Social media and ad spend can be complicated and time consuming, and you’re left wondering if any of it makes an impact.
On today’s episode, guest co-host Julia Rosien from Restonic joins us to discuss the power of small social media platforms. Though sites such as Pinterest or the app “WhatsApp” don’t immediately spring to mind when you think of social media, Julia digs in to discuss how much further your dollar goes and how the ROI can often times be higher.
Listen in as she discusses strategy, pitfalls to avoid and gives her thoughts on budgets for Facebook and Instagram.
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FULL TRANSCRIPTION
Mark Kinsley
Where should you spend your digital ad dollars today might not be where you think our co host today is Julia Rosien, she’s gonna explain the small places to spend big money. The fam marketing show starts right now!
Welcome to the fam Marketing Show strategies, tips and ideas to help retailers and brands grow their furniture, appliances and mattress business. And we have an expert on the show today as our CO hosts. We don’t really have guests, Julia Rosien with Restonic, a digital marketing expert, a marketing expert, thank you so much for being on the show with us.
Julia Rosien
Oh, thanks so much for having me. And you know, calling me an expert. I’ll come back anytime you want to call me back because I get called a lot worse than my dad did.
Adrienne Woods
We think like when you wake up around here.
Mark Kinsley
That’s right. It’s like when you wake up in the morning, I got up really early this morning and somebody’s like, how’s your day going? I’m like, I have plenty of time to screw it up. Or make it better.
Adrienne Woods
Is it you said during the show? If somebody messes up it’s gonna be you.
Mark Kinsley
guarantee it, guarantee it? Hey, let’s not mess up one thing though. Let’s not mess up this trivia question. So hit us with it right out of the gates. Of course. If you want to play if you want to participate. Go to fam dot news. Use our podium number you can text us your guests. Right here on the show. Hit us with a trivia question, Adrian.
Adrienne Woods
Okay, in honour of our experts, I have picked a social media question. So what was the first animal? Oh, by the way, I’ll give you three choices. What was the first animal featured on an Instagram photo? Was it a cat? A puppy, or a dog?
Mark Kinsley
Wait, what’s the difference between a puppy and a dog? Like a baby? A little baby?
Adrienne Woods
Yeah, like a baby dog. But I had to make it difficult. Sorry.
Mark Kinsley
Animal is but is both puppy and dog. It’s
Adrienne Woods
not. And it could be a cat. It could be that could have been a red herring.
Mark Kinsley
Julia, what’s your guess?
Adrienne Woods
No, no, no. Wait till the end.
Mark Kinsley
Okay. All right. I have my guess in mind. I have my about
Adrienne Woods
it. Let it let it percolate and come back.
Mark Kinsley
One thing that I keep guessing about is where should you spend money this day when it comes to digital platforms. And you’ve got some great pieces up on the fam if you haven’t read Julia’s pieces on fam dot news. Head over there. Take a deep dive. There’s even the audio version. Hit us with a Julia, you talk about where to spend your digital ad dollars today? Where should people put them?
Julia Rosien
You know, I hear a lot of oh my gosh, we need to be going to tick tock or oh my gosh, we need to be on Instagram or, you know, Facebook’s the gold standard for sure. There’s almost 3 billion people worldwide that are on it. So in the post that I wrote for the fam for you guys, I went into the smaller networks, because the smaller networks actually have more opportunity for less money. So we all know the iOS updates that came out this past year that have really screwed up marketers around the globe. And every event I go to they’re like, oh my god, what are we gonna do? We can’t track our consumers. We don’t know what they’re clicking on. So if you were relying on that, which a lot of us were there, you know, you’re at dollar your spend has gone up exponentially, and the ROI has just taken a nosedive. So, if your consumer is on Facebook, you probably still need to be there. And if you’re tracking within Facebook, you’re okay, but it’s still more expensive. So the article that I wrote for you guys was really where can you put your money to get a little bit more traction in a smaller network where they’re not as many people so 3 billion people are on Facebook, not as quite as many people are on Pinterest, which is a great opportunity for any furniture, furniture retailers. But there’s also Twitter to consider there’s tick tock, there’s WhatsApp. But it’s really about where can you put your money? Where do you think your consumer will be? And you can get that biggest ROI? So I’m gonna get out there and say everybody’s saying you should be on tick tock maybe is my best answer for you. Can you actually do what tick tock requires you to do? And if you can, you should be there if you can’t back away because you’re wasting your money.
Mark Kinsley
What are some examples of that? Like help us understand okay, when you say can you do what tick tock needs you to do? Are you talking about provide and supply consistently the type of content that works on tick tock?
Julia Rosien
Kind of Yeah, it’s about the kind of content that works on tick tock so we know that short form video is what kills it on tick tock so that 21 to 32nd video, and it’s got to jump in the first seven seconds because you’ve got to grab that user. Now. Tick tock has a huge advantage is that they’re growing exponentially. They’re almost at 1.5 billion worldwide. And The average user on Tik Tok spends anywhere from an hour to 95 minutes on the app at a date sorry a day a day. They’re just scrolling. So so if you if you can master that short form video and you’ve got people that can produce it now it’s one thing to be able to produce short form video because there’s a lot of studios out there that will do it but tick tock doesn’t work on overly produced overly salesy video, they’ve got to be fun and catchy and you know, done like you’re doing it with your iPhone, not like you’re in a big studio doing it. So a lot of brands can’t embrace that kind of naturalist that personality. So Casper is killing it on tick tock, of course, because Casper is a marketing company, so they kill it on anything that has to do with marketing. Can the average brand do it? No, no, it’s no, it’s that’s kind of tricky. If you can, it’s a good place to be and it’s the ad dollars are there. Now, the benefit of Tik Tok is that you know, their creators or their users, so you can get on Tik Tok, and engage with the Creator. And you have a creator create for you and influence. And we’re all, you know, pretty familiar in this day and age with what an influencer can do. They try out your product, they post about it, they do a funny video. But you’re still talking around $100,000 even to work with an influencer? So that’s, you know, that’s a pretty pricey campaign to, and it’s a big risk, for sure. Because it’s still an unknown entity, unlike Facebook.
Adrienne Woods
So can I ask what is like when somebody comes to you and says, How much money should I spend for a given campaign? You know, if I just want to do one post, and I want to boost it? What kind of money? Are we talking about? 1000s? Can you get away I had heard one time way back in the day, like $5, a day is average. So don’t do less than $5? Is that still custom? Or does it vary by platform?
Julia Rosien
Are you asking for a retailer for for a manufacturer, let’s go
Adrienne Woods
with a retailer, just I want to I want to post something and I want to boost it something in my store.
Julia Rosien
So from a retail standpoint, this the gold standard still is Facebook and boosting at $5 a day, it gets you on a platform. And but you know, with Facebook, it’s really about posting consistently. So making sure that you’ve got lots of content that you’re putting out there. And that you’re reaching that audience and growing that audience. And you can do it for $5 a day for sure. But again, only if you’re within the Facebook ethos, if you’re trying to do some retargeting campaign, and you’re trying to grab people who may have searched for your mattress, and then they went to CNN or they went to Fox News, it’s not going to work anymore. Because you know, Facebook and Google, they’ve shut that all down. But you’re just checking them within Facebook, and you’re okay with that, that, you know, staying in that platform, it’s still a good place to be. But you have to realise the limitations of it are, you know, they’re not what they were a year ago.
Mark Kinsley
It’s interesting to think about, if you have a pool of money, what’s the best place to spend it, you know, you’re talking about spending money potentially on smaller networks that allow you to connect more with your audience. But of course, you have to be able to provide those types of inputs, the content, or the advertising that works more in context and works more natively for that platform. But like you said, Hey, if you just have a small amount of money, Facebook is still the gold standard. So I think it’s really also conversation around prioritisation of budgets. So I’m going to spend a million bucks way differently than I’m gonna spend 10,000 bucks.
Julia Rosien
Absolutely, absolutely. Herring in there.
Adrienne Woods
No, please go ahead. I’ll ask my question a minute.
Julia Rosien
I was just gonna say the red herring in there is Twitter and Pinterest would probably be the areas where I would say you can still create content and reach an audience for a smaller net for you know, smaller ad budget. at Twitter, you can do for 100 bucks a month and inlet Twitter auto promote both your tweets and your profile. And you don’t have to supply any creative as long as you’re tweeting on a consistent basis. Now, it’s a much smaller network, there’s Think, think Twitter is at 40 million in the US. So it’s a much smaller network than what Facebook would be. It doesn’t mean you can’t make an impact on a small number. And you have to remember, every kind of advertising you do on any social network at all, still send signals to Google when people are coming to your website from a social network. So those social signals, it’s important for the consumer because it grows you within that network. But it’s also important for Google and SEO and, and all that fun stuff is going on in the backend of your website that helps Google understand what value you bring to your local audience.
Adrienne Woods
So from if I’m a retailer, and I’m trying to promote a product that I have, is it better to boost like in marketplace, or is it better to just boost from my page? I know I’ve heard that question a lot before. Or where’s the better place to spend your ad dollars?
Julia Rosien
So Marketplace is a kind of a, you know, that’s a hack. If you ask me, it’s okay to get people to buy your product doesn’t grow community, it it, but it certainly does get your product out there. But if you’re going for the long term play, and you’re which you know it hope you are if you’re on social media, it’s important to sell products, God knows that’s why we’re here. We need to sell things, you can’t get around that. But you also want to grow that community so that when people buy products from you, they come back and they read reviews, or they support your community. Or if somebody writes something negative, they can say, hey, wait a minute, I was at that store. And I know that’s not the way things happen. So marketplace doesn’t give you that it just that’s just a pure selling play. That’s all it is not a bad thing if you’re just trying to get rid of inventory, but it’s not going to grow the network at all. It’s not going to give you any long term benefit.
Mark Kinsley
playing the long game. You talking about WhatsApp? You mentioned WhatsApp earlier, I use whatsapp because I have an international community that we all communicate through WhatsApp, but a lot of people aren’t familiar with it. Number one, Facebook owns WhatsApp. But don’t even look at the interface and think about how to potentially use it as a marketer. I’m not even familiar with how to get started with it to take us through WhatsApp.
Julia Rosien
Well, WhatsApp is I look at it more as a messaging service. It is it is considered a social platform and it is owned by Facebook. So you’ve got the benefit of working within Facebook and the Instagram world there so that if you have consumers reaching out to you through Facebook or through Instagram, you can Matthew can answer them through WhatsApp. So there’s a huge benefit there to be able to connect a bunch of different networks. I think WhatsApp value is that you can load so much content into it. So you can have some, you know, a lot of people are talking about having chat bots on their site so that they can answer questions right away, even when they’re sleeping. Well, what’s that will give you that ability as well. And it lets you track it lets you segment customers, you can tag them. So it’s it’s to me it’s a it’s a very robust marketing platform. But it’s a, it requires a lot more skill to get into it. And to load all your products on there. If you want to put your catalogue on there, if you wanna be able to answer questions. I think from an international standpoint, it’s definitely a no brainer, because it’s used internationally. I think it’s becoming more prevalent in the US. And I think Facebook is putting more money into it. Certainly as they get closer to you know, the metaverse and what’s going to happen there. So WhatsApp is going to be a player, along with Facebook and all the other social networks
Mark Kinsley
help us put a bow on this help us wrap this up and think about some strategic questions. A retailer or a brand should be asking themselves. So if I’m a number one identify, am I a retailer or a brand, what I’m trying to accomplish? But then as they think about deploying a certain budget on these different emerging social platforms? How would you think about deploying those budgets? And what are some good questions, retailers, or brands should ask themselves before they get started?
Julia Rosien
I think first of all, I have to, they have to have somebody either on staff, or they have to get a marketing agency that can help them find out what’s happening in their local environment. So we know Facebook is really strong and rural areas, we know that WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter, those might be better in more, you know, you know, more dense areas where there’s a lot of people where there’s a lot happening with this technology. So you have to figure out where your audience is, first of all, if you’re, if you’re way out in the middle of Wisconsin, for example, you know, Twitter might not be even a thing there. So why would you be on there? If you’re in the middle of New York City? Well, maybe that’s Twitter is exactly where you need to be. So figuring out I think, where your local community is, and you can do that by looking at what other stores are doing in your area, looking at other businesses services, how they’re using social media. So if you live in a city, you’re going to know what other restaurants and businesses are there, just go to their websites, have a look and see what social media you’re using, and see what the engagement is like on that social media. That’s that’s a great place to start, first of all. And then secondly, I would think once you’ve figured out what your social media is, look at what’s your budget is, and if that community, if there’s a place for you to fit in there, like I said, $100 on Twitter, a month, if you can, if you can manage that, and Twitter’s a good place for you to be then that’s you’ve got your budget right there. So once you figure that out, then I think the third thing is where are you going to get your content from? So from a retail standpoint, that’s really hard to do. Because these guys are out there selling stuff they’re in, they’re managing staff, and they’re managing everything going on their local world. They don’t have time to create content. And they also sometimes most often are not. They don’t have the bandwidth to do it or the skill set to do it to create content that’s going to engage the user. So we’re not going to get that content from them. Do you hire an agency? Maybe you look to your your vendors and your suppliers, what can they do for you for content and I work for a manufacturer and I’m a firm believer that manufacturers need to get better at supplying content for their retailers. And it’s something we we strive to do a lot. So don’t be afraid to ask for that content or demand it because that should be part and parcel with your partnership with them. 100% agree. They’re going to supply more than just the product 100%
Mark Kinsley
agree with that I’ve been deployed an entire asset manager is pretty much downloadable, just like a e commerce website, because we do as manufacturers need to supply the retailers plenty of good stuff out there. And this was plenty of good stuff as you think about these emerging emerging social media platforms and where to put your 2022 ad budget. And we got to close the loop on the trivia question today, because we got to know cat puppy or dog so remind us what the trivia question was Adrian?
Adrienne Woods
Okay. What was the first animal to be posted on Instagram? Was it a cat? A puppy, or a dog?
Mark Kinsley
Our co host gets to answer this one.
Julia Rosien
Oh, you know how much trivia stresses me out so I’m gonna do a wild guess here. I’m gonna do puppy because social media is all about the cute and cuddly things. So that’s my that’s my best guess.
Mark Kinsley
Okay. I’m just gonna support my my other co host for the day and say puppy as well. We’re just going on puppy.
Adrienne Woods
Okay, it was actually a dog. It was posted. In California, a guy snapped a picture of his dog. and posted it back in 2010. That was the first animal to ever debut on Instagram. Well done. I tried to do them now. I can see the the posts, but I don’t know what kind of dog this is.
Mark Kinsley
Heinz 57 Probably.
Adrienne Woods
I mean, probably I
Mark Kinsley
don’t know. All right. Well, hey, thank you so much for CO hosting with us today. Julia Julia Rosie, with Restonic we’re gonna have you back on the show. Will you come back and hang with us again?
Julia Rosien
I would love to thanks for asking
Mark Kinsley
me. Awesome. Awesome. So hey, do you have a marketing tip that’s work for you are you want to hear a topic covered here on the fan Marketing Show, go to fan dot news. Go to our podium number down in the bottom right hand corner or just drop us a line in the contact form. And be sure to subscribe to the show and never miss an idea Adrian that can make you a
Adrienne Woods
social media rockstar.
Mark Kinsley
And join us each week as we bring you more fam marketing magic.
