Hey everyone, welcome to Social Media Hangout Time. I’m here today with Lisa Saline. Hey Lisa.
Hey everybody, it’s great to see you. Hi Janet! Kimmy is lurking at the background.
Well I see her, yes she is lurking so I’m glad that we can kind of have Kimmy around. She’s not going to be part of the conversation today. We’re going to be conversating just you and I, kind of talking of the event and what we’ve seen on Facebook, on the latest stuff with Facebook. We have had a lot changes just this last week that a lot of people are in an uproar, we may be speaking to somebody right now that’s kind of in an uproar saying that, “you know what, I just want to be done with Facebook, I’m sick of it.” And so we want to address that and just kind of get into the conversation of should they give up Facebook? Maybe, maybe not!. Should they continue on the path but figure out a different strategy. Well that’s what we’re going to talk about today a little more. It’s kind of figuring out that different strategy just because it’s not the same as it used to be. Now Lisa when did you get on Facebook the first time? Do you have any idea?
Boy, I don’t even remember! I think it was on MySpace and Facebook came along.
Me too!
I might have actually been on Twitter before I was on Facebook.
Huh! Okay.
They’re very close together. I don’t remember, been a number of years but it’s.
I think mine was 2007, if I’m not mistaken. So and back in the first year, 2 years, when we started do you remember seeing everybody’s post in that news feed?
Oh it was so much fun because I knew everybody in that news feed and then all of a sudden stuff populated that I had no idea who they were, why it was there or the things that I use to see didn’t show up. So it changes and it evolves but the reality is there’s more and more people that get on everyday, too. So when you first start on a platform obviously the opportunity to show up more is because there’s fewer people on it. But as you get more and more people on just like on the internet. I remember being one of the first people in the office to use email, literally, email.
Let me guess, aol?
AOL, yeah and it was instead of the inter-office envelopes and because not everybody had email, I had to take my email off and put it in an inter-office envelope because the person that I was emailing didn’t have access yet.
Nice.
It’s really funny. Anyway, I mean it evolves.
It does.
We have to adjust and a lot of times it’s figuring out why are you there in the first place. And I know you’re going to talk about your mindset as things change so that you’re not so frustrated when they do change. Figure out how can I fit my business to this change versus I’m done.
Yeah, yeah, exactly! Well and we have a lot of small business owners that, with our target is the small business owners/entrepreneurs, and sometimes they don’t have a large budget but there are a lot of business owner pages that have a page on Facebook but yet they use to send out mailings. Let’s just talk about the dentist/orthodontists, that’s what we bring up a lot. And what were their marketing pieces in the late 90s? What were they doing, what would you say?
They were paying for yellow book ads or the Yellow Pages.
We forget the name, huh?
Yellow Pages and now kids are sitting on that book. But reality is is the cost is so much greater for a smaller amount or smaller audience. And you would literally couldn’t say only deliver to the homes that have kids.
Exactly.
You know it was everybody in the neighborhood.
Exactly, exactly.
And we forget market.
Nope, I mean the newspapers, the billboards, I mean think about, I know the go-guys they use the billboards – huge billboards, thousands of dollars a month and they’re randomly targeting the people driving by. Who is that target market? How do they even know who’s seen that ad if they even look up. But it’s thousands of dollars a month and people are complaining because they have to spend money on Facebook where they can actually target, specifically target their audience. And narrow it down, narrow it down to for dentists, it’s usually the moms who’re purchasing for the children. You could say women, specifically of a certain age. And target, way hone in on spending money only with those target market of people, now the fans.
And the age groups, too. There’s certain age group that maybe, specially with the orthos, when did they start saying, “hey it’s probably good to look at having braces.” Well any of those groups that those people are involved in, you target those groups because that’s where your audience is. It just gives you a lot more opportunity to be very selective with who you want to get in front of. Messaging is critical and you have to learn how to be creative and speak to your audience but also how to listen to your audience and deliver the value that they are looking for.
Yeah, that’s the other point. Yeah, you’re exactly right. You have to be speaking, know who you’re speaking to like so if you are that dentist/orthodontist office, are you actually talking to parents? The moms? Or are you talking to the children? Which one is your target market? And that’s something you want to look at your insights and be very specific because here’s the thing, who are the purchasers? The mothers. Who are more likely on the page? Well what I’ve learned by looking at insights for the majority that I work with, way more, is the moms between 35 and 45 than the teenagers. So you know what, you can cater to them a little bit but don’t worry about them so much because they are actually not the ones that are going to purchase even though they are the ones putting on their teeth, it’s the moms. So it’s something to really think about narrowing it down to the very very specific target audience and talking to them what they want to hear. And the thing is what people want to hear on Facebook is fun. Like you, going back to Lisa what you said that you knew everybody before. It was interest, we’re wanting to be there for more fun. We don’t want to get a bunch of ads in front of us but it is the way it is now, where there are ads. And so you need to figure out for your page how to get those ads in the proper way.
What information can you give that is going to be shared?Because you’re speaking to the moms and you’re speaking to the audience. Well for mom see something in a dental office that’s cute or fun, like the picture of the horse with the big teeth and the braces on, I think I’ve seen that picture before, I’ve seen that shared quite a bit because it’s interesting. But when they do that then it brings along that dental office’s name which is that’s what you want. You want that viral referral partners, I call them, you know the online referral partners. People are going to help spread your message and it might not be direct, “hey you got to go see the dentist” but it’s definitely going to be something of interest to them that’s going to share it and then subconsciously it’s like, “oh I think I’ve seen that dental name before.”
Yeah, yeah and they have there logo on it and then or logo or website. We, a lot of times with our custom images obviously we push putting on the whole website on there because it could go in front of somebody else that has never seen it before. And let’s get into the other subject matter Lisa, we were talking about is bringing them, that kinds of turns into we don’t want them to necessarily stay on Facebook, correct?
Yeah! I think it’s really important to use Facebook to find your targeted, your target audience, the most potential customers because they’re all on Facebook, we know that. So what you do is you use Facebook as a tool to get them on to your email list so that you can take them offline and start engaging with them. And maybe it’s getting them to a webinar or a seminar — a live presentation and open house but people aren’t even know that you exist but they might have found you on Facebook. So if you can give them something of value that they would like, get them on your email list and start communicating with them off of Facebook where they’re not distracted by millions of different ads then I think you have a better chance of turning over and getting your customer. So I’m all for list… nice cat.
I know, he always does this everyday. He has to join us.
But it’s all about being real, right? We’re real people, things happen and that’s what actually brings some of that personality to life. So it’s a good example. And if in your offices using video in your offices and sharing that on Facebook is another way. So maybe you want to speak to the video part on how powerful that is on Facebook.
Yeah it is. And in 2015 I think it’s going to grow even more. And I do believe a video strategy now is going to be a must in 2015. I believe in 2014 it was a must, it grew tremendously. But the thing that has changed with video though, and being an advocate of YouTube, it’s hard for me but you need to have YouTube but you also need to not post your YouTube video direct to Facebook. And so being that, I just had this conversation with one of the offices that I consulting. We talked about different video strategies and I said for simple office ones a great way to do it is just through your Instagram because Instagram, obviously, and Facebook, they’re all coordinated. And then get that video on your Facebook and that pushes to Twitter, too. But that doesn’t help your YouTube exposure. So you don’t want to forget about your YouTube. The second piece is that you can also do YouTube videos and like we do Lisa, we pull sometimes from our YouTube video, download it, take a clip of it and then upload that direct to Facebook. Because Facebook wants you to directly upload the videos. But I do think having a specific video strategy of some sort is extremely important and I just did that post for Post Planner recently and we could put a link to that in our show notes is all about this different video that he posted on his personal page just showing fun, things happening on their trip. He wasn’t even promoting his business but it was showing the business.
Right.
So why don’t you show some post?
But that’s what people like — to work with people. And so once they get to know you, they feel like they know you because they’ve been through your vacation with you. They see your goofy side. They see you with your make up on or they might see you with your make up off sitting at the beach.
Not me yet.
Yeah really, I have to find a beach. I have to shovel myself out of here. But seriously you know I think the more real you are and transparent then people start to trust you and they Google you. They’ll go out and google you and if they can’t find you then they automatically have their perceptions of who you are.
Good point, good point. And first one I think, sorry I’m petting my cat already, but I personally think that bringing the video back in to that, there should be one about video about you and you optimize that and get that one on the front page of Google that really shows who you are. Actually there’s a to-do list for anybody out there. If it’s a business, if it’s an office, get a video — one specific video that’s going to talk about your office and have that, it isn’t difficult to get it to the front page of Google if you know what you’re doing. Get that video because you just said, they’re going to google about you. But those videos are going to build that trust and so you really want to get those videos. So that’s kind of off of the subject of Facebook but if you’re doing a YouTube video make sure when you put it on Facebook, download it and re-upload it specifically for Facebook. That’s the key point.
Well, I mean we’re talking about YouTube. But honestly video is it is social. And in your Facebook news feed, if you haven’t loaded automatically in your Facebook page it will automatically play as people are scrolling through, most people don’t have their phone set so you have to push a button. Most of the times when you scrolling through it will automatically play. So if they’re just super short clips of them having fun or having a conversation with the dentist or with the patient and it’s 30 seconds, you’ll get a lot more interaction out of that that if you’re trying to send them somewhere else, too.
Exactly. I completely agree. Well, let’s get to the last point we want to talk about is not counting solely on Facebook. I think that Facebook is a great place and we talked a little bit about this but I want to talk about figuring out what other social networks could possibly work for your business? Everybody’s businesses is different so not all social networks work for every business. If you’re not a B2B, is LinkedIn the answer? Possibly not. If you are targeting women, should yo be on Pinterest? I’d say yes, I mean it depends on what your product is but most likely yes. And the thing is every place is different. Pinterest for instance, what I love about Pinterest and Google+ is another place that does this, too, is the lifeline of a post, the lifeline of an image that you put on there is much longer. And so, I mean I had things, I did a 2014 inforgraphic last year in November, that thing has still been shared throughout the entire year on Pinterest.
That’s awesome.
But it was forgotten about on Facebook. So it’s supper important to choose and find one, two other social networks that you can really focus on. And I want to back that up with don’t go on all of them. Don’t try to do too many because, Keri actually posted, Keri from Ideal Girl Media, she posted a great post. So shout out to her, hi Keri!. She posted a great post that it talked about specifically about the lifeline of that post. Of how long that post will last and what it’ll do for you. You want to make sure that you’re paying attention to that and paying attention to the other places. You don’t want to have a seat on all the social networks, one and a couple of them. Does that makes sense Lisa to you?
Yeah. And you also have to remember what’s your platform. Because these social media channels are, you don’t own them so anything can happen. So you cannot rely solely on one or two platforms but if your blog is set up and you’re using the content on your website or your blog, which is one and the same many times. But if you’re using that content on Facebook, take that and make sure it’s on your blog and do the same thing on your blog and put it on Pinterest.
Completely agree.
But you know I think we have to realize where’s your foundation? And that foundation has to be strong and a lot of times we, and I am very guilty of this, is we fail to work on our foundation because you’re building this massive halls and that’s on Pinterest or Facebook or Instagram. And I truly believe that we need to take a look at what’s the foundation, what’s the message here and remember that that should be your priority and then you push it out the fillers. Because the Facebook says, “you know what, we’re done, we’re out of here, we’re no longer,” all of the content that you’ve put your heart and soul and effort into is gone and so that’s why I’m a big advocate of let’s take a look at your foundation first before you invest a lot of time or money.
So speaking of foundation then, what is the foundation? Specify this foundation.
The foundation is really your website, the one that you own. Website is your names, your domain, the content that you write, you should be able to go through your website and find the same things there and it might be in different locations that you have on Facebook and Instagram and Pinterest. Because everything should lead right back to that.
You got it. And your email list that you own your email list is yours. So that’s even more direct because you can send out messages there versus the website. So if the opt ins, the email list, the website and then picking what’s going to drive the traffic to your website. What’s going to drive the traffic to your email list, and that’s kind of the thing to look at. So going backwards and going, “oh my gosh I’m on Twitter, I’m on YouTube, I’m on Pinterest, I’m on Instagram, oh I was told to try this Ello.” Whatever ello or something, I don’t know.
You keep up with that already.
I jumped there but I can’t, no. But watch it go crazy. But in all of that let’s back it all up, sit back take a breath and go where am I going to get the most traffic, where is my target market? And get those people, use a couple of platforms to get those people on to your email list and website. Yes, I completely agree. So it’s all about being creative in 2015. Lisa and I just said in this conversation, we think ad cost on Facebook will more than likely go up
Absolutely.
And you know if you don’t have a very specific strategy in place, you could lose a lot of money doing it. So you really need to know what you’re doing with Facebook ads and possibly look at the LinkedIn ads, the Twitter ads, the other platforms, too. Does it mean you should leave Facebook? I’m not going to answer that for anybody. I’m just not.
You have to think about your business as social aspect. If you’re building a business and you’re sitting in a cubicle an not making any connections, you’re not going to have a business. So it’s very similar to any of these social networks, they were all built on the premise that we want people to connect and communicate. So if you’re using Facebook only to post promotions, you’re not going to win. And you’ll get stressed, frustrated and stop doing it. If you can use Facebook to promote and to share value content or things that people like, humanity-wise, maybe you’re at a fund raiser and you’re helping out there, people will more than likely rather respond to that than just plain ad. And so you’ll have more interaction. You spend $10 getting out front of somebody versus $10 getting a coupon, you’re going to have more interaction. So just remember it’s still social. It’s still social.
Yep, social’s social social and you pay for that promotions starting right on 2015 on Facebook. So that’s just the way it is. So we all have to go with the changes no matter who you are, we all have to go with the change. So if you deal with the internet, it’s a daily. It’s a weekly, daily, it just change. So Lisa let’s just finish up with I’m going to ask you, do you have something that people can do to take action within the next 24 hours? What we talked about, what would you say?
Honestly I would love to see somebody do a quick video about themselves with their cellphone and post it directly to their Facebook page and see the kind of interaction they get. So take your cellphone, do a quick video, talk a little bit about yourself or what you’re doing in the day and post it to Facebook. That’s my call-to-action because you don’t need to break that video.
And if they like Instagram, they’d probably start with that even, just you only have to hit the Instagram video thing and off you go. So yeah, great! Easy tip, very easy. So if you are here and have watched our show and you’re watching through YouTube, be sure to hit the subscribe button, it’s here somewhere, I don’t know where exactly but I know there’s going to be a subscribe button on here so be sure to subscribe so you are alerted to future shows. We bring on different experts. We’ve had some amazing guests that have taught so much information about social media and any types of marketing. And so we’d love to have you subscribe to our channel.
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Yeah, thanks a lot for your time.
Have a great weekend everyone.