ANNE-MARIE LUGO
Hello everyone, welcome to Promo Perspectives, a new podcast by SAGE. I’m your host Anne-Marie, Senior Social Media Coordinator.
GABE GOTAY
I am her co-host Gabe Gotay, Senior Marketing Coordinator. We are so thrilled to be joined today by special guest Colet Williams, Digital Marketing Manager with PPAI. We’re here to talk about social media for promo pros.
PPAI just released their Online 18, it’s an annual list of the top-performing social media accounts in the industry. And today’s conversation is going to talk about some of the philosophies and strategies behind becoming a top social media performer.
Colet, thank you so much for joining us today.
COLET WILLIAMS
Yeah, thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here.
ANNE-MARIE LUGO
Yay. Um, so why don’t you go ahead and kick us off by telling us a little bit about your role at PPAI and kind of how you got started in the social media marketing world to begin with?
COLET WILLIAMS
All the things, right, right? We’re starting hot and heavy. Okay, so I’m the Digital Marketing Manager, so I touch everything digital. So that is everything from social. We’re working on a big website project right now. Um, so anything where uh, where you’re thinking anything that you see on the internet, it’s probably, it’s you, it’s probably, probably, yeah, more than likely it’s me.
ANNE-MARIE LUGO
Perfect. Yes, and so how did you morph into being this social media marketer? How did that all get started?
COLET WILLIAMS
Well, yeah, so I won’t date myself, but I am going to date myself because I’m going to tell you I jumped on social because my college professor was like, “There’s this thing called Facebook and you’re now going to get your syllabus on it.” Um, and so there it began. Um, and I think you know, everybody is on social. I mean, even my dad sends me TikToks. I’m like, “Dude, what are you doing on TikTok?” Um, so you know, obviously I had personal accounts and then just being a digital native that I am, I just dived into it and then started leveraging it. And I really, I really embraced it because my background is uh, communication, corporate communication, branding, all of that. And so it was just a playground for me to like try different ideas as a creative and see how they worked and throw them out there and see how people responded. And so I just kind of fell into it.
It’s awesome.
GABE GOTAY
How about we go ahead and date ourselves too? I’ll answer first, but what was your first social media account? Cuz mine was Myspace and I remember my first profile pictures where we took the digital pictures, digital cameras like this, and then checked on it. What was your first account, Anne-Marie?
ANNE-MARIE LUGO
I will tell on myself that I had very strict parents. I was not allowed to have Myspace. So my first wholesome social media account was Facebook, family, and friends. That’s all I was allowed to have.
GABE GOTAY
So diving into more the business end of things as you grew from personal social media to a professional social media marketer, what kinds of things do you find you prioritize in a social media strategy?
COLET WILLIAMS
So that is a bit of a loaded question. I will say for us at PPAI, what we prioritize at the end of the day is our community. Our online community really mimics our membership community. And so we really try to do everything we can to pour value into them through our social media, our online presence. So that really is a priority. And then I would say like, just even my personal socials, that’s the same. Like if I’m going to post, it’s not going to be like, “I love I’m a I’m kind of like a foodie, but I’m not going to be posting food,” right? It’s going to be something of value because I think I have some something to share, you know. So yeah.
GABE GOTAY
When you prioritize the community, would you say you’re mostly doing that through the content that you share, the way you directly engage with the audience, or a mix of both? Talk about that a little bit.
COLET WILLIAMS
Yeah, I think all of the above. I think um, we we prioritize being tightly aligned uh, listening to the needs of our community um, what they need, what they would like, and looking at what they’re responding to, not just on our socials, but you know, on being breasted and on top of like who they’re following, who they’re engaging with, and um trying to meet meet them where they are um for sure. And then I would also say looking at and making sure that how we show up is in in direct alignment with our um, our association goals, right? And then looking at those two and seeing how they come together so that we can be impactful when we put out a message on social.
ANNE-MARIE LUGO
Awesome. And so for our listeners, I know there’s a lot of people starting Ground Zero. Maybe they haven’t prioritized social media strategy at all. Um, so that word Community maybe spark something in them. What is something that they can do to start engaging in their own community on social media? What would, what would your advice be to them?
COLET WILLIAMS
My advice to them would be, stop posting and ghosting. Just stop doing it. So what do I mean by that? I mean like, when you’re showing up, be present, right? Just like in this conversation, like we’re present together, we’re you know, making eye contact, we’re engaging, we’re asking follow-up questions. And I think that a lot of times gets lost on social. So I think it’s really important to engage with people in an authentic way, ask questions, you know, be be be in wonderment of what people have going on. Um, and also respect that people are showing up for you, you know, uh, because I think what happens is we see people with you know, hundreds of thousands of followers, you know, like these mommy bloggers that you know, weren’t mommies when we started following them, and now they have hundreds of thousands of followers. And here you are trying to start your social channel, and you have 200 and maybe 20 of them are the folks that were following you on Facebook, your mom, and your aunts, right? But those people are still showing up for you. So when they’re commenting with anybody is commenting, respond back. I you know, my thing is like we never tried just to like a comment, we try to like and engage and you know, thank people for their time because people have other things that they could be doing, right? So for them to prioritize having a conversation with us is important to us. And so we want to honor that. Now, we may not be 100% perfect at it, right? It’s still a flawed system. We’re still people. We’re not AI, you know, but we really try to engage people in conversation whenever we can. So I think that number one, if you do that and you do that with intention, you will definitely see things start to brew.
ANNE-MARIE LUGO
I love that. Yeah, that actually reminds me of this conversation I had with one of my friends. She doesn’t do anything professionally with social media at all. She just, her mom, and her aunts. But she always, every year, gets so many birthday comments on her post, and she has yet to ever ghost anyone. She will comment, thank you to every single person. It’s not like, “Thanks everyone.” She will comment every single comment, “Thank you.” And I asked her one time, I’m like, “That takes, I mean, it’s like hundreds of comments. I’m like, that takes so much time.” She was like, “Well, if you were at a birthday party and someone goes up and like tells you happy birthday, would you just like turn around and walk away?” I was just like, “Um, okay, you need to do something with that.” Like, I feel like getting a t-shirt made. But she was like, “I want to tell them thank you.” I know. Is there a supplier that can give me a t-shirt? Um, so yeah, I just, that reminded me of that. It’s so true. If someone like walked up and handed you a gift, you wouldn’t just give them a thumbs up and like turn around. You would say, “Thank you, thank you for your time.”
COLET WILLIAMS
And you know what, Anne-Marie, that right there will set you apart because not a lot of people are doing it. Mhm, not a lot of people are doing it. So the minute that you divert from the crowd, you’re automatically going to be seen, you know what I mean, in a different light. So I love it.
GABE GOTAY
I think it it kind of ties into this idea that it can be easy to lose perspective when you are a business on social media versus besides running a business of social media. Most people’s experience is running their own personal social media pages, and they’re interacting as an individual with individuals. But I think people can forget when they become a business that even though they’re now a business interacting, it’s still individuals that they’re reaching out to.
COLET WILLIAMS
Yes, yes, 100%. I think that’s really important to keep that into perspective because, like you said, you will lose that really quickly and then you will just be seen as like another big corporation, even if you know it’s a team of three, right? So yeah, I think that’s really important.
GABE GOTAY
Let’s so let’s flip that point of view on you know, when you talk about content and engagement and you’re reaching these people, let’s flip from the view of you are one of these people. What kinds of things are you looking for that makes you want to engage with somebody’s social media profile or a business’s social media profile?
COLET WILLIAMS
So me as Colet, me or me as PPAI me?
GABE GOTAY
Let’s hear both, but start with Colet You.
COLET WILLIAMS
Okay, so I am a lifelong learner. So anybody that – and I have very little time just in general, like my schedule is packed – so any spare moment I have needs to feel my cup with value, right? And so I’m engaging with people who are bringing me value, who are uh, providing uh, who are aspirational accounts uh, who are adding to my knowledge base. Um, and that sounds all like philosophical. So I, I promise you, I’m not just all following like professors or anything like that. But I’m just saying like anybody who is showing up authentically and can show me a different perspective on a topic that I enjoy is who I’m seeking out.
Yeah, and then I think for a brand, engaging for us is a little different because we’re wanting to create Community, not that I don’t want to create Community, you know, on my personal channels. Um, but typically when you’re on your personal channel and you’re not showing up as a brand, that is already your community, right? Like those are the people who you can call up on the cell phone or go knock on their door. As a brand, I think it’s more about cultivating our community. So it is engaging with – again – with our followers who happen to be our members, right? It’s seeing what they have going on. It’s elevating them in the best way we can without trying to seem like we are, you know, um, picking favorites, but just celebrating what they’re doing if it’s in alignment with our goals and our missions as an association, right? Um, so I think there it’s nuanced, but it really is about providing value and gleaning value from our community. So it’s reciprocal.
GABE GOTAY
I think it’s an interesting point too that you talk about how you interact with these other people and the other people that you’re sharing the content with in that community. Because I think a lot of, especially people running their social media from a business perspective, they almost just look at it as a platform for publishing content marketing, and they’re completely missing out on the actual social engagement aspect of it, which is going to be both with the individuals in their social following community but also, as you’re talking about as a brand doing marketing, you also have to interact and be social with other brands and thought leaders. Does that play into your strategies at all?
COLET WILLIAMS
Yeah, I, I think so because you can’t grow in isolation, right? And I mean, I like to think that I know it all, but you know, Dale might think otherwise. But the point is like we don’t know everything. And in order to grow in, in order to understand, in order to elevate, not just our brand PPAI, but like this industry that really is our mission, right? Um, we have to be looking at other thought leaders. We have to be seeing what other people are doing. Um, and and taking that into account and engaging with them and asking probing questions and and and and being interested, right? Like really, that’s what people want on social. They want you to be interested, right? Instead of interesting.
And so what we try to do since I’ve, you know, taken the helm as the Digital Marketing Manager, is not to be so PPAI focused, like look at us, right? But to be interested and what else is going on and elevating that in that way, right? And uh, or on on social
GABE GOTAY
To take this is a little bit of a different direction, but we were talking about, you know, what, what makes good content, what kind of content are you looking for? Businesses, especially small businesses, they have to figure out who you are to determine their strategy, right? Who is the person that they’re trying to reach? Who is that community? And something that I found interesting about your Online 18 article was not only did it break down for each person on that list why you put them on the list because there were all kinds of different reasons for some people, it was the quality of their content. For some people, it was the kind of content they shared and engaged. But something that stuck out to me is you listed their biggest platform, which was LinkedIn for some, Instagram for others. So just, I would be kind of interested to hear from both of you, your perspectives on once you’ve determined who your audience is and what that message is, how does that impact the platforms you use and how you prioritize them?
COLET WILLIAMS
That’s a great question. So I think as a as any business, small, medium, large uh, it is important to understand who your IC is, who your ideal client is, who your online community is, and understand them so intimately, so not just their demographics, but their psychographics. How do they think? What do they feel? Where do they go eat? You know, where do they get their gas from? What kind of car do they drive? You know, things like that. So that you can really understand their thought process so that you can provide value to them, right?
So with that said, I think um, once you identify that, then you show up where they show up, right? So and you have to be okay with knowing that maybe it’s 80% of your folks are showing up here, and you have to be okay that the other 20% is over here. It doesn’t mean that you won’t visit the other 20%, right? It doesn’t mean that you won’t show up on other platforms. But in order to be of service, which is what any business or brand should be wanting to do on social media to elevate their, their brand and and you know, provide value, um, you need to show up where your people are, right? Just because you love a platform personally doesn’t mean that that’s where you need to be showing up professionally. And I think uh, a lot of people struggle because they’re comfortable with one platform over the other, but they’re folks aren’t where they are, right? What do you think?
ANNE-MARIE LUGO
No, I definitely agree because that’s one thing that I, I don’t struggle with, but I’m trying to be mindful of because Instagram is my favorite platform. Um, but LinkedIn is where our people are at. They love the copyrighting of LinkedIn. They love the story sharing. They love to see what we’re up to. Um, and so you know, a lot of times if I want to share something about, you know, what we’re doing here at SAGE or an update or what our, you know, we have a community Department that goes off and does like philanthropic work. So a lot of times I’ll just go and post something on on LinkedIn, and you know, people love seeing that. So I think seeing people where they are, and it goes back to your posting and ghosting, it you can discover that by looking your analytics. So like seeing what type of content performed well on this group versus another or if Facebook has you know, little breakout groups that you’re a part of, you can go and drop in with some of those associations. So I definitely think checking those analytics, seeing what content performed better on each platform, and then maybe you know, keeping it Diversified and cross-promoting, but at the same time, maybe putting a a bit more efforts towards like we have a LinkedIn newsletter that we prioritize, and it’s done really well with. So I think uh, just knowing your audience, reading the room.
COLET WILLIAMS
Yeah, yeah, that’s important.
GABE GOTAY
Well, and you kind of touched on the importance of, in a strategy, you have to a) have the consistency of not posting and ghosting, and then b) you need to measure and iterate. You need to take a look at, was that strategy successful? Did I hit the goals that I had? And you have to decide what those goals are.
So could you each talk a little bit about some specific KPIs that you might be looking at in certain instances or why you might use a certain mix and how you kind of set, test, and adjust your strategies?
COLET WILLIAMS
Yes, so I think we are constantly iterating, and we have different, different KPIs for different things. Um, so our KPIs for maybe a certain video post are going to be a little different than the KPI for the overall marketing plan or the runway for for a certain event or something like that. So I would say it’s kind of difficult, but but one thing we do not do is we don’t lean into uh, what I like to call Vanity metrics, right? So vanity metrics are, you know, just the likes, you know, uh, or the just the comments. Because my thing is if you are really digging in to your analytics and you, you know, you, you let me know if I’m on the right track here, but if you’re really digging into your analytics, then you’re not just looking at those what I call Vanity metrics because the algorithms, and we don’t, we’re not slaves to the algorithm, but the algorithms perform differently. And just because someone didn’t like your, your post, right? Just because somebody didn’t like your post, didn’t mean that they didn’t take the time to watch your post, right? And so when you watch someone’s post, it tells the algorithm that that piece of content is interesting. And you know, and then the algorithm is like, okay, well, this content is interesting to this account, this other account looks like that account. Let me push it out to more people, right? And so that in and of itself is really important to understand how people are engaging with your content so that you can understand what metrics it is that you need to be looking at because if we’re just looking at vanity metrics, then we’re never going to be able to iterate and really create a strong social media strategy.
ANNE-MARIE LUGO
Mhm, yeah, definitely. And I would, I think she had the nail on the head because just because you have a general message saying, you know, SAGE offers X, Y, and Z, it’s just general knowledge that you want your followers to walk away with, doesn’t mean that even if they didn’t like it, it doesn’t mean they didn’t see that message or they didn’t retain it. So whatever it is that your goal is, if you think about before you post, what do I want, want this follower to walk away with knowing? And then kind of backtracking that way, and then that will tell you like the type of content you want to produce or, you know, for like this webinar we’re promoting it, I’m going to make sure that they have a link to click through.
And maybe that’s our KPI, how many click-through links did we get? So I think just the content, the message, the platform, the analytics, there’s so many things that go into it. So
COLET WILLIAMS
Can I say something else that I just thought about when, when uh, you said the links? So I also think that a lot of us, especially when we’re small businesses or we’re, we’re, you know, small personal brands uh, we just want to get it done, right? Because we have a thousand other things going on, right? We’re the CEO of our company, we’re the janitor, we’re the financier, you know, and we’re the, the, the digital marketing, the social media person. And I think we can get lazy and forget those little things that are going to make the, that’s going to make your community um feel good.
So what I mean by that, we have a webinar, there’s a link to the webinar. You put the link in an Instagram post. That’s not clickable, and they can’t find it. They don’t know where to go. Nobody, you can’t even copy and paste it. It creates frustration, right? And it, and then it reflects poorly, even if it’s subconscious, on the brand. So I think also taking the time to show up, if you’re going to show up and do it full out, right, uh, to make sure that you’re easing that frustration and you’re making it easy for people to engage with you. We make it so hard for people to engage with us, and and take that next step because really, what we want is we want to get them off of social media and into our ecosystem, right? We, we want to, so it’s just an a, a means to an end. So that just popped up when you were like the link, and I’m like, yes, because there’s so many times you want to, you know, engage with a with a Creator or you want to engage with a business, and you want to support them, but they make it so difficult.
ANNE-MARIE LUGO
Mmm, yeah, it’s just another obstacle. Yeah, when that loading page takes too slow, you’re like, “You’re testing me. I’m about to exit out.”
GABE GOTAY
Well, I also think that the whole idea of getting them out of the social media ecosystem and into your ecosystem being the end goal can sometimes, I think, in some organizations, create a little bit of friction between the people who have a lot more experience understanding how social media really works and the top-down strategy people who just want to see those conversions getting there and don’t necessarily understand that it can be a long process to get to that end.
COLET WILLIAMS
Oh, it’s definitely the long game. If you do social right, it’s the long game, but it’s the best ROI, right? So I do think, and I think that’s why you know, people in this space are traditionally undervalued because people don’t really grasp the understanding of how social media works and how it plays into the overall sales process, right?
So, if you’re doing social media right, people aren’t forever engaging with you on your channel, right? They’re going over to your webinar, right? And then you’re sending follow-up emails, and you’re telling them about things that are coming out, and you know, there’s an email sequence with it, or they’re going over to your website and they’re clicking over there and engaging over there.
So, I do think that the misstep is that a lot of small accounts rely so heavily on social media thinking that they’re going to instantly get a return, and that typically is not the case, especially when you’re talking about you know, high volume or high-level sales. Like, it typically isn’t happening on social media. You’re nurturing people on social media and encouraging them to move off of social media.
You know, just the other… I mean, how many weeks has it been since Instagram went down and people were panicking? I mean, you know, it happens, you know. And so, if your total marketing plan is relying upon social media, you’ve already lost, right? Because we don’t own any of that data or those followers, you know. How are we going to be able to connect with them to move them down our funnel?
GABE GOTAY
This kind of ties into the importance of… if social media is your whole marketing strategy, like you said, that’s not setting you up for success. So, you have to consider the portion of your strategy that is social media. What are you doing with that?
And I read a study – I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on this – about the balance behind brand versus demand marketing on social media in particular. This study was about B2B businesses in particular, which of course, most of our viewers are going to be, yeah.
Um, and the stat that really stood out to me was that 95% of people who are viewing your content at any given moment on social media are out-of-market buyers, which is to say that at the moment they’re seeing it, they are not actively looking to purchase your product or use your service.
So, demand-driven marketing things like “These are my products and services, this is what they cost, here’s a sale, hop on this” – that’s not going to appeal to them in that moment. So, you need to use some of your time to build brand authority with those people as they are visiting it.
So, can you talk a bit about the importance of using a mix of the two and the differences between those kinds of marketing: brand and demand?
COLET WILLIAMS
Yeah, interesting study, and I think it’s spot on. Nobody wants to be spoken at all the time, right? We want to be spoken to. Nobody wants to be sold to all the time, you know. Like, I’m sure you could think of three or four accounts you’ve unfollowed because it’s just constant selling, right? Even like, even like in the blogging space now, everybody’s dropping a link, dropping a link, you know. They don’t do it strategically. It gets frustrating because your whole feed is “Here’s the link, I dropped the link, I dropped the link.”
So, with that said, I do think that um, well, we can’t constantly just be on social and not move them past. You have to ask for the sale at some point in time, right? So, that number one is important. But I do think, and I’m a big believer in education-based marketing, however you show up, right?
So, if you’re funny, you can still educate. It doesn’t matter and it doesn’t have to be boring, but people have to know, like, and trust you or the brand or you won’t be able to move them anywhere. As a matter of fact, you may get them to move in reverse and unfollow you, right?
So I think it’s important for you to establish yourself in that way as a thought leader in your industry, or you know, whatever it is you’re doing in your niche, by educating people on the value you have. You know, why is it important for them to integrate whatever it is you’re offering into their space, their life, or whatever their businesses are?
And I think you should be doing that the majority of the time and selling in between, right? So it’s like, uh, what’s the Gary V. “jab, jab, jab, right hook”? No, okay, okay. But basically, you know, you want the ratio to be like three to one, right? Where you’re providing some type of value and then you’re offering up on a platter, with ease, whatever your offering is.
And that doesn’t always have to be a thing, right? It doesn’t always have to be your product. Like, wow, you know, it could be your knowledge, it could be a call to action like “jump on a call” or “ask me a question,” it could be “look at this video,” right? Like, it doesn’t always have to be selling. But you do have to have a balance of the two.
Also, you have to look at marketing in cycles. Even if you’re not, you know, even if your background isn’t in marketing, you need to understand that there are cycles. So, if you know there’s a sale coming up, and you have this sale every year in November, then you need to be seeding those ideas, you know, what we call a “runway,” so 6 to 8 weeks depending on what it is, maybe even longer, and educating people about why they’re going to need the thing that you’re about to put on sale, right? Without selling to them.
And then when it comes to the sale, that’s when you show up and you ask people to swipe their AMEX card, right? But you’re not constantly hitting them over the head every time. Because then, what’s the value that you have to offer that is amazing?
GABE GOTAY
Honestly, all of your insights have been amazing. I think that after we wrap up here, because we are just about out of time, I think we might sit down and keep talking, which means we might be releasing some bonus episodes in the audio version of this podcast. So, if you want even more insight into your social media game, please stick around for those.
I want to say thank you again to Colette for joining us today in the studio. Thank you, it’s been fun. This has been so much fun.