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FreeDive Podcast
Welcome to the FreeDive Podcast, your go-to source for all things digital marketing!
Join hosts Kristy and Anna-Lynn every Tuesday at 5 AM EST as they dive deep into the dynamic world of digital marketing. From SEO strategies and social media trends to the latest in AI and video marketing, we cover it all.
Brought to you by Seapoint Digital, a leading digital marketing agency, our podcast offers valuable insights and practical tips that have propelled us to success in the industry. Whether you're a business professional, entrepreneur, or digital marketing enthusiast, you'll find something to inspire and inform.
Tune in for special guest interviews with industry experts who share their experiences and success stories. Join us on this exciting journey and navigate the currents of growth, strategy, and innovation with the FreeDive Podcast.
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FreeDive Podcast
Social Savvy with Kristy, Part 2: Picking the Perfect Platform for Your Business
In Part 2 of our "Social Savvy with Kristy" series, host Kristy dives into the world of social media platforms, helping you determine which one is the best fit for your business. Whether you're just starting out or looking to expand your digital presence, this episode is packed with essential insights.
Kristy begins by guiding you through three crucial questions: What is your goal? Who is your ideal customer? Who are you as a brand? With these answers in mind, she explores the unique features and benefits of major social media channels, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, and TikTok.
Learn how each platform can help you achieve your business objectives—whether it's improving SEO, developing your brand identity, or engaging with your audience. Kristy also provides a surface-level look at the pros and cons of each platform, helping you make informed decisions.
To wrap things up, she shares tips on crafting a strong social media strategy and offers suggestions for success in the ever-evolving digital landscape. Tune in and get ready to elevate your social media game!
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welcome back to another episode of the free dive podcast I am of course your host Kristy Billingslea you know I decided today to record at my desk we're you know we're trying it out we're mixing things up I had been recording at my studio desk and I was not enjoying the vibe the lighting you know we're just like everything else with this podcast we're just trying different things and that's my story anyway um happy Tuesday thank you for being here we are once again doing an episode about being socially Savvy um you know my last episode it uh it had some pretty funny um feedback and I did uh some polls on Instagram within the last couple weeks and I got pretty funny feedback on that as well so if you participated in those polls um I thank you I appreciate you I see you um but we just asked about the things that you do and do not like to see on podcasts and the way that you use and view your podcast and it's all very helpful and I'll probably continue to um be using those polls to get better feedback to continue to make this podcast um better for your viewing pleasure so um anyway the social scene is constantly changing so much so that the um the research and the notes that I had taken for this episode I had to change even just over the weekend because things on Instagram and other things change that quickly and that leads me into the updates I would like to give you the first one is very exciting probably I don't know 90% exciting for me and 10% exciting for you uh if you listened to my last social Savvy episode you may know that I was lamenting about how one of the very slow ongoing Instagram updates was that there were some users that were getting um 10 plus uh limits on their carousels so some users were able to post more than 10 pictures on carousels on posts and I had not yet been one of them I am now one of them I have been I have been given access so I assume that this means also for you you will also be able to post more than 10 pictures on your Carousel slides if that's something that matters to you I don't know for sure that it's open to every everybody I'm assuming I I have been seeing more and more people doing it now um and ALS and once I realized this I was also like I don't even know that I will use this why I was so bent out of shape about not having that as an option to me and then once I got it was like I don't even know how often I'll use this maybe post three pictures in a carousel anyway but anyway um check it out go to your Instagram see if you have the option to post more than 10 pictures in your Carousel so that's a fun update second update this this one is the most exciting to me and I posted it um on our story recently that um you can now add a song to your profile page guys when I tell you I was just so excited when I saw that and the millennial in me was just screaming bringing back all these Myspace s features picking a song don't know how to do that I'm I'm just like this is going to have to be constantly rotating like it just feels like you're just like putting your identity into one song on your page if yeah you're starting to get to know me and this is how I am with music and I just I tried to upload one for C Point's business page and could not figure out how to do that so that's something that I'm still working through figuring out if you figure it out first like power to you message me DM me comment me let me know um that leads me into another thing I was not going to talk about but I did remember um on Spotify you have the option now I honestly don't really know how long this has been an option but to comment uh leave us comments directly in the episode and we can comment back to you which is kind of cool and we've gotten a few comments and it's been a really fun way to engage with our listeners um and just see that people um are listening and enjoying certain things and responding to certain things that you know we're talking about in the episodes and things they're enjoying and I don't know if you're things you're not enjoying or whatever we love feedback so feel free to hop in the comments and say whatever you want so these are all the updates and now we're going to get into the episode So today we're talking about um we're going to kind of break down all of the social media platforms or most of them and as a um business owner as a company or just as a person um what social media platform do you belong on sometimes uh you know as a company as a business owner it's hard to know where it's worth investing your time there's so many options to choose from and you know if you're busy a busy person running your company it's like why am I wasting my time also playing on social media um how can I leverage social media and how can I be doing it um correctly so we're going to talk about that and we're not going to get too deep into every um every channel but we're going to kind of just skim the surface of each so um we can kind of break down what they each are for later episodes kind of like we did with Instagram already we'll get a little bit more into the the meat of them uh but for now we're just going to kind of skim the surface um and break it down so how can you leverage these platforms well we're going to start with asking a few questions what who where um so starting with what what is my goal what's your goal with social media so um is your goal to increase sales are you trying to um connect are you trying to build a brand what's in it for me what do you what do you want out of this and who is my ideal customer so uh or Target Market who are you trying to reach in social media so uh also who am i b Toc EDB we're going to reflect on all of these questions before we make any decisions about how to build and where to build so we're going to keep all of these in the back of our head and then we're going to move forward okay um so what social media allows you to do so first of all it allows you to develop your brand and your voice okay so um again going back to your goals thinking about who your customers are you can use social media as your platform to show off who you are and then also to listen to your audience and what they want so social media is a good way to have back and forth uh other other forms of marketing especially if you go way back before digital marketing there wasn't a lot of option to have a back and forth um with your audience you know think about what I was just talking about with being able to comment on Spotify with me you know it's a fantastic way to get feedback um Instagram stories is another great example how often I can just get a quick DM based on something that I you know post to to my audience so um yeah listening to your audience it's a great way to improve SEO people don't often think about social media and how that's SEO um but it's on the internet right so everything gets put out with keywording and you are improving your SEO this is an interesting point customers are more likely to sign with spend money with and work with a company that they know and can interact with on social media why is that well because social media humanizes us right so think about companies that you follow on social media people that you know you're more likely to trust them they more likable to you you're more likely to want to work with them because you know them you can interact with them so um that is a good reason alone so now we're going to break down the wear where should you be um how many platforms should you be on well you know especially if you're time limited it would probably be best to pick one or two and really devote your energies to that and then if you felt the need to be on more than that maybe have a presence there but not devote all your energies to them depending on what kind of company you are you know again a company like us being a digital marketing company there you know there's a bit of a an element of expectation to be on everything however if you are um any kind of you know e-commerce or service or contractor or whatever um less of that expectation but we're going to break down where you want to spend your time so let's start with Facebook so Facebook is one of the most popular social media channels um and one of the biggest so the benefits of Facebook is you can display highly customizable targeted ads fantastic place um however downsides to Facebook is meta can be a little bit complicated uh in my if we're going to step out of facts and go into Christy opinion for a second I find it to be irritating and complicated part of that could just be because I just don't I don't find it super user friendly and intuitive I don't know why I just have never I'm not a super Facebook girly and I don't I just don't enjoy using it and so when it switched from like original Facebook to meta and you know the meta sweet Studio thing and combining Instagram with it and putting all your me messages and ads and I just G my brain hated it but that could just be my brain and not at all you so I find it to be complicated a little bit harder to navigate and learn um and then again Facebook comes with more competition especially with especially with ads um but again the ability to display these highly targeted ads super big benefit Instagram Instagram began as a photo sharing app and as we know it has since morphed and grown into something much bigger um big place for Brands um and it has so many different Avenues and ways of using and sharing it has stories reals live stream shops so fantastic place for e-commerce for your selling products um and a great place if what you're sharing is videos Imaging infographics things like that so Instagram has a wide variety of of ways to use um I find it to be more user friendly personally maybe that's why I like it more
um yeah so in e-commerce I think is does pretty well there I find it to be um more of a millennial gen z uh demographic but I also find that it is for everyone Twitter shorten to the point messaging so uh it's good to connect with customers similar like Facebook uh but the through simple smaller messaging um good for sharing your brand uh at link sharing gifts this is really a a good place for information and brand uh personally I I've really struggled with Twitter throughout the years it used to be just a place I would hang out when I was watching football or The Bachelor or whatever streaming live um I do like Twitter for things like events um it's interesting how hashtags have really worked well for that so if we're at a if we're at a conference like inbound big conference in Boston and just using the yearly hashtag how quickly and easily we can connect with other people that are there just through a hashtag and it's like IM immediately I know people who are there and what they're doing and where they are um and I find that to be pretty impressive and it's so much simpler through through Twitter than any other platform so I find that to be the most useful in that way YouTube the second largest search engine so um it's a good it's a place for complex con complex content so namely video marketing um now they introduced Shorts YouTube shorts and initially I was just so angry with that I've got to tell you I'm like if they create one more new form of social media I'm going to lose it I am managing too much and why do we need it I was just and I still a little bit feel that way however what I've learned I just here's I'm trying to train myself instead of being annoyed to collect information instead and I'm still working on it and what I have learned through shorts is um people that are using shorts like Instagram uh like like reals and like uh Tik Tok um it's a great place to use a clip of your longer form YouTube video and connect a you can connect your link to your longer form content so for instance um what I'll do for the podcast for instance is is create a short of a podcast episode and then um link the full episode in the so it has it has twice as much chance to be seen so for that I'm finding it I'm like less annoyed now I understand how to use it and this is a really good example of you just need to know how to use tools and I need to stop being so annoyed by everything Pinterest uh inspiration station also great place for e-commerce products Services through pins place for ideas the downside I have found is that uh sometimes Pinterest can punish you for not posting correctly uh the with the right Imaging sizing and all that stuff it takes a little bit of learning uh just like all every social channel right there's some rules to how to do things right and therefore be seen and we'll talk about that in future episodes breaking down each Channel but um excellent place for e-commerce and products if you've got products to sell there's there Pinterest is where you want to be LinkedIn business networking useful especially for B2B marketing um professionals offering their expertise it's a good place for job openings in your company uh good place connect with your employees uh share stories so whether you're an employer or an employee if you're looking for more work if you have work to offer I feel again we're going into Christy opinion time but I feel like it's a pretty strong correct opinion uh everyone all business professionals should be on LinkedIn um now do you need to be like crazy active on there not necessarily um but think it's a good place to generate leads um for all kinds of things but um like Facebook you know you can Target your leads um for whatever so I would say at the very least create yourself as a person a LinkedIn profile leave it alone after that if you must Tik Tok again for e-commerce short form videos only targeting you know they say it's targeting a specific demographic but I think it's growing um you know when it first started even there was this like perception even within our own company like oh that's just for like younger people that's for kids that's for teenagers uh and it's not um there are people of all types like all ages selling their products and um marketing their services listen I can't tell you how many things I've bought off the Tik Tok Tik Tock shop I'm not even ashamed of it uh I could do a whole video on everything I've bought and listen it's been good stuff it's been really good stuff I'm really excited about it I should really I'm telling you I should be sponsored for something because things that I have found through the Tik Tok shop because of people normal people just being like I use this thing and you should too here's how great it works and then them putting it on their face or cleaning their shower with it or whatever and I'm like I want that now too and I hit the buy now option and it's mine so easy easy marketing and easy sales get yourself on Tik Tok if you have Ecommerce so um so those are your some of your platform options obviously there's more uh those are the big ones so uh now we're going to go into having a good social media media marketing strategy so things you need to establish and know you need to know your brand identity so this is the messaging that you want to convey uh also your audience who is this for everything that you're creating content of you have to kind of have you know at before during and after who am I making this for who do I want to see this and what do I want out of it and in this content uh connected to that in the content how will this help me how will this help my audience so again having these goals in the back of your mind because there's a purpose to all of it right things you should continue to do watch your activity when are people on each platform this is a really tricky thing to learn and it may take time so this is where analytics can come into play because there may be time like obviously if you're posting things in the middle of the night and people are not on Instagram in the middle of the night like people are not going to see it right what are they doing what are they liking what are they not liking so you use all of these all of these things to your advantage and this connects to the next thing analytics we're not going to create content in a bubble so you know we're not again we're not just making all of this for nothing it all is a purpose um but what are the numbers telling me okay so we're going to follow the numbers and we're going to use them to our advantage to make decisions in the future set goals often so once again circling back to the beginning what is it that I want from this and use the analytics to help you do that suggestions for Success so be consistent and that can be really tough um and that kind of requires a strategy and plan sometimes that might work better for you to kind of create a batch of content uh and then just if you have a a scheduling um app or program or you know if you're using a CRM getting things scheduled out if you're kind of more of a rolling b-roll throughout your day uh and collecting content and then using it and posting it later you have to work do what works best for you uh if that's hiring a social media team to come in and film for you if you have not yet listened to my episode with Kyle Figaroa go on back and do that first like shut this off and do that because social media genius um he's doing social media in the most brilliant beautiful way so take everything he has to say and do that and then think how they think so you know how how how do you use social media what kind of things do you like to see and then make similar content so sometimes sometimes when I'm creating my content especially if I'm making a video I try to think about the things that annoy me that I see on social media and then I don't do that so for instance if I'm watching a Tik Tok and I think oh the music is too loud I cannot hear what they're saying I then use that to go okay when I'm making my next Tik Tok make sure the music's not too loud things like that or uh trending songs ones that you like use save them uh and use those ones trends that you like um things that you enjoy seeing do those things things that you don't like the things that irritate you on social media don't do those things so it's a it's a lot of watching and following and observing and creating content based on those things right
engage so you have to you have to play well to make friends uh it's not a lot of sitting back and just hoping that everyone just likes all of your posts and comments on your posts and share your posts but you don't have to do anything you have to engage back with other accounts especially your own followers your own audience in order to get it in return right and this doesn't really take a lot it doesn't take a lot you can spend you know some time at the beginning of the week or a little time each morning just liking a few things and making a nice sincere comment on something sharing something on your story uh that's similar or on LinkedIn scrolling through your feed and and liking some stories or reposting them everything I think on all of these platforms you can repost content so you know that's a really good way to engage I've met many actually of my guests that I've had on the podcast uh people that have met at conference is simply through social media uh because I commented on their things or they commented on ours uh it's a great way to connect meet people and even get clients or business take advantage of tools so um you you know there's so many tools that are built right into these apps um or apps that you can use to make your your job simpler so there's templates that are built in uh there's music that's built right in filters editors um things like that that make making content so much easier so you know cap Cut's a good one um Snapseed is a uh photo editing app that I really enjoy makes editing pictures much easier uh AI is such a good tool now that um you know use that to your advantage especially when it comes to coming up with ideas chat GPT start your week just give feed it as much information as you can and uh ask it to create a social media plan for the week for you tell it who you are tell it what you need now write me out a a Content strategy for the week uh including including um copy and what kind of Imaging or videos to use just feed it all everything you need and have it spit it out to you it will create a social plan for you you know and it may not be it may not be the final plan that you're going to use but it will at least get you know it'll get the juices flowing and honestly I think a lot of the time the final copy that it gives you you should it should not be the final copy that you post and most times it shouldn't you should edit it and make it you uh be authentic but the point is use all of these tools to your advantage make your life easier repurpose and recycle so you work so hard on all all this content you don't want to just post it once uh especially if you're doing things like blog posts you know those are super recyclable pulling quotes from them uh um and turning them into infographics turning them into videos uh videos that you make you can reshare again later um on your story turn those into pins you know share them across different platforms if it's appropriate and when so use everything that you've already worked hard to make and share it again later now different platforms recycle it use hashtags and keywords so this is delicate and could really be a really needs to be a whole other episode because there's just so much Nuance to using them correctly but I think we all understand the basics of keywording and with hashtags um the way to use them has really changed so much over time and over the different platforms and some people are of the opinion that you shouldn't use them at all and some people are of the opinion that you need to use like 100 still um and to sum it up I think the safe root to take is sticking between 3 to five and being as specific to what this post is about as you can doing a mix of long form and short form uh keywords so uh you know it has to be relevant to what you're talking about if you're making a post about um uh if you're making a Blog about SEO you don't want to tag it to have anything to do with the summer of 2024 just cuz we're in the summer of 2024 that's not categorizing it properly so stick to stick to as close to the topic as you can three to five uh and do a couple of short form and long form so you get a little bit more broad a little bit more specific on the topic and that will categorize you in a few different places and help your discoverability and then once again going back use your analytics to your Advantage so uh this would include your click-through rates your reach your engagement and then your conversion ba conversion rates so what's working what's not working each social media platform has some level of analytics um some of them are better than others and maybe you're using uh other tools connected to your social media to help you um if they're connected to your you know your Google or whatever um but use use what you have to your advantage so uh if you can see that you're getting profile clicks on a certain post or even just how many likes you're getting on certain posts and how many shares you know use that to say okay this is content that's doing well that people like these ones are not I'm going to make more of this content and maybe not I won't do as much of this kind or the time of day that I'm posting this did better um or compare things like image posts are doing better than videos or you know infographics are doing better than just static images you know you have to you have to kind of compare if your brain works better by doing a dock put it in a dock um whatever works best for your brain that's what you're going to work with and uh you will get there so that's uh that's just like a brief overview of some options some questions to ask yourself um and uh depending on depending on who you are and what kind of company you are uh hopefully you can use those questions uh to make some decisions that are helpful to you so that is all the information I have for you today and um based on the response and feedback I get from this is when I how I will decide where to go next time um thank you for being here I hope this was helpful if it was helpful please let me know again in the comments and um please subscribe like review all those things you know you know how it goes um I really appreciate you appreciate you being here um once again please go back and listen to Kyle's episode I'm just very excited about that one I just think that he's a very um intelligent person I have had so many good guests previous I've got more guest good guest episodes on the way in the weeks to come so uh if you're in the marketing realm and you have some insight you want to share with us please message me I would love to meet you I would love to interview you I love meeting new people making new friends so we're having fun we're wrapping up the end of summer guys I don't know how that happened but here we are so okay thank you so much for being here hope you're all having a great week and we'll see you next time
