Episode 187: Social Media Secrets from the Pros

Welcome to Skucast, the podcast for entrepreneurs in the promotional products industry. Skucast shines a light on our industry's best work, features maverick personalities, and discusses what's really involved in running a modern promotional products business. Skucast is the official podcast of Common Skew.

I think a lot of the time people will underestimate social and the power of social, and when social media is being done well, it makes it look very easy. And so people are like, I can have anyone do that, like it looks so easy. But that end result and what you're seeing when you look at our Instagram pages or any of our feeds is the final result of months and months of back planning and things going on behind the scenes that people may not necessarily see. So when you look at the comments—

that's the voice of Allie Brunton. And today, Allie joins me with a super panel of power thinkers when it comes to social media. Allie, as many of you know, is the senior marketing coordinator for CommentsQ. After working in communications at the Boeing Company and promotions for True North Sports and Entertainment, Allie joined CommentsQ in 2018. She holds a Bachelor of Commerce in marketing and HR as specializes in digital and content marketing. Joining us is Taylor Borst and Melissa Newman. Now Taylor's Director of Marketing, Events, and Public Relations for American Solutions for Business. She joined the print and promo industry in 2015. Melissa Newman is ASI, the Advertising Specialty Institute's Social Media Manager. She's been in the digital marketing space for about 5 years with a significant concentration in social media marketing and holds an MS in Digital Innovation and Marketing. And hi, I'm Bobby LeHew, Chief Content Officer at CommsCube. Today, I'll be the stand-in audience for the business owner. What I've asked our super panel to do is advise me as if I were a fairly progressive distributor or supplier on how we can do social media better. Who am I? Let's say I have a team of about a dozen people, cool brand. We're doing social media as we have time, but when we do it, it's decent. I have some bandwidth or some people to help manage our social media marketing. Social media marketing is important to me and us I just don't allocate enough resources to it because we have so much to do and I can't see contributing too much of a team member's time to it. I, as the owner, am a frequent user of Facebook, Twitter, and less frequently Instagram. I don't dabble with new platforms like Clubhouse until they're proven, but I do pay attention. So that's who I am. Today's fictitious entrepreneur. That's who they are speaking to today. Not a newbie, but we're not consistent and creative as we'd like to be. Today, Ali, Melissa, and Taylor advise me on topics like which platforms are most effective now. How do I know when to jump in a new platform like Clubhouse? How do they gauge effectiveness? What does their time allocation look like? And who should I be looking for someone to manage our social media marketing? And one of the most important questions I asked them is to tell me their one super secret tip to creating an amazing social media experience. Before we get to that, you've heard about the new conference we launched called Product Summit Sustainability, right? If you haven't, the goal of Product Summit is to elevate how we think about sustainability in our industry, how we sell sustainability. Plus, we're combining real-world learning with on-trend product ideas that are solely focused on sustainable solutions. It's led by brand leaders in the field like 12NYC, Fair Wear, Redwood Classics Apparel, Eco Imprints, Eco Promotional Products, HIT, Sandbar, and breakouts led by 24 supplier leaders. So bring your team to learn how we can change our world by changing how we sell. Register at commonscue.com/productsummit. This episode is brought to you by Commonsku, the work from anywhere platform that powers your connected workflow, enabling you to process more orders and dramatically grow your sales. To learn more or to begin your free trial now, visit commonscue.com. Now, here's our stellar lineup of advisors, Allie, Taylor, and Melissa.

Before we get into platform or tactics, let's talk about purpose. How would you encourage a business owner to think about social purpose? How would you encourage me to direct our social strategy? Maybe another way of asking this is, what should be our goals? And Taylor, I'm going to start with you. And then we're going to move around counterclockwise. Sayla, go ahead.

Sure.

So I think it's important to always think about what is your purpose as a business and how can you best translate that into the digital setting. So, you know, you can think about purpose from a broad scale, but you can also think about it at a really granular level too. So breaking each and every post down by specifically asking what are you trying to accomplish and what emotions are you trying to evoke from that audience member. So, you know, putting something out there and being mindful of, am I trying to make them laugh? Am I trying to make them feel a sense of connection to my company or to my organization? Am I trying to explain part of who I am to them? And the more, the more that you can hit on all of them at once, the more impactful a post is going to be.

Melissa, how about you?

So for me, I feel like you have to bring it back to your strategic business plan, like however you plan for the year, like if you're doing 12 months out, and then turning whatever goals that are, I guess, high priority into social goals and then building out your content calendar for there. I think that is one of the things this industry kind of struggles with is seeing that ROI for social. So they end up signing up for an account or a platform and just start kind of creating content and they don't get necessarily the outcome they want and it's because it's not aligned with your business strategy. So I think Yeah, that is the best thing to do, to simplify things and think about what you want to accomplish for your business. And then if you decide to use social media marketing as a viable channel for marketing your business, it's just turning those goals into social goals and then building out your calendar from there. That would be my advice.

Allie, how about you?

Yeah, I mean, Melissa and Taylor, I think were absolutely spot on. I think ultimately when you're looking at your digital purpose and your social purpose, it's going to be a matter of amplifying the purpose that you already have in your business. So those two things definitely shouldn't be disjointed. It should really just be an extension of your purpose as a company. So, Ditto, exactly what they said. That was spot on.

I can hear a business owner— as I mentioned in the intro and described who I am as a business owner— I can hear a business owner going, well, my purpose is to grow sales. And so, but what I hear all three of you talking about is breaking down this big, great purpose down into either those quarterly goals or those monthly goals, because every quarter you might have something different. Maybe some one quarter you recognize you might need to engage better with your existing audience. Maybe another quarter you realize because of the seasonality of sales you might need to focus on something else. Let's switch over to— I think most people listening probably go, I believe in social, I know that this is what we need to focus on, but really I need more education on how. So let's switch to that a little bit. Let's talk a little bit about our social voice and our social presence, brand design, colors, tone. Can you— I know Allie has done such an exceptional job with both our time. I can speak mostly to what we do because we're immersed in it all the time, but she's such a great job with the tone of the brand and bringing this character to life, if you will. So if the brand was a particular personality, brings— she brings that to life really well. Can you speak to how these attributes shape a brand's voice and how this magnifies or amplifies the brand online? Taylor, I'm going to start back with you again.

Sure. So when I, when I think about the design and color and, and all of the pieces that kind of go into what we think about when it comes to a brand, I think that a really powerful piece of that is, is beyond just the logo. I think sometimes people, you know, they, they think that their logo and their color scheme is going to carry them all the way home and then they kind of rest on those laurels where with American Solutions for Business, what we've really done is, is tried to create a presence where, you know, we're reflecting our established values that our company has. And so in that, you know, the objective is to really help outsiders understand what is the culture of care that we have built. You know, what's the balance between our small-town values and our powerful national reach? And if I were to define the ASB voice, it would be or I would hope that it would be warm and bright and approachable. So that it doesn't just feel like this massive business that I think sometimes when you see a static logo, it can feel a little impersonal.

I can hear you saying that that's something you obviously consciously have to do because American Solutions for Business is this big entity and you have to bring this personality and warmth out because it's not a conglomerate. It's actually a business full of personable people. I can feel, I can feel that tension in you trying to make sure that you do that. Melissa, you have a different role. You know, you're, you're a social media manager for a media company. So it's interesting, you have two different perspectives. You have the perspective of guiding and advising suppliers and distributors, and then you have the perspective of being a media brand. What's your take on voice, tone, image, all of those things, and how does that amplify the brand voice?

So I think it's important, and I think it's something that you're constantly refining, you know, again, based on the goals that you have as a business owner. But I mean, For me personally, I think of ASI as a thought leader in our industry. I try to make sure that when I'm crafting messaging that goes out on social, that it's accessible, it's informative, it's fun, because I feel like those are some of the things that I want people when they kind of come into our funnel and I'm like one of those first passive touches. I feel like when people are learning about a company, social media is one of the ways that they kind of learn more. So I just want to make I'm representing that in social as best as I can. So I think being as consistent as you can is important for building like that brand equity.

Allie, you're going to have to get comfortable with me bragging on you just because I'm so close to what we are doing, but you came into the organization and you quickly discovered that we had a very unique voice and it had this playful fun. I'm going to let you describe it, but how important is voice and tone and imagery online?

Ultimately, it's everything. It's funny to me because I think a lot of the time people will underestimate social and the power of social. And when social media is being done well, it makes it look very easy. And so people are like, I can have anyone do that. It looks so easy. But that end result and what you're seeing when you look at our Instagram pages or any of our feeds is the final result of months and months of back planning and things going on behind the scenes that people may not necessarily see. So when you look at the Common Ski page, you might see a bright, fun, airy brand, but that has been months of planning in the making. Don't be fooled. We've been, we've been crafting that. So I think that that's a common misconception. But like you said, coming into the Common Ski brand, I came in about 3 years ago and it is a very fun, bright, airy sort of aesthetic. But it's also an interesting kind of company because we kind of walk a very thin line of being like these technology mavericks and like we're game-changing and doing things differently, but we're also a tech company that's trying to be taken seriously and, and who has clients that are trusting us with their companies. So it's kind of that fine line of wanting to be that really fun cutting-edge brand and also being taken seriously and kind of mashing those into one cohesive sort of picture that we have online.

That's a great point. I, I think all of you alluded to this, but the fact that all of that's that work that seems very spontaneous and And that's the misnomer, right? It's because we process social media as a spontaneous experience. We think the work behind it should be easy and spontaneous. And I think that's probably one thing for business owners to realize is that, you know, it's different from our personal social media interaction, which it's all spontaneous. In this case, all three of you work very, very hard to create and craft what seems like often spontaneous moments. And many of these, like Ali said, can be a lot of planning. Now let's switch over to platforms because I'm sure that we have tons of opinions, very strong opinions on this. And so I can't wait to dig into this. For B2B, what are the most effective platforms, and can you list in order of most effective to the least without commentary yet? What I'm curious, without us influencing each other, what you thought. So TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook. Let's start with you, Ali. What would you list in order of priority?

Bobby, you're killing me because you're saying no commentary, and there's so many different, like, meanings to the word, but, um, I will say for us, broadly speaking, it would be Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook.

All right, Melissa, how about you?

Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, probably like a tie between Instagram and Twitter. And then, yeah, those would be like the ones that are probably the most beneficial. And then anywhere from like Pinterest, the YouTube. Those would kind of be tied for us.

Okay. All right, Taylor.

Okay.

I can't wait till I get to explain a little bit more, but I guess my, my, mine would be Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok.

Okay. Now let's let everybody have a chance to opine on this and actually give an opinion on why you feel that way. I know we have very strong opinions about this. I know Allie does because we go over this in our quarterly numbers meeting. Allie. Why did you say effectiveness depends on what we mean? Can you explain that?

Yeah. So ultimately, for each of the platforms, we have very different goals and different measures of success. So when I'm looking at how we've done for the month on Facebook, if we were successful on Facebook, it's not necessarily meaning that we're successful on any of the other platforms. For us specifically on Facebook, we measure our success with our click-throughs. We have a lot of blog content that we're posting on our Facebook. And so typically the behavior pattern is somebody isn't going to click on a Facebook post and then come back and comment on it or say something about it. So that means a little bit less to us than if people follow the link and actually visit our blog page. Whereas a platform like Instagram, people, our engagement is a lot more important to us. So those comments and likes mean a lot more, especially saves and sending our posts. So just stuff like that. So the behaviors that we're trying to encourage on the different platforms is where we see success. That being said, it makes it like comparing apples to oranges when it comes to, you said kind of just ranking them out of the blue in terms of effectiveness. And that's why I'm always like, this is our ranking, but like, please let me explain. Like, I know on the surface it might look like Instagram is successful because that's where we get the most But there's a lot of other layers to it.

Well, and we'll get to everybody on this, but I want to clarify something too. I think as a business owner, what I might hear is, oh, Instagram is the most effective. That's where I'm going to spend my time. But actually it's the symbiotic relationship often between all of them online that might be feeding into each other. So we have to be very careful. It's probably more a matter of where do we attribute more of our time to some of these platforms, Ali, because I think we spent— used to spend more time on Facebook than we do now. Correct me if I'm wrong. And we're spending more time on other platforms, but let's let Taylor defend end her list or tell us what she thinks about it. Taylor, thoughts?

First of all, I 100% agree with Ally. It's honestly like comparing apples to oranges in a lot of scenarios. And I think that the reason why this question gives me so much anxiety is because the answer is dictated primarily on your target demographic and product. So for example, if your demographic skews older or more local, then your best platform's probably going to be Facebook. If it's, you know, maybe more of that millennial, it's going to be Instagram. If it's Gen Z, it's going to be a combination of Instagram and TikTok. So when I kind of rattled off that initial list, you know, I really probably should have flip-flopped Facebook to be number 1 because I think that sometimes when people think about Facebook, they only think about what they're posting on their business page, but they're not really taking into account the, closed group environments that we've created within the promotional product industry, which is a completely different animal. You could almost consider that to be in a different bucket. So if we count that, then I would say that Facebook is more of a powerhouse, at least in our industry right now.

Yeah.

Okay, Melissa.

Yeah. So I mean, for me, just working in this industry, I feel like Facebook is just— it has like such a monopoly. And I feel like people are more comfortable with using Facebook because of the personal profiles that they have. So I think it's like a natural extension. And I feel like when it comes to them branching out, Instagram has been out long enough where they also kind of feel comfortable utilizing that platform, maybe not as much as Facebook, but those be the two that are big. However, in like the last couple of months, I've seen more interest in LinkedIn and I feel like that'll be something that to kind of lean in for thought leadership. For us though, for like ASI, Facebook and LinkedIn are probably number one. And then also Twitter, like for the type of content that we create, we do a lot of different blog posts. We're always putting out new content and media, and we have a great editorial team that are really well known on Twitter. So I think that helps us. But I mean, going back to what Ali and Taylor said, it really depends on your audience. You know, like you're trying to capture and the type of content that you like, the team, the resources that you have. Not everybody wants to be on every platform, and I wouldn't advise that. So it's really like, you know, picking a platform stack that works for the size of your team, your strategic business goals, and the type of content that you like.

Yeah. Melissa, I've seen your editorial team does a really interesting job, and I don't even think they try to do this. It's just a natural outflow of who they are. Your editorial team spends a lot of time your editorial team talks to each other on Twitter often. I think that's interesting because we're getting to catch a glimpse of the conversation that would happen in the office, but it's actually happening through Twitter. I've, I've enjoyed that. Taylor, something you've talked about with Facebook is that these closed groups, you've actually, you've had, you've built experiences within these Facebook groups. So I think the lesson here is that what everyone is doing, they're doing something special or unique within each of those platforms, and it's not just a matter of simply listing by priority, which are most effective. Totally depends on what we're doing inside those platforms. Now let's talk about new platforms, like what's your take on Clubhouse? Have you had a positive experience with it? Melissa, we'll start with you, but how would you reply to Seth Godin's comment? By the time you show up to chase the cool kids, it's probably too late to guarantee a sinecure. Is he right or wrong? Is it FOMO? How do you encourage business owners to approach when they hear the newest, coolest platform that everyone's raving about, which currently, or has been recently, Clubhouse, Alyssa.

So I think the most important thing is just to be intentional because I feel like there's nothing wrong personally for me as a marketer when there's a new feature or there's a new platform that comes out. I want to kind of jump in and see like what is going to be the competitive advantage of adopting it for my business or for like a side client. But again, I feel like what happens is people end up spreading themselves really thin on social and they're not really able to keep up with, I think, quality production of content that makes sense for them. Like maybe if you're a larger company and you have a larger team to manage, you know, 6 different platforms, you're a small mom-and-pop distributor and you maybe only have like yourself and your wife, like keeping your business going, maybe adopting like the next platform that comes out just isn't in your bandwidth. But I think eventually kind of going in and just kind of watching, you know, like when TikTok first came out, for example, I was kind of very skeptical. So I'm like, I'm just going to sign up so I can keep abreast of the trends that are coming out of this platform. It's creating a lot of buzz, but I don't think for us at ASI, we'll adopt it anytime soon because it just doesn't make sense for us at the moment. So I think when TikTok or Clubhouse or another platform comes out, it's okay to experiment, but just really think about if you have the ability to really commit to that platform and do it the best that you possibly can. Because it's like, you know, you don't want to open, you know, an account and then have like one post and then let it be dead for like 8 months and come back. So be really intentional and strategic about its use and again, how it ties back to your marketing and business goals. That would be my advice.

Taylor, you jumped into TikTok fairly early for our industry and you've done some great work with it. What are your thoughts on new platforms? How would you advise me as the business owner with these new platforms?

Sure.

So I would definitely have to back up Melissa on that, that step number one is just being open-minded enough to try it and see if it works for you and for your business and making sure that you are not, you know, spreading yourself too thin. Um, I completely agree with that. And if it works for you, figure out how it can work, not just in that platform to make sure that you're applying it to different elements of your strategy too. So for example, I don't just keep the TikTok videos in the TikTok platform. I, you know, I'll share it in groups, I'll share it on Facebook, on my Instagram story, I'll tag, you know, the vendor of the promotional product that was included in that specific video. So it's really figuring out like, how can you hit as many birds with one stone as possible? And if that fits, then keep doing it. And if it just doesn't, then, then it's okay to, to stop and not do it.

Allie, what are your thoughts on new platforms?

Well, Bobby, you know, I wrote an entire blog post on this because it's a passion of mine. But that's a shameless plug for how to know when to join a new social platform. But basically, I covered a lot of things that Taylor said, which is just making sure that you know what you're getting yourself into before you're just jumping in and chasing those cool kids, as Seth is saying, making sure that you have the bandwidth, making sure that you know the life cycle of the content that you're going to have creating, how often you're going to be posting, and just different things like that. Making sure— I'm always a proponent of if you're doing a platform badly, you might as well not be doing it at all. So which is exactly what Melissa said. If you're going to have 8 months, maybe reconsider your choices. But yeah, they had some great points. But I'll plug my blog post.

I for one want to just kill the phrase cool kids to begin with. As someone who has been around and seen some of these now, now institutional platforms if we will, that have become mainstream. When I remember when they first came on the scene as businesses, it was a race to prove somehow that you were with it, in it, whatever it might be. But I agree with you 100%. Just to be in and on and to show to everybody that you're active doesn't mean that, that you're being effective with it. In fact, that leads to another question I have for each of you. And I just want to hear your thoughts as I say this phrase. Because I'm sure you have a very strong opinion on this. Quality over quantity. Uh, Taylor, we'll start with you since you laughed first. What's your thoughts?

My thought is always quality. I mean, the thing is, is when you hit it with quality, you can make sure that you're still being authentic, that you're taking your time to create the best possible version of yourself without, you know, adding any sense of, you know, fakeness or, or anything like that. You can still be authentic and have high quality content that you don't post every single day because you also don't wanna dilute your personal or professional brand either. And that's what happens so often when people feel the pressure of having to crank out content.

Yeah.

They just, you know, push out whatever and then whatever sticks to the wall, they, they celebrate. And then whatever falls to the floor, um, it accumulates on the feed.

Thank you. Melissa, what are your thoughts? Quality over quantity?

I feel like quality is important, but I also feel like consistency is just something to consider. Is, you know, there's always going to be an algorithm change, and I feel like frequency, like what you can actually create and feel okay with sharing with other people, you know, depending on what platforms you gravitate on, is going to be different, you know, depending on the team and the manpower and the resources that you have. So I feel like You know, it's cool to see what other people are doing and think like, oh, somebody posts a blog every day or somebody has a social post that goes out like every other hour. And you may not be able to, you know, feasibly keep up with something like that, but what can you do well in your business? So I feel like just lean into making really good content and finding a rhythm that works for you, but make sure it's something that you're proud of.

Allie, what are your thoughts as I say that phrase?

Well, I mean, I definitely agree with what Taylor was saying. You can definitely, quickly overwhelm your audience if you're just pumping out the content for the sake of doing so. I always like to think when I'm creating something or scheduling something, what if this is the only piece of content that somebody sees from Common Skew in their entire life? What would they think of us? Wow. And a lot of the time that will guide if you should be posting it or not. If I wouldn't be happy with this being the only thing representing the brand, then it probably shouldn't be going out. If I, if I don't think the caption is just right, then then maybe it shouldn't be going out. But I also agree with Melissa. On the other hand, when you look at each of the individual platforms and you're looking at kind of the life cycle of the content and how they work, somewhere like Twitter, it's appropriate to be posting 30 times a day, whereas on Instagram, if I'm posting 30 times a day, I have zero followers. So I think taking into account where that content is going is important, and then also focusing on, on that quality.

One very underrated aspect of social media is that social media is a two-way conversation, and we often forget that as we're preparing to go launch a social media campaign or whatever it is we're doing. But a very time-consuming and critical part of the role that each of you share is listening, and listening on behalf of the brand. We don't even clock the amount of time that you spend listening to the community or in Facebook or on Twitter, actually listening for the conversation that's happening and engaging with folks. What tools do each of you use for both listening and posting? And can you give us an idea, as we share what tools, what your weekly publishing schedule looks like? Allie, can we start with you?

Yeah, so as a company, we use HubSpot. So we use HubSpot Social as our scheduling. I use a few other tools kind of in with that, but HubSpot is our main scheduler. It's actually interesting that you mentioned listening and how much manual listening needs to be done because we've talked about this the last few of our, of our social meetings. That was some of the algorithm changes that went into effect last summer, which we're starting to feel the effects of just now. They really reward that manual engagement and that they call it community engagement, but I'm taking it as manual engagement because that's what it is to me. And so what I like to do is make appointments with myself throughout the day to be manually engaging on our feeds. And because I've been doing that for the last couple of months, it's kind of become innate that that's just something I go and do now. So I typically spend anywhere between 2 and 3 hours a day manually engaging on the feed. And then the rest I will automate out. What was the second part of your question, Bobby, about scheduling?

The other question is to give us an idea on scheduling. So in terms of frequency, you know, that's such a big topic because we're talking about multiple platforms. But can you kind of share a little bit about that?

Yeah. So, broadly, where we have the most content on a weekly basis would be our blog. So, Bobby, you're very, very familiar with this, but we'll schedule out our blog content throughout the week and the social posts that accompany that first. Next, we'll schedule any sort of event promotions or webinars, things like that, that we have coming up. And then third, we will put in any sort of campaigns testimonials, sort of product-related content that we have coming out. And then lastly, we have our sort of ad hoc— if there's different holidays, if there's different birthdays, things that we want to kind of do on a more spontaneous basis, we'll sprinkle those in where they fit.

Cool. Taylor, how about you? Tools you use for listening, what your publishing schedule kind of looks like. And I love that Allie shared how much time she spends doing these things because we underestimate And I think we don't respect enough the amount of time that you spend being a very responsible and proactive listener on social media. But Taylor, I'll let you answer.

Sure. So I, I'm kind of in Ali's boat where, you know, my, my social listening is basically all manual. And a lot of that too. I mean, we could probably apply this to our conversation about getting onto new platforms that sometimes the listening element is so much more important than people think that it is because you have to essentially learn an entire language and culture when you switch to a new platform. You're intaking that and you're relearning that language so that you can effectively speak it. And so I agree that that manual, and it has to be manual, right? I think that if we just look at analytics, it's not going to be as powerful and you lose a lot in translation. As far as a, a publishing tool goes, we actually just established a new exclusive partnership to American Solutions for Business. It's called SocialHP. It's kind of like Hootsuite on steroids, and it helps our salespeople log in and then kind of piggyback off of the content that our corporate team is creating, and then they can schedule out their week or month or whatever that looks like. But from our, you know, marketing team at the corporate level, our perspective, we are posting, you know, consistent, what I call secondary content. So it's going to be recurring pieces, or it'll have to do with, you know, holidays or the time of year or specials or whatever we have going. And then manually, I will add, you know, if we have something going on in the community, or maybe it's a volunteer opportunity, or we have important news to share, I always like to touch that and add emotion and voice and ensure that we are telling a full story in that. And so it's a little bit of a combination of just kind of as-needed content. But then I should also mention, with that secondary content, we research the days and times with the highest engagement rates so that we're not just throwing it out there randomly too.

Yeah. Thanks, Taylor.

Melissa, how about you? So we use Agorapulse, which is like a great software. So a lot of the listening that I do is, is very much manual, but we're lucky we have a really great inbox tool that allows me to aggregate all the different comments and go in and dedicate time per day to answer any questions that people have, any concerns, anything related to customer service that I need to, you know, bring to our customer service team and have them But I also set aside time each day for engagement. But really my, my schedule varies and I would say, you know, depending on the events that we have coming up, majority of my scheduling is pre-planned. So, you know, I'm somebody who for myself, like I like to plan out quarterly, like some of the large projects. So I'll take those larger pieces of content and break them down, like stuff that's more evergreen.. And then if it's something that's timely, like I'll just pop something up, but normally I'm doing it through Agorapulse so I can track everything that's going out. And then depending on the type of post that's gone out, if it's something that's a part of a concentrated marketing effort, you know, I'm looking at it at the end of the campaign. If it's a new type of post that we haven't done before, like we're now live streaming on LinkedIn, I'll check in typically to see kind of the response that we got, and then we'll go back into our meetings and discuss. We want to make this something consistent that we offer and the type of social content that we create. Because, you know, I'm really lucky it's not all on me. You know, I can source creative from multiple departments, and our editorial team definitely helps me in the type of content that goes out. So it's kind of like an all-hands-on-deck mentality, which is really cool. So it really is something that is I would say probably 80% like scheduled and then the other 20% just as things come up.

We, since our industry is very product-driven industry, let's talk a little bit about selling merchandise on social media or selling and promoting merchandise on social media. I know, do you have a list of dos and don'ts in your head or just that you've thought of when it comes to selling and promoting merchandise? And we have different roles, so we have different organizations, but what are your thoughts, Ali? Let's start with you just because I know from our Commons Key swag, you've done some unique things with promoting our merchandise. What are your thoughts as you advise a distributor or supplier?

I mean, we do— our company is a technology company and we are selling software, but we do a lot of merch in different collections with our events and stuff like that. And I think it's such a great opportunity because merchandise as a whole, any sort of promotional products, merchandise lends very well to visual content, seeing those photos of it. My biggest tip that I will live and die by is that for both suppliers and distributors is to ditch the flyers. I love seeing real personal content. Take the mug out on the lake, show me a photo of it there. I don't want to see it on a white background. So I think just having fun with it, not taking yourself too seriously, not thinking that you need to put every little piece of information into every post. But, but kind of making— focusing more on the compelling image portion of your content.

I need to start going before Allie because I completely agree with that. Again, I mean, she said it beautifully. Um, it definitely is— it's, it's fewer flyers, more lifestyle. We need more of that lifestyle shot so that we can start to understand how we can use it in our lives. And I think maybe the bigger, the bigger picture it all comes down to how do we rewrite the narrative that promotional products are trinkets and trash? Because a lot of us, I think that if we tell people in our personal lives who are outside of this industry that, you know, oh, I work in promotional products and start to explain it, they go straight to the, you know, cheap stuff that they just get for free at a trade show and then they throw it away. And so it's, it's really changing who we are and how we're representing ourselves to people within the industry, but also and more importantly, outside of the industry too.

Yeah, great thoughts.

Melissa? So for me, I think following like the 80/20 rule, like I definitely agree with Taylor and Ali is, you know, make it as personal as you possibly can. I always think that helps with engagement, but I also understand soft selling things. I think as long as it's not a hard sell, I think that kind of turns people off and makes people cringe. So I think also having content pillars, like if you have those moments where you're not sure what to post, think about the type of content. If you were to put it in categories that you have access to, like product photos, behind the scenes of your company, case studies, like those things that you can always go back that if you feel like you hit a wall, you can say, well, you know, this really great testimonial I have, I just got it in email. I'm going to turn that into a graphic and put that out on our social channels. So I think just having some old things as standby for you is really helpful. So you feel less overwhelmed to know what to post. And then just again, just making sure we skip hard selling because nobody wants to see that. Nobody wants any sales. Flyers or anything like that.

I think a lot of— I can, I can speak to a distributor's experience, and I think each of you would agree with this, that a lot of distributors are afraid to show interaction with their clients because they don't want to tip their hand. And we faced this when we were doing email marketing. And the thing that we started doing, we shifted sending flyers through email, we shifted that to telling stories about our customers. So the very first one we did featured the marketing department at the city zoo that was wearing the swag that we sold to them. Now, keep in mind, we're sending to all of our buyers and probably our competitors and posting on our blog pictures of the marketing team wearing this really fun swag that they had for this cool event that they did. What it did was it unleashed a lot of interaction. We saw our click rates go up because other marketing professionals in the community went, oh, I know, I know Tara. And they all started engaging more. So I see, I think there's a leap that we have to make, and that's getting more of our clients involved in our, in our stories on social. And Ali does a great job with this because, and again, maybe it's a little easier for us because we're a software company, but she engages, she shares a lot of stories from our customers around this merchandise, which I think is really cool.

Bobby, I just want to add quickly before you move on, was that fine line that you're talking about, about being willing to share some of those customer stories. I think it goes into a deeper conversation that obviously we're not we don't need to get into here about trusting the relationship that you've built with that client and knowing that by putting that information out there, that's not jeopardizing your relationship in any way with them. And just being confident in those relationships that you've created. And I mean, I can personally say that whenever we're posting any sort of testimonial or customer story or anything like that, that's not really something— them being poached or them leaving the platform is not really something that's that's necessarily on our mind because we're confident in that community and that relationship we've built.

Yeah, it's a great thought. What we actually found is it reinforces the brand. And instead, like, the marketing manager of that brand that we featured in those stories was thankful because they want to amplify their voice too. And they're like, thanks for featuring us in your story. Thanks for featuring us on social. Let's do this real quick, like a real quick round of your favorite brands on social, like whether it's your consumer brands that you love, personal brands you love, Let's start with you, Taylor, and it could be industry folks too. So what's your list? Who would you rattle off in terms of platform and brands that you love?

Sure, sure. So I kind of want to spotlight some of our supplier partners. You know, I'm part of a distributorship, so a lot of the time we are consuming that content directly from our suppliers. So I think, you know, suppliers like HIT, HPG, Peerless Umbrella are really, you know, and PCNA too, like they're stepping up their content. Content. They're starting to create more lifestyle content so that we can just grab it and use it and we save a lot of efficiency without having to compromise all of that time and effort that it takes to create it. And then, you know, a lot of individuals that are supporting those organizations, I think that we were in this environment where we have our supplier brands and distributors and service providers and everybody in this industry. And that's that's wonderful because we have our brands that we're supporting. But really, the people who are representing those brands are just as important, and their personal branding reflects the branding of the organization itself too. So individuals that definitely stick out to me kind of on that supplier side, so like Brittany Godsey with, you know, Gold Bond, Mike Simczak and Nick Latour with HPG, like they have, you know, their own series and everything. Like, they're so good at exemplifying their personality so that you feel comfortable with them right off the bat. And then, you know, Charity from Peerless, all the guys at Starline, you know, Josh Applebaum and Megan— I think it's— I can never pronounce her new last name, but Piecka, formerly Corey, from Hit. And then, you know, Megan Zuzo and Meg Erber from, from S&S Activewear. There's just so many So many people who you follow them like on Instagram or you're friends with them on Facebook and you get to see their families and their hobbies, but they're also showing how they're using the products that they sell just in their life. Like it's becoming a part of their lifestyle. And so you see things and you get ideas. So it's, you know, these micro influencers within our industry are affecting who I think of to go to or who to send our reps to. Steps to for projects. So it's really, you know, kind of backing up that lifestyle marketing that we're going for.

How about outside of the industry? What brand inspires you?

Sure.

So I'm going to be a little bit boring, um, and stick to— when I think of, honestly, when I think of just who is really good with advertising, like what aesthetic do I like, I mean, I obviously go to Apple, you know, because it's so sleek and clean and modern and just the way that they've you know, done everything. I just think it's the right way to do things. And then on the other side, Budweiser, I'm sorry, but like, they are this multi-billion dollar company, but they're so playful. And they have a way of like still surprising us after decades of, you know, constantly creating ads, and they come up with just like all these things to surprise us. So even though they've, they've grown to be enormous, they still have the playfulness and kind of ability to just turn on a dime, or at least the illusion that they can turn on a dime like a small company. So it's, it's something that I think is just very impressive. And then, you know, I think that we're also seeing in this industry and in retail this huge growth of smaller eco-friendly companies. So, you know, Reprieve and Cotopaxi and all of these other just kind of very like new age up-and-comers, I think that they have this wonderful way, because the story is already woven into what they're doing, to tell that in a very emotional, compelling way that actually makes you want to change your behavior. So that's, that's just really cool to see. And then I also have like a random shout out on TikTok, Brandaid Co. If you guys aren't following them, you should, because I am just waiting for them to blow up. Like any moment, they're just They're going to blow up, they're going to go viral. They do this series where it's like, if blank was a streetwear brand. So they did like, if Target was a streetwear brand, and then they go through and they'll show the screen of like, oh, this is what we would do, this is what it would look like. And it infuses with promotional ideas, but it's done in a way that does not feel like it's selling to you. It feels whimsical, it's creative, and it definitely just supports our industry.

I think it's It's so cool. It's so good. Brandaid Co, um, Renya and the team, you know, great customers of ours. But also, I just— I've been a fanboy of everything they do, from their newsletters to everything else. And everything they turn around, they try and do, it has that touch that you're talking about with this, uh, quality over quantity. It's very whimsical. Um, yeah, very much so. So, uh, the reason why I'm also asking the, the brands outside of the industry— I think it's really important. Something I've seen through the years is that we, we end up looking like each other and mimicking each other too much because we're a tight, friendly industry for as big as we are. And the echo chamber is alive and well. So I've seen a lot of us look very similar as we emerge and following other brands and see what they do outside of our industry is important. Melissa, I'm gonna let you answer this question as we're getting down to the last several minutes here. What are your thoughts on brands you love?

So the one that always, like, I come back to— there's so many cool suppliers and distributors that are crushing it on social, but I just really love the merch Studio. I love Instagram personally, like that's one that I use the most, and I feel like whenever Kiani posts anything, like her branding from her team is so on point and I just love it. Like I love her behind the scenes, her unboxing. I feel like I know it's a piece of content for them before I even do the caption or see the handle. I just think that they are totally crushing it on Instagram. And then brands that I love GoPuff. I don't know if anybody's heard of it, but it is a convenience store app. It came from Drexel students and they have blown up over the last couple of years. So I feel like whoever is in charge of their copywriting, like they know their audience so well and how they infuse pop culture into their posts. It's so funny. It's just like, for me, it's really entertaining. It's kind of like a younger college demographic, but I'm always just entertained and I just feel like their rollout too, like they have brand ambassadors. So I think that they're just like a really cool brand to watch.

That's cool. Okay, Allie, how about you?

Okay, I'll try and be fast because I know we're getting down to the wire here, but I just wanted to say first, because Taylor mentioned Budweiser, um, I'm up in Toronto in Canada, and, uh, we usually get things a few months after the States gets them. So they were launching, uh, Bud Light Seltzers here just a couple months ago, and we were in like a total lockdown in Toronto. And it was the funniest marketing campaign I've seen in a couple of years. They created this mascot and his name was Seltzy, and they had him on the top of like a skyscraper building in this glass box. And they would have like, I guess, staff in the Seltzy suit that would take turns. And it was like he was quarantining for 14 days before they could launch the Bud Light Seltzers because he wasn't allowed to be on shelves until he quarantined. And they just kind of used that activation for all sorts of social content. There was like a live feed where you could watch seltzer. It was hilarious. But love Budweiser for that. It just made me think of that. But in terms of brands that are outside the industry, I've been really impressed with a lot of furniture brands. I think in the quarantine, they probably could have sat back on their heels a little bit because the demand was there no matter what. But most of them didn't do that. And if you take a look at their feeds over the last year, they were being exceptionally creative in some of their content. So brands like EQ3, Restoration Hardware, things like that. On TikTok, I've really been loving the Washington Post. That seems really boring, but if you watch their TikToks, they're absolutely hilarious. And I think that's a really good example of an old school kind of news outlet really hanging with some of the younger, like BuzzFeed, BlogTO, things like that. So that's super fun to see. I also love just following small business accounts. I think that if you take a look at some small business social content, people who do it really well, you can see the passion there and you can see the necessity in how hard that they're working on those platforms. So love those ones. And then in terms of in the industry, I'm just going to rattle these off because I have a big list. Suppliers, I'm loving Gemline, Numo as always, Denik, really cool brand. Not all of these are on Commsky, by the way, but they're all just really cool. Rustico Snugs, always amazing with their video content. Distributors, Blezu, really cool distributor. If you haven't heard of them, check it out. Uh, Fair Wear, I feel like I work there because of their content. Right Sleeve, I mean, I know that they're cool, but they look really cool online. And individuals, uh, Javier Mendez makes really cool, uh, TikToks and Twitter content. Nick Lutero, which has already been mentioned. And then Melissa, I love your Twitter content as well. That was like a lightning round.

I loved it, I loved it. It's great. Uh, I keep my list short. Um, on Instagram, I love the Merch Girls out of Australia, do a fantastic job. So does Nisha Logan with Village Print Studio. She actually is doing very creative work with her IG. Um, of course we already mentioned Renya, whom I love, her and her team. I love, uh, Anne Hanley, uh, for a personality on Instagram has a very playful brand. Kara Swisher, a New York Times writer, on Twitter does a really good job of bringing in the journalistic pieces that she writes into the communication channel on Twitter and engaging with community. She does a really good job with that. So big fan of her for a long time. All right, last question as we get down to the last few minutes. We only got 3 or 4 minutes, so we'll keep trying to keep this quick. And it's the biggest question I have, so I'm sorry that we're out of time. What is the one super secret tactic that you've discovered to help amplify the brand that you would share with the business owners that are listening here today?

Allie, let's start with you. This is maybe— I like that you saved this super hard question for very last so you can just ask us and then like leave us here just thinking about this. I'm going to say two things. So the first one is like a little bit combining one of your previous questions and just that when you're looking for someone to run your social media, I think a really important superpower super secret tactic is looking for an element of quickness. And I mean that in like a whole bunch of ways. So quickness in learning, quickness in reacting and responding to different situations that come up, and even like a quickness and humor in those responses, I think is really important. And if you can find that in a person, this is like you said, we're all just bragging about ourselves all day long here. But I think that's really helpful in creating sort of a humanized brand. And that is ultimately my super secret tactic, is keeping a personal and human element to your brand, no matter how big your company or how small your company is.

So good.

Taylor, how about you?

Allie and I haven't met before, but I think we might have the same brain because I also, I also have two. I'm breaking the rules for this too. So my first one is actually a tip for creating your content on the weekends or on your like off work hours and figure like just start banking your content and then sprinkle it out throughout whenever you need it and try to just like think ahead, how can you take care of your future self so that you're not scrambling and, you know, missing, you know, a post opportunity or just some sort of post that's going to make a big difference. And then the second piece is basically back to one of the first things that we talked about, which is never underestimate the power of purpose and emotion. So always ask yourself, why am I posting and what feelings am I trying to evoke?

Awesome. Melissa, we'll let you wrap us up with your thoughts.

So for me, I think making sure that you're collaborating across departments, like for me, I have so much to choose from that it can often feel overwhelming to know what to focus on. But to me, I feel like when I streamline everything and I think about how posting is going to benefit us overall, like all the different departments, all the different touch points that we have for marketing. That's been very helpful for me to streamline the messaging, to amplify out only what's most important for us as a company. And I just think relationship building.

Bobby, can I just say before you— I, I remember, I think it was Melissa who posted, or maybe it was a retweet, but it was earlier, or it was at the end of last year, you You posted a tweet and I remembered it ever since. And it was like, shout out to all the marketing folk that are scheduling out 3 weeks of content in the next week because of the Christmas holidays. And I laughed for like 45 minutes at that and then cried as I scheduled 3 weeks of content.

Which let me just add here at the end that I think if you haven't hired someone full-time for this role, or if you've not really invested in this role, that is just one of the most unspoken heroes of the brand because you guys spend a lot of time managing, monitoring the brand, listening. There's a lot of energy poured into this and a lot of love. So thank you guys each for joining this podcast today. I'm sorry we had some tech problems, but I appreciate you each so much. And I'm sorry I sent you 100 questions, we only asked 5, as I do.

Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of SkuCast. Be sure to keep up with our latest content by subscribing to SKU Cast on iTunes or to our blog at community.commsku.com. Until next time, friends, thanks so much for listening.