173 – Is it Time to Clean Up Your Social Media Program? with Sarah Frink of Real Marketing Solutions

Gift biz unwrapped episode 173 dream higher than the sky and

deeper than the ocean At gifters,

bakers, crafters and makers pursuing your dream can be fun.

Whether you have an established business or looking to start one

now you are in the right place.

This is give to biz unwrapped,

helping you turn your skill into a flourishing business.

Join us for an episode packed full of invaluable guidance,

resources, and the support you need to grow your gift biz.

Here is your host gift biz gal,

Sue moon Heights.

Hi there,

it's Sue.

Thank you so much for sharing part of your day with

me here today.

Social media.

In the beginning there were one or two platforms and then

another one popped up and then another one popped up and

then on each of the platforms they continue to enhance their

offerings. There's new tools and tricks that you can do with

each platform and there's pages and there's groups and we can't

forget video and now live streaming.

That's so important today.

One thing builds on top of another until your whole social

media strategy looks like a closet from your teenage years.

When you open the doors and everything is just thrown in

there and it's just one big mess.

Perhaps it's time to clean up and organize your social media

strategy. Today I have joining us,

Sarah Frank,

the CEO and founder of real marketing solutions.

Sarah is a creative driven and radically authentic digital marketing strategist

with a head for marketing and the heart of an entrepreneur.

She has the unique talent of taking complex ideas and breaking

them down into actionable steps that get results.

Four years ago,

Sarah founded real marketing solutions,

a creative digital agency specializing in helping businesses create an online

presence that converts strangers to followers,

followers to leads and leads to pain clients.

Now I have to tell you,

Sarah is one of my mastermind sisters and I couldn't be

more proud to share her with you.

Welcome to the gift biz unwrapped podcast,

Sarah. Thank you,

Sue. Thank you so much for having me.

I'm so happy to be here and be able to share

with the gift biz community.

Oh, I'm so excited.

And before we get into all of this,

I want to start off as I do traditionally cause we

just have to keep with tradition here.

And that is by having you describe yourself in a little

bit of a different way,

which is a motivational candle.

So if you were to give us a color and a

quote of what your ideal candle would look like,

that totally speaks you.

Sarah, what would your motivational be?

I actually love this.

My motivational candle would be the color purple,

probably a deeper purple with the quote dream higher than the

sky and deeper than the ocean.

Higher than the sky.

Deeper than the ocean.

Tell me a little more about that.

Well, purple represents creativity and as a highly creative person,

I really try and stress there are really no boundaries in

your dreams.

Like everything that you want to happen is possible.

You just have to make it happen.

So there's no limits when it comes to your dreams.

And the color really represents creativity and personality and authenticity,

which are all some of my words that I use to

describe myself and my business.

So that's how I came up with my color and my

quote. Perfect.

And you know what I love about your color and it's

actually, it's something that I see happening most of the time.

Not always,

but most of the time with people that I know that

come on the show is I pretty much know what color

they're going to say,

but it's really so great cause it really means then that

you bring branding into your business,

which is all really coming genuinely from you.

Like I know it's purple because that's you,

right? That's who you are,

that's what you do.

That's how you resonate.

And we very recently had a conversation with you about your

logo and should you do purple.

Yeah. It was one of those things that attracting your ideal

client, obviously your ideal client has to be attracted to your

brand and it has to resonate with them,

but also there's a certain amount of personality of you that

needs to be in your branding because being a small business

owner or a business owner where you are the face of

your business,

obviously you want to attract people that you want to work

with and that understand you.

So that was a really interesting conversation to have with my

mastermind sisters and process to go through as I'm working on

rebranding my business as well.

I had some feedback,

Oh you need to move away from purple cause it's too

feminine, but in the end I stuck with purple as one

of my colors.

If you don't identify with your business,

you're really in trouble.

Absolutely. Again,

I don't want to attract people that don't want to work

with me for the reasons that are displayed in my business.

This is even a tip to give to everybody out there

that's in that branding process.

You really have to have a little bit of yourself or

a lot of bit of yourself in your brand.

Ultimately it should be what represents you the best.

Absolutely. And Sarah,

we haven't even really talked yet for you to know all

this, but I'm going through a 100% rebranding of everything.

Gift biz.

Wow. And most likely our show right now when this one

goes live,

the whole branding will be out.

So my whole new logo,

I mean from podcast logo to masterclass,

logos, everything.

And you know what's so interesting about it?

It does finally feel so right.

Oh that's awesome.

I'm so excited to see it soon.

It's a big undertaking too.

It definitely is something that you have to,

when you're tied to something or you built of your own

rebranding or having someone else come in and look at your

brand is kind of a tough thing to do.

But I can't wait to see what you come up with.

Well you know what was interesting and then we'll get off

that and get on the topic we're supposed to be talking

about. But it took someone from the outside telling me what

they saw in my brand and me saying,

no, that's not right.

That's not what it's supposed to be.

I was actually presenting something different than my intention,

which I thought was really interesting.

Absolutely. That's really what happened to me as well.

You were there when that conversation came up and that wasn't

what people were seeing wasn't what I thought I was communicating,

and again,

when you're so close to it and it's your baby,

it's really hard to see things from other people's point of

view or you know,

to see what they're seeing because you see it this way

and you've created it from the ground up,

but it also is a really good exercise in growth and

when you're growing a business also needs to be really in

alignment with who you are and the look that you want

to present to the outside world.

Absolutely agree.

100% and with that we're going to wrap that up and

continue on and get onto some of the other good stuff

we're going to talk about.

Let's dive in.

All right.

All right.

But first to dive in,

I want to dive into your background a little bit because

you have a very interesting story about how you got to

social media,

so give us a little bit of that.

Yeah, so my background actually comes from the mortgage industry and

working in real estate.

I got into the industry really young,

ended up going back and getting my degree later on,

but out of college at the age of 19 I jumped

into the mortgage industry and built three different businesses with different

companies in the mortgage industry,

mostly specializing and new construction and working with home builders to

help them sell inventory,

which just so happened to be at the time I had

two really great years when the real estate market was thriving

and then also got to experience the downturn.

It was really interesting time and a lot of what happened

or what I was doing for these builders was coming up

with marketing solutions for them.

They were stuck with inventory that they couldn't get rid of

and I worked for a large lender at the time that

had some leeway to come up with financing programs and offers

that the builder could then offer potential buyers to help them

sell their inventory.

My marketing brain was always on in that position and it's

the part of the job that I loved the most.

Social media was just becoming a thing at the time and

most of the builders were not active on social media.

Even as a lender,

we weren't very active on social media as well,

so I kind of got to pave this way for this

industry in the Portland,

Oregon area and ended up being really successful even in the

downturn, loved what I was doing but didn't love the corporate

side of what I was doing.

Always been an entrepreneur at heart and loved the challenges that

come with building your own business and really wanted to explore

what that looked like on my own and I saw a

niche. I really saw the opportunity to be able to come

in and help businesses understand what social media could do for

your business in terms of marketing.

At that point,

I mean people were still spending tons of money on mailers

and drop mail and newspaper articles and advertisements and radio spots

and that was still a really active way of marketing at

that point.

But it was definitely shifting and your return on investment was

definitely diminishing.

So bringing social media to this industry was really a big

part of what I did and finally branched out on my

own. Yeah.

Well what I love about your story is you were there

right at the time when all of social media was coming

to the forefront and you were able to test and learn

and practice not in your own environment,

like not having to talk with your own company and your

own money.

You were doing exactly what you should be doing cause you

were working for somebody else,

but you didn't have to take on all that risk yourself

then and then you saw that it was working.

Yeah, I saw that it was working.

And I also saw all of small businesses,

which is,

I'm sure a lot of your audience can relate to.

Corporations were taking big stances with social media and investing heavily

in ad dollars,

even more so today.

But these small businesses,

especially if they were a little bit older,

they were resistant to getting started on social media or just

didn't know how.

Most of the people that I started working with didn't even

have a Facebook page or a profile,

so they didn't understand really how to use it,

which was what was holding them back from even getting started.

So creating this environment where I could come in and help

them as a consultant and help them get started in either

train somebody in their business to run it and create the

content or best do it for them was what I started

doing. And now it's evolved into a huge business.

So it's been great.

And that's one of the reasons why I really wanted you

to be on the show,

Sarah, because I look at our audience and I have the

privilege of knowing a lot of you guys give biz listeners

and I think what's happening to us now is social media

has been out and available for enough time where everybody is

dabbling in it to some degree,

maybe just a little bit,

maybe a lot.

But what keeps happening is new platforms come up or changes

happen on existing platforms and everyone keeps jumping to the newest

thing and doing a little bit of that and then jumping

into another new thing and doing a little bit of that.

And so I think we've gotten to the point where we're

all doing a little of a lot and we're not seeing

any results.

And what I'd like to talk about,

just like you were saying,

when people were just starting,

when social media was brand new,

I'm feeling like a lot of us need a fresh start.

We need to like halt,

like the comic character that to a halt and just like

evaluates and starts fresh.

If you were talking with someone who either is just starting

now in business,

so they might've used social media just personally,

right, or they're caught up in all of this mess and

need to just clean shop.

How does someone get started right from the ground floor?

Let's just set the base and then go from there.

Absolutely. This is a great question and it all comes down

to understanding who your ideal client or who you're selling to

is. So one of the things,

like you said,

a lot of people jump from one thing to the next

because it's a trend.

Someone says,

get on LinkedIn.

They might jump on LinkedIn just because they heard that,

but they don't really understand how to target their ideal client

on that platform.

So it's really important first to understand who your ideal client

or ideal audience is.

What's the average age of your purchasers?

What's the demographic?

Are they stay at home moms?

Are, is it kind of all over the board?

Are they men?

Are they women?

Do you understand how much they're making?

Are they employed?

Are they not really diving in to who your purchasers or

and or your ideal clients are,

helps you figure out where they're going to be at,

right? So Facebook may not work for everybody.

If you have a product under $50 you might want to

explore Instagram or Pinterest and start with one or the other

and really,

really master that platform before you move on.

Because I think what happens is people jump in and they

don't really understand how to do any of them good.

They just start.

And three things happen with that.

First of all,

usually you lack consistency and consistency is really key.

Obviously nobody remembers the person that threw up 55 posts in

one day and then they didn't hear from for three months.

So it's more important to have a consistent content strategy than

it is to be posting seven or eight times a day

and seven days a week.

Consistency is really important.

So if you can only commit to one platform,

I would tell you to commit to that platform,

master that platform.

And then once you do,

you can move on and add in something else.

The other thing that happens is we just don't understand how

to leverage that platform.

So we don't have enough information about how to really get

cells off of Instagram or how to get sales off of

Pinterest. So we're just kind of throwing things up and nothing's

really happening because we're doing that.

So understand the platform,

learn the platform,

master the platform,

and then start adding in other options for selling.

So would you say that you're not missing out if you

just focus on one platform and get it going so that

it's actually resulting in something for you,

whether it's visibility or business or there's some type of traction

going versus doing everything and not seeing any results?

Anything coming back?

Absolutely. Say you're on Pinterest and you're putting content up on

Pinterest, but you're not optimizing it.

You're not using hashtags,

you're not writing descriptions,

it's not linking back to your website.

Your content is not going to show up on Pinterest in

search. So it's really doing you any good to be on

that platform.

It's more of wasting time at that point.

So I would absolutely recommend for someone starting out,

you pick the platform where the majority of your ideal clients

or purchasers are in terms of demographics.

Learn that platform,

create a content strategy for that platform.

And once you feel like you've mastered it and you're getting

results, then I would add in another platform to target because

again, it doesn't do any good to be on Instagram if

you're really not getting business from Instagram or your buyers aren't

on Instagram.

And it also doesn't do any good to do that if

you're not leveraging the platform to its fullest potential.

Perfect. Okay.

Couple of questions for you.

I know where my ideal customer is going.

How do I know which platform is right?

Yeah, absolutely.

So I'm assuming a lot of the gift biz community is

selling probably a product or has a brick and mortar store

that sells a product.

So this is a good opportunity for you to look at.

Really what I tend to do,

and again,

I'm a service based business,

so this is a little bit different for product base.

Look at your top revenue sales and if you know,

and this might be a little bit harder for product base,

it usually is if you know some of the demographics behind

that sell or that purchase.

Obviously if you're a brick and mortar,

you know who's coming in the door,

you could probably get a decent gauge on who that is.

Then you translate that over to the platform.

So this book is one of the platforms that has one

of the biggest audiences.

They also have a marketplace where you can sell products,

you could have your shop on Facebook,

you can have that link to Shopify,

all of those different things.

Facebook definitely has the biggest age range and demographic on there.

Now, if I'm looking at Instagram,

Instagram is still really millennial based and is moving up in

age, but the activity on Instagram is not really moving up

in age.

So let me explain this a little bit more.

Most of my clients that are 40 plus years old that

have a real estate business or a product based business,

yes, they're active on Instagram,

but they're not actually the ones that's active on Instagram.

So if I'm trying to reach them,

they probably have somebody like myself or a 10 $15 an

hour employee posting their content and Manning their content.

So if I'm targeting them as a person,

I'm probably missing the opportunity to actually connect with them cause

they're not really on the platform.

Now, if I'm targeting a millennial or someone under the age

of 35 they are active on Instagram.

So the chances that they're going to see my content on

there is really great.

If I'm targeted a do it yourself or Pinterest is where

people go for that inspiration.

So if I have a product that's $50 or below and

I'm trying to sell either online or to this community of

DIY wires,

I'm going to look at Pinterest as a platform that's probably

going to be able to help my business.

Pinterest is not a social media platform,

it's a search platform and therefore it has a kind of

a different set of rules.

But basically the same idea,

the different social media platforms.

Now if I'm targeting women that are 55 plus,

I'm probably not going to be on Instagram at all.

I'm going to be focusing on Facebook and maybe a little

bit of Pinterest if it's still the DIY market.

And that's probably where I'd start.

People tend to know who their product is designed for,

what age category,

and if it's male or female that are buying the most

of it,

you can even start as basic as that is identifying the

age and the gender of who you're selling to the most.

And then from there you can find the appropriate platform.

Got it.

Okay. And so you've just covered a bunch of them.

We didn't do LinkedIn.

What would you say about LinkedIn in terms of the audience

there? Well,

so for product based business,

this is going to be a little bit different for service

based businesses or business to business.

LinkedIn is a great platform.

So if I'm targeting,

and honestly more men are on LinkedIn than women,

so if I'm targeting men and a higher job title positions

or higher income brackets and I'm a service based business,

I will be on LinkedIn.

If I'm a product based business,

there's still that opportunity.

But again,

it really depends on who you're targeting.

If you're targeting professionals in industries,

you might have an opportunity on LinkedIn.

If you're targeting stay at home moms or moms,

they're probably not on LinkedIn,

nor do they care to be.

Right. So really understanding,

you might have a little bit of both in your demographic,

but who primarily is the buyer of your product or service.

That's where you have to start.

Okay, perfect.

So just in summary of what has talked about already,

if we're deciding that this is the time to clean shop

and just start rebuilding from the ground up or perfecting what

you already have,

start with one platform,

dive into the platform that your prospective customer is on,

not necessarily your friends or your peers or any of that,

but who your prospect is,

who you're trying to get the message in front of to

take action to grow your business.

And Sarah just went through all of that and then you're

going to want to be consistent on that platform.

And now how do we learn what the right things are

to do by each platform?

Because every platform is very different.

I recognize that in this call.

We're not going to go through every platform and talk about

what you should do,

but how should someone,

let's say they've been on Facebook for awhile,

where do they go to learn more about how to do

things right on Facebook or Instagram or whichever platform it is?

Well, so we have a course for that.

Well, you don't have to be an,

I didn't do that intentionally by the way.

No, I know.

But what then it comes down to is your content strategy,

right? So if you're on Facebook and you're not really getting

any engagement and you're kind of frustrated,

you know your ideal clients are on there,

but so you have a limited budget for advertising and your

reach is really low and you don't know really what else

to do.

The next thing that you need to take a look at

is what types of content that you're putting there for Products

specifically. So if you're a product based business,

and again,

I'm really highlighting products because I think that your audience kind

of falls in that category.

That's perfect.

Absolutely. For product based businesses,

it's really important to have a content strategy that one lets

people know how to use your product or the benefits of

your product.

So if we're just sharing articles from somebody else or from

say article share on the five best decorations for the 4th

of July,

this is just coming to my head.

But what we really want is people to buy our 4th

of July product.

We really need to create our own content around that instead

of sharing other people's content.

And one of the things I see that people do the

most is they're just sharing articles and they're really not creating

any of their own dynamic content.

And in order for content to be seen,

it has to be dynamic.

Also, if you were going to put ad dollars at it,

you want to make sure that that content is going to

get engagement and that people are going to want to see

it, want to learn more about it and click to visit

your website or whatever that is.

So really coming up with your own custom content strategy.

So for product base it's really important to teach people how

to use your product or the benefits behind the product.

It's also equally as important to have testimonials about the product,

so people raving about your product,

how they use it.

And again,

when you have raving fans and raving clients that use your

product often or daily or are willing to share that experience,

that is content that you really is just priceless content that

will do really,

really well.

So you have to have mixture of content in there that's

going to showcase and highlight your product in the way that

you would want to be on the end user.

So think about it like if I'm buying a product and

maybe it's 45 or $50 I'm going to want to know

that I want,

I'm going to have to have a need for that product

or I'm going to want to know that people are buying

that product and raving about that product.

I need some information from you.

So that's really important.

And then on the flip side of that is really high

quality images of your product.

Or you'll see people post imagery that maybe isn't the highest

quality, but maybe it doesn't showcase the product to its full

potential. And that's really doing you just service.

Yeah, I think so because nobody knows you except for what

you're putting online,

especially on that place.

And that's the local.

And so if you put up like a really,

I would say it varies by platform and what you're doing,

right? Cause if you're doing something live and image can be

a little more raw than if you're putting something on Instagram,

obviously. Right?

Absolutely. Yep.

But I see that a lot as I'm looking through the

different sites,

something that's really even it could be a really good company

and I know they're good,

but if they're putting up some blurry images or just bad

lighting or something like that,

they look so inferior to some of the quality that's going

up online.

Absolutely. And I think on the other side of that too

is this is where a small shop can really grow because

if they have really Super quality images,

it's going to attract more people.

Even if you're small.

And I think that's the challenge with a lot of our

listeners here is they're small.

How do they get some traction?

How do they start attracting visibility?

And images is a perfect example.

Just making sure they're quality.

Yeah, and going off of brick and mortar for a second

too. If you're going to be doing,

there's one thing to target in your area,

but there's so much eCommerce business that can be done at

this point in time that as a brick and mortar,

you probably equally need to have an online presence and an

eCommerce business as well because you can target and do business

with way more people that way.

So thinking about where,

how to leverage your business and how to bring in more.

If you're talking about a brick and mortar,

bringing more sales or bringing in more traffic,

having two options to be able to purchase,

come into your business and target that way or to be

able to purchase online and really having the content that supports

it is really important.

There's another tip I have for you too.

Using the newest features on each platform.

As most of you know,

Instagram has stories for businesses now that and also does Facebook

has stories for businesses as well and showcasing this behind the

scenes type of environment of your product,

how your products made your team,

your valued customers that buy the product,

showcasing that in this story environment as well as your promotions

and your selling piece of it is so important and it

can just drive a whole nother piece of engagement because people

are getting this kind of behind the scenes relationship building experience

with you.

Yeah, and selling is really still about building relationships.

I don't know about you and this is a really good,

if I can share this really quick,

I always bring it back to my experience with sun basket

and I don't know if you know it's the at home

delivery, it's like blue apron or green chef,

all of those home delivery food services.

And my first experience was I saw an ad for it

on Facebook and I was like,

Oh that's interesting.

And it met my diet restriction.

So I went over to the website and I looked at

it and I checked it out.

But for me it intrigued me that,

Oh well if there's this,

there has to be more.

So then I went on Google and I started looking up

all of these food delivery services and looking at their menus

and doing this and kind of exploring my options and I

didn't buy them,

which is this is a buyer behavior thing that we can

talk about.

I didn't buy at that point in time,

but I was intrigued by the idea.

So sun basket knew that I went to their website and

four or five days later I got another promotion and seven

days later I got another promotion and I finally purchased from

them. But I didn't do it right away.

But what they did is they captured me with this story

about how people like me use their service and it took

me seeing that story a couple of times in a different

story a couple of times to be able to purchase.

And I think that that's what people forget about online is

we just think we put up a post and everybody's going

to buy our product.

That's not always the case.

So coming up with that content strategy is really,

really important for your business.

Yeah, I mean really what you just presented,

it's rarely the case.

And that holds true for even when I was a big

one in direct marketing,

direct mail marketing back in the day before social media.

And we would always say,

you cannot just do a one and done and then go

do another one in done.

It's kind of like building blocks.

If you just put one block next to each other,

nothing ever grows.

But if you put one on top of another,

then you're starting to build something.

Right. Exactly.

The same thing with advertising and I think I'm even guilty

of it.

You forget that you have to build on top.

And it was just that story.

I mean they probably,

that was a paid ad probably Sarah at first and certainly

the second one was because they were retargeting you.

Right? So the first money doesn't look like it's worth the

investment because you're not getting a direct sale in return,

but it's multiple hits on top of each other that bring

in the sale.

Exactly. And their first offered to me was intriguing enough to

get me to click over and then I had to go

through this research mode.

So when we're talking about buyers,

we kind of have two different types of buyers.

We have the impulsive right that we'll just see something jump

on it and buy it,

which on social media that's changing just a little bit because

of the advertising environment and it's very heavily used at this

point. So people are not quite as impulsive as they used

to be.

And then you have the analytical person like myself that see

something, it strikes an idea on me and I'm like,

Oh, that's a great idea,

but I don't buy right away.

So it's up to me as the seller of the product

to stay in front of them until they do buy.

We know as social media marketing experts that it takes four

to eight,

sometimes 12 touches with somebody to make them a purchaser or

a buyer of your brand and not everybody's going to do

that obviously.

So understanding that means we have to be consistent and we

have to go deep on our touches with the people that

are interested in our brand.

all back to your point of consistency,

picking one platform possibly,

and just being consistent,

having a plan,

seeing what's working and then if it's not working,

not abandoning ship,

but just tweaking what you're doing until it starts to work

properly or at least you've put in enough time.

Absolutely. Yeah.

And what typically happens is people just give up.

They're like,

well, I ran one ad and it didn't work.

It's like,

well how many clicks did your ad get?

Let's look at that first.

Okay, so it got 158 clicks.

You spent a hundred dollars or $50 okay,

well it intrigued somebody enough.

158 clicks enough to go there.

But you can't just stop right there because if you do,

I mean,

just because they clicked doesn't mean they're instantly gonna buy.

And if we stop right there,

we're actually taking somebody that was intrigued by brand and just

letting them walk out the door.

Right. All right.

I have a potentially explosive question for you.

Are you ready?

Ooh, I love it.

Let's go.

You promise you'll answer it honestly.

Yeah, of course.

Okay. You don't me brutally honest.

Okay, so I'm going to just say that most of our

listeners are probably on Facebook and I think it's the right

call actually based on who I know and the number of

people who are on it.

Like if you had no idea what platform you were going

to do,

I would start with Facebook for my listeners.

A hundred percent yep.

So here's my question.

Facebook has changed yet again,

it might even change between the time we're recording this and

when the episode goes live,

but at this point when we're recording right now,

obviously the algorithm has changed.

We're talking about more engagement,

we're talking about page reach being somewhere under 3% probably.

Do you think it's worth,

apart from just being a little bit active on pages,

just so your page doesn't get stale,

do you think it's a better call to do live video

and that type of thing?

If you're not doing ads then just putting something random up

on your page?

Yeah. Well,

so let me just say,

I've always been a Facebook fan and I also get very

frustrated with the platform as well,

like most,

but I will tell you this,

Facebook is coming down to your content strategy.

It's definitely coming down to that.

If people aren't engaging in your content,

your ads probably aren't going to get any reach as well

or very limited reach.

How much do you really feel there's value in user generated

content? In other words,

posting things from others,

which we'd referenced earlier versus not doing that at all,

or using your own,

I know using your own is best,

but is it even worth user generated content anymore?

I mean,

as long as you're not making that your whole content strategy,

I'm okay sharing something.

But if you're going to share something,

you have to have your own unique spin on it.

Okay. The problem with it,

especially in service based businesses,

which isn't really the case here,

but like myself,

if I'm sharing something that another expert in my industry wrote

and I'm not putting any of my own unique spin on

it, I'm really just highlighting somebody else in my industry as

an expert.

Right? So what I would tell you to do is if

you are sharing other content and you're doing it to strike

up engagement,

do it with an intention to get people to interact.

So maybe pose a question with it.

See this article from so and so.

What's your thoughts?

Do you think Facebook advertising is dead or whatever?

Okay. But so for our audience who probably doesn't have a

group, they're part of groups,

I'm just going to go with this as a generalization.

They don't have their own group where a lot of the

engagement takes place.

They have a page where we already know 3% or less

South of 3% are even seen.

It is that we're time should be going versus biting the

bullet, being afraid,

getting online,

showing your personality and showing interaction with someone in your shop

or a video of you making your chocolate or I mean

where should the time really be spent?

Nerves and anxiety aside.

Yeah, and your own unique content strategy with showcasing yourself and

your business a hundred percent that's where your time should be

spent. I don't care if it's a boomerang from Instagram that

you share everywhere or whatever it is,

the time and the effort should be spent in developing your

own unique personality and content strategy that is bold enough and

engaging enough that people are going to want to see it.

Because if you can get engagement on your page and on

your posting,

your ads are going to perform much better than those that

get no likes and our article shares,

they're not going to go anywhere.

So if you had to pick say,

and again I'm not saying you have to post seven days

a week,

I'm just saying what you do post needs to be high

quality and it needs to be engaging if you want people

to interact with your page and your brand.

Okay. And you're leading this so perfectly because now I want

to say that I think a lot of our audience has

never done a Facebook ad before.

I mean they might have boosted a post here and there,

but let's talk about that a little bit.

Okay. The value of Facebook ads,

should you,

how do you decide if you're going to start just a

little direction there?

Yeah, so if I was just starting out as a new

business, where I would put my ad dollars specifically is creating

content that is getting good engagement on my page and then

possibly boosting that content to a bigger audience or a bigger

demographic. So if I was brick and mortar,

I might target in a 25 mile radius of my store

to try and get more people in the store,

get more foot traffic in there.

But again,

I'm not going to just do that with a blanket ad

like, Hey,

come in and see us.

I'm going to do it with high quality content that makes

people go,

Oh geez,

I want to check that out or I want to go

look at that.

That you've already seen has gotten an engagement.

Yeah, you've seen it on your page.

Get engagement because I think there's a couple of things that

is happening with Facebook is because the ads are so saturated

at this point and you're seeing them for everything,

the user actually has the ability to say if they want

to see it or not.

I don't know if many of you know that,

but I can say if I hadn't seen these ads pull

up, I can say hide this ad.

I don't want to see any more of this ad.

So it's really important that the content that we are paying

to boost,

and I would start with boost.

I wouldn't even start with the ads manager piece of it

yet. If I was just starting out or a business with

a small budget,

I would create killer content and I would put some ad

dollars at that to try and generate traffic or interest in

our product.

Now in saying that real quick though,

I would also make sure that if you're sending people to

a website that you definitely have the remarketing set up in

your website before you start that.

And that piece is done in ads manager,

Right? We're talking about having pixels.

So you're tracking what's happening So that people that are visiting

your website are being tracked and you can remarket to them.

So that's different than boosting a post that's done through the

ads manager piece of that.

And it is important.

Yeah, and that might freak out a couple of our listeners

here, but anybody who does anything with social media could put

this up for you in like 30 seconds.

Absolutely. So if you have someone even local in your market,

part of your chamber,

something like that,

don't let that tech part freak you out.

But the sooner you get,

it's called a pixel.

It's a little piece of code.

The sooner you have that tracking.

It's kind of like thinking of someone who has muddy feet.

You're able to see where they've been and you know where

they're going and you try and draw them back.

When Sarah's talking about targeting,

you can then reach out and put another piece of content

in front of them.

This is how you layer up the content where Sarah is

talking about multiple reaches.

It's not multiple reaches out into the universe and you hope

you're capturing and reaching the same people again.

You're able to do it by putting this pixel in place.

Exactly. I'm really glad that we talked about that and give

biz listeners.

I just have to tell you and Sara,

I'd love for you to go and look at this too

way. In the beginning of this podcast.

I'd say it was somewhere in the first 20 episodes and

I'll put it in the show notes.

I interviewed a woman in my area who has a company

called love that spice and I just saw her this weekend.

I jumped into her shop and I was telling her how

much I was enjoying her social media and Oh my gosh,

who is doing it for you?

Because it's just fabulous.

She's doing it all herself and you know what she's doing

when people come in.

So she sells spices,

but she also sells beverages made out of the spices,

no, et cetera.

All she's doing from her phone is capturing customers,

enjoying a cup of tea or some coffee or having them

samples. A couple of new things she has getting their reactions

and it's so engaging and so different from what she used

to do.

And she's like,

Sue, it's like a no brainer.

It's so super easy.

So any of you,

I would encourage you to go,

you can go listen to our show,

the podcast if you want,

but mostly I want you to just go and see what

she's doing online.

I think it's wonderful and a great demonstration of what Sarah's

talking about in terms of behind the scenes and it peaks

your curiosity and makes you want to know more.

Well. And so that brings up a good point in terms

of a lot of people and probably some of your audience

here today struggle with what do people want to see?

And the reality of it is usually we overthink this so

much and we're not thinking in the moment to be taking

pictures. So if you're a maker and you're making a fresh

loaf of or whatever that is,

a craft or something like that,

showing people the behind the scenes of that,

that's the content that does the best.

Showing your clients and your customers coming in to get that

product and with their fresh loaf of bread standing there happy

customer, that's the content that's going to get the most engagement.

So it's not even something we need to think so far

out. Like what would people want to see?

It's actually something that we should be thinking about in our

day to day.

What am I doing with my product that people would want

to see?

Am I doing a photo shoot?

Is my team making it?

What can I do to really showcase my product today?

Yeah. Taking that mindset and I'm sure that that's what the

love your spice company is doing.

She's being mindful and the day to day process of what

she's doing of opportunities to create content.

Yeah. And sometimes that's all it takes.

Yeah. And I'm slowly getting better at this.

Slowly I might add,

but one thing that's helped me is recognizing that just because

you take the picture right then and there doesn't mean you

have to post it right then and there.

Absolutely. Yeah.

You can take the picture and then you can go on

with your day and then later get back to it and

think about,

okay, what's the message I want to create behind this picture

or this video or boomerang or whatever it is.

And that's been helpful to me,

which is why I just wanted to bring it up.

If I have a food company that I worked for and

or do social media for and I'll go in and do

one day with them or a couple hours a day and

take a bunch of manufacturing pictures where we're making the product

and go to a photo shoot and take pictures of behind

the scenes and then I spread that content out over the

next three months and our social media,

so it's not something you just have to post right then

and there.

If you see the opportunity in a day,

hold that content and then start throwing it in down the

road. Or if you're going to do a photo shoot,

a professional Photo shouldn't have them in that could last you

six months.

Oh, totally.

Yeah. Not every single post but enough to spread out for

sure. Okay.

I'm super curious about the answers to some of these questions.

Since you're the social media pro,

do you have a special app that you go to or

one that you use for editing your photos or something that

you'd like to share with the audience that you use that

could be helpful for them for posting?

Yeah, I do a lot of my editing in the platform.

So Instagram has a great photo editor.

Most of you know that I do a lot of editing

in there.

I'm just,

because it's the easiest.

But one of the things I do use for video editing

that I really like is an app called splice.

It's mostly for the iPhone.

I believe.

I do a lot of video content and I do it

from my phone typically.

So it's nice to just edit the content right then and

there. You can add background music,

you can add still images and it's really,

really user friendly.

There are a ton of video and editing apps out there,

but splice is one of the ones that I've used from

the beginning.

Um, I believe it's owned by GoPro and I use it

and I love it and it makes video editing really easy.

I can take out pieces of a video if I flub

a little or if I want to add graphic in there,

I can do that really quickly.

Also, I mean I have a Mac so I use my

video editor on my Mac to edit videos and you can

do almost everything on that and yeah,

those are probably the two.

I don't like to get a ton of apps because apps

then you're like,

which one should I use now?

So I kind of find my staples and I stick with

them. I agree with that.

Kind of like your social media platform.

Start with one,

get it going,

then add another.

But when you find something that works and you've gotten accustomed

to it,

it's almost like don't waste that time finding something new because

it does one little different thing when you could be going

and talking to a new potential customer.

Yeah. Another great video editing app is called Camtasia.

Not sure if you've heard of that,

but if you're doing text overlays and maybe doing more still

image videos,

it is a paid app,

but it is a great app for if you're not really

recording video but you're using still images and still trying to

create a video out of it.

That is also a good app,

but again,

if you're starting out and you're on a limited budget,

you don't need a bunch of apps.

You can make videos and Facebook,

you can make them on your phone,

you can edit with free apps everywhere,

so don't get crazy about your software.

I didn't know Camtasia.

I use it on the desktop.

That's what I use for a lot of my presentations and

online course recording and all of that.

It's a phone app as well.

I believe it is.

I use it on my desktop too,

but I believe I've seen it in the app store as

well. Interesting.

Maybe not.

I'll have to check it out.

Yeah. Okay.

Alright. In terms of investing in yourself,

you have to be on top of all this social media

stuff. How do you stay current with everything?

Well. I'm involved in a lot of groups with other digital

marketing experts and communities that I tap into for resources and

I ask a lot of questions to be honest in those

communities, so every community,

Facebook has a community for pretty much everything,

just like your gift biz community.

They have that for marketers.

There's all kinds of communities out there and I get really

involved in those and seeing what people are posting.

Typically there,

the community is,

they share quite a bit of content,

so if I need to know the latest and greatest,

I'll just go in there or if something's wrong,

something's changed.

With Facebook,

which happens pretty much overnight.

The other day that happened,

all of my targeting was gone and they were moving it

permanently and I went into the group and I said,

Hey, anybody else having this issue?

And they're like,

yep, it's gone for good.

This is why this is what you need to know and

asking questions.

There's tons of resources out there for small business owners and

some of it might seem a little overwhelming,

so I would recommend finding the group that's appropriate for you.

At where you're at in that stage of business and joining

forces with them.

I also do a lot of research online for Google.

If I can't find something or something hasn't been announced yet,

I'll research until I can or can't it and then Ask

asking questions is pretty much the best way to get an

answer on anything.

I'm so happy that you said this because you're an expert,

right? But here's a great demonstration of you can't know everything

all the time.

There's so much now to wrap your arms around in terms

of having the knowledge so that you can use it for

your clients and you by demonstrating that you as an expert

will go into your professional groups and ask and get that

information so that you can be the best that you can

be is a fabulous demonstration because I think we all feel

like if we're an expert,

we need to have all the answers and that just isn't

possible. It really isn't.

And in this day and age with technology moving as quick

as it does and changes happening in the marketing world.

I mean,

yeah, I remember when there wasn't any social media and how

marketing went and it was a much slower pace than what

we're at now.

Right? Things are just coming at us all day long.

It's impossible to keep up seriously.

It really never hurts to ask.

The worst somebody is going to say is no right or

they don't know the answer and then you might have to

go research it.

But I have found that finding the community that's right for

you at the right stage in your business and providing value

in those communities,

but also asking for support when you need it is literally

the best way to stay on top of what you need

to know.

Absolutely. I'll give and take for sure and you have given

us so much.

So now I on behalf of our audience,

would like to give you something and that is an opportunity

to dare to dream.

I'd like to present you Sierra with a virtual gift.

It's a magical box containing unlimited possibilities for your future.

So this is your dream or a goal of almost unreachable

Heights that you would wish to obtain.

So please accept this gift on behalf of all of us

and open it in our presence.

What is inside your box?

Oh my goodness,

this is the question I had the most challenging thoughts on.

Now answer wisely because this is like a law of attraction

type thing because if you ask it,

you might actually get it.

So dream big,

Sarah. Okay,

My dream really,

and the whole mission behind what I do is to help

as many people as possible,

unleash social media for their business.

And if someone could give me that opportunity to inspire,

encourage, or educate as many people possible in that journey,

I think that would be one of the biggest gifts that

I could take.

And also give to all the people out there that need

that help.

There you go.

And I hear it throughout the whole session we've had here.

I mean,

you speak with such passion about it,

so I'm so glad you found what you love to do.

And I'm so glad that we get to be the recipients

of all the information.

Yeah. Well thank you for having me and I hope that

this content was very useful for your community and will inspire

some of you maybe that aren't active on social media.

So then maybe take some action and then also those that

are frustrated.

I hope this gives you a different look at maybe some

of the things you could do to freshen it up and

get some better results.

Yeah, absolutely.

So real quickly give us a feel for where would be

a good place to learn more about you.

You had mentioned some classes that you have,

so where can we find out about all of that?

Yes, so our website is www.realmarketingsolutions.net

on that website there is a schedule button,

so if you're feeling lost behind,

not sure where to go,

you can always schedule a complimentary 15 minute call with me

and I could give you the guidance that I would.

There's also our DIY courses and group coaching.

So we too have a community of small business owners that

are looking to leverage social media and are on limited budgets

so they don't have the resources to hire a social media

manager or maybe they have somebody on their team that needs

some assistance with social media.

Our community is located@ourmssorealmarketingsolutionsthatourmssocialmedia.com

and for anybody interested in having a peak,

we offer a free 30 day membership so you can join

the club and you get coaching from me two times a

month, which is always beneficial and a ton of extra resources.

So if you were a DIY marketer,

which I'm assuming some of you are,

this might be a great resource for you there.

We also have courses on Facebook for business and Instagram for

business. So if you're stuck and you just don't know how

to leverage those two platforms,

those are great resources and they are beginner guides for those

platforms. Oh,

perfect. Yeah,

and 30 day free entrance just to get a feel for

what it's all about.

That's awesome,

Sarah. Yeah.

So that gives you two coaching calls with me and that

30 days we do two a month and then you also

have access to the online courses as well.

So that Instagram and Facebook for business and a whole website

full of content that you can work through and do it

yourself. Perfect.

And of course these very,

very valuable links will be on the show notes page if

you're not able to capture them right now.

So just jump over there and click away.

Sarah, thank you so much at always hard cause I just

want to get into like all this personal stuff,

but we were pretty good at staying on point here.

I think We did.

We did.

Thank you for having me.

I really appreciate it.

So Love that you were here.

Have a great day.

So gift biz listeners.

My hope is that through my conversation with Sarah here that

you found some ways that you can bring back some sanity

to your social media plan.

Also, if you're looking for more gift biz motivation,

I'd like to invite you to join our private Facebook group

called gift biz breeze.

You know,

pursuing your business should be fun and exciting and rewarding,

but so often when we get into the thick of things,

it becomes really stressful and scary when you join the breeze.

It's like sitting in the park with friends who bring all

the support you need and that you've been looking for for

so long.

You'll have access to an amazing group of creators just like

you, along with tools and resources to catapult your business growth.

To join the group,

just jump over to gift biz breeze.com

I can't wait to see you over there.

This episode is all wrapped up,

but fortunately your gift biz journey continues.

Are you eager to learn more?

Our gift biz gal has a free download just for you.

Head over to gift biz on rapt.com/twelve

steps to get your copy of the 12 steps to starting

a profitable gift biz.

Don't delay.

Head over to gift biz unwrapped.com/twelve

steps today and until next time,