SHOW TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Jeff Sieh: [00:00:00] Welcome to social media news live I’m Jeff Sieh and you’re not. 

[00:00:04] Grace Duffy: [00:00:04] And I’m grace stuffy. And this is the show that keeps you up to date on what’s happening in the world of social media. Today’s show is brought to you by restream. I get asked all the time, I want a live show. How do you do a live show? How do you do a live show and podcast?

[00:00:19] Well, we can get into that. We will get into that later in the show, but the meantime you can check out social media news. Dot com forward slash restream and find out all about how you can go live too. Just 

[00:00:31] Jeff Sieh: [00:00:31] like we are. It’s actually social media news, live.com/restraint. Otherwise it’s just not going to work.

[00:00:37] Yeah, it’s okay. We’ve got Brooke here. She’s understanding about all our okay. 

[00:00:42] Grace Duffy: [00:00:42] Can I redo it so you can edit? No, it’s 

[00:00:43] Jeff Sieh: [00:00:43] great. It’s fine. It’s perfect. It’s good. We’re good. So I want to talk to today. We are joined by my friend, Brooke sell, and we’re going to be breaking down. What’s going on. Britain got marketing in a post pandemic world.

[00:00:56] What’s it’s going to look like we’re going to be talking about creating meaningful and positive brand experiences navigating this job market, particularly around careers in digital marketing. And how you can, how your messages should revolve around. Hopefully moving toward kind of being a little bit more normal, hopefully this summer.

[00:01:15] So we mentioned ECAP. I mean, we mentioned restream earlier. We are going to also talk about a little bit about today, about our other sponsor, which is e-com. This is how we’re making all these cool, lower thirds graphics. If you want to find out more about them, make sure you guys go to social media news, alive.com forward slash e-comm.

[00:01:32] That social media news live.com. Forward slash ECAP. So. If you don’t know who Brooke is, you should. She is the founder and CEO of B squared and an award winning social media advertising, and customer care agency. I followed her blog for years. She is also cohost of the marketing companion podcast with Mark Schaefer, where they discuss draw jaw-dropping marketing trends.

[00:01:59] And her marketing mantra is think conversation, not campaign. So make sure to give her a shout out on all the socials because she’s amazing, Brooke. Welcome to the show. 

[00:02:12] Brooke Sellas: [00:02:12] Thank you so much for having me. I’m just happy to be here with both of you and grace. I don’t know if you knew this. I lived in Dallas for eight years.

[00:02:19] That’s like my old stomping ground. Oh, wow. Well I’m from Texas. My accents mostly. Got it. Except for the y’all. 

[00:02:26] Jeff Sieh: [00:02:26] So, where are you at now, Brooke? Where are you? Where are you? Based 

[00:02:28] on 

[00:02:30] Brooke Sellas: [00:02:30] like the polar opposite. 

[00:02:33] Jeff Sieh: [00:02:33] That is true. That is true. So grace breakdown, I mean, cause we’re going to kind of top this off with one of Brooke’s articles that she wrote that we kind of like, that really caught our eye and we really wanted to have her on to talk about that.

[00:02:43] So break that down for us a little bit. 

[00:02:45] Grace Duffy: [00:02:45] Well, I want to get started first because Brooke did write this incredible forward future forward article on preparing for how to prepare for marketing in the post-punk DEMEC world. I’m talking about all about the social media landscape, and I have to admit, like, I want to talk about like the languaging, right?

[00:03:04] And so I have to admit that while we were naming the show, we were Jeff and I were both very kind of fretful about using the word. Post pandemic. Right? Right. Cause you know, both of us are very energetic, very optimistic. That’s the word I was trying to get out. But we are sensitive and hyper aware of the news and we have to be considerate.

[00:03:23] Right. Even in my personal life, I, when I post things, I feel like I always have to add all these little caveats and just like, yeah, we were outside. We were, you know, Just just to be sensitive because I mean, there are still people who are still losing people, you know, in, in this current parent current situation.

[00:03:40]How Should Our Social Media Messaging Be During This Time?

[00:03:40] And so when it comes to social media messaging at around this weird time, how do we talk about our products and our services in a way that doesn’t alienate our global audience, understanding that a lot of where we are in the pandemic depends on where you are in the world. Right? 

[00:03:58] Brooke Sellas: [00:03:58] Yeah, that’s such a great point.

[00:04:00] I think, you know, the obvious answer the marketing answer is if you know your audience, this shouldn’t be hard. But it’s very user dependent too. So like even in the States, even as we’re opening up and things are becoming more lax here, right over in the EU, things are still very closed and buttoned up.

[00:04:16] They’re not anywhere near where we are. So we know let’s look at the facts, right? What do we know? We know that social media usage increased during the pandemic. In fact, it. Increased a lot. Right. But the way users used social media during this time was very user dependent. Look at how you use social media.

[00:04:37] Right. I try to like put myself in the consumer shoes a lot. What did I do? I absolutely used it more, but I was still a lurker. I scrolled a lot, but I didn’t post a lot. Right. So I think you have to really look at your audience and understand how they’re using social media. And some of the analytics and data are social intelligence that you have about your audience and the users who follow you should be able to help tell you where they’re spending their time and how they’re spending the time.

[00:05:05] Are they just clicking? Right. Click-through rates. We can see that, or are they getting involved in conversation and then. Those data points will help you kind of give yourself a gut check and go forward with an actual plan for messaging. 

[00:05:18] Jeff Sieh: [00:05:18] Gotcha. So one of the things that, you know, as a marketer, this feels like an, a unique moment for meaningful connection with our customers.

[00:05:27] So how can we generally do that in a genuine fashion, not be scammy or skeevy? Like how do we. Do that messaging with infant empathy and care. You know, a lot of ads talk about, you know, reclaiming, lost experiences, people getting back together safely. And the focus on, you know, this continued cleanliness and safety.

[00:05:46] I mean, I’m going, I’m traveling this weekend and you know, the hotel is, I mean, that’s, they drop your ride on that landing page. So how do we genuinely do this as we continue? And as things start here, going back to normal, but you know, we’re have a global audience now, and that may not be the case over there.

[00:06:00] So. Are there ways to do that in a, like in a really genuine fashion? How Do We Make Connections With Our Customers in a Genuine Way?

[00:06:06] Brooke Sellas: [00:06:06] Yeah, I think. The part that many brands and companies are still missing out on is the listening part. I think if you do listen to what your customers and would be, customers are saying, as it relates to your brand, your industry, your competitors, it can help you come up with a more strategic message.

[00:06:27] Right. So if you were to look at, let’s say the conversation cloud happening in all the interwebs around your industry, Let’s say you’re a hotel following your example, Jeff. Right. Then you might see that a lot of people are, are having questions about security or cleanliness or travel or whatever it may be.

[00:06:46] And then you would want to speak to those things. I think that the place that you mentioned going straight to the page where they’re talking about what they’re doing to meet, you know, cleanliness standards during COVID or safety standards, that’s really smart. And hopefully that’s. Is, they looked at what was being said within their industry and then formulated that messaging based on that.

[00:07:04] So I think it’s listening for first and 

[00:07:06] Jeff Sieh: [00:07:06] foremost. Awesome. So I want to pull up one of before we jump into our first segment Ian Anderson, gray has some great comments. He goes, you know, knowing your audience sounds obvious, but very few businesses and brands seem to know their audience very well. And the acid.

[00:07:19] Great. A follow-up question. He says, I would love to know Brooks tips on how to get to know our audience more. It can be difficult to scale if you have a large audience, which I think, you know, everybody says do things that don’t scale, but at a certain point you have to scale or hire more people, or so what would you tell Ian on this question?How Do You Scale Customer Care?

[00:07:39] Brooke Sellas: [00:07:39] Yeah. So for us, we work with, with our customer care services, we actually work with a lot of enterprise sized brands. One of them is brother international, right? It’s a global brand. They have a ton of products, printers, sewing machines, label makers, and part of what we do to help them is use. Social listening.

[00:07:56] So it’s a tool, right? That allows you to listen out in the interwebs for certain keywords and keyword phrases around brand and district specific product lines and whatnot. And what we’re finding at scale are things that customers are talking about that would be customers are talking about. We actually found through COVID that the trends that were normal for brother changed completely.

[00:08:21] Right? So now. Through these, through the social listening and through the mining of, of these conversations. And here’s the scale part, right? For, for humans to understand what was happening online in real time, it’s impossible, right? Even if you had a team of 100 people listening in around the clock, it would be impossible to get to gather all of that intelligence, but the tool does it for you.

[00:08:45] Right. And then as the marketer, it’s our job to. Read that data and come up with a creative solution. So what we’re doing now is we’ve actually instituted a trends meeting because the trends are so different and we’re telling brother, Hey, this is what your would be. Customers are talking about. This is what your customers are talking about.

[00:09:05] And then we’re able to. Slice and dice that data looking at like positive conversation, neutral conversation, negative conversation or pain points that people are having. We’re also able to look at competitors and what they’re doing so that we can differentiate there. So, I mean, I think social listening solves the problem that you’re asking about Ian, but it also.

[00:09:23] Does it just solve like customer care or marketing problems. We’re talking about product development, sales research and development. So I just think it solves many, many problems. 

[00:09:34] Jeff Sieh: [00:09:34] So I’m going to follow up with that question real quick, because I think we’ll get to it a little bit later, but since you’re talking about listening specifically, what are some of your favorites?

[00:09:43] Tools that I know you do a lot of enterprise stuff. So let’s start with like, you know, the small, affordable tools. Like we use a Gora pulse, which for me, isn’t a great way to listen on where our company is right now, but maybe scale up even like what you use for enterprise enterprise clients, some of the tools that you use for that.What Are Your Favorite Social Listening Tools?

[00:10:03] Brooke Sellas: [00:10:03] So, I mean, if you’ve never used social setting ever, ever, I would say go set up a Google alert, right? You, you go to, you go to Google, you set up alert, you put in parentheses, like you can put your like B squared media, your company’s name, or put your name, Brooke Celis in, in, in parentheses. You could also go to talk Walker.

[00:10:20] They also have a free kind of a same similar setup as, as, as a Google alerts where you can set up like a free listener to listen out. So that’s like free. Baby steps. Right? And then we try to be tool agnostic. We use either what the client has, or we use sprout social for a lot of our enterprise clients, but there are a million tools.

[00:10:41] So talk Walker. I mentioned Agorapulse is great. Some of our clients use Meltwater Socialbakers. I mean, there’s so many tools. I think my biggest thing is you need to be able to understand what you’re trying to solve with your listening tool, right? So what business outcome are we solving for?

[00:10:57] And then when you go on these demos, because these tools can get very expensive, you need to make them show you how they’re going to solve that business outcome. Make sure that they can do that for 

[00:11:07] Jeff Sieh: [00:11:07] you. That’s awesome. Like I I’ve had a, since I started and it’s still running, you mentioned Google alerts.

[00:11:13] I still have one for Pinterest. That’s still every, I get it all the time. I still have it. I’ve never turned it off. So, those are still really helpful. No matter how, how big you grow. So, all right. Let’s so let’s break down. We’re gonna start with Brooks article and grace, why don’t you start with that?

[00:11:27] Because you did a great wrap up on this. 

[00:11:30] Grace Duffy: [00:11:30] Yeah. So Brooke wrote this article on the B squared media blog. So you can go there at B square.media where she breaks down and explores what the post pandemic social media landscape will look like. And so some of the questions that she asks is, is social media so critical for business answer?

[00:11:49] Yes. Do consumers expect your brand to be on social media? Answer double. Yes. So she kicks it off with the state of social media investment, which I think is how we all begin. The process is asking how critical is social media to our brand success and a study or stat that she shared was that 91% of executives anticipate that their company’s social media marketing budget will increase over the next year.

[00:12:13] Three years. And the majority expected to increase at least by 50%, if not more. And the finding is that social media is actually driving their business forward. So where it used to be a nice to have. Now it’s a half to have, and you highlight three things. Brand social media, brand media posts, ads, an influencer posts.

[00:12:33] And so the big question is where should companies be focusing their social media time, budget and attention? Because I know that that’s a big question we always have as a company is, okay, we have to do this, this and this. We’ve got this much time, this many resources, this many employees, where do we put our attention?Where Should Companies Be Focusing Their Social Media Time, Budget and Attention?

[00:12:51] Brooke Sellas: [00:12:51] Yeah, I think you just kind of hit it on the Hill, on the nail, on the head grades and that’s that you need to understand what you have more of right. Time or money, and that will help you know where to go. But if we think about the number one thing we’re trying to do with social media, right. Tying back to business outcome, what are we all trying to do?

[00:13:09] Gain attention, right? Attract more eyeballs. And if you’ve looked at what’s happened with digital marketing through the years that. Attention not necessary ingredient for what we do on social has become more and more and more expensive. So advertising more expensive, harder to do. Yeah. Influencer marketing more expensive, harder to do what hasn’t become more expensive.

[00:13:35] And I think again, where we often lose sight of, you know, the forest through the trees kind of thing is with customer care. So what I, what we see happening both with what we’re doing in real life and just what I think is going to happen as well. The future of social able will become a place where customer care is focused on because it takes more time than it does money, but if it’s done right, and if it’s done effectively, you’re, you’re not having to worry about competing on budget.

[00:14:04] Like if you think about advertising, if the next guy, if your, if your next biggest competitor has way more money than you do, you’ll never be able to compete through paid media. Right. Right. If, if the next guy has more money and produces more amazing videos and more of that thrilling content, you’re never going to be able to compete with him.

[00:14:22] Where can you absolutely compete? Whether you’re small or big is through the care of your customers and would be customers. So I think that’s where social’s going that and social intelligence. 

[00:14:34] Jeff Sieh: [00:14:34] Gotcha. So one of the, another stat that you mentioned in here in this article that you said 78% of consumers are more willing to buy from a brand, which is surprising to me.

[00:14:44] And 77% will choose a brand over competitor after a positive experience with a brand on social media. So you mentioned listening, but how can brands also be forward thinking when it comes to prioritizing. Customer experiences that, you know, that sits them out from different competitors. We talk about things that are hard to scale, and, you know, even in this, this landscape, you know, how tells are, are putting those things on their landing pages about cleanliness and all that.

[00:15:10] So, but but every hotel can do that, honestly. I mean, they are. So how can they stand apart from the competitor competition? How Can Companies Stand Apart From the Competition?

[00:15:18] Brooke Sellas: [00:15:18] Yeah. I mean, I think you can look at again, you can just look at the stats to see where we’re failing. We’re just not listening for some reason, but you can see what consumer expectations are as far as response times on social.

[00:15:30] And you can see that we are way off from what those expectations are on the brand side. So consumers are expecting a response. It depends by platform, but some studies are showing that they expect a response on Twitter. For instance, within 10. Minutes and brands are still taking hours sometimes days, sometimes a week.

[00:15:49] Sometimes it never responded. Right. Right. So I think the answer’s pretty obvious. We just have to do it. 

[00:15:57] Jeff Sieh: [00:15:57] Yeah, you just do it folks from Brooke sellers. 

[00:16:02] Grace Duffy: [00:16:02] Think it was Nike, but I’ll take it. Trait, trademark, trademark. So Ian S our buddy in here asks a really good question, Brooke. He says, have you seen engagement on social go down?

[00:16:13] It has, for him, it has. For many, I’ve seen this as well. Is, is there any hope he asks, give us hope. Has Engagement and Return on Conversation Gone Down on Social Media?

[00:16:19]Brooke Sellas: [00:16:19] I, I hate to be this person cause they always try to like put a positive spin on everything, but like, This is what I’ve been saying about social for the past year or so. I think it’s going to be less of that place, where we see like engagement and return on conversation and, you know, all of those things we want to see as marketers and more of a place where consumers go for support you know, millennials, gen Z, they don’t want to email, they don’t want to pick up the phone.

[00:16:46] Phone. They want to go to social. They want to get things answered. So we need to shift, right? The consumers are telling us what to do and where to go and we need to follow them. So I think, you know, organic social media is probably going to be in trouble. In the way that we are trying to label it right now, I think it’s still going to be a major source of social data, social intelligence, customer support, all those things.

[00:17:11] So it’s going to become even more important than it is now. But as marketers, we have to let go of some of these labels that we’ve said, make social media successful. 

[00:17:21] Grace Duffy: [00:17:21] Yeah. Like marking engagement. Well, you mentioned at the top of the show that you’re, you’re on social and you’re very much a lurker. And I, it occurred to me.

[00:17:27] I am too. Like I consume a lot. But I don’t contribute. I don’t, I don’t like necessarily comment on every little thing. Right. So, so it is straight. It is funny to me that we still look at engagement in terms of like likes and comments. When a lot of people are probably just watching. 

[00:17:44] Brooke Sellas: [00:17:44] Yeah, I’ll give you like a funny example.

[00:17:47] Funny, not funny. We, where with the colon, oscopy a doctor, you know, a gastro doctor and they do like colonoscopy with hemorrhoids. I mean, this is stuff you’re not wanting to go on social and like, you know, talk about your colonoscopy or your a hemorrhoid surgery, you know, but what we’ve found is that they get a huge amount of money.

[00:18:06] Click-throughs their audience is actively engaged. They’re clicking through on the content, but they’re not commenting. They’re not liking, they’re not sharing the post about, you know, colonoscopies, but they’re engaged. They’re, they’re lurkers, they’re just a lurker audience. And so we know that it’s important.

[00:18:23] And then we’re also, they’re helping inform them on these, not so fun things to talk about. So, I mean, you really, really, really have to understand your audience. I know I keep saying that, but like Ian said, I think we’ve just missed the Mark there. A lot of times. Yeah. 

[00:18:36] Grace Duffy: [00:18:36] Yeah, exactly. Well, that goes into my next question, which is, and you say this in your article that consumers expect highlight, expect brands to connect with them in a meaningful way.

[00:18:46] So with your gastro doctor, you know, understanding that they want to be interacted with, but they don’t want to do it necessarily publicly. You know, most brands don’t necessarily. Do this well, and many smaller businesses with their limited time and budget, which we all understand, like, feel very lost as where to start.

[00:19:03] So what is your advice for smaller local brands to create a more positive and meaningful customer interaction? What does that look like? How Can Smaller Local Brands Create a Positive and Meaningful Customer Interaction?

[00:19:14] Brooke Sellas: [00:19:14] A tool is really important. You know, I, again, I hate, I hate to tell people to spend money, especially if they’re small and there’s a limited budget, but like, like Jeff was saying, Agorapulse not that expensive, wonderful tool, but helping mine, that social data and that.

[00:19:30] Social intelligence is going to be really important for meeting the customer where they are. If you see that you’re getting a lot of questions through Twitter or on Instagram for customer support, spend your time there. When people tell you something through social media, about themselves as a would be customer or a customer store that somewhere, whether it’s in a CRM or again in your tool, because what we’re finding is when a customer comes back, Or it would be customer for a repeat situation where they’re reaching out on social.

[00:19:59] If we don’t remember right. That they reached out before, it’s like, how do I explain this? They feel this para social relationship with the brand, the consumer. Does they assume that, that you know them. Just like they know you, right? So when they come to you and they ask us a second question or a repeat or a followup or something else, they expect that you will remember that first time.

[00:20:23] And remember all the things that they said, if you’re not collecting that social data and that social intelligence, and then meeting them where they are. You know, that’s missing the Mark, so I don’t care how you do it. Maybe it’s a spreadsheet, you know, if budget’s an issue, but just start recognizing that you need to start seeing people as people.

[00:20:40] Unfortunately, I just want to be seen as pupil 

[00:20:44] as Ian said in the comments, I just want to be liked. Yeah. 

[00:20:48] Jeff Sieh: [00:20:48] He also said this. He says, talking about colonoscopy on social sounds like a real pain in the butt. I’m sorry, my friend in the United States, we still, but with two T’s at the end just went what, you know, I know, I don’t know how they do it in the UK, but just letting you know that, 

[00:21:00]Brooke Sellas: [00:21:00] Like we, we actually try to get them to tell jokes like this and they’re like, absolutely not.

[00:21:04] That is not our brand. Okay. Got it. It’s not your brand. Right? They may alienate some people, you 

[00:21:09] Jeff Sieh: [00:21:09] know, I would think it would be, there’s just such a gold mine there, but anyway So one of the questions I wanted to ask you is, I mean, you mentioned, you know, proactive, social media. Practices mean that consumers expect companies to read and analyze their posts and know them better based on their social media activity.

[00:21:25] So the we’ve been talking about listening so much, but a lot of times we’re listening for our name or a certain subject. Well, this is kind of talking about like being instead of being reactive to being proactive on social media. And so. That’s even hard for tools to do because, you know, tools you put in your hashtag or your, your name and it gathers information about that.

[00:21:48] But we’re trying to discover what our audience is and what they’re talking about. How do we do that in a proactive way? How Can You Be Proactive and Not Reactive in Your Marketing?

[00:21:56] Brooke Sellas: [00:21:56] Yeah. So definitely through social listening is how we’ve been able to be proactive. And just to give like a simple explanation of it. Customer support in general is a reactive thing, right.

[00:22:07] Even if come to Jeff’s page and I messaged Jeff and I say, I’m unhappy with the product and I want to return it. Right. It’s reactive. Jeff is then hopefully coming and responding to me, but that’s reactive and it’s set up to happen in a negative environment, right? The sentiment there is automatically going to be negative.

[00:22:28] So by using social listening and setting up really. Deep queries. So, if you know anything about like Boolean searches, you can get really creative with your queries. So we go from top of the funnel, really broad down to super, super niche things. And then we’re looking at our audience conversations and as we see interests and topics bubbling up there, We add those into one of those bullion searches or down into the niche, keyword phrases or queries that we’re looking for.

[00:22:57] So it’s constantly being iterated. This is not a set it and forget it situation, but the tool helps you be proactive so that you can decide whether or not you want to join the conversation, whether someone’s tagging your brand or not tagging your brand and may feel yucky to some people. But there are honestly instances where people are happy that the brand joined in and got involved in the conversation.

[00:23:21] Jeff Sieh: [00:23:21] Very interesting. That’s good. Those are good tips there. 

[00:23:25] Grace Duffy: [00:23:25] That is 

[00:23:27] Brooke Sellas: [00:23:27] tagging. That’s the other thing I’ll say tagging, we tag every conversation that comes in and goes out with different tags. They could be customer related tags. They could be interest related tags. They could be product related tags, but everything gets.

[00:23:42] Data put around it all outgoing, all incoming, because that, that tagging also helps us understand, you know, where to go with the 

[00:23:50] Jeff Sieh: [00:23:50] conversation. So when you tag somebody then do you assign it to a certain person or is it just they’re in kind of the database that you’re looking at? 

[00:23:58] Brooke Sellas: [00:23:58] So for us, we have a whole team of Community managers who are trained on tagging for the specific account, right?

[00:24:07] And some accounts may have very few tags. We have some accounts that have hundreds of tags. And so their job is really just to make sure that they’re tagging all of the incoming and outgoing messaging. And then our. Account managers and director of customer care work directly with the account or the client to go over the tags.

[00:24:26] We, again, we slice and dice it. We look at themes. We’re, we’re, we’re informing way more than just marketing. So the feedback that we often get is like, are you allowed to say bad words? Am I allowed to say the S word? Well, okay, well now you know what I, to say, wholly. That’s like the reaction that we get and then, you know, there’s just so much excitement.

[00:24:46] And then they, they, you know, I feel like we’re getting people excited about data again, which is what social media should be to you. It is a playground for finding all the data that you need to answer your business questions. I promise. That’s genius. 

[00:25:00] Jeff Sieh: [00:25:00] Yes. 

[00:25:01] Grace Duffy: [00:25:01] But all that data is so overwhelming. Right. So we gotta start somewhere.

[00:25:05] So, I saw this article, it was, it was on media posts and it was about again, you know, the post pandemic marketplace. And it was citing that one of the biggest shifts. Especially in the U S you know, where this was based was that is, is changes in daily routine. Like people, whether it’s permanent or it was just temporary.

[00:25:24] People have fundamentally shifted their daily routine. And that shifted a lot of their consumer spend habits. And then also regional demographics. I think people have like sectioned off into probably sub markets and sub sub markets that we never even occurred to us before. Before all this happened.

[00:25:41] Right. So, you know, we talk a lot about social listening. Let’s talk about the industries as a whole or the market as a whole you know, we, we might have a current understanding of what our customers are like, but generally speaking, how do you find, you know, what are those trends that we should be paying attention to that we may not even be paying attention to, right.

[00:26:01] Like the thought of, of people’s daily routines. I know that a lot of businesses were shaken by that because they didn’t, it didn’t even occur to them like, Oh yeah, people aren’t stopping in for their coffee. They’re not, you know, and there’s such a ripple effect for that. At least I know in local local businesses.

[00:26:16] And so where do you track those type types of things? Where Do You Track Customer Trends?

[00:26:20] Brooke Sellas: [00:26:20] I think any place you have data incoming is where you need to be focusing. And I I’m I’m in a thousand percent agreement, the pandemic changed everything. Everything that we saw for literally every single one of our clients, the norm is, has been changed times have been changed, even advertising times for when people click or convert on ads has changed.

[00:26:43] So any place that you have data coming in your website, Google analytics, your social intelligence your advertising and paid media intelligence. You need to be combing through that data. I would say, I mean, we optimize daily, but at least weekly. And I know that sounds crazy, but things are changing at a rapid rate.

[00:27:03] And my opinion is now that we’re coming out of this and things are sort of, kind of going back to normal. We need to see what’s going to change again and things may not change. We may not go back to what was before normal. So we really need to keep an eye on what’s happening, especially now that things are changing rapidly.

[00:27:21] With being able to go out and about 

[00:27:24] Jeff Sieh: [00:27:24] things just, and since you do the marketing companion podcast with Mark Schaefer one of the things since, you know, I do a lot of podcasts and actually produce guy Kawasaki show and all that stuff. We see a lot of data. One of the things is that we noticed that podcasts listening changed.

[00:27:38] And I talked a lot of my podcast friends, and it’s like, okay, Because when it first started, there was no more commute and people didn’t know. And so the, the podcast listening it, some, some people saw it really drop and then it came back up. And then when people figured out their new way, they were going to listen, then it started climbing again.

[00:27:55] So, and now when commute’s going to happen, that’s going to change it again. And so. If you’re not listening, like you have been saying throughout this whole show, then you’re going to miss that. And there’s opportunities there too. It’s you don’t look at it as something that’s just negative, but like, okay, now that they’re back in cars, what do I does my podcast to meet to be longer since I shortened it during, you know, I mean, what are your thoughts on that?

[00:28:19]The Importance of Checking Your Data

[00:28:19] Brooke Sellas: [00:28:19] Yeah, I mean, again, I. I, I used to be so scared of data. I am not a math person. My husband does all the mapping and the family. Right. I’ve learned to. Teach myself, I’ve taken Google analytics courses. I’ve watched videos. I’ve really tried to become more of a data scientist. I obviously would never call myself that, but I know how important it is to read and understand the data on a regular basis to make sure that I’m gut checking myself.

[00:28:52] I think this is another fault of marketers. We we’ve been in the game for a long time. I’m a 20 year marketer. I know, but no, you don’t because things have changed. So you better be checking the data. 

[00:29:04] Jeff Sieh: [00:29:04] I think your point is as well too, if you’re not checking it because we’d like, I know marketers, we’d love to read reports.

[00:29:09] Like I Le I love to read your thing because it was great. It was insightful, but your data is not my data. Yes, your audience is not my audiences. And that could be changed. Like my audience may not do the same thing as yours is because people are different and have different, you know, there are different places in the United States or in the world and, and things are different.

[00:29:29] So if you’re not listening and you’re not looking at that data, then. You just can’t rely on marketing reports is what I guess I’m saying no, 

[00:29:37] Brooke Sellas: [00:29:37] because those are blanket statements. I can’t stand and they all do it. And I love, I love them all. I actually truly some of the two, I mean, I love going to post. I love sprout obviously, but like when they release though, these are the times and days that you should post posts.

[00:29:52] I literally like roll my eyes all the way back into my head because it’s such a blanket statement. You know, I, I just, yeah, no, I just I’m against that kind of stuff. Use your own data. No, your own stuff is 

[00:30:04] Grace Duffy: [00:30:04] like, That stuff is like catnip though. As soon as someone write articles, they’re like all over the place showing up in meetings.

[00:30:11] The other thing that I find really funny is that when the sites themselves will launch their like reports and we do talk about that quite a bit, because you can always mind insights from the side of like what they’re prioritizing, but taking it at face value. You’re just like, yeah, no, what is that? 

[00:30:28] Jeff Sieh: [00:30:28] It’s great to go check your data after that goes like, well, they said, this is that same with mine.

[00:30:32] And, and I think your point, Brooke too, is like, I, I am not a math person. I’m serious. Like I’m not, I just, I am not thank goodness for calculators and all the, I mean, but with the tools now you can, you don’t have to be a dentist. You can tell when people like your content or that didn’t resonate, or even the time that your posts are the most effective with these tools.

[00:30:54] It’s not. It’s not brain surgery and you don’t have to get into Excel and, you know, do these formulas, it’s all done for you. So a lot of these tools, like we mentioned to go to the polls, they do it for you, but you just can’t rely on other people. That’s the thing. You have to go check it yourself. 

[00:31:09] Brooke Sellas: [00:31:09] You have to, this has been my new thing starting in 2020.

[00:31:12] I started saying this, and this is now my new, like personal at work mantra, which is do the deep work. So many of us, aren’t doing the critical thinking and the deep work and to do anything well today, especially with how disruptive everything is and digital, whether we’re talking about social or advertising or just tech in general, you have to do the deep work.

[00:31:35] If you don’t do the deep work, you’re going to find yourself in trouble. 

[00:31:39] Jeff Sieh: [00:31:39] Very true. And by the way, deep work, great book. I don’t know if you’ve read it. Cal Newport. He Eric Fisher, my pal who’s in the, in the audience right now, he has got a great podcast called beyond the to-do list. Interviewed him a couple of times, really insightful stuff there.

[00:31:51] So speaking of another, as some more insightful stuff, Well, I want to talk about our sponsor e-com because that’s how we’re making these cool shows have a where we’re doing the, the different cameras and switching and lower thirds. And they also right now have this awesome preview feature where I can actually change the titles and stuff.

[00:32:09] And you don’t see it until I say go, which if you’re starting out on the live streaming, That’s a big deal because you know, I have before put up the wrong, lower third under the wrong person and I’ll do it again. But but now it’s a lot harder to do that because of this amazing feature inside of e-comm.

[00:32:24] And you can find out more about e-com amazing company, amazing people at social media news, live.com forward slash E camp. And, 

[00:32:34] Grace Duffy: [00:32:34] and, and 

[00:32:36] Jeff Sieh: [00:32:36] God go, you do you do it? Do you work for him? Grace? Come on. Talk about it. 

[00:32:41] Grace Duffy: [00:32:41] I know. Well today’s show of course, brought to you is, is being distributed by restream. So we are going live on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Amazon live, and we’re doing it seamlessly with the power of restream.

[00:32:53] So you can check that out at. Social media news, live.com forward slash restream and check out, check it out for yourself. Check out how you can launch a live show and podcasts, just like Jeff and I do. 

[00:33:08] Jeff Sieh: [00:33:08] And we’re trying to get Brooke to do it too. No, don’t no pressure though. Seriously.

[00:33:17] Seriously. If you haven’t listened to the marketing companion podcast, you need to go do it. It’s amazing. You also need to make sure that you check out Brooke’s website at B square media. Like I said, we, we took this whole show from like her website, cause it had this amazing article on it. Really got us thinking and we really wanted to share it with you because.

[00:33:35]She is amazing. In fact Michael Jackson says great show. So thank you for watching, Michael. Appreciate that. Appreciate that. So we’re going to dive into our next segment, which is going to be talking about, okay. How times have changed. We’ve talked about how to market, but. What does this mean for a job market?

[00:33:53] Because there’s some really cool data out what is happening and there’s even some, we’ll even tease it a little bit, Tik TOK news, but grace, talk about what this is all about. 

[00:34:02] Grace Duffy: [00:34:02] I believe in the tick talk news all to you because you’re a much better dancer than I am. You are, you are. So we do want to talk about navigating this post pandemic job market, especially in the media marketing space.

[00:34:16] So fast company identified. Five booming industries that are hiring like crazy right now, based on. And this is based on data from career builder, monster, and indeed. And those two, two of those five in demand areas are sales, marketing, customer service, not surprising considering our conversation here so far, the on the show and then technology.

[00:34:37] So very lucky for us those of us that do marketing for technology companies. Yay. So for many people, certainly not. All this past year has been a time of reprioritizing and rethinking and re aligning. Our goals is offering us the time to really think about what we are doing and what we want to be doing.

[00:34:58] And for others, 2020 was going into 2021 was that gap year that we didn’t want to take. So, and most industries of course have had to evolve and expand, but they’re not necessarily evaporating. They’re just changing. And so at the McKenzie Institute had this quote, the pandemic accelerated existed, existing trends in remote work e-commerce and automation with up to 25% of workers than previously estimated potentially needing to switch occupations.

[00:35:27] So for most people or from any people looking for work and especially in the digital marketing space and with an agency like yours, Brooke yeah. What skills should they be possessing or what skills should we be highlighting to be relevant and valid and valuable? Considering all of these changes, particularly in our industry, What Skills Should Digital Marketers Looking for Work Be Focusing On?

[00:35:47] Brooke Sellas: [00:35:47] this is such a relevant topic for me right now, because.

[00:35:50] Part of what we did in 2020, because there, there was a pause, you know, a lot of our clients paused work. Some of them couldn’t continue based on budgets and whatnot. So we use that as a time to revamp our entire hiring process and put together scorecards to help hire the right people. So we now.

[00:36:12] Really instead of, I guess it’s another data answer now instead of hiring off of feeling and gut, we hire based on a very specific scorecard. And if you don’t make a certain score or higher based on the questions that we ask you don’t get the job. So, you know, I think. For me personally, nine years in and going through what we’ve gone through throughout the nine years.

[00:36:37] But especially the past couple of years, I’m looking for people who are going to push or pull me forward. I don’t want to have to pull or push them to get me where I need to be. So that’s why I made that change. 

[00:36:51] Jeff Sieh: [00:36:51] That’s really super interesting. So I, and grace and I, we talk about this quite a bit. So because we have kids, my kids kind of are just they’re in the job market, the beginning part of their job market for college and jobs.

[00:37:04] And one of the things, you know, we’re like, I wish my kids could write an email. And so my question is, should some of these skills be taught at like, it’s even in like, you know, junior high, high school colleges, like not just how to make a resume because you know, I get that, but like how to communicate effectively.

[00:37:24] On Slack, how to present something to your boss? I mean, all these things or our social media one Oh one, I mean, do you think that, do you see that while you’re hiring people that there’s a lack of that, that maybe something we should teach this in college or something? 

[00:37:40] Brooke Sellas: [00:37:40] Yes. Every service we offer every single service.

[00:37:44] So done for you. Social media management, you know, managing of the page, advertising the ads customer care, the response to customers, every single one of those things requires you to be able to write and not, I’m not just talking about like spelling and grammar and sentence structure, although it’s a must being able to convey a message.

[00:38:05] In a short amount of characters, right? Pretty much on every, every one of those things I just mentioned, we gotta be short and sweet and succinct, but you have to be able to do it with a tone that cannot be misconstrued. And this is a serious, soft skill that is seriously missing with a lot of honestly, a lot of the younger people coming out of school.

[00:38:25] I love my sister to death. She’s not that young, but she’s like in her mid twenties, but like, she doesn’t write the way I would meet her. Right. Cause they didn’t really cover that in school. 

[00:38:36] Jeff Sieh: [00:38:36] Yeah, I totally 

[00:38:39] Grace Duffy: [00:38:39] demonstrate that. Right. So I, like, I personally feel like that’s a skill that I have, like, I, I can pivot and communicate and I tend to be very like thoughtful or trying to be very thoughtful in my response.

[00:38:50] Right. And so how do you demonstrate that? Because that is hard to do. Demonstrate like, cause you go into an interview and you’re like, I do that. Well, we’re like, okay can you quantify that for me? But you can’t quantify a soft skill or maybe you can, maybe you can tell me I do that. 

[00:39:05] Jeff Sieh: [00:39:05] Good. 

[00:39:05]Brooke Sellas: [00:39:05] For me it’s more of a, like, I’m not going to have you right. A paper and then I’m going to like, you know, put my red pin to it or something like that. But we have like five big areas, our five big core values. Right. And we ask questions over and over again. It’s almost like a personality test around these five core values and the way people answer those questions and get scored on the score scorecard generally, like more than not tells me if they’re going to be able to convey something with empathy.

[00:39:37] Jeff Sieh: [00:39:37] Hmm. That’s really interesting. So yeah, Martin over on LinkedIn goes, Oh, highly educated and skilled leaders and inspiring business leaders have no idea on how to communicate and sell themselves. Yeah, I think that is, that is true. And I think, and I told my kids this over and over, like, if you learn how to do this, you are going to be in the top percentile of all these job applications.

[00:39:58] Seriously. If you show up work, don’t complain and learn how to do this stuff. You’re going to be golden. So I mean, 

[00:40:03] Brooke Sellas: [00:40:03] Oh my God. Yeah. I feel like right now, too, I’ve I’ve said this I’m gonna, I’m going to out myself here and, and just say that last year, I, more than once was like, I just want people to show up, check the box and go home.

[00:40:18] Like, literally that is the, the perfect team member that I’m looking for. How sad is that? But that’s where, that’s where I was before we did this, like restart. Right, right. Yeah. 

[00:40:28] Grace Duffy: [00:40:28] I get you. How has this your scorecard improved things for you? Has it, has it brought better employees? Has it streamlined the process?

[00:40:37] It, Oh yeah. All 

[00:40:40] Brooke Sellas: [00:40:40] of the above. I am a very emotional and I wear my heart on my sleeve. I’m I’m a nice guy. Person. And you would think that would be an asset in business, but to be honest, it can be your, your best trait, but also your worst enemy being like super nice and emotional. And so a lot of times I want to lead with my heart and I want to give people a million chances.

[00:40:59] And so not only did this streamline the process of hiring and try to get, you know, get us. Or get more a players in front of us by the end. So every interview ends with me. I’m the, I’m the last person they talk to. But, but it also helps me score the people that we have now. And if you, if you don’t make the score, you don’t make the cut.

[00:41:20] I have to trust the process and the data right. More than I trust my gut because my gut has gotten me in 

[00:41:27] Jeff Sieh: [00:41:27] trouble. Yeah, I’ve got a big gut. And so thank goodness I have grapes here. It’s that? All right. She lets me, she’s given me so many chances, so it’s awesome. So, Ian says, yeah, he goes, and this is a good point.

[00:41:37] He goes, I think intelligence can be a hindrance to selling yourself. Overthinking is a problem. Yes. I think we’ve all Ian and I have talked about this. We’ve all done this, but I want to talk real quick about this, this, this new news. And I think this kind of. Fits right into it. Cause we talked about, you know, what skills are needed for this next generation.

[00:41:56] And Tik TOK is testing a new feature to help people apply for jobs within the app. So business insider reports that this job search tool is targeted to the gen Z and we’ll give participating companies access to interested applicants who will be able to use their Tik TOK videos as the resumes. So I think this is really interesting because.

[00:42:19] My kids, like they’re in their twenties, early, early twenties, and they’re, they’re coming to me like, Hey, I heard this financial advice on Tik TOK. And there’s like this whole FinTech on Tik TOK. There’s, there’s a whole subculture in there about how to invest. And I’m like, when I was in my twenties, I was thinking, investing in like, you know what, where I was going to do this weekend.

[00:42:40] I wasn’t thinking about long term. Yeah, exactly. And so I’m like, Oh my gosh. So I mean, It’s easy to dismiss Tik TOK as this goofy platform, but then they’re doing stuff like this. And I hear my kids getting, you know, sound financial advice for the most part on tick-tock. So, What does this mean for job seekers?

[00:42:57] Should they sh should this be part of like their digital presence? You know, how important is it for? Like when you’re you talked about those people who didn’t make the cut, how important is it to you that they have like a flawless social media presence? Like if you go, do you go back and look at their Twitter feed?

[00:43:14]Cause I am always wearing my kids. Like, you know, nothing ever goes away anymore. So. Be smart when you’re at parties or what you’re doing, you know, because it lasts forever. So I want to know, do you do that when you’re through that, you know, that scoring system, do you go in there and like, look at what they’re doing and then how much does that affect if you hired?

[00:43:33]What Do You Look For in a New Marketer?

[00:43:33] Brooke Sellas: [00:43:33] Yeah. That’s one of the first things we do. Obviously we go through and kind of scrub through some of the most recent posts on there. On their platforms. And I think everybody’s doing that. You know, my husband’s the CFO of a, of a national national staffing company. That’s one of the first places they look when they, when a resume lands on their desk.

[00:43:51] So I would say, you know, be presence of your social media should represent you personally. But if you’re going to have a public account for other people to see it should also, if you’re trying to get a job represent you professionally, too. So, and, and look at what’s happening on social, you know, the whole cancel culture thing.

[00:44:11] People are getting canceled for stuff they said years ago. Right. So, I mean, you really have to go through, I think, and especially if you’re in a hiring position, like, or you’re trying to get hired and scrub your sites to understand B. Prospective employers, point of view, don’t scrub out your personal self, be yourself.

[00:44:32] But I do think you want to make sure that you’re not coming across as snarky or racist or rude or whatever it may be to get you in trouble. 

[00:44:42] Jeff Sieh: [00:44:42] So one of the things I wanted to ask is like, You know, you mentioned this scoring system. What do you look for when you’re hiring? Are you looking, you know, long-term okay, this is gonna be best for my clients or this is going to be best for me.

[00:44:53] I mean, how, yeah, I’m really fascinated about your scoring system, but what is like the top thing you look for in a CA at a candidate?

[00:45:02] Brooke Sellas: [00:45:02] Probably those five core values. So.

[00:45:09] But how do we describe that as a team member? We say open and early communication. So do you communicate often, do you do it early? You know, one of them is being dependable. And what does that mean? It means obviously. Showing up, right? That’s a, that’s a layup, but it also means being the solution. So not just presenting problems, but also presenting potential solutions.

[00:45:30] When you find a problem, we call it building a better mouse trap. So it’s, it’s, these are a lot of soft skills. Honestly, we’re hiring on a lot of soft skills, but I feel like with what we do, soft skills are some of the most important things we’re looking for people who actually. Care. Right. And, and that sounds like, so like warm and fuzzy or like, you know, woo, woo.

[00:45:55] But he that’s where people have to sit. And what would found are the team players who actually care and come in and actually do do more than just check the boxes, had the most successful client relationships. Hmm. 

[00:46:13] Jeff Sieh: [00:46:13] That’s good. And I would love to know your thoughts on this. As we kind of wrap things up Martin asked this question, he goes, if you’re serious about your career management, you have to be on LinkedIn.

[00:46:21] If you aren’t, you are committing career suicide, executive recruiters, and other influencers use LinkedIn and Facebook to source talent. So this is one of the things that personally, I think that needs to be taught, you know, as long as LinkedIn is kind of that space for professional professional, you know, job search that they need to teach a class on this.

[00:46:39] So, yeah. Do you rely heavily on LinkedIn when you’re looking or do you go across all the social media platforms? 

[00:46:46] Brooke Sellas: [00:46:46] Well, mediums I’m, I’m very traditional. So I still look on LinkedIn, but I will say from the staffing company point of view, they’ve even kind of gotten away from LinkedIn being the one and only, I mean, it’s obviously still weighted very heavily, but they look at other social sites as well.

[00:47:03] Jeff Sieh: [00:47:03] Awesome. Awesome. Yeah, I think it’s it. It’s going to always be changing. And so you have to that’s one of the things that’s, I think that’s hard to teach is because, you know, as soon as you print a textbook on social media, out of date, you know, it’s just called yeah. It’s old, it’s gone. So I’m Brooke, this is fascinating stuff.

[00:47:21] I think this is important things that, you know, a lot of places aren’t talking about yet, but I, I. I cannot recommend you guys that you more that you go check out B squared.media. She’s got great stuff on there. Follow her on all the social. She’s amazing. But Brooke, I want to know where can peop what is that the best place that people will find you where where’s, where can they find Brooks Ellis?

[00:47:43] Brooke Sellas: [00:47:43] Yeah, so you can go to B squared.media. But you can also just Google Brooke. Celis it’s like the easiest Greek name on the planet. And so far, I don’t think I’ve found another Brooke Celis so I think, I think I’m the only Brook seller. So if you Google Brooke, Celis, you should find me wherever you want to connect.

[00:48:01] Obviously, Twitter is my favorite, but I’m on most of the socials and I’m happy to have the conversation there. 

[00:48:09] Jeff Sieh: [00:48:09] Yeah, that’s awesome. And of course, the amazing gray stuffy, where can we find you at? Because you know, everyone needs to find you. 

[00:48:17] Grace Duffy: [00:48:17] Well, if you want to get my attention, you need to be on Tik TOK.

[00:48:20] But if you want me to actually like talk to you and see what I’m doing, you need to come see the show. You need to come watch our show. You know, I want to invite everyone to join the restream community on Facebook. It’s something we recently launched and it has become I think. Matt Matthew Hughes King of video is in charge of mine.

[00:48:35] He has a team that moderates and they do such a great job. And he’s got such like little fun things each day. Like, you know, self promotion posts, how to do things post it’s a very good collaborative space. And then I’d also like to invite you to. Watch reachings YouTube channel, where we have a whole lineup of shows on how to produce a live show, how to be confident.

[00:48:56] Our friend, Ian, just launched a new show on how to turn your live show into a podcast called podcasts now. So those are the places where you can find me. 

[00:49:04] Jeff Sieh: [00:49:04] Awesome. And don’t forget to also check out our amazing friends over at Ecamm. You can find out more about them at social media news, live.com for slash cam amazing stuff.

[00:49:14] That’s how we’re doing the show and then restream streaming and everywhere. But if you can think of a live show and in your, in your crazy little brain, You can’t, you can’t can make it happen. It really can’t. So, make sure you check them out, but do not forget that we are also a podcast. You can find us on Apple, on Google, play on Stitcher, all the places you can find out more and subscribe to any one of those at social media news, live.com.

[00:49:35] It’s right there at the top. Subscribe to your podcast platform of choice. And our next show is on Friday, May 21st at 11:00 AM. Eastern 10:00 AM central. And we are having the amazing Natasha Samuel’s on the show. She’s going to be talking about the amazing new updates that are going on over on Instagram, because she’s fabulous over there and you can always find us on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Amazon live.

[00:50:00] And with that, we’ll see you guys next time. Bye now. 

[00:50:04] Grace Duffy: [00:50:04] Bye 

[00:50:04] Jeff Sieh: [00:50:04] everyone.