323 - Principles of Effective Social Media Marketing with JS Stansel

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Marketing Millennials – Episode 323: Principles of Effective Social Media Marketing with JS Dansel

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Introduction

In Episode 323 of The Marketing Millennials, host Daniel Murray delves into the multifaceted world of social media marketing with seasoned expert JS Dansel. Released on May 9, 2025, this episode is a treasure trove for marketers seeking to deepen their understanding of effective social media strategies. JS Dansel, boasting over a decade of experience across diverse sectors including higher education, government, startups, entertainment, and fast-growing brands, shares invaluable insights into the critical role of social media managers, the principles that underpin successful social media marketing, and the internal advocacy necessary to elevate the function within organizations.

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The Critical Role of Professional Social Media Managers

JS Dansel emphasizes the evolution of social media management from a trivial task often assigned to interns to a pivotal role demanding professional expertise. He articulates, “Social media is really the front door, front porch of your brand” (02:00), highlighting its significance as the primary interface between brands and their audiences. This transformation underscores the necessity for trained professionals who can adeptly handle community interactions, content creation, and strategic communications.

Distinguishing Social Media Users from Social Media Managers

Addressing a common misconception, JS clarifies the difference between casual social media users and dedicated social media managers. He likens it to the difference between owning a car and being a mechanic, stating, “Just because you have a car doesn't make you a mechanic” (03:13). This analogy underscores that managing a brand’s social presence requires specialized skills in strategy, platform nuances, and audience engagement that go beyond personal use.

The Multifaceted Nature of Social Media Management

Daniel Murray and JS Dansel explore the diverse responsibilities inherent in social media management. From content scheduling and strategizing to community management and video editing, the role encompasses a wide array of tasks. JS points out, “There’s so many things we ask them to do and we need to pay them fairly for that” (04:21), highlighting the underappreciated and underpaid nature of the profession despite its complexity and importance.

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Advocating for Social Media Managers Internally

A significant portion of the discussion revolves around how social media managers can advocate for themselves within their organizations to secure appropriate resources, respect, and compensation.

Effective Communication and Education

JS Dansel stresses the importance of transparent communication and education. Sharing both successes and setbacks with higher management is crucial. He suggests, “You need to be the person putting that in front of them and then just education” (08:03). By educating stakeholders about the strategic aspects of social media, managers can foster a deeper appreciation and understanding of their role.

Internal PR and Showcasing Wins

Highlighting achievements is essential for recognition. JS shares his strategy of capturing commendations and presenting them to leadership, even though it may feel uncomfortable. He recounts, “But no one else is going to advocate for you, right? Your boss, unless you share with them the good things people say about what you're doing, their chances are they're not going to see it” (08:03).

Training and Inclusion in Strategic Meetings

Incorporating training sessions and inclusive meetings helps bridge the gap between social media activities and organizational goals. JS recounts his experience at Texas State University, where he conducted social media training sessions, thereby increasing understanding and support across departments (08:03). Additionally, involving executives in social media briefings ensures that the impact and necessity of strategic social efforts are recognized at all levels.

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Principles of Effective Social Media Management

JS Dansel introduces his upcoming book, The 10 Principles of Effective Social Media Management, which encapsulates timeless strategies for successful social media operations despite the ever-evolving landscape.

Budgeting for Social Media

One core principle is recognizing that effective social media management requires a dedicated budget. JS analogizes social media to a pet that needs care, stating, “It’s free the way a puppy is free. You can pick up a puppy, but you have to feed it” (12:48). Investing in paid social, essential tools, and professional development is crucial for sustained success.

Team Collaboration and Specialized Roles

Successful social media management thrives on collaboration. JS posits, “Social media management is a team effort” (12:48), emphasizing the need for diverse roles such as graphic designers, video editors, and content strategists to support the social media manager and create compelling content.

Accessibility and Inclusive Content

Another fundamental principle is ensuring that social media content is accessible to all audiences, including those with hearing and visual impairments. JS asserts, “Making accessible content makes the content better for everyone” (12:48), advocating for inclusive practices that enhance overall content quality and reach.

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Challenges and Strategic Strategies in Social Media Management

Balancing Creative Freedom with Organizational Guardrails

JS discusses the delicate balance between creativity and adhering to organizational guidelines. He advises, “Those guardrails are not a bad thing. They’re there to protect you and they’re not there to stifle your creativity” (32:08). Utilizing limitations as creative catalysts can lead to innovative and effective content within defined boundaries.

Navigating Internal Politics and Diverse Executive Goals

Managing diverse expectations from executive teams poses a significant challenge. JS shares his tactic of collecting and prioritizing executive goals to align social media strategies accordingly. By establishing clear North Star goals, he effectively reduces conflicting directives and ensures focused efforts (21:10).

Adapting to Unique Brand Voices and Audiences

JS emphasizes the importance of maintaining a unique brand voice tailored to specific audiences. Drawing from his experience with clients like Amazon Prime Video's Invincible series and an end-of-life industry startup, he illustrates how different tones and content strategies are essential for resonating with varied target groups (26:22).

Internal Diplomacy and Building Advocacy

Building internal support through diplomacy is crucial. JS reflects on his early career desire to implement changes abruptly, only to realize the necessity of gradual, strategic influence. Establishing allies and advocates within the organization enhances the social media manager’s ability to effect meaningful change (31:07).

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Conclusion and Final Thoughts

The episode culminates with a reiteration of the indispensable nature of experienced social media managers and the necessity for organizations to invest appropriately in this role. JS Dansel passionately advocates for the transition from singular social media managers to collaborative teams equipped with proper training and resources. Daniel Murray echoes this sentiment, emphasizing that the success of a brand’s social media presence hinges not just on the content, but on the strategic, well-supported individuals behind it.

Notable Quotes:

• "Social media is really the front door, front porch of your brand." – JS Dansel (02:00)
• "Just because you have a car doesn't make you a mechanic." – JS Dansel (03:13)
• "Social media management is a team effort." – JS Dansel (12:48)
• "Those guardrails are not a bad thing. They’re there to protect you and they’re not there to stifle your creativity." – JS Dansel (32:08)

Resources and Further Information

To continue the conversation and learn more about JS Dansel’s strategies, listeners can follow him across various social media platforms under the handle @Stancil. His upcoming book, The 10 Principles of Effective Social Media Management, is available for pre-order on Amazon and other book retailers, set to release in September.

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Join the Community

If you found this episode insightful, join The Marketing Millennials community on LinkedIn and Instagram. Follow Daniel Murray on Twitter and LinkedIn for more marketing insights. Don’t forget to subscribe to the Marketing Millennials podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your preferred platform, and rate us five stars to support the community.

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Timestamp References:

• 02:00 – Importance of Social Media in Brand Interaction
• 03:13 – Difference Between Social Media Users and Managers
• 04:21 – Complexity and Underappreciation of Social Media Roles
• 08:03 – Advocacy and Internal Communication Strategies
• 12:48 – Core Principles from JS’s Upcoming Book
• 21:10 – Balancing Executive Goals and Social Media Strategies
• 26:22 – Adapting Brand Voice to Different Audiences
• 31:07 – Importance of Internal Diplomacy
• 32:08 – Embracing Guardrails as Creative Catalysts

Transcript

[Daniel Murray]

No one trusts ads anymore, not even us. And we live in marketing. But you know who people do trust? Creators, friends, Reddit threads. With impact.com you turn trust into traffic by turning your fans into marketers. Welcome to the Marketing Millennials, the no BS Marketing podcast. I'm Daniel Murray and join me for unfiltered convers conversations with the brains behind marketing's coolest companies. The one request I tell our guests stories or it didn't happen. Get ready to turn the up. Welcome back to another episode of the Market Millennials podcast. Today's episode is for anyone who thinks social media management is just posting stuff. I'm joined by JS Dansel, a social media veteran with over a decade of experience running accounts across higher ed government, startups, entertainment and fast growing brands. We talked about why it's critical to hire and experienced social media managers, how to advocate for time, budget and tools. Social media teams need the real traits that make someone successful in this road. Think strategy, systems and communication skills. If you're building a social media team or trying to prove the value of social media, this episode is for you. Welcome JS to the podcast. I've been following JS for a while on social media. He talks about all things social media. So first of all, give him a follow when you can. But I'm excited to chat about social media with him today.

[JS Dansel]

Yeah, I'm excited to be here. You know, we've kind of crossed paths a bit on, on various platforms and I'm glad to finally connect.

[Daniel Murray]

I want to first ask you this question because I think to clarify for everybody out there, why is the role of social media so important?

[JS Dansel]

Yeah, social media is really the front door, front porch of your brand. Right. It's where people are going to interact with you, you know, outside of like your physical location. Like that's where they're going to interact with you most these days. And your social media manager is the one right out there who is interacting with your customers, your clients, is putting out content that represents you and your brand and talk back and forth with customers in the comments and doing community management and all of that. So it's really, you know, the front lines of your communications with whoever you want to speak with now. And I think maybe 10 years ago when I was first starting out, people thought, oh, you know, we could put an intern in charge of it or whatever. But now it's just become too important and you really need a professional who is, you know, going to handle that, you know, responsibility and is trained to do it and can do it well, yeah.

[Daniel Murray]

And then the secondary question, because I think this sets up the conversation, is there's people who do social media and there's a social media manager. So, like, could you give like the difference between those two?

[JS Dansel]

The way I like to compare it, it's like just because you have a car doesn't make you a mechanic. And the same is true for social media. Just about everybody has a social media account. They can post on their own, they can do stu. But when you need it for a brand and you, you know, you need somebody to actually communicate with a large group of people, you need to have a professional social media manager who knows the ins and outs of the strategy, how the platforms work and can craft content that's going to resonate with your audience.

[Daniel Murray]

I obviously, I know social media has a lot of roles in the social media and it takes a lot of different types of talent to do it. It's not only like, I'm scheduling content. You talked about a lot of things. You've already posting content, strategizing of your brand, community management, there's now like editing's becoming into play, like video content's even more important than ever. So there's all these different roles that become mushed into one, but it's also one of the most undervalued, underpaid roles out there. And why do you think that is?

[JS Dansel]

Oh, my goodness. How much time do you have? You know, we could go into this all day about the myriad roles we expect out of social media managers and the evolving role that social media managers play. I think we need to get to a point where a social media manager is seen more akin to like a creative director who is overseeing a team of creatives to craft content for social, to help strategize, to look at the analytics and decide what to do next rather than doing it all by themselves. Now that's not a viable thing for every single brand and every single company. You know, the teams can be smaller. You know, you do have like that army of one social media manager who has to do it all. I think we need to recognize how much work a social media manager does and pay them properly for it. You know, you, you wouldn't want somebody completely unexperienced who, you wouldn't hand them a microphone in front of thousands of people and say, hey, go represent my company without any sort of PR TR or anything at all. So why do so many brands think, oh, I can just have an entry level employee or an intern run our social media? You're asking for trouble. That's not to say that there aren't roles for interns and entry level employees. You have to get your start somewhere. But they should always be working with a trained social media manager who knows how to represent a brand. So my pitch to executives is more about all the things that can go wrong. You know, is it, is it worth the risk to save the money on, you know, on your social media? We see stories all the time of social media managers going rogue or somebody making a slip up that costs the brand lots of mistakes, it causes a lot of bad publicity for the brand. So it's really important that you have somebody who has that trained experience and knowledge and is also in tune with what's going on in the social world in ways that you do not. You know, the Internet is a infinite place. Right. You know, I work in the entertainment industry now and it always surprises me. I feel like I'm a very online person. I'm very knowledgeable about, you know, various influencers, you know, what trends are big. But no matter how much you know, there's always some like YouTube creator who has millions and millions of followers that you've never heard of. So you need somebody who really is online and understands the online environment that your customers are in, where to best recognize them, what trends are in, what things are not good for you to post. You know, I always say it's kind of hard to quantify a negative of like, but how many times I've saved brands by saying, hey, let's rethink posting that. You, you need that person.

[Daniel Murray]

Yeah, I mean the 1.2 is the, like you said, there's so many pockets of the Internet and especially now there's so many micro micro communities that if you're not in that micro or understand that micro micro community, you could speak out, say the wrong thing or just be tuned out because you're not speaking their language or speaking how they or posting a trend that they don't care about or like going down a path that you might turn them off of your brand for a long time if you do that. I want to go also. So I know there's a pitch for you to tell me the why leadership should care, but how can. And there's a lot of social media managers who listen to this, like how could they advocate better for themselves internally to make sure they are getting the right treatment, getting the right pay, getting.

[JS Dansel]

The right respect internally, communication and training, those are two of the biggest things. Share both your wins and losses honestly with your higher ups, let them Know what, what's going on? You know, I sometimes I would even own a Slack channel. You get those comments that say, you know, give your social media manager a raise or somebody says something nice about that screen cap it and send it. It's cringe, it doesn't feel comfortable doing it. But like, no one else is going to advocate for you, right? Your boss, unless you share with them the good things people say about what you're doing, their chances are they're not going to see it. So you need to be the person putting that in front of them and then just education. You know, One thing I did when I was the social media manager at Texas State University is once a semester I would hold a social media training session for anybody at the university who wanted to come and learn more about what we did in the marketing office with social media, why we did it. You know, if you have an event that you want promoted, how to get that promoted on our social media, all the things that entail and the decision making process behind every post, and those were very well attended. People would come and you, you know, I had a few that were standing room only, but that helped out a lot in people understanding, you know, that it wasn't just random posting, that there was a strategy behind it and that word got out around campus as well. So you've got to get out there and really educate people about what you're doing. You know, ask your boss if they, you know, if they have time. I, you know, have them shadow you, like say, hey, I honestly believe that social media managers should be in the executive inner circle, right? Invite yourself to those meetings, whether those decisions are made. One thing that really helped me get in with executives in some of the companies and organizations I've worked with was as terrible as it is, is crisis calm. I've been through floods, tornadoes, all sorts of things. I started my career doing higher ed and it felt like there was a crisis almost every other day. But being in those meetings and showing our VPs and President like this is what we're doing on social media. Here's a report of what's going on, whether you ask for it or not. Here it is. And slowly but surely they start to understand the impact that you're having.

[Daniel Murray]

I think that, I mean, that skill you just said, I think every market could think about doing that because I think internal marketing for any role now, especially ones that are undervalued, is as important as what you're doing as a social media manager and getting the brand out there. So those trainings the, those internal communications, the sharing of the wins, like, you have to be your best PR person internally. Otherwise, no, like you said, nobody's going to do it.

[JS Dansel]

Exactly.

[Daniel Murray]

Maybe if you have a good manager, they might do it, but you can't rely on your manager to do that for you.

[JS Dansel]

Oh, exactly. You know, at one university I worked at, you know, my boss led the media relations department and, you know, professors, when they would go out and speak at conferences or whatever, and, you know, they would send a little thing to us to make a press release about and put it on the front page of the university website. And I'll be honest with you, nobody read those except other people at the university. So, you know, once I spoke at a conference and was like, hey, why are we not putting this on the front page of the website? Just like we do for professors and things like that. It's like, if my boss said, you know, to, like, we don't really talk about our department, I'm like, well, we should. We need to. Let's get that out there. You know, there was one we put out that, you know, a professor appears on a podcast, and I had been on like six podcasts that year. I was like, we need to let the university know what we're doing. Especially when you're working with faculty and professors who are incredibly smart, but they're going out and presenting and doing things at conferences. And we needed to share. Hey, we're doing that too. We're also professionals in our field, so, yeah, you've got to toot your own horn and it feels weird to do, but no one else is going to do it for you. Even still, every time I post a win on LinkedIn, I feel like, oh, people are going to think I'm braggy before I post that. But no one else is going to do it for you, so you got to do it.

[Daniel Murray]

I know you're coming out with a book soon and I want to just. You don't have to share all the nitty gritty that people could get. But what is. I know it's 10 principles of social Media Marketing, if I'm correct, but I. Like, what are some, like, core. Like, what is one or two core principles? If you could share that every social media manager or every social media team needs to know to be successful in social media?

[JS Dansel]

Yeah, I sure can. Yeah. The name of the book is the 10 Principles of Effective Social Media Management. It's coming out in September, and each chapter covers a different principle that I think is core to being a social. To Effective social media management that is never changing. The challenge of writing a book on social media management is that, you know, by the time it's written and printed and published and gets out to the consumer, it's outdated. So I tried to think of core principles that just will be universal to social media management. Fingers crossed. For a very, very long time. But things like, you know, there's one chapter about social media. Effective social media management needs a budget, right? It's, it's free the way a puppy is free. You can go to the animal shelter and pick up a puppy, but you've got to feed it, you've got to take care of it. And in that chapter, we really break down all the things that you need to spend money on for social media management from not just pay the paid social side, but like what equipment your social media manager needs, professional development opportunities for your social media manager. Because we need to go out, the field changes so often that if we're not constantly learning, we're falling behind. Another effective principle is that social media management is a team effort. And we talk about all the different roles, kind of like we were talking earlier, where you know, what sort of team structure that you have in ways that smaller teams of one, it's still going to be a team effort because everyone, if you only have a social media manager on your social media team and nobody else it falls down to, other people at your company are going to have to start taking on a few roles to help them out, to help share possible stories, get them content ideas, you know, help represent the brand on social media. So those are, those are two big ones. Another one that we talk about is accessibility and being sure that your social media content is accessible to people with hearing impairments and visual impairments and how making accessible content makes the content better for everyone. So we cover, you know, I was gonna say we cover a lot of principles, but we cover 10 big ones. So the ones that I think are most important. So those are a few of them.

[Daniel Murray]

I want to go down. The one, the first one you just said, because I actually was at a conference a few weeks ago and Gary Vee was on stage and he said that like the brands that are not investing basically like 20% of the marketing budget on social media creative and content that's organic social media that you could test before you put it on paid or anything like that is those brands are going to fail because we're in the era of like, the algorithms are changing to intent based algorithms. Like, there are ways that things are going to go viral and like you're just wasting money if you just put a random creative on a paid social that would never work on organic and think it's going to actually work on organic. So what are your thoughts on how much of the marketing budget should actually be dedicated to this organic social media effort? What is your thought on that? Here's the truth marketers. People don't pause their scroll for ads. They stop for people. A product review, a creator story, a quick tag from someone they follow. That's why smart brands use impact.com to turn fans, affiliates and creators into their real growth engine. You don't need another polished ad. You need trust. Build trust where it matters. Impact.com.

[JS Dansel]

Oh man. And again that that organic people think it is free, but it is not. Just because you can make the post and hit send on it or the thing that that really gets under my skin is the, oh, it's just social media. And besides lo fi content does better anyway. It's not the fact that the content is lo fi or low quality or feels like somebody just did with their phone. It's the story you're telling whether it's, you know, a low production value or a high production value. Like it, it's the story behind it. Like it's not. That's not an excuse to have subpar content, right? And you need talent to do that. You need people who are creative. You need, you know, I think it's so funny. We, we talk about all the roles we ask of social media managers. You know, from being able to not just understand every single platform what's working, but we also ask them to be graphic designers, video editors, also good writers. And on top of that, for a lot of brands, we ask social media managers to be funny, which is a completely different skill set entirely. Not everybody has, right? We don't recognize that as a skill. Like we do like understanding Excel or you know, whatever, being able to put together a good slide deck. Humor is a skill. So there are so many things we ask them to do and we need to pay them fairly for that. You're not going to get the funniest person or somebody that knows social media and pay them peanuts and have them stay for a long time. So you need to invest in a good social media manager because not only that, not only is it the skill of a social media manager, your social media manager understands the ins and outs of your brand. They know that brand voice. They know everyone at your company, right? You know, they know when I'm coming and I say okay, I need to get something and some photos from you or something like that. We kind of know where the bodies are buried. We know the things not to say on social. So when you lose a social media manager when they move on the institutional knowledge that you lose along with that is so hard to replace. So it is worth it to pay your social media managers well. And I don't, I'm not talking about, you know, just an enormous salary or anything like that which would be great, you know, it's fantastic. But something reasonable that it's not an entry level salary.

[Daniel Murray]

It's funny because a social media manager can't hide behind a paid spend budget for their creative like. Like a paid social person could put a creative put spend behind it. It can get a lot of impressions but doesn't mean that creative was good. I guess social media manager is like tied to like having to know that this will resonate with my audience, resonate with the algorithm. This format works on this platform. This is the type of content that is going to. It works with my brand also what you said like the institutional knowledge. I've been so many places where if you post this the CEO would ream the marketing team and not many people will know that like the CEO might ream the market. If you say two or three words wrong or something that's.

[JS Dansel]

Yeah, exactly. You know, like in higher ed there's a whole sort of lingo that you know, the, the housing doesn't like you to say dorm. They want you to say residence life or residence hall which I think with the audience it's confusing. But that's neither here nor there. But we do have one of the few jobs at any company where everyone from the CEO to the intern in the mailroom see the product of your work and have a very strong opinion of it. That's to say nothing of your customers. Imagine if every email that you sent out was seen by everybody in your company and all of your customers and scrutinized for every little mistake, error or typo. That's what social media managers do every day basically, right. Every post we send out is absolutely scrutinized. So it's a high pressure job. It requires a lot of talent. There's very little room for error. Mistakes will happen because just the sheer volume of it. So I think brands need to understand that and social media managers should be compensated accordingly.

[Daniel Murray]

Couple questions, just like general question because I know these come up with asks that social media gets. So what are your. Like if someone came up to social media manager and says like, hey, we need to be on XYZ channel, or we need to be on these five channels to be successful. Like, and you know, as a social media manager, you really need to be on Instagram and LinkedIn maybe, like, what. How do you go push back and say, like, hey, like, we don't. We don't need that to be posting there, or we don't need to be investing all that time. When I can be really successful on these two channels and help us grow.

[JS Dansel]

The business, it kind of comes back to that education and building that rapport where they, you know, you need a boss that kind of trusts you a little bit of. Like, when I say no, I'm not saying no because I don't want more work. I'm saying no because this is not going to help us. It's not a good use of our time. And I have the reason behind that. It can be kind of tough to, like, push back, especially on. On higher ups, you know. Oh, my. My nephew said, we need to be on TikTok, so why aren't we on TikTok? And it's like, well, where we sell accounting software, which there can be, you know, but it may not be the right for your specific audience at that time. Also lay out the groundwork of, like, what it would take to be successful on that platform. Right. Okay, well, I need this many hours to create videos and we need. We're going to have to. I can't speak on camera, so we're going to have to hire talent for TikTok. We're going to have to do all of this. This is what's going to take to do that. I try to advocate for a less but better approach with all of my clients of, like, okay, what. Where do we really want to zero in and focus? Because if we spread everything out, we're not going. We're going to have diminishing returns. So pushing back can be really hard to do, but you just, you have to do it respectfully. One thing I did, you know, when I was at the Texas Department of Transportation, I felt like, you know, I had different leadership giving me different protocol, different things. They wanted out of it. So I asked my boss, I said, hey, can I send everybody in the C suite an email and ask them, what. What are your three top goals for our social media? And they sent me their emails back, you know, and not a duplicate answer in the bunch. Every goal was different, you know. You know, and they're all good goals, you know, for. For the Department of Transportation. They were asking you know, they were saying, oh, we want to reduce traffic fatalities, we want to reduce the number of drinking and drivers, and that, that's excellent things you want to do. But if we asked our audience why they follow the Department of Transportation, it was because they wanted to know when the construction on the highway was going to be done. Right. So I went into a meeting with all of the C Suite executives and said, hey, here are the goals that you've all sent me. Let's pick three, right? And those are going to be our North Star goals. If it doesn't apply to one of those three goals, we're not doing it. And that gave me some leverage, too, to push back later on was like, when they said, hey, can you post this? I'd be like, well, we had that meeting and remember how we agreed what our three goals were? This one doesn't match that. So that's another thing. I would definitely ask your supervisor's permission before you go out sending emails to people in the C Suite, but those sort of things really do help.

[Daniel Murray]

I think one thing you also said is, like, sometimes the audience is not gonna, like, if you ask me to post this, it's just not gonna get any engagement views. People are gonna stop following. And the real goal is to get this, like, engaged group of people who want to, like, keep coming back and keep. And if you're posting content, like DUI content where people want to know, hey, there's a roadblock on this freeway today. You might stop getting people following you. And, like, we need. We need people following us to keep, like, the lights on for social media.

[JS Dansel]

Exactly. And sometimes they have reasons behind those posts that you're not aware of. So, like, trying to dig down and find that out. Like, when I was at a university, I had a professor who kept sending me this stuff to post that was just boring and dull. And finally I was like, you know, found out after digging a while that he had his research, had a grant, that one of the stipulations was it had to be posted on the university social media for him to continue receiving the grant. So sometimes you have to, like, go, oh, I know this is going to hurt our engagement, but I see where they're coming from and why they need us to do it. So I'm going to hold my nose, I'm going to hit send on this, but, you know, and check off that box. So sometimes you do kind of have to meet them in the middle, but finding out why, you know, the underlying reason, because sometimes it's. It's you know, you might be able to serve them better in another way, right? They go, oh, you know, we, we want it posted. But you say, hey, this might actually work better, you know, if you sent out it, we put you on our email newsletter or something like that rather than, than on the brand Social.

[Daniel Murray]

I think one thing that's hard about social media too, and I want to get your opinion on this and I know you talked about it, but like most people on social media, they see these like quotation North Star brands, like dual lingo Wendy's, like these like ones that are just doing a great job in their space and they come back to social media managers like why can't we do this? I want to be like this. Or we should be like this. Or even like social media managers that are new to like the spaces are, are looking at. We, I want to do this strategy. Could you give like just like a step back and say like, hey, this is why you shouldn't do this or like how you must think about social media before even thinking about Wendy and Duolingo.

[JS Dansel]

You know, your brand is unique and you deserve a unique strategy. There's already one Duolingo, there's already one Wendy's. There's not going to be another. Even though so many people try. That's not to say you can't be funny, you can't be snarky, you can't develop your own brand voice. But you know, what works for one brand isn't going to work for everyone. And those like, I don't want to insult anybody's abilities, but it's like the difference between like minor league and major league baseball. Like those guys are the majors, right? They, you know, but that doesn't mean you can't do something that's very effective and works really well. It's not going to work for every single brand and you need to be able to adapt to the brand voice that you're working on. When I first started freelancing, my two biggest clients were working on the social media for Amazon Prime Videos Invincible animated series, which I'm still working on and love and a startup in the quote unquote end of life industry. So they, what they did, it was a company, they owned forest and you go pick out a tree and when you passed away that's where your ashes would be spread and that's they maintained the forest. So in the morning I was writing jokes about superheroes, making memes, replying, making snarky replies to fans and then in the afternoon I'm writing About death. I'm writing about, you know, why you need to read this blog post about, you know, how to talk to your family about your wishes after you die. Right. So two very different tones of voice. And I learned so much being able to adapt because what worked on Invincible definitely wasn't going to work on, you know, the, the end of life industry. So finding that voice that, that hits and works for your brand, you can't just like grab, oh, I'm going to do what Duolingo does, or oh, this is a, this trend looks really good. We're going to use it for our brand. And not every trend works for every single brand. Not every voice works for every single brand. You have to find out what works for your brand and what your audience and stick to it for a while.

[Daniel Murray]

Yeah. And also I bet those two brands, the age difference of the audience are probably way different. The two channels that they're probably talking on are probably way different. How they like seeing receiving content is probably way different. And you're just like, you have to also like content switch into that too. Like, hey, I'm going from maybe an audience on Twitter and Reddit and Instagram to an audience on Facebook and something else. And that's a whole different context which as well.

[JS Dansel]

So even for one brand, like, yeah, back to like working in the universities, like, it's been a while since I worked there, but the Twitter was still a big thing. Like you talk to students on Twitter and you talk to their parents on Facebook and your post better reflect that.

[Daniel Murray]

One question I also ask everybody, and this is the last question for you is on this podcast is what's a marketing hill you would die on? Hmm.

[JS Dansel]

I knew this question was coming and I didn't. I have like 50 different answers for it, but I'm very opinionated in my beliefs. So there's a lot, a lot of hills I would die on. It's that you. And come back to our original thought. You need to hire an experienced social media manager. They need to be teams. The days of the single social media manager are really over. Right? And newer social media managers need that. They don't need to just be thrown into the deep end of the pool without any sort of training whatsoever. Even fresh out of college, even if they have a degree in social media management, until you've run social media, until you've been, been in the chair, you don't know how, how, what it's going to be like. So I think we need to start building social media manager social media marketing teams and Giving that on the job training to those new social media managers and not just throwing them out to the wolves and saying, here, here are the passwords. Go run it.

[Daniel Murray]

Yeah. I mean, I think people also forget that I would say, like half the job is managing internal, asking internal approvals and internal questions. And that's why where the biggest difference I think of, like, some creators who like, probably can crush a channel for you, but they don't have to deal with going to legal, dealing with the managers, dealing about everybody's expectations internally, having to have a content calendar that gets approved, make sure that posts get out at the right time, are gold on 50 different things. Like, there's so many things that go into social media management that both sides. Like, I'm really good at Instagram, which is what I think people miss out all the time.

[JS Dansel]

And that internal diplomacy is so hard to learn. When I first started my career, I wanted to bust in like Kool Aid man, and just be like, oh, yeah, we're gonna make some changes and blah, blah, blah. And you just can't do that. It just is not gonna work. You have to do that little by little. You have to know the right people to talk to. You've gotta find an advocate within the business that will, you know, sing your praises in rooms that you're not in and do all of those things.

[Daniel Murray]

So, yeah, yeah, I've seen a lot of people who like, say the marketing manager or some manager wants that on the marketing team, but they could just get shut down by leadership or shut down like you. We can't post like this or legal won't let me post like this. And you have to you, even though you know what will be successful, you have to find a way to work in the guardrails of the company or go to a different company. Unless you could be very good at what you said, advocating like, we need to do this, we need to do this. And that takes time and politicking and internally to make sure that everybody's on your side and you have a bunch of people on your side too.

[JS Dansel]

I'll add one thing before we go. Like, those guardrails are not a bad thing. They're there to protect you and they're not there to stifle your creativity. If anything, let the limitations, like, guide your creativity to go, okay, I have like a set number of things I can do within this. You know, where can I be creative? Like, it's kind of like, you know, I used to play guitar. So, like, they're all. I have all kinds of guitar references, but like Kurt Cobain, not the greatest guitar player ever, but the notes that he knew, he knew how to do awesome things with. And that's the same thing. Like as a social media manager, you work within limitations and the. You play with the notes that you have. Right.

[Daniel Murray]

Yeah. I mean for marketing in general, I think the best marketing plays like you need guardrails to be successful because if you can go off the. Because you need that brand strategy, that overall marketing strategy, those lines to know how to play the game. Otherwise you could be not playing the game how you think you could be playing the game and then failing. At least you have a rule book.

[JS Dansel]

Exactly.

[Daniel Murray]

Game a game that you could play. And you know that it might be hard to be successful, but that's where they're hiring you to for your creativity to be successful in that, in those guardrails. So I agree with you. I think more marketing departments actually need to even communicate those guardrails better to make social media managers or any managers or directors or anything to be more successful. Otherwise it's hard to win if you don't know the rules of the game internally.

[JS Dansel]

Exactly.

[Daniel Murray]

Cool. Well, thank you so much for joining. Also, I want to ask you one last thing. Where could people find you, what you're doing, all that good stuff?

[JS Dansel]

Yeah, I'm all over the place. I'm pretty much on every single social media platform as Stancil. I'm most active on LinkedIn these days, but I'm also active on Instagram and TikTok. My book is coming out in September is The 10 Principles Effective Social media management is available for pre order on Amazon or wherever you find your books. And that's probably those are the best places to find me.

[Daniel Murray]

Well, everybody go give them a follow if you want to learn why social media management and how to be successful in social media manager. And he'll give you the playbook. And you've been in so many different industries that you know you've seen so much different things. And I do agree if one takeaway of this podcast that we I advocate for too is like find a great social media manager and pay them well and give them resources to be successful in that role as well. Not only pay them well but give them resources to be successful. Because it's not a one man person job. If your goal is to be successful on social media, like if you want to be just average and not just have a couple posts up, do whatever you want, but if you want to be a success and grow your business and be a name out there that is recognized. Pay the right person, right? Thank you so much.

[JS Dansel]

Thank you for having me.

[Daniel Murray]

Thanks so much for listening. Keep tuning in to hear more great insights from the coolest marketers from around the world. If you haven't already, make sure to subscribe and follow the Marketing Millennials podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcast. And if you like what you hear, I would greatly appreciate you giving us a five star rating. It helps bring more marketers into our community. Sam.