I’m here today with, of course, Kimmy our social media puppet.
Hi everybody!
Hey!
And we also have a guest and we’re going to be talking all about social media today with Keri Jaehnig. Welcome Keri.
Hi Janet, thanks for having me on. Hi Kimmy, thanks for having me on.
We’re excited to have you and talk all about, today we’re going to talk about social media marketing and specifically breaking that down into, we’re going to be talking about the type of content. But first I would like to have Kimmy talk about where you came from and what you’re doing now.
Hey Keri it’s great to have you on the show. Before I start I want to ask you a question. Have you ever been interviewed by a puppet?
Not ever, so this is the first for me, excited about it.
I’m honored. It’s great to have you on the show.
Great to be here.
And you can just Facebook about how much fun it was.
Absolutely!
Awesome! Well I want to introduce Keri to everyone out there. It’s Keri Jaehnig. She’s the founder and CMO at Idea Girl Media. It is known as “the idea girl”, for her enthusiasm in successfully probing creative angles to promote her causes. She has authored such pieces as, “The Jerry Maguire Guide For Social Media Professionals,” and “Lets Get Social: What Does That Really Mean?”
Keri, I’d love to welcome you to the show. If you would like to tell us a little bit more about what you do and what your specialty is, that will be awesome.
Well I would love to. So my name is Keri and I’m here coming to you from Wilmington, Ohio which is not far from Columbus and Cincinnati and Dayton. And I’m originally from Michigan though. So I’ll claim that as my home state. But anyway I help business brands, non-profits and public figures with social media and their social media marketing and pull them towards social media success. So that’s through social media management services, through mentoring and training, and then, you know, the occasional public speaking engagement, as well.
Excellent, thank you.
Keri, how did you get started in the industry?
You know that’s an interesting story. I didn’t ever wake up and go “oh wow, let’s be a social media marketer”, That’s not really where I was going. I actually studied some infocology and then I went into hospitality management, some area. So it’s kind of like totally my parents were really excited that I took the two years and then totally switched my major and went into hospitality management. And then life just takes you to a direction of whatever I was doing I was, it really wasn’t my role but I had to be very creative in marketing programs, marketing ideas. And so when an email came up and then we were able to do the forums and the groups. I was there and I was intrigued where others weren’t and so I excelled in that area. And in fact when I was running for public office I was the first in my area to, in my region, to try email marketing for campaigning. And I kind of put that on the map here and I was pretty successful within. So when world changed in 2008 for us I went, “wow, how can I position myself to be in a place that is going somewhere and to stay ahead of the curve?” And so I ended up pairing my social media with the email marketing. And so the social media just sort of took over and that’s where I’ve been.
Yeah, email is such integral part of social media. So are you doing, when you manage social media campaigns for people, are you using primarily Facebook to grow your email list?
That’s a great question. Facebook is very popular. It seems like everyone that is on social media is they usually start with Facebook. And I would think that yes, most of my clients are building their list with Facebook but it doesn’t have to be only on Facebook. Does that answer your question?
Yes it does, definitely.
For sure. Well let’s keep going. Where else would they be building? What are some ideas for clients or any business to build that email list? Where else would they be coming from?
Well I’m sure this not a surprise for you Janet but that webinar or that training events and in actually going in real life, we were talking about that earlier today, that in real life event or gathering, that’s great places to build email list. I think that there actually, I’ve been responsible for webinars and live events, but you can combine platforms. I think your website and your blog is maybe the hub. And it really should be your headquarters for building. So I think that’s, before we confuse people I think that’s kind of like the place to start.
Sure, sure. Makes sense.
And that combinations, as well.
Uh-huh, makes a lot of sense. Well now let’s get into the specific thing we wanted to talk about today was the content. I mean we can go on and on and on about content. I’d love to talk about content and the importance of content. But I’d like the subject matter that you wanted to talk about because we have to post three times a day on Facebook, you have to do this, you have to do that, it’s not — you know people are pushing quantity over quality.
Yeah, definitely.
Well Kimmy and Janet I think that you have to be there for people to find you. But you also have to represent yourself well. So it really is a balance of quality and quantity. And I think you there was a time when you could update your Facebook page once a day but I think any more you’d probably going to do it more often than that. But if you’re not putting up interesting things or visuals that your audiences’ interested in, they’re not going to pay attention or going to tune you out. So really you should aim for quality and quantity. But things that get attention are your visual pieces, well-done visual content, also those videos like the recording for this hangout, we’ll be popular I’m sure.
Yeah people like me, that’s my thing I got to tell you. I’m making you nervous, aren’t I?
Kimmy is loved, she is loved. Yeah, you’re right. Video, I mean, visual marketing. Talk a little deeper about visual marketing and what do you think the aspects of visual marketing that are needed in social media?
Well you know it’s, in school we were conditioned to our grammar have to be perfect and our senses have to be varied, and so forth. And now we have what 3 seconds to get someone’s attention and then they’re gone. So that visual really says, “hey here I am, this is what we’re doing,” and grabs them in. And that’s why we’re seeing more like words on photos because it gives them the idea and the impact, moveable, like gifts are becoming more popular which I wasn’t excited about but now I’m like, “wow, that’s pretty cool!”
Ahhh, are you doing some of those gifts?
I haven’t explored too much and I think that’s somewhere I’ll had to have like an assistant or a friend.
I agree, I agree.
But I think you can put a video out that is, you know it doesn’t have to be professionally or studio-made. It’s something that just highlights what your business is about or what your purpose is for being there. And doesn’t, in a non-sales-y way, I think, people are excited about that. Then I think that one thing we weren’t touching is providing value. If it doesn’t provide value or some reason that connect, people are not going to be interested. So there’s that value-driven message, as well.
And this show is all about how do you stand out in a noisy crowd and value and creativity — those are two things that you need to kind of put together because it is. There’s a lot of people out there giving a lot of good information so how do you cut through that? It’s a challenge but I think the video and being something a little bit different catch their eye, that’s kind of fun.
Yeah. I kind of dig in your hair.
Hey thanks I got it in ponytails today.
It’s a new look for Kimmy.
It is that’s so you could look me in th eye and Janet would yell at me.
Yell at her. Oh Kimmy, Kimmy.
So Keri what’s your favorite kind of content to create? Do you like images, video, writing? What types of things do you really enjoy doing?
I like the variety. B ut there are programs out there that make / creating visuals content, images so easy and so fun that I have to go with those images, it’s fun. But I got to tell you without the variety it’s just, it becomes monotonous. So I would say let’s live with visuals and let’s some back it up with other things.
Yup, definitely.
That’s great tip right there. So for Kimmy and being a salon owner let’s put this into real world scenario.
Sure.
What would you do with her situation on any social media site? And would you suggest a specific social media site that would be best for her?
I think first of all you want to find out where your audience is. So I think when those customers come in, ask them where they are. When they’re sitting on the chair
Instagram.
What’s that?
Instagram.
Instagram. Okay. Instagram by the way is my favorite network right now. I love Instagram.
Really?
Yeah. Right now it is. It’s just so easy and fun and you can let the message travel to different networks and the hashtags are fun. It’s a lot of fun. And I think, yeah, so as a salon owner, Kimmy, you could be, if your customers will allow you feature some certain styles and photos. Let your customers shine, tell their story.
Okay
Tell a little bit of your story by featuring maybe you had a hair event and you’re launching new products on the show for maybe your new style so you want to let people know and take a photo for that and put it on Instagram.
Yeah. So I just went to an event in New York and it was really fun. We had a great time and I learned all about the new colors coming out and how to do it. So we get excited when we come back to the shop.
Sure and so do you have clients that let you experiment with the color?
Oh yeah, all the time. They can’t wait til I come back. They’re ready for a change.
I actually I got to have my hair done tomorrow. So…
Oh good!
So I’ll be asking about the colors and the different styles that are going to be new for fall. But sure, if you wanted to, let’s say you want to sell more appointments, maybe you have a new stylist coming in to join your salon, maybe you want to get some of their work or them in the photos with you. Maybe you have a new brush that’s coming in that would, or a comb or clips on the hair that just come in and show them. Maybe not all set up in the shelf but wow, they just came in there in the box and maybe combing your hair and you show a picture of that. It’s just, I guess, giving it a real-life spin. Putting it in the eyes of your prospective client or customer and letting them attach that to how they live their life.
You know what’s been fun is sometimes we’ll take a picture of everybody with their foil all over their head? Put it on and then say, ‘just wait for the end-product.’ And then two hours later we post the results. It’s fun because it gets people to come back.
That’s fun, yes.
I wouldn’t come back if you’re taking pictures of foils on my head.
Oh you look at and then I’ll say I didn’t tell you that.
She serve some wine right now.
There’s a reason why I’m a puppet there Janet.
What color are your foils Kimmy?
What’s that?
What color are your foils?
They’re just the silver.
Silver. My salon has blue and green.
Really!
She’s high tech!
I want to have them purple though. I really want the purple. When they put the green it looks like salad on your head.
Now that’s interesting. Yeah there you go you have to get us picture.
And I think you should have an orange strip in your hair because it’s full. Well that’s fun, I really appreciate those ideas because I just think being creative and having fun is really important specially when you’re dealing with business to consumer type of product because a lot of the customers they want to play along with you. So we make it a game in our salon.
That’s great. I think that puts you ahead of your competition, per se, I would think.
Yeah, definitely.
Absolutely. Well Keri and I also followed your Facebook page and I have watched a lot of what you’ve post and you do a great job at variety and even just adding little, little pieces that, oh I can’t think of the word for it right now. Just a little icons, those cute little icons you have on all your little, on all your posts. Where do you get…
The coffee bean?
That word it is. What are those icons? I’ve always wanted it.
The special characters?
Yes!
Are you on a Mac?
No.
Okay. I’m on a Mac. I don’t know where they are on the PC but if you go under edit on a Mac, you can choose special characters and then it’s there and I just choose from there.
Oh cool.
Now my pmxing it could be, well…
I think you can access them on a PC but I don’t remember how to do it. I’ve had my Mac for about 4 years now and I don’t remember, I’m sorry.
Okay. Well, but see what I like is what I notice with your post and I’d like to elaborate on this a little bit is you’re not rushing it, I can tell by the way you post. You’re not just throwing something up there to get something out there and I’ve seen that with a lot of people so that they get something out there. You’re actually using those special little characters, the full sentences, giving your opinion, asking questions, using an image, hashtags. You have kind of all of it in there. So let’s talk about how people could do something like that where they’re actually focusing in on a very specific topic but yet they’re putting in a little bit of spin on it so not just so blah.
Sure, so I do. Everyday I have a variety of type of post that I share on my page. And so there’s like just typewritten, like text post. And that’s usually, I tend to put that about 5:30pm Eastern time everyday because that’s when it seems to do well. And that’s one thing that we should talk about is you need to look at at how your things are doing, look at your analytics so that you know what’s performing well, what is performing well, who’s up to see that time, what might they be thinking at that time. You know don’t talk about breakfast when they’re going to be eating dinner, you know that kind of thing. So there’s the text written post, there’s the shared posts that I get in, not usually everyday but a few times per week. And then there’s the blog posts, the informational posts and then the image posts where I put something maybe through Instagram or I’ve just found this really cool image that I put up. So and I find that Facebook likes that variety and they’ll tend to give you more favor in the news feed. Because we have to play that game.
Yes, definitely.
Yeah and really the optimal way to go and thinking about content for your page is that you’re probably be using the content calendar and editorial calendar for your business and in what you’re going to do. And so Kimmy when you’re writing that blog post about maybe the hair event or maybe you have promotions coming up for the holidays you’re going to get those blog post out then tie the rest of your content into that theme. So maybe the new colors are coming in so you’re going to talk about colors for fall on your blog. And so then you might put on Instagram that photo of the customer with the color and then you’re going to maybe feed that through on to Facebook. And then you might talk about like your tip might be taking the style from day to night, okay.
Okay.
And so that might be your tip and you want to use special character at that time. The reason I like the special characters is because it helps your post stick out or shine above others in the news feed.
Uh-huh, it does!
And I think there’s also something to this and test it out, let me know if I am wrong, but I think the stars in the asterisks and there’s that little diamond thing that I use, I think that Facebook considers that higher in the alphabetical order and so it might, I think there’s something to that.
I think I’d test that out.
I better find my special characters.
I have a sheet for you Janet.
Oh sweet, sweet. It’s those dumb little things that’s been bothering me for probably a couple of years. I see Mars using it. Oh I don’t want to ask.
I always use music notes for birthday messages.
Yeah.
Now with my iPhone I could do the little smiley faces and all that kind of stuff but yeah, it’s great tip though. Now I’ll watch everybody’s going to be doing it.
Let them find some of the little things. Now but I think that Facebook does prefer the alphabetical order that way. I think it’s kind of pushed them up a little bit. What I did for something that I used to do when I didn’t have a Mac is I would copy and paste symbols that I liked and just keep them in a swipe file and then copy and paste them into the message when I wanted them, that might help you Janet and Kimmy.
Nice, nice, great tip, that’s great. Well now I want to, you’ve given us a ton of information so let’s narrow it down to what could, whoever is listening to this, do in the next 24 hours to take their social media post from here to here? What would you suggest the number one, one or two things?
The post themselves, I just, I really want to say that you should have a planned content calendar for one thing. That’s going to help you keep everything. One, you can see everything how your conveying your message but, two, but maybe overtime you’ll be able to say oh this used to fit here but now it’s this that came in, this can go there and so it will make sense to your audience a little bit more. I think that watch what your competition is doing and don’t do that. I really think there’s value of that now know what they’re doing. And if there’s something that they’re doing that’s working try it every now and again but be you. Be the authentic you. I want to sale so, too, we talked about not just flying few pens and putting something out. I’ll tell you that I’ll work a post like a piece of art and I’ll sculpt it and sculpt it and it will be like this I think it’s going to be awesome and it does and nothing happens and I know that every man’s been there. And it’s pretty natural to me at some point. And then I’ll just feel like wow this just occurred to me I have to share it now and it’ll sometimes it will be silly like just a silly thing that really, in our daily lives that people would think oh that’s nothing. But onlign it really translates well. So sometimes the silliest thing goes over the biggest like this morning I tried,and this is almost the wrong day to do it, I tried a test about if you use certain words on Facebook like new baby and congratulations and marriage and so forth, and you can even go to my profile for today and check this out. You know it’s supposed to be at the top of your news feed and I’ve got, last time I checked, I think it was 80 people liked that post.
And it’s true because you showed up in front of my news feed which sometimes you don’t so it worked.
Yeah, but it’s that, I mean I would never ever post that specially in a day like today. I mean were talking on a very important day for our country. And I thought oh I don’t know if I want to do it but I thought I posted it kind of in the middle of the night for my time zone so I thought okay maybe I could try it but I didn’t want the information to be so old that it wouldn’t work.And so yeah, you have to kind of play that game but it’s sometimes find and see if your pets are okay. And sometimes it’s the stuff that works. But as a general rule you have to keep in mind that you should have a plan. So I just want you to find that balance.
Yeah, yeah, I like it, I like it. Well…
Back to you want me to tell you something that you could do in the next 24 hours to make your, take your post to the next level? Here’s, I want to say that this is something that comes from my workshop and it’s original but there’s this tool called canva. C-A-N-V-A.com and it’s for making visual content. And the reason I like this is because it allows you to put your visual content into such a pleasing way that it would get results and it would be seen by your fans. And then you can also use it to use it on Facebook, use it on Twitter, use it on all your social networks. But the one thing I really like about it is they pre-size the different types of posts so you’ve got a Twitter header, a Twitter post, a Facebook ad, Facebook post, photo collage and thinking of example layouts and you can even buy graphics there so it’s extra groovy. But it’s just really, it’s everyday easy person get in and get out and it’s great.
Yes, yes, we love Canva. We’re Canva users too so yeah. But you know people haven’t heard of it and I think it’s such a simple tool for people to just put that post like you just said from here to here.
It really is. And the other thing I would think is just some hashtag research in your niche, hashtags.
Hmmm. Hashtagify, we did have him on the show. Hashtafigy is a great tool so.
Yeah I was just there yesterday.
Okay, see, there you go. So we’ll give a shout out to Hashtagify there. So yeah, that’s a great tip. Well let’s have Kimmy finish up so that we can talk about a little bit more about you.
Hey I just wanted to make sure that everybody knows how they can get in touch with you and if there’s any special programs that you would like to offer the audience? If you could share that with us, that would be wonderful.
Sure. So I love Twitter. It’s a great relationship builder and catalyst and connector and so on Twitter you can reach me @kerijaehNig K-E-R-I-J-A-E-H-N-I-G or ideagirlmedia, I do have the personal and the business. But the latest thing I’m doing and this is a really new program. It’s more, I did a year of mentoring with some business professionals and that was really great. But it was so formal I just want to break out and have more fun and we talked about collaboration and being part of what can keep you successful. I’m starting a new program and we’re already going and so people are welcome to hop in. I really think that when you can collaborate with another business owner or other business owners and find a place where your business does have something in common and then capitalize on those differences but embrace the similarities and put some things together that offer value to an audience. Two niches and let them cross-pollinate, it really does impact both your businesses in a positive way. But then also gives the world something new to learn. So that’s what we’re going to do and we’re already starting with some projects, some ideas and people are getting to know each other and spins them off into new circles, as well. So you can go to bitly and then I-G-M-L-L-I-C, all uppercase.
Great, okay.
We’ll right that in our blog post, too.
Yep it will be on our show and this is actually show number 32 so people can find all the notes on socialmediahangouttime.com/32. That simple and we’ll all have all the notes in there. Great, well thank you so much and I know it was so exciting to meet Kimmy.
Yeah, I was really enthused. Thanks very much.
Thanks a lot for coming on the show.
Thanks a lot, have a good day.
You too, take care bye-bye.
Thank you.