Jake Van Buschbach 0:00
on live, and we're live. So everybody, I hope you're having a great day today. My name is Jake from umbrella IT services. And today we're going to be talking about social media marketing with my good friend Gabby Decker, from GD commerce. So I know that social media is a crazy combination of art and science that can be a little bit overwhelming for most folks, especially if you don't have any previous experience working with these platforms like Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc. But thankfully today, we do have an expert with us that can give us some insight on how to leverage these tools in a practical way. And Gabby is going to be here to provide us with some resources and tips so that we can get started in the right direction. Or we can optimize things if we're already working on our social media strategy. So thank you very much, Gabby for coming in today. How's your day going?
Gabby Dickert 0:47
Oh, just Gloria.
Unknown Speaker 0:48
That's good.
Unknown Speaker 0:50
So yeah, I have a couple of things that we wanted to kind of dive into but if you could give us a little bit of an introduction to yourself into GD commerce To get started, that would be great.
Gabby Dickert 0:59
Yeah. Absolutely. So I started using e commerce, arguably three years ago, it could be argued for two and a half, two and a half years ago. But I began my entire journey through Shopify. So that's kind of my first big job out of university, and university. I studied management, economics and finance. And I focused on project management as well. And so right after school, jumped into the tech world, and quickly got promoted to be an e commerce consultant for some of the largest brands on the platform. And, you know, I saw all of these people with all their successes. And of course, they had these massive teams behind them, but all the teams were doing the same things. So I felt like it wasn't necessarily, you know, rocket science. I felt like it was a formula that everyone was just implementing. And I thought, well, if it's just a formula, can't we take this to smaller businesses and that was, that was My focus, I wanted to start GDC so that we could help the little guy be able to have those things.
Unknown Speaker 2:05
Yeah, that's awesome. I do have a number of questions here for you. So just for people getting started, what kind of mindset? Or what kind of tips do you recommend people usually outline when they're getting started with their social media strategies?
Unknown Speaker 2:19
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think the mindset for any entrepreneur is gonna be very, you have to be very streamlined, right? You have to be really focusing on the objectives, what are you really trying to achieve? And then making strategic decisions so that you can focus on those objectives? Of course, overall mindset. You know, being able to motivate yourself and I think once you have those clear objectives, everything else kind of falls into place. Yeah. But also being really passionate about what you're doing a lot of people, you know, make decision but we
Unknown Speaker 2:55
are back now. So, as Gabby was just saying, the reason And why she got into it where she wanted to help small businesses leverage the big business technology she had experienced while working with Shopify with So, Jim, anything else you would want to expand on why you got into it and anything else people should know about your business before we move on?
Unknown Speaker 3:15
Um, yeah, no, I think that pretty much summarizes Why, why I got into it. And in terms of anything about my business, anything about GDC. Today, we've grown a lot in the past three years today, we work with varying businesses, so everyone from major corporations down to people who are just starting out, so whether you're selling something online, or just have a need for a checkout, or perhaps you don't even have any for checkout, but you just want a website. I still think Shopify is a really good platform. We build websites, we do online marketing. We also offer recruitment services as well. So that student commerce today, the the core of it is, of course, consulting. So we always want to let you know what we think that you should be doing. Because we just want to take whatever it is off of business owners. A lot of the time, what I hear from people is that, you know, they know that they have to get their marketing done, or they know they need any website, whatever, and they just don't want to think about it. So we work with people with varying level of that our input to then
Unknown Speaker 4:35
help them and be an extension of their business. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 4:38
that's great. We have a very similar mindset, an umbrella. Okay, so yeah, some of the topics that we're going to dive into quickly. Now we've got the introduction out of the way we'll just be how to get started with social media marketing. We're gonna be helping folks on refining their brand, what tools and resources that they can leverage and a number of other topics. So the very first thing that I do want to ask you is what would be your favorite aspects about the field of marketing in general, and then social media marketing. As a small business owner, myself, I'm very ignorant with this stuff. And I'm just starting to kind of put my toe into the water. We've been operating for about seven years now. And I've just operated off of word of mouth. That's been very good for my business. I'll go to networking groups. I'll have friends of friends refer things my existing clients will refer me clients, but I've never really tried to broadcast a message or refine my brand or focus on things like that I usually just focus on Okay, here's a problem. I know I can fix that problem. I know I can do it better than anyone else. And I'm going to talk to my local community about that. But I've never actually tried to do a big broadcast. So what would be your favorite aspect of social media marketing? And what do you think the biggest benefit is for businesses like mine, or larger, more established businesses or people that are just starting off?
Unknown Speaker 5:54
Right? So there's a lot there's a lot in that question. So my favorite thing about any online marketing or social media marketing is having the ability to speak one on one with your customer. And I feel very passionately about that, because it's very akin to my roots. So before I went to school, I'd haven't mentioned this yet, I actually worked in radio and television. And when you're doing that, you're also talking to one person. So you're at the end of the day, you're really building a relationship with whoever, whoever you're listening to. And so, ultimately, at the end of the day, social media marketing is just building a community of people that you're having a one on one relationship with, because often when you're having these conversations, and you're being authentic, and those interactions, people feel like they have a relationship with you, whether or not that's a two sided relationship, they feel like they know you in a certain way. And that extends to influencers and individuals as we're using our own accounts, but that also extends to your business. And so one thing I like to think about when we're looking at massive corporations is we still want to kind of relay the same things that we're relaying as a mom and pop shop when we're looking at social media. And that's that there's a human behind the brand. As soon as you add in that human element, that's why if you're looking at really successful Twitter accounts, for example, like Taco Bell and Wendy's, they have, they're very much there's a person behind that account. Everyone knows there's a person behind that that account. And we know the tone of voice for those accounts as well. And if you've ever interacted with them or seen means with from those accounts, you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. And so, while you really need to know who you're talking to, you want to you want to do the same type of thing, right? You want to showcase. Okay, here's the person Hear the human elements behind this business. And let me broadcast those out to the world, but in a way that's still in a one on one.
Unknown Speaker 8:11
It makes sense. So rather than go with the traditional, like TV and movie marketing and that kind of stuff and having the sterilized, as I said earlier broadcast messaging, you actually kind of want to go for a more humanized, vulnerable, legitimate kind of conversational tone versus that sterile corporate tone. And is that correct?
Unknown Speaker 8:33
Yeah, I mean, the the tone of voice that you're using really depends on the type of the type of business that you have. And, and ultimately, it comes down to who you're talking to. So
Unknown Speaker 8:43
how would you Sorry, go ahead. Sorry.
Unknown Speaker 8:47
Um, but at the end of the day, yes, at any any tone of voice that you're using still has to have an authentic human elements.
Unknown Speaker 8:55
Yeah, that makes sense. How would you recommend that people kind of get that community going like, what would be the best way to kind of create that engagement organically where, obviously, you have to start off broadcasting again, I've just started doing this YouTube stuff. And I've now got a bit of a feedback loop happening, which is really nice. But that's because I already had an established business. So I've had some friends reach out on LinkedIn, I'm going to be doing a video because of their suggestions and feedback. But then a lot of my clients are just saying, Hey, we want this, we want that we want this now that you're doing it in a digital format. So it makes it much easier for me that loop kind of started. But if you're someone who's a startup, or you're someone who is an established brand, and let's say your client base isn't an asset, necessarily on social media, how do you recommend that people kind of get that spark going so they can create their community, they can get the organic engagement going? What are some tips for folks just starting off with social media?
Unknown Speaker 9:51
Yeah, so the fact is, your audience is on social media. The question is, what platform are they on? Right? So the One of the first steps that you have to do is identify who your target audiences. And then the second step is making sure we're directing everything, every step after this every step after the first one, making sure that every decision you make is targeted toward those people. So one of my big philosophies is that I think it doesn't make sense for every person to be on every social media platform. And that's something I'll repeat again and again, and again, it just absolutely doesn't make any sense. People are wasting their time so that they can, you know, post on Instagram or read a post on Facebook every day, sometimes multiple times a day. And there, that's just not a very strategic way of trying to accomplish what you're trying to accomplish. So the first thing you have to do is identify where your target audiences so if you identify that that's, you know, YouTube and LinkedIn, that's one audience, some other people's audiences will be on Instagram and tik tok, and you see You just want to make sure that you're focusing on creating really valuable, really like, like content that is serving your audience so that they're receiving something for following No. And I think a lot of the times people will, you know, start a social media account and they'll say, sell, sell, sell, this is what I do. Well, what and, okay, that's a great way to start. Yeah, you really want to continuously serve your audience. And in terms of actually bringing people on, I think, number one is to serve that great content, content that helps you, you're on your target audience. And then the second part, and this is the most important part is you really have, arguably, you really have to engage with folks who are in your community on that platform. So the biggest mistake I see people make is they go on and they say, Okay, well, here's my really great content. I'm serving Getting this to you, you need to now accept it. It's just like, okay, but there's also an entire other part of any social media platform out there. And that's engagement. Yeah. And without engagement, you're not going to be able to do anything. So that means commenting real, authentic comments on other people's depends on where you are on other people's videos on other people's LinkedIn pages, sharing really, you know, great blog posts, or sharing something that you see and saying, Okay, well, this might be able to still serve my audience or Yeah, engaging in the comments is going to be the best thing no matter what platform you're on. If you're engaging in those comments, and you're following people who, you know, either have a complimentary business to yours, or people who have a similar audience whether or not their business is complimentary. Yours. Those are, those are the best ways to actually grow your audience and get your content in front of more people. Gotcha.
Unknown Speaker 13:07
Okay, so it sounds to me like, like someone like myself, like I'm in a very good position there. And I have a cousin doing mortgage brokering now, and he's also very passion about what he's doing. But it sounds to me like, if you're passionate about your business, you're at a huge advantage over someone that's in it for the money, because you're gonna, you're I'm already doing that, like, I don't do that intentionally. But, for example, on LinkedIn, I saw someone shared a whole visual representation of how you can use internets inside of your business. So I know to 99% of people that's something that you would watch to fall asleep. And then for me, that's really exciting. So I shared it, I was commenting on it, but it wasn't because I was thinking about it as a corporate representative. It's because me as Jake the nerd is very interested in how you can further develop Internet's and provide visual representations and help people kind of digest that data so So essentially, then you would say have an organic message. Make sure you're talking about things that you're really interested in. Get involved in the community that already exists online. And then just be yourself and make sure that people understand that there's a human behind the screen. And it's not just a business trying to sell people stuff. Would you say that's a good summary for getting started and kind of how to approach this stuff?
Unknown Speaker 14:14
Absolutely. Yeah. And I think the the get involved aspect is that is the is the aspect that most people are overlooking. Gotcha.
Unknown Speaker 14:24
Cool. Okay, so you did mention earlier that you kind of already doing the traditional media thing. How did you make that transition? And have you noticed any benefits from working in traditional media and moving into the digital media space? Mm hmm.
Unknown Speaker 14:38
Um, yeah, it's a really interesting question, because very, very few people ever asked me that question. Um, so I mean, I left traditional media because I felt like I had I had gotten to a place within it where it wasn't going to fulfill What I was looking for long term. So I had had, you know, minor success. And the trajectory that I was looking at was just not fitting in the lifestyle that I wanted. So I ended up moving to Australia, coming back to Canada and then starting at university. But I continue to do marketing throughout my life and I never thought much about it. I just knew that. That's, that's the type of jobs that I was getting. And the way it served me is that at this point, I've been working in social media for 12 years. I've been working in marketing for 12 years. So whether that be, you know, copywriting or blog writing, managing different social media accounts, like I would I would used to manage the social media accounts for the radio stations, and things like that as well. And so So a lot of wild marketing, digital marketing changes constantly. I and I assume this is very similar for you as well, the industry is, is changing constantly. But there are a few things that are just foundational. And so you're just continuously building over time. And, of course, like, as I've worked in sales, and so I've pulled things from sales and I've pulled things from, obviously project management and all of these different things. So that now I'm able to provide a lot more context when I'm when I'm trying to build a strategy for social media, and I look at a much larger picture now than I would have when I first started and I think that many people do when they when they're starting working with social
Unknown Speaker 16:50
media now. Gotcha. Yeah, I think having Yeah, I think having a comprehensive outlook is really important. Coming from a trades background myself, it really taught Unto allied with it, it's a lot of people don't really think of it as a trade some people do nowadays. But yeah, having that background and the diversity and the ability to kind of see things does make a big difference for clients, what would be some of the biggest benefits that you've noticed for people that are successfully implementing your strategies and kind of going with the mindset that we discussed earlier? But what kind of benefits Can they see from their business? Is it going to be a 500%? ROI? Are people going to start recognizing their brand more like what kind of stuff can people expect if they were to implement this stuff for over, let's say a year?
Unknown Speaker 17:33
Yeah. So if you're working exclusively with a strategy that's just just pushing social media, and I, I would, I would say that's going to be really great for your brand. So people are going to be able to recognize you, depending on who you're targeting, but people in your community will recognize your brand. A lot of the times when people will use social media marketing For is to reinforce their sales process. And so in the sense that they will target people who they want to sell to, and then they will try to convert them, obviously, from social media, but if they're not able to do that, they can then reach out to them because they're technically warm leads. And they already know something about your business, they already identify you as the expert in your field. And so what that does is it makes the sales process when it comes time a lot simpler and a lot more of just top of mind, especially if it's if it's a field where, you know, people know they're going to need you but they might not need to read it away. And so that's maybe like yourself where people, maybe we have an IT guy, but there are two guys that grade and then you know, they want to keep an eye out so they're following our town. They're saying Okay, Jake really knows what he's talking about. Okay, my guy, you know, we had this problem last week, and then maybe two weeks down the road a month down the road, you're talking about that exact problem, but there are other IT guy wasn't able to solve or had difficulty with. So when people are seeing that it really aids in your sales process, maybe that person will reach out to you. But maybe you'll target them through pets. And then one day, they'll just be like, you know what, I really do know that this guy knows what he's talking about. Yeah. And maybe you'll reach out to them, maybe you'll see them at an event. Social media really works best when it's an integration of a much larger marketing strategy and strategy. I very rarely recommend social media being your only marketing, but I also know for like very new brands, often social media is your only marketing strategy. And I think when you're first starting, that's fair because obviously marketing costs money. And technically social media is free. But it's free in the sense that it's a trade of your time for for something.
Unknown Speaker 20:08
Yeah, maybe maybe we can have you on next time to discuss like a more in depth comprehensive strategy and kind of how that one section of social media marketing ties into everything else. So yeah, again, it sounds like if you are involved in your community and you're generating value for people, and you're breaking down concepts and you are adding value to the conversation, people will kind of tell you what it is that they're interested in. Like, again, for example, I had somebody say, I need to know something about backups for small businesses. I need to know how to make sure my computers don't slow down. What's the best way for us to purchase new equipment? Do we really need to be spending $10,000 on a firewall? I've had a ton of questions since I've done just the security seminar and the Microsoft seminar and people saying they want to transition from Google to Microsoft because of all the features. So all I did really was put up A little bit of knowledge that I had into the community into a video and I'm very happy that people took the time to watch that three hour video or just skip to the parts they were interested in. But, again, I think it all kind of ties back in that feedback loop. So it sounds to me again, like if if people are going to be generating legitimately valuable content, people will tell them, I'm interested in this. This is what my business needs, this is what I need, this is what my friends are interested in, etc. And then it kind of sells itself like all you really need to do is not focus on the selling and focus on just giving people the opportunity to hear what you're saying. And then if they are looking to purchase that they will naturally and organically trust you already and that conversation will be a naturally occurring thing. Is that also correct?
Unknown Speaker 21:47
Yes, buck. So my big buck here is that you still need to make it easy for the person once they make the decision to know more. So what that looks like It is, for example, if you have, like any About Us page, but I'll use an Instagram page as an example. A lot of the times, a big mistake that businesses will make is, you know, they'll put their bio saying, or their bio will be simple but doesn't really explain what they do. Get somebody going on will have to scroll through their feeds to kind of assess what someone does. The biggest thing that you need is if somebody goes to your health page or somebody clicks a link in your bio, they need to know what you do. Yeah. And they're not even going to click the link until they know what to do or what you do. So if we're looking at an Instagram page, for example, we'll want to make sure that you utilize the highlights, for example, yeah, let them know what your services are. We'll show them some testimonials of other people who are using your service and really enjoy it. You know, let them know about some of your different offerings so that they can make the decision for themselves. Oh, this is what Jake from umbrella it does, I had no idea, okay, so this can help my business. And you really have to you have to use those tools on social media to hold someone's hand and guide them to take the action that you want, so that you are able to convert the folks that are interested in converting directly from social media just to make that easy for them.
Unknown Speaker 23:33
Do you have an example of any like using Instagram as an example again? Do you have any examples of brands or businesses that have done a good job that people can go look at? Because again, like imitation is the best form of flattery, right? Is there a page or something like that, that you recommend that you've seen that has done a good job leveraging Instagram and the highlights and the bio and just you look at it, you're like, well done instead of getting PTSD looking at a page, like my Instagram page, for example, which is not so bad.
Unknown Speaker 24:02
So, the problem with BIOS is that they update a lot. Um, so I okay, so I just took a look to see if it was still up. But there's this guy, Casey Neistat, he's on YouTube. And it's not like that right now so people can't go take a look. But Casey Neistat, for a while had one of the best BIOS I've ever like I've ever seen because it was so easy. He said, it was something along the lines of like, I make videos on YouTube. And watch, watch it or watch this one. And then there was like two arrows, and it had the link to his latest video. And it's just like, it's quick. He you understand what he does. And like, that was it. It was clean. It was simple. And it was very like I assume it was very effective. Somebody like Casey Neistat, I mean, the other thing is that they have the swipe up feature. Because as soon as you have 10,000 followers on Instagram in particular, you'll be able to tell people to swipe up and then you can put a link directly in your stories. But, yeah, I can't think of any other examples on the spot of people who have really great BIOS, but like the formula is still the same, like it's highlights potentially frequently asked questions and testimonials. So testimonials, provide social proof. And services, obviously, tell people what you're doing and frequently asked questions, answer any quick questions that people might have immediately off the top of their head. Cool. Okay, that's good
Unknown Speaker 25:39
to know. Speaking of companies like mine that don't do a very good job with with Instagram, what are some common mistakes that you see people making, when they're getting started with this stuff? Or just as they've been running the show for half a decade and they're still making the same mistakes? What are some really common mistakes you see people making that have a bigger impact than they think? Am I
Unknown Speaker 26:01
okay? Um, so a big one is inconsistency is so and this kind of comes from the ethos of I need to post everywhere all the time, people will create a lot of social media accounts and they won't necessarily do anything but those social media accounts. And maybe they do for a month, and then it's trails off. And the best thing that you can do is be consistent. So if you commit to posting three times a week on Facebook, post three times a week on Facebook, you can pre schedule all that content so that you have a month's worth of content, three months worth of content, which is what I personally like to do. But make sure it's consistent. If you feel like you have a lot of time. Don't, don't post three times a day, post three times a month, but do it for the next six months. You know what I mean? And then if you want to change things out, because of course, when you're posting that far in advance You might lose tone, you might lose, you know, as we saw yesterday with the Instagram blackout, for example. And if you had just scheduled a post, if you had just scheduled a post for yesterday, you would want to have gone on gone in and made sure that the post example and and you do want to make sure that you have your your thumb on the pulse of your finger on the pulse of whatever is going on on social media so that you're not coming on off tone deaf. But going in and making those little changes takes a lot less work than going in every single day and coming up with, you know, a caption and a photo and whatever else to be able to do the post. So consistency is a big issue. And consistency is a big issue, but also not knowing who you're talking to. And as I mentioned at the very beginning, like you first identify who your audience is, and then you consistently talk to them. And so that's A big thing that you want to make sure that you're always talking to your audience, you don't want to just be talking to everybody. Because if you're talking to everybody, you're talking to no one. Yeah. So you really want to target those audiences specifically. And if you have multiple audiences, that's fine. You just want to make sure that you're talking to the right people in the right platform. Make sense? Mm hmm.
Unknown Speaker 28:25
Okay. Um, so essentially, make sure you have clear messaging, and then know who you're talking to, and just stay consistent. That's even if you're posting once a week, then you're posting once a week, it's better than not posting it all.
Unknown Speaker 28:36
And you know what, like, posting once a week, it's still significant. It's not like a lot of people are just like, Oh, well, if you only post once a week, it's just like, Okay, well, that's what that person has capacity for. Yeah, you know, and don't have, you know, the ability to hire someone to do your social media. And that's what you have. You have one full week but still benefits you through. The algorithm, as long as it's consistent, you do every Friday at 9am, maybe nine to 1902. Fine. You post at the same time every week, that's still great for the algorithm. They know that that you're reliable person, they know that you're engaged. And so I would say that the consistency is just number one. Gotcha.
Unknown Speaker 29:21
So to two things really quickly, you mentioned posting on a schedule, you can pre schedule all this stuff. So I kind of want to ask you about what kind of tools you recommend people use, whether that's software resources, whatever. But you did just mention the algorithm. Can you kind of break that down for people and what that means in terms of Google, or Instagram?
Unknown Speaker 29:42
Yeah, I mean, I could, that's a lot. That's a big question. Essentially, all the algorithms are a little bit different depending on what they're looking for, depending on what they're trying to optimize. Across the board. You can make a few questions on every single algorithm. So number one, you need to engage You need to engage in their community.
Unknown Speaker 30:02
So what is what does the algorithm do? Exactly? That's what I want to make sure everyone's on the same page. Oh, yeah,
Unknown Speaker 30:07
absolutely. So the algorithm kind of identifies whether or not your content is content that they want to push. At the end of the day, their goal is to keep viewers on the platform or users on the platform for as long as possible. So we want to be taking steps that help them achieve their objective. And that's if that's how you always think about it. You don't necessarily need to worry about all the algorithm change store. You know, like this minor change because at the end of the day, if you're doing the things that they need you to do, which are you know, posting valuable content, creating valuable content that keeps people engaged. If you are engaging with other creators on the platform, And if you are, you know, being authentic in that and not trying to use any faults or anything like that, you're trying to do that yourself, then you're working toward it, you have a common goal, and you know that the algorithm will work in your favor. Gotcha.
Unknown Speaker 31:20
Yeah, cuz my understanding of what an algorithm is, is you have a company, like you said, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, whatever. And their goal, as you mentioned, is to get people hooked on their systems, and they want you looking at it all day. And they will make smart suggestions to you by using these algorithms. So if you're watching a sports video on YouTube, it's going to suggest a sports video next, and then it's going to suggest another sports video and then it might suggest a commentator as part of that video, and it'll just go on forward. So the way I understand that is it has a priority list of content that it pre ranks to deliver to different people based on their behavior on the platform and you as a creator can create content that will satisfy that algorithm and it will suggest your content to people that would not see it before. Is that is that correct? Is that a nice condensed version of it?
Unknown Speaker 32:11
I think that's a very well condensed version. I think if you need to see an example of it, all you need to do is be on tech talk for two weeks before Tech Talk serves you content. I don't even know if it takes two weeks. But before Tech Talk serves you content that you think is literally designed for you gotcha. So think about it. You can also think about in use of like your your use of Spotify or something like that. Where it then provides you with Weekly Roundup sir, yeah, whatever I
Unknown Speaker 32:45
was gonna say Amazon as well would be another good example of that where people are talking to people about whatever and W or their cat toys or something like that. And then all of a sudden, the next two weeks all you got is cat toy deals and this kind of stuff, so Okay. We broke that down. So yeah, back to the immediate question. What kind of tools do you think people can use in their toolkit? So you already mentioned doing things like scheduling posts and being able to post in multiple platforms at once. What What tools do you guys use? What can we use? What what are some things that every small business should have in their toolkit? Moving forward, because I know like, for myself, I've heard of Hootsuite. I don't know if that's the right one I've heard of buffer, I think is the other one. And I know for me, my iPad that I use for the marketing stuff, it's just got a row of icons, and it's just twitter, facebook, facebook, pages manager, Google My Business and like a couple of other things. Are there apps we can use that will do everything for us? Is there analytic tools we can use? Like, what kind of stuff do you usually recommend is like a small business starter kit for social media?
Unknown Speaker 33:53
Yeah, so when I'm talking about a small business starter kit, I actually want to recommend the absence of a lot of tools. So what I find is that when people are first getting involved in social media, they're like, Okay, I need to download this, I need to download this, I need to do all these things. And at the end of the day, there may be three things that you need. So number one, a content Scheduler. And my content scheduler may or may not post what your content is, but it's a way for you to organize what content is coming up. So whether that be a content calendar, Hootsuite, there's another one called leader that I really like, or even just using the platforms themselves. So for example, if you're scheduling Facebook content, you can do that right from within Facebook, and pre schedule it out for the next month or so however long you want.
Unknown Speaker 34:51
So
Unknown Speaker 34:53
you can always just schedule it from directly within the app as well. And so but yeah, scheduling content is going to be a lifesaver, because you need to be able to do that. Number two is the acknowledgement that analytics exist. And so in order for you to get a business profile, you have to have 100 followers first on story on Instagram. And so my first thing is if you don't have a business profile on Instagram or creator profile that's necessary exclusively for analytics, because you need to know who's following you know, you need to know, who are you talking to, and if your followers aren't necessarily the people who you want them to be. And what you can do is you can actually check out your discovery page or your discover page on Instagram, and see what types of content are showing up there. And that's the kind of content that kind of shows you who Instagram thinks you are. So you want to make sure that the content that's showing up on your discovery page. And thus the content that you're interacting with is content that your target market would want to interact with. Gotcha. So the more drill down that you can be with that content that you're interacting with, and that you're sharing, whether that be through the hashtags that you're using the locations that you're using different things like the people that you're tagging, you want to make sure that that discover page reflects the people that you're looking for. Okay. And then the third thing is, if you want to be more advanced in your analytics, which is going to be the most important part, you want to use UTM parameters and UTM parameters, essentially allow you to provide more information on what someone clicked on, to get to your website. So that's a that's a longer term conversion thing. But I would I would do them in that order.
Unknown Speaker 37:03
So what is UTM? stand for? And what is the UTM parameter? Because I actually don't even know. I think it's
Unknown Speaker 37:09
urgent tracking module model version.
Unknown Speaker 37:16
So it's like it's like a Google crawler basically where it's something that find something online, and it's a cookie tracer. So if someone goes to a website, if they click on a link, if they search something up, then it's gonna say this person looked at NASCAR, you probably want to gonna send them some stuff about Budweiser, like is it that kind of stuff,
Unknown Speaker 37:35
it's all kind of that stuff. So essentially, what it does is it it's you have to provide your own context for it. So what you do is you would add a link and it has to be a link to your website. And then you give whatever information you want. So whether that be the source, the medium any, any information, about what you're putting that link on. So for example, often what I'll do is if we'll have different links for you know, people coming from newsletters, people coming from Instagram, Facebook, but you can, especially with Facebook, you could really drill it down to this is the exact post that this person is clicking on yes or no. Okay, this provided with a conversion. So anytime you're doing any sort of selling anything like that, if you add those UTM parameters that have to be created, and then you would identify that information from within Google Analytics and if you go to that level of detail that'll help you with the conversion part
Unknown Speaker 38:46
of the day everybody wants
Unknown Speaker 38:47
Yeah, so basically tells you like the person that went to this website came from Instagram.
Unknown Speaker 38:53
Yeah, and you can drill it down even further. You can depending on you could give you could give it a week. You could give it depending on the link, you can, you can drill it down even to the link in the if you have link tree or some some sort of program that lets you put in different links. Yeah, you can drill it down to which link they actually got from Instagram as well. So what is what provides you with a lot of data?
Unknown Speaker 39:20
So you mentioned that we want to have a post scheduler and you said that Facebook pages would just let you do that does Instagram let you do that?
Unknown Speaker 39:28
Not from within Instagram, but that's when we would use something like later
Unknown Speaker 39:32
later, okay, so later would be liquidation for scheduling.
Unknown Speaker 39:36
You could use Hootsuite as well on Hootsuite I just find it's better for agencies or people. We're dealing with a lot of different account of a lot of different accounts, and if you are any later as well, but I just find that Hootsuite has a level of it. It's a little bit more complicated than I think it needs to be whereas later is pretty straightforward.
Unknown Speaker 39:59
Okay, so if we Use later for the post scheduling. And then Google Analytics and Facebook analytics. Is there any other kind of platform you'd recommend for the analytics?
Unknown Speaker 40:09
No, I think Google Analytics is my personal personal favorite mixed with whatever analytics that you get from the hosting platform as well. So from, from Instagram from Facebook, what I would say is start with that there's always a way to take it up a level and always get more analytics. But if you're using Google Analytics, and Facebook or Instagram, you have the basics you need to be able to start making data driven decisions.
Unknown Speaker 40:37
Gotcha. Okay, perfect. Cool, what kind of platforms would you recommend people get started with them? So like, I know myself, I went with Instagram and LinkedIn. And then I just use Facebook as a signal booster, but I know that I already have a lot of very valuable conversations with people on LinkedIn. They're in my sector, and I know that Instagram is just I'm already addicted. And it's really easy for me to kind of promote the ideas that I'm trying to talk about. And the big thing for me is being able to visually represent the concepts related to it. Because, again, if if someone starts talking about different encryption methods and how to secure your business and stuff like that, it gets very long winded. And it's very difficult to keep track of things. So I'm trying to get a visual format for that going on. So I decided to go with Instagram. I don't think there's a lot of lawyers and my target market on Instagram, per se, looking at that stuff. But I do like the idea of people being able to see my business, go and do a little bit of research on it before they do a purchase with us, and having Instagram be one of the top tier things and they see all these visual representations of what we're doing. So I'm going to start focusing on that. But yeah, do you do you think that there's any specific platform like a benefit to doing that or does that just kind of tie back into what you talked about earlier, where you have to identify where your target market is, and then you just kind of counts on those platforms accordingly.
Unknown Speaker 42:02
Yes, yeah. So I would say, you could make an argument for your specific business for Pinterest, if your end goal was to focus on people outside of Vancouver as well, for whatever reason, so if you if you started doing, you know, a digital, like more digital services, yeah, where you don't have to necessarily be in person. I think you could make a really good argument for Pinterest for you in particular. Yeah. And that's because you talked about the visual elements, things like that. But yeah, at the end of the day, it comes down to every specific business, who your target market is who you're trying to focus on. And, and yeah, it includes things like okay, well, we need to tell this story with visual elements. Or maybe our story requires more video elements that are both limits, but also it limits what platforms should be focusing on. But also like, at the end of the day, if it's if it's video elements, I mean, across all the platforms, you're gonna want to use some video elements if possible. So it both limits it but also provides you more opportunity. So what I would say is, first identify who your target market is, and then learn about those different, you know, platforms and in which one your business should be on. And that's something that we talked about in our social media training as well.
Unknown Speaker 43:32
Gotcha. Yeah, the social media training is great. I want to get into that just in a bit here. So what will be the example of a business that's kind of nailed the concepts that you're talking about, whether that be on Shopify, or Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn, whatever. What would you say is a good example and I already mentioned Wendy's. Maybe you could dive into how they've done such a good job with their social media. And then what will be an example of a company that kind of went the other way They use social media and it actually ended up hurting their business, or their social media page hasn't gotten much traction, even though they're a multi billion dollar corporation. Or maybe it's just a small business that kind of made the wrong statement at the wrong time. Like you mentioned earlier, given the situation with the blackout yesterday, I don't think anyone really wants to have like, Wells Fargo giving them a bunch of advertisements right now and you know, this kind of stuff. So yeah, what would be an example of a business that's done a very good job? And then can you explain why you think they've done a good job, and then will be an example of a business that's kind of dropped the ball and the consequences of that?
Unknown Speaker 44:37
Yeah, to businesses, to businesses come to mind. And I think, I think what the business that I really enjoy their social media presence on Instagram, for example, is Best Buy. And I know that that's kind of weird because Best Buy But they have really great integrations and I just pulled it up.
Unknown Speaker 45:04
Now you have
Unknown Speaker 45:06
a baby, they're been using a lot of video. And they do some really fun animations with their
Unknown Speaker 45:19
time content that they're creating
Unknown Speaker 45:22
is just incredible. And it's not, it's not boring content. Like, at the end of the day, what they're selling is, you know, equipment for home, whether that be like computer equipment or kitchen equipment, you know, TVs, appliances, like, it's very hard to make that accessible and exciting. Odds are really good job of that to the point where they have hundreds of thousands of followers and as Best Buy, I don't like it blows my mind because I've been following them for about three years now, actually. So just to watch So you see how it's progressed. It's been really cool.
Unknown Speaker 46:03
Yeah, I'm just scrolling through their page right now this is like, very, very one this that is really consistent. Like you mentioned. Everything has like similar lighting. It looks like they're really focusing. I don't want to open anything because it's all igtv that I could see. Like you said, it's a lot of communication happening. And a lot of it looks like there's a lot of two way conversations happening here. I can see most of their posts have a lot of comments, lots of likes. And yeah, they're really focusing on the people behind the brand. And they're focusing on you know, there's phones and ivas there's there's a woman and her child so it looks to me like they're really really focusing on like you said, the people behind the brand, really consistent imagery. I'm gonna assume they're posting these every day. I can see a lot of the employees and then a lot of like, just the little tiny things that I can see they're trying to highlight. There's a Marvel page there's those little instant coffee things. businessman, a businesswoman, older guy I've been helped out by somebody, and then they're highlighting their employees. So that that is really cool actually, especially given like my industry and they have the headphones and the laptops belling out dad for Father's Day. Very cool. Because Yeah, it is it is difficult to make tech sexy. Like, I can't really go on and talk about like, all you know, the new Cisco VPN, they really good. You know, like, no one, no one gives a shit that we've switched over from like, pptp. You know what I mean? Like, it doesn't, doesn't resonate with people, people don't really care about that. But it is a lot easier to kind of be like, this is our employee, this is the things he's done, these are what we're going to try to do for you. These are the solutions we're going to bring in and the benefits you're gonna get from these. So when you're focusing on those communications, I'm gonna use my cousin again, as an example. But he's talking about like mortgage financing, you know, like you can I don't really understand. But like, how would you recommend somebody like that? Who's got kind of a dryer topic? How do you recommend that they represent themselves and kind of break down those ideas on these platforms to make education better
Unknown Speaker 48:00
Yeah, education. I think like, I think with mortgage in particular, there's so many things around it that people don't know anything, especially if he's targeting a younger, a younger demographic. There's just so much information that people don't know. And what's interesting to me is that especially around finance in general, people don't talk about it. And this is actually low key, something that I'm really interested in as well. But that's because I studied management, economics and finance. And it's so interesting to me to see that, you know, our generation people our age are functioning with so much debt, and they're not trying. It's not necessarily that they're not trying, but they're not able to put themselves in a much better scenario, financially. And I think, when you're looking at mortgages, mortgages tie so closely to finance so I think it whatever information that he can use to educate an audience, I would suggest that he works pretty closely and collaborates with, you know, a financial planner perhaps like an investment banker, perhaps different just talks about different types of investing in a why you would want to invest in a home and what the benefits are. Because I think there's also a lot of, you know, things going around about whether or not it makes sense to buy especially in Vancouver, I'm not sure if he's based in Vancouver, but you know, whether it makes sense to buy versus whether you want to just invest your money in the stock market and what because the way I see it is it's very much a trade off, right. So what value do you get from having from owning your home? And like what what does that Provide you does that provide you with a sense of security? does it provide you with a sense of accomplishment? And what is that worth to you? And so I think if someone if a mortgage broker in particular were to take it from an educational perspective and kind of showcase that, that sense of potentially belonging in a community, potentially, I think security would be a big one. Yeah. Those types of things and showing people who have bought their homes or bought a condo or whatever, showing the positive light not, then that would be beneficial for
Unknown Speaker 50:38
gotcha. So not even necessarily like, obviously, it would be important for him to give updates and break things down like he I saw one of his videos he was talking about the Bank of Canada did a change, and now it's 0.4 0.298, whatever. So that stuff is important, but also including things like how to get to the point where you can afford to buy a house and actually Starting to kind of target like it like, like you said, if he wants to go after a younger audience, he could take a more financial consultant slash advisory kind of thing. And then when people are ready to buy, they're like, I've been following this guy for a year and a half on Instagram, I don't really know anything about him. But I am now no longer buried in debt. I've gone from living off of $1,000 a month, like I did for a couple of years to get to be a little bit more financially stable. And I just did it through restrictive budgeting, but he might be able to say you don't have to live in poverty, you can actually start putting 50 bucks away every month, and that's your desk budget. And that's this and he can partner with financial advisors, kind of the way that you and I have partnered and brought in it to bring in social media marketing, and we're going to be bringing in Kevin to talk about WordPress, security and a bunch of other folks from all over the place. And I'm trying to kind of build this community. So it sounds like that's a good approach for him to take. Now, now, kind of
Unknown Speaker 51:55
with complementary businesses,
Unknown Speaker 51:56
yeah. Okay, that's that's really good to know.
Unknown Speaker 52:00
That's more on the service side, which I think we've covered a lot of looking at more of like the product side of things last, I think that would be pretty much the last question I have for you would be, actually two more questions. So looking at more of like the product side of thing, I have another friend of mine, she has an online t store with that kind of stuff where you're trying to promote products instead of services. Is there a big difference? Or is it the same kind of thing? There is?
Unknown Speaker 52:27
I think it's a significant difference, because what you're we're trying to accomplish with product based businesses is very different, right? With service based businesses, as I mentioned here, where you're working to, and you know, let people know about it. It's really a slow build the product based businesses, the transaction is a lot cleaner, right? So you're saying I have this to offer you, if you want to buy it? Yeah. So it's a lot more straightforward and it's actually kind of Interesting that we haven't talked to her product basis up until now. But I think also just with the nature of both of our businesses wants to go for service space. Yeah. So I think there are a few things that somebody who had a product based business can do the number one thing I would suggest, number one, hands down number one thing is to have an online store and connect that to your Facebook and Instagram. And that's because you want to make the checkout process as easy as possible. So somebody who's selling tea, obviously, you're gonna want to showcase the different benefits of the tea. But also, you do want to create a brand around that tea like what does it mean to drink your tea? Why am I drinking your tea instead of, you know, David's tea or tea or even just like orange Pico from the grocery store, you know what I mean? And so I think telling that story The brand and identifying the lifestyle of the person who drinks your tea and showcasing that lifestyle. It's it's more important to come from that perspective, when you're talking to your audience, then then necessarily showing you the business owner is because I think when you have a product, the product can speak for itself. But when you have a service based business, the business owner or the team behind the business is really the face of it, Josh, and I think when it when we kind of tie it back to Best Buy, they're able to showcase both human element. And to be fair, they've only started to implement the human element into the Best Buy feed in the past. Like I would say, probably it was in 2020 that they started to do that.
Unknown Speaker 54:57
Gotcha. So we got hired I
Unknown Speaker 55:02
had a bit of a shake up most likely. Okay, cool. Um, and do you have any influencers or market leaders that you would recommend people kind of follow? So I know obviously yourself GD commerce would be a good idea for people to follow just to get tips and this kind of thing. I know you guys put out a course recently, I'm about halfway through it. I've learned a lot through there. So I know that this interview is a much more casual, relaxed kind of thing. But you guys are hitting people hard with facts there and it's very, very valuable. So I would recommend people check that out. But just in case of like, like, I follow Gary Vee on Instagram. I've actually I've been turned, the more I listen to him, the more I get turned off of him, but I follow him. I know he's one person I really like. And then I just follow a bunch of other leaders in my space, like Cisco Meraki and other vendors and I follow other influencers who've kind of made they built an eight figure MSP a managed services provider, like my company, they've sold it, and then they just go on Instagram and either they're doing things like check Like one guy I know from Vancouver, he goes around in a Lamborghini and drives kids from St. Paul's hospital around which is awesome. But being able to just kind of see these leaders, like again, I mentioned earlier I learned best from watching. You know, I'm not the brightest guy so monkey see monkey do. And do you have any people you would recommend that people can follow for general things like marketing, social media, marketing, anything, anything like that? Either people or associations.
Unknown Speaker 56:27
It's so funny that you say the longer you watch Gary Vee, the more you get turned off by him and I it's funny because I agree but I think at the core of Gary Vee, he has the right messages. Yeah. But I agree. Yeah. But But I would say Gary Vee is one of them. There's another woman. Her name is Jenna Kutcher, in terms of watching someone build, build digital products and sell them whether that be courses or She mostly sells courses, but she also sells some other offerings as well. Jenna, I think from for myself has been very good because we do similar work. And there, there are a lot of people out there who are good at social media. And I think it just makes sense to follow whoever is good at social media in your industry, or who's good at social media. But maybe is this like is speaking to an audience who has the same demographic that you're targeting? Yeah, so for me, one of ours is the birds papaya, who just happens to be a girl from wealth. I'm originally from Guelph as well. So it's nice to kind of have that town connection. But other than that, she's been able to build an audience of over a million people. I think if you find any person Who was able to build an audience of over a million people, I would say even anything over 100,000 people, 300,000 people, those people are major influencers. And then the other thing that I want to mention is that when you're looking at people in your own industry, people who have 10 510 15 20,000 influencers can often be more impactful than those really large influencers. And so as businesses, as they're looking at people to collaborate with, or people to kind of copy, you want to look at people, not necessarily based on how many influence or how many followers they have, what type of engagement they're getting. And when you're finding somebody who is getting a lot of authentic engagement, they're getting a lot of comments. They're getting a lot of likes, and it looks like those comments are coming from people who are genuinely you know, responding to what that person has to say. Identify what they're doing, right. So a lot of a lot of social media is just seeing what other people are doing and then trying to, you know, mold it into something that feels authentic for you. And then putting that out there, whether that has a different voice, or it has a different tone, or it has a different message altogether.
Unknown Speaker 59:20
So we did actually just got a question from vada. Save here, one of our good friends of umbrella here, they're just asking any particular advice for b2b marketing on social media? And if I create content that is evergreen, should I post it to all of our social channels at the same time? Or is it better to stagger the content across the channels across several weeks? So yeah, do you have any particular advice for b2b marketing? And the answer to that question was staggering content. And thank you very much, Carlin for that question. I'm assuming that's you behind the keyboard. So thank you for tuning in.
Unknown Speaker 59:52
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for that question. It's great. Yeah, absolutely. b2b b2b content. I mean, you want to really Focus on, on making sure that you're on the platforms where the people who are making the decisions are. But you also want to make sure you're focusing on the platforms with the people who are likely to be the ones to reach out to you or who are going to be looking for the solutions. Because with b2b obviously, we all know this, you have, you often have two different people, right? You have the person whose job it is to find to and then the person who has to make the decision. And so you have to, you have, to a certain extent, have to target both of those people. First and foremost, you have to target the person who has to find you. But then the person who has to make the decision, if they've heard of you before that before the person who, whose job it was to find you, brings you to their attention. If they already know about you, they've already seen something from you. That's going to make their decision a lot easier. And so when it comes to sharing evergreen content, I mean, I love that you already have that information. I love that you already have knowledge but that's You need to be doing never post it on every platform at the same time. And that's kind of the quick and dirty answer. And I think, I think the best way to do this is taking different parts of that content and sharing it on different platforms. So it makes sense, right? Because if it's a blog post, you can fully share the entire blog post on LinkedIn. LinkedIn loves that. So for sure, go ahead, share the blog post, as a LinkedIn blog post killer, love that for you. But then when you're going to YouTube, for example, like you can't just share a blog post. And so if you're sharing anything on on YouTube, perhaps you're creating a little video with a little sound bite or something like that. Talking about the same concept, maybe it's a little vlog where you're talking directly to the camera. When you're translating that over to Facebook, perhaps you're sending a link to the blog. And then talking a little bit more about those, the most important parts of it. When it comes to Instagram, you're obviously going to need a graphic that that shows the title or maybe show some of the most important parts of it maybe showcases a quote from within and then more information down below Lincoln bio. But again, like if some be cognizant of the fact that the person who is following you might be following you on all those platforms. And we all know that nobody wants to see the same thing posted again and again and again. So yeah, I would say stay here that over a period of time. It's a really it's a, it's a really time sensitive blog. I know for example, when all of COVID happened, all of our clients wanted COVID blogs. We need to be updating our clients on what's happening right now. For sure. Those types of things. 100% across every platform, share it Yeah, because it needs to get out there. And that and that stands for something like, like, this is what we're doing today, like, we have this event, this is coming up shared across all your different platforms sharing a little bit of a different way. But when you're coming to just creating different content, you want to do in a very strategic way where you're thinking, Okay, we're going to share it on this platform today, maybe we'll share something else on Facebook, they won't share anything on Facebook, share about the exact same thing tomorrow on Facebook, so that if somebody didn't have a chance to read it on Instagram the first time, then they have a chance to read on Facebook, or may have a chance to read it on LinkedIn. Because a lot of the times the people who are following you are gonna be calling you on all together.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:38
That makes sense. Have you noticed a particular type of social media marketing or messaging has a bigger effect towards b2b than it does b2c? And can you also just really quickly I don't know what evergreen content is, what is evergreen content?
Unknown Speaker 1:03:53
evergreen content is just content that last forever got it. So it's something that doesn't necessarily Have an expiration date. So a lot of the times when you're looking at creating content that benefits, SEO, you'll create evergreen content. And then if you just take the day off the blog posts, so that if somebody down the road is looking, they're not like, Oh, this is from 2016. I gotcha. on the business side of things you're not like, Okay, well, in terms of 2016, but it's still relevant today.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:24
That makes sense. Okay, so yeah, so So in terms of content, specifically for b2b like, let's say I was going to design an Instagram page for a b2c business and a b2b business, what would be some big distinctions that you would notice on the b2b page versus the b2c page?
Unknown Speaker 1:04:44
There wouldn't be many on Instagram because at the end of
Unknown Speaker 1:04:49
any platform, I should say,
Unknown Speaker 1:04:52
Yeah, I feel
Unknown Speaker 1:04:57
I think I stand by that. Okay. Um, Because at the end of the day, you're still talking to one person. I think, what the what the content looks like wouldn't change too much other than the fact that you're obviously talking about very different things. What you want to keep in mind at any point, whether you're talking b2b or b2c, you're still talking to the person whose problem it solves. You know what I mean? So you're just saying, okay, here's how we're solving your problem.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:28
Yeah, here is how we're fulfilling an objective for you.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:31
So for Carlin, specifically, I know she's she's an engineering firm that's created some life saving technology that's able to see underwater and helps rescue teams, there's, they've done an absolutely fantastic job of that. So if their target market is going to be big unions that are part of life, say lifeguards, if they've got people doing search and rescue, like the police, those kind of stuff, what what kind of content for that b2b relationship where they want to see Or if it's easier for you, for a company like mine or a company like yours, what can we really do there? Because I know you mentioned targeting the person has to find you and then targeting the person that has to make the decision. But that can be very difficult for a company like mine where, okay, if I have to make content for, let's say, a law firm, or an engineering firm, then yeah, I want to go after something that's going to capture the hrs attention, or maybe the receptionist attention, or one of the lead engineers attention. And then I have to have that followed up with something that's gonna when the CEO looks at our page, he's not going to see like Wendy's content, or it's me shit talking a client or doing hot takes on a topic. So what kind of distinctions would you want to do there? I just want to kind of get a starting ground for a b2b page. Because I feel like we haven't quite dove into that stuff just yet. And then I think we're, we're all good.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:54
Yeah. Well, I think at the end of the day, like if if part of your audience doesn't want to see Wendy's content, you just don't post Wendy's content. Yeah. And I think ultimately, the content that brings in the person who's looking for you, the person who's looking for you doesn't find you on Instagram is the back. And the person who's looking for you is probably finding you on, you know, LinkedIn or Google when it comes to b2b. So like, I think the biggest the biggest differentiator is going to be what platforms you're on. Right? It's not, it's not going to be the content. It's gonna be the platforms.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:35
LinkedIn, really?
Unknown Speaker 1:07:37
Yeah, LinkedIn is a really great place. It really depends though, because what they're going to want to do in particular, is showcase photos or videos of the use. So we want to show them fit photos or videos of people.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:56
And I don't really understand what the technology is but underwater or
Unknown Speaker 1:07:59
is it It's a radar system that you can use underwater.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:02
Okay, so perhaps just using it, or I'm in a similar situation, right, like infographics that showcase the technology. But at the end of the day, most people don't really care about the technology to be honest with you. Most people care about what is the problem that it's solving? Yeah. So if you can showcase what the problem is, what the problem is that it's solving, that's, that's going to be your best thing. And if you can showcase people using it, that's even better. And if you can, you know, have social proof on there, saying, Okay, well, these people are backing us up kind of CO signing for the product.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:40
That's really great.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:43
Yeah, I mean, but the actual fundamentals are going to be the same whether it's b2b or b2c. It's just it's going to be the differentiating factors are going to be what platforms you're on. And obviously, you have a different product or different service. So Should the content that you're sharing?
Unknown Speaker 1:09:02
No, I think that really answers a lot of questions, especially for me like, because I learned that the hard way no one gives a crap about what I do. No one cares that I'm missing corruption and no one cares that I'm using this kind of backup and restore. They care that when the lights go out, people can get back to work, and it has a cover within five minutes. Instead of waiting two days, when they have a problem. They want to be able to call us and hear something either immediately, or be guaranteed within 15 minutes to hear back. They don't want to wait two days or a day like their competitors. So I've started to really highlight that in our assessments and these kind of things. It does make a big difference. So yeah,
Unknown Speaker 1:09:36
the big thing I'd say is if you're trying to if you're trying to break things down, because we get into a habit of knowing too much about what we do, right, we know the intricacies. So the big the big question I like to ask myself when I'm trying to break things down is like what does that right like, what does it mean that I do this? It doesn't matter if I'm I'm telling you all about this great strategy that we do. What does that mean for you? Yeah, And then in addition to that, if I'm trying to find out what does that mean for you? We like to ask, why seven times?
Unknown Speaker 1:10:07
Yeah, this
Unknown Speaker 1:10:08
is so you start with whatever, whatever you think you're achieving for the client. Yeah. And then you say, Well, why is that impactful? Why Why? Why seven times? And then by the time you hit seven, your answers probably there.
Unknown Speaker 1:10:21
Yeah, absolutely. I like to use the Socratic method before we implement any solutions. Like I don't want to be selling people snake oil. I don't want to be doing anything that's not actually valuable. And if you can't answer why, that many times what you're doing probably is not that valuable to be frank. I don't like speaking in absolute terms like that. But I do see a lot of people that just kind of act as if this is one of the reasons I'm not a big fan of Gary Vee anymore, is a lot of these people do just act as middlemen for Chinese trash that's just being mass produced. And they think that they're making a big difference in the world when in reality, they're one of 25,000 merchants selling the exact same masterpiece. Was garbage. And they're only in it to try to make $5,000 a month like this on a YouTube video. And, again, as soon as you peel back, why are you doing this to make money? Why? I don't know, then you're not doing the right thing. But in bodices case again, they did say thank you very much, especially for the specific deep dive on them. So thank you very much for the question. I appreciate it. And then hopefully we can create more valuable content for you in the future. But in their case, again, they're making life saving technology. They're employing a ton of great people to get that done. If even if they save one life with the with the different radar and sonar sensors that they're making, I'm probably butchering it, but that's fantastic. And what my business does, we've been able to empower a number of other businesses, 45 small businesses, hundreds of different firewall associations, people like Scotiabank, HBO we've worked with. So being able to look back at my last seven years and see that I've made a difference with those communities. That's what I'm all about. I have a lot of competitors and a lot of people in the space that end up getting exposed the They'll have a big presentation set up with thousands of people, they'll call in sick, and then they get shown on Instagram at a hockey game. After all these people have paid for things ahead of time they got their cash, they ran out the back door. So I think it is really important again, to kind of highlight if you are one of those people that's really passionate about what you do, make sure that you're highlighting that and showing people like, I got into this, because it's something that I can't not do. Like, I don't know what I would do if I got taken away from it stuff or being able to help educate people about things. And I always loved that kind of stuff. So I know a lot of other folks like yourself are fanatical about what we do. And it's really good to know that we can start to use social media as a tool to highlight that stuff. So I just want to say thank you very much for coming on today. Gabby means a lot. This is the first time I'm doing this. So hopefully, we don't have another technical glitch. So I do apologize to you about that. Is there anything that you would want to talk about are kind of remote I know you have the course that you're doing right now which again, I'm about Halfway through, I'm getting a tremendous amount of value out of it. I'm very excited to kind of get that finished up. I know I want to schedule a meeting with you as soon as that's done, just from what I've learned in there. And I really, really want to start taking this social media marketing and other marketing stuff very seriously. So, one, thank you for producing that, too. Thank you for coming on the show. And yeah, just let the people know if there's anything you want to talk about.
Unknown Speaker 1:13:29
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I just kind of want to echo that. I think that people if you're listening to this webinar, this interview, whatever it is, you might be in a place where you want to learn a little bit more about social media. And, again, we've been having this conversation in a very casual way and I'm very much about taking action. And so what I've done is I've created a social media training and I've actually done just because I'm a little bit lazy, and I don't want to keep training my employees on how to do social media. So This is exact training that I give my employees when they start working for me on how to manage social media. So after they do this training, they go in and they start working on client accounts. And so I'm really confident with the training that is, is in this or with the content that's in this training, and I just want to provide that to as many people as I can. So as of right now, it's almost two o'clock on Wednesday. If, if any of you are interested in you know, getting this training and taking action. What it is, is there's there's nine courses and then every course has a video, a written note module, and then an action based application exercise at the end, so that at the end of the nine modules, you'll have a month and a half to three months worth of content created for your business. So you'll have everything ready to go and go It'll take you through everything that we've talked about today. So everything from identifying who your target market is to identifying what platform is learning a little bit more about, you know, Google Analytics and then ultimately converting that audience. And it does talk for both service based businesses and product is a product based businesses. So I'm really happy with how this this training has turned out. And everybody who has tried it so far is just loving it. Just like yourself kick Yeah. And so if anyone here is interested in signing up, it's learn good commerce.com and up until Friday, I'll leave a special introductory pricing on it's only $99. And I'm also going to throw in an extra bonus if you do sign up before the end of day on Friday and that's going to be a 30 minute one on one with me. And I don't normally do this but I know if somebody is watching this, they probably are going to have a little bit of extra time. I usually like to do a little q&a section. So at the end of when you complete the training, I'm happy to hop on a call with you and answer any questions that you have. If you have any clarifying questions, it also gets you into the big commerce community on Facebook. So you can ask any questions in that group as well?
Unknown Speaker 1:16:21
Yeah, yeah, that's a really good point as well. In regards the the package of learn good commerce comm again, I just want to say that that is very, very viable and $99 I thought you were charging $999 when we first talked about it, and after I got a bit of a sneak peek at it from you, I would have paid that. So thank you, again, for making it so accessible for people who are either social media marketers right now, or they're people who own small business that are interested in it. It's super, super valuable. I recommend folks check it out. And as you mentioned, just now that I forgot about the good commerce group on Facebook, so I've been part of that for about a year. Now. I'm one of the lurkers. I don't post But it is again a community of other business owners and other people interested in learning about this kind of stuff. And I've seen some people post some things and met some people through there and it has been really valuable. So I would recommend people on Facebook, check out your good commerce page as well. Yeah, I think that pretty much does it. We're coming up on two o'clock here. So thank you again for coming on. I hope this video gives everybody a good foundation to start implementing their social media marketing strategies for their business. Please make sure to check out GD commerce umbrella IT services and Gabby's online social media course using the links in our description. So just down below here, you will see GD commerce, learn good commerce calm and Gd commerce.ca. So if you do want to get that half hour, sit down with Gabby and get her full course you can purchase it there. No affiliate links with us. She's just supporting Gabby and a small business of Vancouver. So again, thank you everyone for tuning in. I want to give a big thank you to vada safe for asking that question during the stream. And if anyone does have any questions or would like to see future interviewees or topics covered please let me know we're going to be doing an interview every Wednesday. I've got Kevin coming in from his company yardstick services to discuss WordPress development and WordPress security and website design for small businesses and nonprofits in two weeks, and I've got another Kevin coming in to talk about branding and messaging and marketing next Wednesday, so I'm very excited to have him on so if you could please leave a like on the video really helps us out. If you want to see more videos like this please subscribe. And if you have a suggestion for a future video, please leave a comment below or email us at Tech Tips at umbrella it services.ca Have a great day everybody and we will see you soon. Thank you again Gabby for coming on.
Unknown Speaker 1:18:46
So much. Bye