Author: John Jantsch / Source: Duct Tape Marketing

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John Jantsch: Social media, gosh. Are we still talking about that? Well, yes, of course we are. But it’s not this extension of your marketing, it is a part of your strategic approach. It works at all phases of the funnel of the journey. It just has to be done with your marketing strategy and your overall business objectives in mind. Any channel you choose to spend your time in needs to have that as your real goal.

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast we speak with Rebekah Radice. She is the author of “Social Media Mastery: A Comprehensive Guide to Strategic Growth”. Got that word strategy in there, check it out.

John Jantsch: Hello, welcome to another episode if the Duct Tape Marketing podcast, this is John Jantsch, and my guest today is Rebekah Radice. She is a marketer and founder of RadiantLA, a training and development company helping business professionals use online marketing strategically, and she’s also the author of a book we’re gonna talk about today, “Social Media Mastery: A Comprehensive Guide to Strategic Growth”.

So Rebekah, thanks for joining us.

Rebekah Radice: Oh, thank you, my pleasure.

John Jantsch: So there are 2374 books on social media, I counted.

Rebekah Radice: Is that all?

John Jantsch: So, at this date, what does Social Media Mastery add, really, to the conversation?

Rebekah Radice: I think that’s a great question. With so much out there, what is left to be said about social media? And to me there are several things people are still missing within social media. Part of it is the human aspect, so personalization, something I talk a lot about. Really injecting your own personal brand, so how to build your personal brand through social media, but use that to really support and promote all that you’re doing within your own business. And it also brings everything together, so connecting the dots for those that have had a lot going on. Maybe they’re over on Facebook, they’re over on Instagram, they have email marketing happening, but none of it is cohesive, and they haven’t really figured out how to pull everything together.

So that’s what this is really all about, is taking them through the process of not only “How do you launch it? How do you get this up and running?”, but then how do you optimize it across every single channel, get it out of those silos that we talk so much about within marketing. And then how do you continue to manage it in a way that doesn’t become overwhelming.

It’s for two different groups of people. Either those people that are just getting started, or those people who have already invested. They’re already heavily invested into social media, but not seeing the traction. They’re frustrated, they haven’t seen the results that they’re looking for, and so this is really that roadmap on how to put every single piece into place, and allow them to all cohesively work together.

John Jantsch: So in the early days of the web people built websites, but it was like that was this kind of disconnected thing over here, on the side. They had their marketing and they had their sales, and they had a website because people were getting online, and the almost treated it like a separate extension. Today, the website’s the hub, probably of most peoples marketing. How would you say social media fits in to that? Because I think in the early days of social media a lot of people did the same thing. It’s like “oh, I think we need to have a Twitter strategy.” No, your Twitter strategy needs to work with your marketing strategy., right?

Rebekah Radice: Right.

John Jantsch: So how have you seen that move? Or maybe a better question is, what’s the role of social media in the big picture of marketing now?

Rebekah Radice: Well based off of what you just said, that your website, your blog, is really your hub, and I totally agree with that. Everything begins and ends with that online presence that you own, and so in that, social media really becomes your extension. It’s your spokes, it’s those pieces that are leading everybody back over to your content. So social media is where you’re having that conversation, where you’re building those relationships, where you’re allowing people to really get to know who you are, what you do, what you’re all about, and what those problems are that you solve. And then you’re bringing that awareness, or driving that attention back over to your website, to your blog, where all of that content is happening.

So where they can start to really better, even more from a deeper conversation level, understand your thought process, your methodology, how you do things within your business. So I completely agree with you that back in the day we thought everything lived independently, and today we know far better than that. That you have to work everything in unison, or in tandem, where social media is helping you build your email lists, social media is helping you move people into a particular asset. Or sell a book like we’re talking about here today.

So it’s just really helping people understand who you are, connect with where they’re most comfortable, but then allowing them to move over to that hub where you truly own that conversation.

John Jantsch: So where does it fit really in the journey? A lot of people look at social media as an awareness tool. It’s like, more people will learn about my business maybe for the first time on Twitter for example. But I also see a lot of people effectively using it to build relationships and even convert sales, but they have distinctly different approaches in those different stages of the funnel don’t they?

Rebekah Radice: Oh most definitely, and I think maybe even just a few years ago, the idea behind social media was awareness. It was that channel where people were first connecting with you, they were first learning about your company if they were doing research, it was their first stop. And today I see social media is really touching every aspect of the journey. So everything from awareness to that ability to nurture them into a deeper understanding, and then into the activation mode. The difference obviously is in where they’re at in their knowledge about you and your business, and then it’s all in the content that you’re sharing, so really how are you guiding them through the awareness phase where they’re just getting to know you, they want to learn a little bit more about you, into that nurture stage where you’re sharing that content that helps them self-select into your product, or helps them make that decision about maybe whether they’re going to get to know you, or follow you, or take action with your company, and to activation where they are making that final decision.

So it really does touch every aspect, and I think where the confusion comes in is then, how do you go about creating content that moves people through each of those stages? I see two sides of that coin where either there’s those that are so passive in their approach that people don’t actually know how to hire them, or how to work with them, or what exactly they can do to help, to that person that over-promotes and is just pushing, pushing, pushing all promotional content out.

What I talk about a lot within this book is, how do you find that perfect mix? How do you find that balance that allows people to get to know you, but also to take action?

John Jantsch: I think most business owners today … there was this kind of craze to have lots of followers on Twitter, or any of the platforms. That seemed to be the goal. I think a lot of business owners now say “well that’s not making me any money.”

So if I was a business owner and I came to you and I said “Develop me a strategy that’s going to allow me to use social media to get clients.” Obviously lots of variables, what kind of business, all that kind of stuff, but what do you generally tell people who are looking for that definable ROI from social media?

Rebekah Radice: For me it really does begin and end with a couple of things, content being one of them, and a crystal clear understanding of who your audience is. What I find is more times than not, a company has jumped into social media thinking “Oh, I’ve got to be over here” or “I’ve got to be over here” and “Facebook is the way to go” or “Twitter is where we need to be sharing all of our blog content”, but they haven’t really figured out who they’re speaking with before they actually jump on, so there’s really no wonder why, when we take a look at their content and the engagement or lack thereof that…

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