Adam Jones 00:00
So today, we’re gonna be looking at four ways to future proof your social media. Is that possible?
Alyssa Mullins 00:07
I think so. Let’s find out. Hi, guys, I’m Alyssa.
Adam Jones 00:15
And I’m Adam.
Alyssa Mullins 00:16
And this is your weekly social! Alright, so four ways, four ways to future proof your social media.
Adam Jones 00:24
So the number one way is good branding.
Alyssa Mullins 00:27
Good branding. Yeah, that makes sense. So good branding: it’s consistency. It’s being able to- wherever you post and whatever you do website, social media especially- everything is consistent. Everything kind of like flows and comes together and really communicates your brand in a very positive way. If you want to know what branding is, we have a webinar posted that you can switch over to and watch after this video. But it’s just what helps bring everything together.
Adam Jones 01:01
And what’s a good example of that? Like, I have some, but like, who do you like for their branding?
Alyssa Mullins 01:05
Well, I get Fabletics popping up on my stuff a lot. And it’s usually advertisements, but when you go to their actual profile, everything is very consistent. Their branding is consistent; whenever they do partnerships even. They did a branded partnership with Liza Koshi, and she’s super fun, very eccentric, and the way that they not only, you know, made the products, but also the way that they advertised and showed like, “Hey, we’re working with Liza!” Like, it all just kind of flowed. And it was still Fabletics, they didn’t get lost in her personality, and she didn’t get lost in Fabletics. And it was very cohesive. And it all just flowed so wonderfully, and she’s super fun. And the photography that they did with her was great. And everything just came together. And they do that with all the other partnerships that they have as well.
Adam Jones 01:57
So you know who also does branding really well? The SportSack. They’re out of New York, they have a lot of other places, vendors. They are worldwide known, doing bag, luggage, purse, diaper bag- like everything. But then they do, like you were saying like those partnerships, they don’t get people lost in it. And the people who are engaged with them, they’re like, “Oh, yeah, I have a 2018 bag of this, I have a 2019 bag of that.” And even in their social media, it’s very known what the identity is; they’ll post some of their own customers that you know, have good photos, like why not. But then it is clearly their brand. And it’s clearly their identity. If you want to see branding on a consistent level that’s really future proof, go check out luxury brands. Usually they have the most defined; a little bit more on the elegant/classy side, which may not fit every brand. But there’s good things that are there that… they just do right all the time. If you have good branding, it doesn’t matter what platform you’re on, it’s going to be consistent and good.
Alyssa Mullins 03:04
Because you can have your brand fit for any platform, because every platform is just a little different in how they like to reach their audience. And so your stuff that fits for Instagram can translate into what fits for Facebook, what fits for Twitter, what fits for Snapchat, even and TikTok. Number two was organic posting. Organic, as in, you’re not really putting any money towards it. You know, you can kind of tell when things have money put towards it because it pops up everywhere versus when they don’t. And it’s only on the feed. And going back to Fabletics, I noticed that too. Like there are posts on their page that I never see. I’ve never seen some of those posts on their Instagram because I mostly see ads. And then every now and then a few things pop in. So it’s what pops in behind the ads. That organic posting is another thing and keeping up with that consistency.
Adam Jones 04:07
And then for number three- one of the big things that we’re a big believer in is not having all your eggs in a singular basket. As we’ve been seeing, there’s been a lot of upheaval in the overall digital marketing space. Facebook’s changing their name to Meta, there’s all kinds of things happening with that. And even Instagram is having some interesting things with their GIF system Giffy; it’s fascinating, the whole thing is fascinating. Jack Dorsey just left Twitter, which is huge. And even in grander scale, we saw the current CEO of Microsoft just dump 50% of his stock. There’s always gonna be tumultuous times. And so then if something happens to Facebook, do you actually have an audience or a presence in Twitter or Snapchat or TikTok? Or if TikTok which has all kinds of weird suspension that we’ve talked about the on the show before… if there’s a suspension, where does your audience know to find you? Having those diversified portfolio of marketing platforms really protects your business as a whole. And we’re big believers in that. And that goes right into our fourth one, which is email marketing. And you’re like, “Oh, my gosh, email marketing- that’s so old school. It’s not even social media!” But it is; it’s protecting your audience in case anything and everything goes bad. So AWS, they’re the hosting service that runs most social media platforms: if there’s an outage, you don’t have anything. Emails, you own; you have that an Excel spreadsheet, you probably have that in a Google sheet, you probably have it in constant contact, or MailChimp, or some other platform. You can still activate into that and keep hold of your audience even when other platforms fail. And when we talk about future proofing, that’s what we’re talking about- maintaining that audience for the long run. Just because things are tumultuous, things are changing. I mean, 2021’s had a lot of big changes.
Alyssa Mullins 06:13
And even to keep up with that idea of not putting all your eggs in one basket, and separate them into your own special social media baskets. If you remember the Facebook blackout that we had, everyone was very lost, didn’t know what was happening. There were some brands out there that went to the platforms that didn’t go down and said, “Hey, we’re still here, we’re still alive!” And, you know, “Instagram and Facebook, maybe down but our website’s not!” and had people go that way. And so email marketing, and utilizing other platforms for those purposes, can help in situations like that. You don’t have to be that one person on an email marketing platform and bug everyone and be like, “Hey, here’s this deal. Here’s this deal, here’s this deal!” It can be something you send out once or twice a month, and that be okay. And it’s also not something that takes up all that much time and a person schedule, either.
Adam Jones 07:11
Even going back to branding, do check out our video on branding. We’ll have it linked below. But we also have a free brand workbook sheet that can help you make sure that you’re on the right track. And if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us. We’re more than happy to talk- we love talking about this stuff. This is our favorite part of the day! And so thank you so much for your time today. Feel free to Like; they hit bells, right? That’s a thing?
Alyssa Mullins 07:36
Hit the bell, Like, Subscribe! We’re also on Spotify and you can listen to us there. Bye guys!
