Social Media How Can my Local Business Leverage it S1E5

KLT Authority Podcast Season 1, Episode 5. Welcome to the KLT Authority Podcast, where we help you grow your business by leveraging the power of the internet and the technology that it offers. Here are your hosts, Big Shannon and Little Shannon. Yeah, that's right. The power couple with the same name. What's going on, everyone? Welcome back to another episode of the KLT Authority Podcast. My name is Shannon. And I'm Little Shannon. That's right, the power couple with the same name. Back with another episode. Today's going to be great. We're going to be talking about social media. And should I be using social media for my business? Absolutely is the answer. Yeah.

It's one of those things that is free, free, free advertising. Yeah, back in the day. Well, it's funny. Back in the day, we always would say the Yellow Pages. He who has the biggest ad wins. And today, it's he who has the most authority online wins. Now, there's caveats to social media and local businesses. And that's why you're listening to this podcast because you probably, we just said, yes, definitely free advertising. You're like, social media is garbage. I have never, ever had it work for me. It's horrible. It stinks. And I hate you. And no one ever calls and says they heard about me on Facebook and all the work and energy I put into it. Exactly.

So we're here to give you a little bit of information on why. You're wrong. Just kidding. Not really. You're wrong and we're right. Just listen to us. No, but at the end of the day, it does work. However, it works differently for local businesses than it does for other types of businesses. So we need to use it the proper way in order to get the absolute most out of it. And we're going to be discussing some of that and how it works all in today's podcast. I almost said video. Right. And I think we start with like our first obstacle when we meet with the company, when they are trying to build their presence online and gain that authority.

They say, well, I'm not really comfortable doing social media. I don't want to be in front of the camera. Right. And lots of people don't want to be in the camera and on the camera because we are. That's why we do a podcast. We don't have to look at my ugly face. Right. You know, so forget it. Just do podcasting and you can talk and no one has to look at you. No, not true. But what we always tell business when we're meeting with them is I think the thinking of being in front of a camera is how professional you need to be. And of course, you do need to be professional because it's your business. However, you need to be you. We go back to the KLT, the know, like and trust.

We have clients that use social media and they are flat out themselves. Like if you were to see them with their family or see them in a restaurant or see them in a bar or see them in their business atmosphere, like there you get what you get. And so social media for them, it isn't like they're trying to turn something on and turn something off. However, you know, we work with practices, doctors, things where the doctor is like, I don't really want to be on the forefront, but you have staff members, a lot of younger people that are used to being on camera. And it's all about the information, the content that you're going to put out in that live video, whether it's Instagram, Facebook.

I know we'll go into all of that later and what you should be using. But there's ways around. It doesn't always have to just be you. But I will say the more you do it, the more comfortable you get. I used to hate it. I hated being on camera because I would pick out everything that was wrong with me and then realize nobody was watching my video for what I look like in that day. There might have been comments about that, but that wasn't the focus. The focus was on the information or the content that I was actually putting out there.

Yeah, so if you own a successful business and you're not an Internet startup with $15 million in funding from VCs in Silicon Valley with a private sous chef and a big old expensive building, you're probably a baby boomer and you own a business and you're about my age. And baby boomers and people about my age all believe when we think of video, when we think of people in videos, when we think of just seeing an image on a screen, we think actors, we think celebrities, and we think newscasters, and we think perfection.

And that's a hard obstacle for most people that didn't grow up with technology and social media to realize that it's not about being in front of a teleprompter in your Sunday's best with everything absolutely perfect. That's not what social media is. That's not what social media looks like. That's not how it works. It's about building genuine relationships and building connections with people through a medium that allows you to build that know, like, and trust factor. We talk a lot about KLT authority, and I don't think the last couple episodes we actually told you what it means if you're new. KLT authority means know, like, and trust authority.

And at the end of the day, the age-old adage of people do business with people they know, like, and trust still holds firm today. However, the advantage that we have is it's never been easier to get a potential customer to, number one, find you, recognize you, know you, like you, and build that trust without them even ever meeting you. And it's an amazing time that we live in. However, we need to progress with the times and stop thinking, you know, old school and start thinking more new school and how it works. So that's really the biggest thing. So we get that out of the way.

Listen, you need to realize that it's not about perfection, and it's not about making yourself look like a big business. At the end of the day, how many people want to do business with big businesses? Not many. People want to do business with people. And when people are doing business with big businesses, it is the person that gets the business, not the business, generally speaking. I mean, there are some instances where you go with that business because they're a business. But in our case, you are going to do business with us because of me and Shannon, because me and Shannon are the face of this business.

And you're going to do business with us because we're a smaller business and our relationships are important to us. And then there's going to be some of you that listen and say, oh, you're a small business? Well, don't have time for you. And we've actually lost bids, we've lost contracts because, and their answer was simple, you're not big enough. And at the end of the day, I say that's great because I don't want to do business with people like you anyway. Well, and with that, too, is we've done business with big business that has said we want small business because we've already done with big business in your field and we didn't get results.

And we've provided results that big business hasn't. So, you know, there's a, you know, to each their own. However, in this podcast, we're going to go over a few things. How, like, can I outsource social media? What should I post? Do I need to be the one posting it? What platform should I post on? Do I need a video or should I use live video? What's the difference there? Use text and how much money will social media make me? So let's get into that. All right. So the first thing I say is can I outsource social media? And we get that all the time. People are like, oh, great, you can do my social media. And I say, yeah, we can do your social media, but let me explain a little bit to you.

Can you outsource social media? The answer is yes. Can you outsource it effectively as a small business, in my opinion? That answer is no. And I'm an agency that sells social media marketing services. And the reason being is social media is about authenticity and cultivating relationships online. And if you are going to outsource it, basically what you're trying to do is manufacture authenticity and manufacture building relationships online. And it's very difficult to do. Can it be done? Yes, it can be done, but it costs a lot of money. And when I say a lot of money, I'm talking about money that is way beyond the reach of your average small business out there in your town or your city.

Coca-Cola, Nike, all of those big businesses, yeah, they're doing it. They do it well. Me and you, however, we need to take a different approach to it. And that's really what we talk about is that different approach. So what I say is we go at it with a marketing with you instead of a marketing for you. Yes, we can post that mundane daily inspirational quote, images, offers, and things of that nature. We can take care of that for you, the mundane. However, when it comes to relationship building, we cannot build relationships for you. It's manufactured. It's fake. People will see right through it.

We need your help and the help of your staff to do that through images, videos, testimonials, things of that nature. And we have a training program that shows you how to actually use it and how to create a video, how to get one of your customers to give you a testimonial right there on one of the phones in the office, one of the cell phones in the office. And so when it comes down to it, it is marketing with you instead of marketing for you. Can you outsource? My answer is no. think about that? Well, I do this on our side of the business.

So just what you said, I mean, we're creating posts around services and or, you know, even events that are happening like, you know, obviously at Christmas or the day of the week or whatever. And these posts are really being posted just to keep you relevant, always popping up with something, because everybody doesn't have that opportunity and your staff to be live every single day. Like you were saying, I mean, those people can pick up their phone, they can do something. And yeah, but to say that if they have other jobs, if they're not just doing social media, you know, that's it's something else that gets scheduled in.

So when we do it with them, it is creating content based around mainly text. And it's just to keep you relevant. Whereas the your posting is going to keep you relatable. So those are the things, you know, when you're at an event, you know, I might create an image around the event and what's going on and what to expect. But while you're at the event, you know, taking that live video and posting it so people know what's going on or while you're on the job site, you know, just start in the morning, we're here and whatever you're doing. So it doesn't have to be long, it doesn't have to be extravagant. It's just getting people to notice what you're doing. Oh, I didn't even know they did that.

Oh, look how cool that is. They're involved in this or that. So your part is the relatability. Our part would be the relevancy. And really, it can be super simple. For instance, for Instagram, like Instagram stories can be 100% in the moment and super quick. And I'll kind of give you an example right now. I just pulled out my phone. I pulled out Instagram. I have it holding up towards me and my wife while we're on the microphones, and I'm going to hit record real quick. And I'm going to say, hey, what's going on, everyone? Shannon and Shannon here doing a podcast about social media and how easy it is to actually do social media if you just incorporate it into your day.

And, you know, I just let go of the button. I hit post. And that has posted onto our social media. Just like that, I created a simple post that will resonate with people and allow them to follow me. And the cool thing about it, I did it on Instagram, created a story, hit the button, and it automatically went to my Facebook page as well. Yes, so you can utilize two platforms at one time. So problem solved. You don't have to do it twice. They make it super simple for you. And again, we already covered, like, you don't need to always be the one that's posting. You could have staff or, you know, someone else just picking up.

What I love is when a business gives the phone to their customer and says, hey, what did you do today? And that customer says, like, I had, you know, Shannon and Shannon here in the office. We covered our numbers for this quarter and we are elevated. We are so happy with their service. Now you have that walking billboard on top of it. You have them on video stating how much they love your services. And that is going to be reached a lot more by your audience than just the plain text. Exactly. And it's one of those things where having someone else sing your praises is always going to be better than you singing your praises. And it's easy.

And one of the great things about today is what you don't realize is the younger generation, especially if you're working with younger people, like dentists, orthodontists, and things of that nature, orthodontists especially, when someone gets their braces off, if you're like, hey, will you do a quick video about how much you like your braces, hand them the phone. They'll spin it around, hit the record button, and start yabbering like it's second nature because guess what it is? They spend their entire day with their phone held up, taking pictures of themselves, making videos of themselves. It's second nature to them. It's what they do. It's how they do it.

So when we say what should you post, number one, you should be posting video. Number two, you should be posting images. And when I say images, they should be personal images, images of your staff, images of you, images of you doing what you do, images of your before product, images of your after product, images of your dogs, your cats, your birds. Happy birthdays, anniversaries, days of the week, anything that is going to be a capturing, you know, like, hey, it's Friday. We have fun Friday, whatever. Take a picture of it. If you can sing happy birthday, sing happy birthday on a video. Right. And, you know, things of that nature. It's super simple. What you shouldn't be posting is just text.

And when I say just text, you going on Facebook and saying, hey, 50% off special call now. Guess what? No one's going to see it. No one's going to care. Right. They're going to scroll right past because there's nothing eye-catching, nothing going on. But, again, you know, I get information from businesses telling me what their sales are. Then I turn around and say, okay, now go live, create that video explaining, like, this is what it is, and then all week I'll post around, like, that video and the information. Right. So it's one of those things where, yeah, video is best, pictures are second.

If you're going to have text, it needs to be text and an image so it can get the attention of people as they're scrolling through. So a lot of people also ask us, what platform should I be posting on? And that depends. It depends on what business you are and who your end customer is. So would I tell a carpet cleaning company that they need to be rocking out on TikTok, making some dances and all kinds of crazy stuff? Well, I would say no because, well, I think yes because I think TikToks are funny at this point. But I didn't even know. I don't really go on TikTok until recently, and I'm in my late 30s. So no because their market is going to be on Facebook. Right.

So their market is going to be on Facebook and then on Instagram right now. Well, that age. Yeah, four years. 18-year-olds don't care about getting their carpets clean. Right. Four years ago, I wouldn't even have told them to go on Instagram. I said focus on Facebook. But now I would say focus on Instagram, allow that to auto-post to your Facebook page, and build it that way. However, if an orthodontist says, hey, should I post on TikTok? I'd be like, heck yeah, post on TikTok because that's where the people are. And you're like, oh, yeah, well, the kids aren't going to be paying for the braces. You're right, but guess what? If mom and dad say, hey, do you want braces?

And they're like, oh, yeah, but I want to go see Suncoast braces. They're going to take you to Suncoast braces because mom and dad are paying for them. They want you to be happy with them. They want you to actually do what you're supposed to do. And if you're saying, I want to go here, that's where they're going to want to take you. So it depends on what you're doing. And then, again, would I tell an orthodontist to be on LinkedIn? No. However, LinkedIn is one of my most important social media platforms as a business that does business with other businesses. So at the end of the day, it's going to depend on your market and where your market's at.

But you've got to understand, right now TikTok's only kids. However, TikTok's maybe stay relevant and becomes more of our age group that's actually on it. I would say that I think it's growing very fast for upper age group. Right. Because the majority of – I don't know, that might be a separate podcast. But a majority of the videos that I'm seeing are middle-aged people doing the videos. Well, number one, TikTok's very smart and they know you're a middle-aged person. Right. That's what I'm saying. So I don't know how they pop up and how that all works. But, yeah.

Well, the problem with TikTok for most – or TikTok for TikTok for most businesses is that the market isn't saturated enough for them to reap the rewards right now. However, if you're a savvy business and you have a complete marketing team that is doing all of this stuff, then, yeah, TikTok should be part of your marketing program right now. And you should be leveraging it right now and growing into it.

However, if you have limited time, limited resources, and only need to focus on what's going to work best for you, then you have to pick which one is going to work best in your market at that time and focus on that and then grow into the other channels like YouTube and TikTok and things of that nature. Right. Do I need video and should I use live video? What's the difference? Well, right. And we've already talked a lot about video. And live video, at the end of the day, on every platform that accepts live video, is going to get you more reach, organic reach, without having to pay for it. So Facebook, organic reach is pretty much gone.

You're only going to reach a minute percentage of your actual audience whenever you post on Facebook. And then the more engagement you get, the more organic traffic that it will get, but it's still always going to be limited. However, However, it's not necessary anymore. Two years ago, if you were going to do a video, you had to do live video because it just got you so much exposure. But I would always suggest do live video if you can. However, if you're super uncomfortable with live video, regular video is okay.

Yeah, and I want to kind of go back a little bit too because this is an issue that when we're working with a business, everyone in your company does not need to have access to your social media accounts. Meaning that if they leave, they shouldn't have access to your accounts. We recommend having a social media iPhone or iPad or something of that nature that the business uses. It's a great video. Obviously, we'll include how we get good audio, things like that. But what tends to happen is people end up leaving the business. They're still posting. I mean, they can really ruin you if they have access to your social media accounts, and there's just no reason for that.

You as the owner should be the owner, and then you can make some people managers of that nature. Or you just have that one thing logged in, and they don't need to have that access. Right, so like on Facebook, you have the business manager. It's business.facebook.com, and you can set up a business profile. And then you can go into that business profile, and you can assign people roles. So you can say this person is an editor. They can come in and create posts and edit the page. This person is an ad person, and they have access to the ads and the reporting.

This person is actually an ad person, and they also get access to our payment information so that they can change payment information and make updates and things of that nature. And then when they leave, it's as easy as clicking a button to remove their access to the types of information they have on your page. So that's the best way to do it for Facebook, like TikTok and things of that nature. It doesn't exist for those platforms right now, but that's an example of what she's talking about when it comes to people managing your page. You can do that with YouTube as well. So you want to make it as easy for you as possible to take away that access.

And if you're not going to give people access, the best solution is just use a single phone or iPad like Shannon said. Right, and I think the other mistake that gets made on social media is creating multiple social media accounts. So every time a new manager comes in, they go, oh, you don't have a Facebook page. Let me create one. Then they create one and then realize after you get so many followers, oh, wait, someone already did. They just named it with different spacing in the name or something. You know what I mean? Like those little things, like you don't need multiple pages for your locations. You don't need all of that.

You need one area for people to find you and make it as simple as possible. Right, so if you're a local business with multiple locations, your best bet is to have one Facebook page that's actually managed. Now in Facebook, in terms of Facebook, it is advantageous to have multiple pages because of the name, address, and phone number and the local search engine effect that it has. However, there's a beta feature, and I wouldn't suggest doing this unless you have access to the beta feature, which allows you to connect all your pages to one page so that you post on one page, it feeds out to all the rest of the pages.

However, each location has a single page that people can check in on and things like that, and it allows you to show Google that it has a Facebook page and stuff like that. But at the end of the day, right now, my suggestion would be don't do that. It would be one page because only people like me know how to—well, not only people like me. Most average business owners aren't going to know how to do what I just explained. So if you are a savvy person and you're like, well, they don't know what they're talking about, I just wanted to throw that caveat in. Yes, I understand that we can do it.

However, we're talking to the majority, and the majority, if they have multiple locations, they're not going to know exactly what I just said. So it's not going to be advantageous for them to do it because it's going to lead to more headaches than it is good at the end of the day. And our final question is how much money will social media make me? All right, so this is the biggest thing and one that I always stress with people. When you start social media as a local business, this is different for influencers and things of that nature, but as a local business, are you going to make a ton of money off of social media? And the answer is no.

You're not going to have a ton of people coming in going, oh, yeah, I found you on Facebook. Loved it. Loved it, loved it, loved it. And you're my guy. What's going to happen is they're going to come in and they say, yeah, we found you online. Yeah, we found you on the Internet. Yeah, we found you on Google. Yeah, we found you through searching. And that's just how people answer that question. But they may have started noticing you on Facebook or on Instagram. That name recognition became. And then they did a search of braces near me. You pop up and you're like, oh, yeah, that's that one doctor from Facebook.

They click on you and you've already started to build that no like and trust factor. So when they come in, they already know you. They feel like they know you. They already like you. They're ready to do business with you. So you've transferred from being the person that they might be doing business to the person that they're going to do business with. And they haven't even met you yet. And I would say one of the biggest things that happen is because when we first start working with someone, they take all the notes. They do everything that we say. This is what you should be doing. This is how you do it. This is what you use. And they go full fledge. And it's awesome.

And then they start moving up in the Google rankings. They're becoming relevant. They're getting their phone calls. They're getting their appointments. And, you know, their schedules are filling up. And then what happens? They stop. Right. Because they're too busy to post on social media. However, when you stop, then what happens? Right. And the problem is, yeah, you stop. And then the social signals stop coming in. And all of those metrics that we were using to push you up in the local rankings and the map pack, so you're getting all of those calls, you start losing them because you're not doing the things that were necessary to get you there in the first place.

So what people don't understand is that it's the social signals that is most important out of social media. And those social signals is what actually helps drive your listing up into the top of the map pack. Now, a lot of people, SEOs that work on global businesses, on information marketers, they work with video marketers, people that are trying to reach a global audience and not a local audience, they'll say that the social signals are a very small part of the algorithm. And overall, they're correct. It's a very small part of the algorithm.

However, those social signals are amplified as of right now, the time of this recording, those social signals are amplified and very important to local online results. And when we say local results, we're talking about the map pack where they say braces near me, you pop up, they can click a button right on their phone and it says call this business, boom, they click it and they call you. That's where the money is. Right, and on the opposite end of that, there are ways that, like I was saying in the beginning, it's free, it's free, it's free. It is absolutely free and you can utilize it in the best ways of your abilities for your business.

There are ways that you can pay for the advertising as well, and we'll go into that on a whole other podcast. But just starting out when you think, oh, I want to boost and I want to give Facebook all my money, like don't just do that. It's not a smart thing to do. There are ways to do that and things to boost that are better utilized for your money. So a lot of businesses will say, well, I've tried this whole social media. It cost me way too much money. Well, then you were doing it wrong. So we definitely recommend using an agency to reach out to someone that you can trust like us. We, just like you guys, are doing business with people we know, like, and trust.

So just remember that whenever you're creating your videos, be personable. Put yourself out there. Get out of your comfort zone. It takes a little bit, but just utilize your customers. Utilize your staffing or yourself and give them information because that's what people want. Right, and at the end of the day, give us a call. We do this to give you value, to help you, to show you that we know what we're talking about, and to give you actionable steps that you can take and start improving your business right now without ever giving us a single dime. That's our goal is to help you without you ever paying a single bit of money to us.

However, if you want some help, if you would like someone to do it with you, then give us a call or reach out to us. KLTAuthority.com. It's KLTAuthority.com. You can go to our fancy website, StandardStrongerProductions.com. However, KLTAuthority.com is where all of the great stuff is. Now, one thing, if we app that you're listening to. Rate us, subscribe, leave a review. It really helps get the podcast out there. And if you could do that, it would mean a ton to us. If you go to networking groups, mention to your fellow business owners, hey, there's a cool podcast, KLT Authority Podcast, that focuses on how local businesses can leverage the internet. Not how businesses leverage the internet.

There's tons of information out there, but it's all about information marketers. It's all about e-commerce shops, Spotify, Etsy, all of that stuff. We're here for you, the mom and pops out there in the local businesses, grinding every single day just like we are. So I think that's about it, right? That's it. All right, thanks. Have a fantastic day. And as always, hopefully we'll see you on the beaches of the world. That's right.