, your ideas and insights and lessons learned and troubles and struggles and challenges and obstacles you've overcome, stories you can tell based on your experience in your field. Make a list of those things, brainstorm those things. And that's a great starting point because now— just wait for him to go by— because now— hey, how are you?— because now you've got something to work from. You've got a list and you can just bang them out. Literally, it's a checklist. You just go through one, one. It's like, okay, this story about something that happened that I know would be valuable to somebody else, I Tick. Next day or next week or whatever your schedule is going to be, you go down the list and then, and that's kind of where you can start. It starts by taking the first step. Cheryl@CherylPlouffe.com. If you are liking what you hear, you want to reach out to me, you want some more tips, whatever, I can help you and I'd be happy to do that. So please reach out to me, Cheryl@CherylPlouffe.com. I'd be happy to send you in the right direction. I will talk about online marketing forever. I get really passionate about this just because it is something that can change your life. It can, it can really change your life, you know, and so many people are, have businesses and they feel like they're getting, and maybe you feel this way, are you feeling like you're getting left behind because everybody else is all techie and they know all the systems and they know the ins and outs of everything and you're kind of left in the dust going, "I don't know. I don't know. I don't even know how to use these tools." We get so bogged down in the technology when in fact the technology can be learned. I didn't think I could learn all this stuff. Like, if you told me 4 years ago that I would be doing some of the things I'm doing now with all this technical stuff, I'd be— I'd tell you you were crazy. Now that I've learned it, but, you know, again, I had to apply myself, and I had to try some things and fail and learn and keep going, but it's totally doable. The technology part of it is not the problem. Ciao for now. Bye!
