Hey, welcome back. It is the Follow-Up Media podcast. My name is Christian Lee as always. I'm sitting next to my co-host, Riley Austin. Yes, sir. Yeah. How you doing? I'm super excited to be back. Are you? Yeah, we're always excited to be back. So, Follow-up Media is a full-ervice production and

marketing agency. We launch podcast, video content, manage traditional marketing for companies and businesses and also excel and overachieve on the digital landscape of things. And you know today we're going to be talking about something that I think we see Oh yeah. all the time almost with every

client we're onboarding. You know typically some businesses have in-house marketing teams. Some business might have no marketing team. Um, some might outsource to a company like Follow-up Media, which a lot of times is the smarter choice because dealing with an in-house team, you are bringing them

under your umbrella and chances are it costs a lot of money to, you know, have an employee. You know, you're paying them salary, salary and benefits. And if you have that corporate structure, that's great. But if you start looking even at a uh social media management, you're going to pay at least 60 grand.

And then if you offer them benefits, that employee is going to cost you probably closer to 70 potentially. Um, and you know what ends up happening is is these in-house teams, they end up wearing a lot of hats. They're not just the social media manager. They are running digital ads. They are maybe

handling your SEO. And the problem is you can't be an expert in everything. Yeah. You might know a lot about a little. That's very true. Or a little about a lot. Yep. Either way, it's not the exact recipe that you need. Right, Riley? Yes. I mean, that's why we have different teams in between our companies

because you, like you said, you can't one person can't have a hat in in all of the algorithms because it just not going to be able to work unless they study it 24 hours a day and have been able to have real world examples of each individual algorithm because it changes every day. Yeah. Per platform. I mean

each social media platform has its own ecosystem and that platform responds differently to different types of posts. You know, you got to look at social media as an essential part of your business because it is your digital storefront. I mean, no doubt about it.

You're essentially going, "Hey, I'm over here. use us versus the next guy. Yeah. Because this is why. And and you know, and through various methods of content, whether it be static posts, it could be video snippets, it could be promo clips, could be anything that is specifically designed and aligned with your audience.

And it is. It's an essential tool. Don't you think, Riley? Oh, yeah. Oh, it's exactly right, Christian. I mean, social media has become a digital storefront for most businesses and or small or big, doesn't matter what what it is. Um, it's where your customers are able to hang out, able to binge watch, able to go on

at night, in the morning on sometimes texting and driving. I know you guys text and drive out there, seeing at the red lights, you're checking out Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, all the platforms. And they're not just marketplaces. They're pretty much their own entity. You're right. You know, I

mean, and I have a confession to make cuz you said something about taxi and driving and and don't think of me as a bad person. But I watch 90% of my TV shows and movies in the car while I'm driving.

Oh man, this is Le don't hate. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I don't have any other time. My kids hog all my TVs. My wife hogs the TV. I don't ever get to watch what I want to watch and either I'm on social media or I'm watching um Land Man in the car.

Yeah. So, that's my confession for the day. You probably don't want to do that. And please don't not use follow-up media because I watch TV and drive. It's better than drinking and driving. Maybe.

Or is it? Texting and driving is pretty bad. It is pretty bad. I mean, but here's the thing. My phone is on the dash, okay? It's it's up there and it's I've got one eye on the road, one eye on the uh TV. That just shows you how val valuable it is. People can get it at any time of the day. Exactly. And you can

watch content any time of the day. And actually that proves a great point because you don't know when your customers might have the same configuration as me and might be watching your content while driving and just hopefully it won't be boring and you won't just put them to sleep. Yeah.

So with billions of active users globally, social media is going to provide some unprecedented access to an audience. But here's the thing. Just being on these platforms isn't enough.

It isn't. You need to have and post the right content at the right time in the right format. This is going to be key, right? Because you're going to need to know how to engage with each platform's algorithm. And I say that, and it might not be you, but it needs to be your in-house team. They need to know all of

these things. Now, do I know all of these things? I know a good enough amount of information, but I have the right people in the right positions to handle our clients social media. And so, that's why I could say with 100% confidence that we have experts on staff that can handle it, that know these

algorithms. They study it to their own detriment. They might not have a good home life, but they definitely will manage the hell out of your content. All right. Yeah.

All right. Anyway, what else you got, Riley? So, yeah, just piggyback on what you said. Um, this is where it gets kind of tricky. A lot of businesses or their in-house marketing team that handle their social media, there is a downside of that. The main issue is specialization or even lack thereof.

They're juggling email campaigns. are juggling websites, um, updates, strategies, meetings, you name it. But yeah, social media plat or social media isn't a one-sizefits-all. Like you said at the beginning of this podcast, it's each individual platform has its own rules, algorithms, um, had its own

audience behaviors. So like like you said, I believe it was the other podcast you were talking about how Instagram uses more hashtags than Facebook. And yeah, those are just the little minor things that that go into it, but it it's way different than people may think than just posting a cool caption that you

just let it go out. Totally. What works on LinkedIn isn't going to work on Tik Tok. And those rules constantly change. And if your team isn't keeping up with the changes, with the algorithm, you know, tweaks that all these platforms are doing, you're losing opportunities to connect with your audience and

therefore making your effort and your in-house marketing team's, you know, ROI that much harder to get to, right? I mean like if if they don't know the differences, it's going to be a problem.

And you're going to wonder why is our ROI from these posts and through these initiatives, through these ad campaigns, why are we not getting any reward, right? And so, not to mention many in-house teams, they don't have time to experiment or analyze the data to see what's working. they end up posting

what's easiest, not what's most effective. Let's break down some of these platforms. How should businesses approach each platform, Riley? Yeah, let's start off with one of the biggest ones, Instagram. Um, think about reals, think about stories, carousel posts. The algorithm prioritizes and engagement.

So, the content has to be sharable. um save worthy so people can be able to send it to their friends or people that they think that they maybe they need this business. LinkedIn, this is where thought leadership shines, right?

Articles, professional updates, employee spotlights, all that stuff does really well on LinkedIn, but it's not the place for memes or overly casual content. Yeah, Tik Tok short form video king as long as Tik Tok doesn't get banned in the US again. Um, but those trends on Tik Tok drive engagement. So staying

relevant requires quick thinking and a certain amount of creativity there, right? Yeah, for sure. Um, cuz people can just easily just boop boop. And those are just three of the platforms.

Add Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, Twitter or now X to the mix and it's a full-time job just to keep up. I mean, in all seriousness, you need experts because you need people who live and breathe social media. They can't be focusing on other marketing initiatives and

effectively create posts that not only engage but also have the right calls to action. They're welldesigned. They have impact and they represent your brand in such a way that it doesn't look janky.

Yeah. In all honesty, right? Yeah. And it they can help you avoid common mistakes like over promoting ne uh neglecting engagement or even ignoring the importance of how consistency is so important. So we're going to give you just an example and of and if you're listening to this and you know the

difference between a good post and a bad post, that's fine. But, you know, if you're a business owner and you have an in-house marketing team, you might go look at one of the posts they're doing and see if it fits these metrics and these kind of guidelines. So, here is an image of a good post and a bad post. On

the left side, you will see a good post. Okay, the visual elements are crisp. They're professional. Uh, it's a behind-the-scenes photo of a podcast session. The lighting is bright, the branding is clear, and it's in an engaging atmosphere. The onscreen text, look at it. It's great. Launch your

podcast with confidence. Right? Strategy studio postp production. And here's your call to action. DM launch for a free consultation. Right? The key characteristics of this is a clear message. Follow-up media helps launch podcasts and build brands. It's got a clean design. It's visually engaging.

And the CTA, the call to action, is effective. It encourages direct DMs, and that's an engagement with a specific keyword. Branded, uses our company colors, and the vibe is consistent. Now, to the right, it is a bad post. It sucks.

Some people think that this oh this is a great post and well I mean there is a there is a line of thinking that something is better than nothing and if it's bad it could actually be hurting your brand instead of because it it's it's saying to the audience and your audience that you don't have the team to

put a clearly high end visual out there for them. Yeah. So like on the right side look at this. You've got a lowresolution screenshot of a Zoom call.

Yeah, you're showing some people in action if you could make out if they're a girl or a guy. Um, no, it's not that bad, but it's got poor lighting. It's got no central subject, and it's got a pretty unprofessional look. The onscreen text says, "Great meeting today. Excited for what's next." Well, that's pretty

damn vague. What's next? Yeah. I mean, you know, is it four people in their natural habitat? Like I mean, like what's next, right? The hashtag dump has no focus. The message vague. It doesn't tell the audience what the business does. And the biggest problem that we see with a lot

of in-house marketing teams and even some outsourced marketing teams, there's no CTA. or do there is nothing for the viewer to do or engage with. It just goes to say like anything in life. If you don't ask for it, you have no right to it. Very true. So, put in what action you want the audience to do. That

doesn't mean you're going to get it every time. Yeah. It doesn't mean you're going to get it 90% of the time. It doesn't mean you're going to get it half the time. But I promise you this, you'll get it zero% of the time if you don't ask for it. Right? The quality uh

visually poor and the whole post is unmemorable. It lacks story. It lacks emotion and it lacks any sense of value for the audience, right? Who cares about what's next? I mean, that could be maybe is when I read that I think what are they going for a steak next like what are they going to get a salad like

what's what's happening next right there is nothing of value for the audience except a big ass tease oh 100% now a tease put in the right place with the right hook that could be good but there's nothing valuable in that right side post right And so here's the takeaway. If I could give you one piece

of advice to try to improve social media, it's going to be invest in the right people. Social media is a powerful tool, but only if you have the expertise to use it effectively. Don't be afraid to outsource or bring in specialists like follow-up media when you need to. I mean, what do you think about that,

Riley? Do you have anything to add? Yeah, I mean we work with a lot of um sometimes we take them over because maybe the the company is not doing their their right job after we talk to them or we have complimented a marketing team as well whether it's in-house or outsource.

We've we work well with with everyone. We can play nice when we want to. That's exactly our mission isn't to remove all elements of an in-house or outsourced team. If they are doing their jobs effectively in one area, we have no problem working with them. Actually, we can learn from them potentially. Yeah.

You know, maybe what not to do. That's true. Or maybe what to do. There are amazingly talented graphic designers out there. Um, and there are amazingly talented social media experts out there who live, breathe, and sleep social media. and they know the algorithms, they know the

ecosystems and they can drive results and represent your brand correctly. you know that right post that was my post I created the no um no but uh and you know those examples aren't even follow-up media's posts like the good or the bad actually I would think the good one still feels falls short of what we craft

on a weekly basis for our company or what our team does but that being said but it is a kind of a good example example though of just a basic, you know, what's good about it and its effectiveness, you know, to the outside audience. Um, and to the audience, that good post, they don't know that, you

know, I think it sucks. Yeah. Visually, but its message was good and from a the quality of the photo was good. I mean, it was effective and could be effective to the outside audience. I don't think it was super brand aligned. I would have dressed it up a little bit differently, but it is a prime example of, you know,

a post that can get interaction, engagement, and still has value versus the one on the right, which completely sucked and somebody phoned in. I don't know if you've ever uh seen this or I'm sure you have because I have seen it multiple times, but companies and a lot of business owners like like you guys

have thought, oh my god, I can just hire someone at the front desk that have sometimes the background or sometime another job have done or sometime have done social media. Oh, that's perfect for or maybe they're young and just because they're young, you think that they know social media. So, I can kill

two birds with one stone and get the same effect. I can get work out of them at the front desk and answering calls and I can get social media without getting someone like Follow-up Media to be able to do any kind of social media like that or marketing. Yeah. I mean follow-up media I mean I mean in any

company if they're worth anything it's going to cost right to manage a businesses or brands social media presence it requires a lot of time and it requires a lot of expertise. you are essentially putting your storefront digitally in the hands of in-house or outsourced of of that team or that

person. And so you just need to make sure that they have the knowledge and the experience to manage your digital storefront effectively representing your brand and providing value to your defined audience. Yeah. And essentially, and that's what we're going to leave you with today. If you want to subscribe,

the Follow-Up Media podcast is available on all major podcasting platforms. You can subscribe on our YouTube channel. Check out followupdmedia.com for more information.

We would love to sit down and have a consultation with you. If you have questions, feel free to join the show, too. You can message Riley directly at 1800 ducklove.

Whoa. Whoa. Are we really going to leave with that? Yeah. Yeah. Riley's um numbers on the bathroom stalls in many locations around the world globally in in the Ukraine. 1800 Ducklove. Yep. He's representing Yep. very popular in Yugoslavia. I'm just playing. 1800

Ducklove. Riley Austin.