← The Marketing Millennials
The Marketing Millennials
Is Any Brand Really Authentic in Marketing? with Christina Le, Head of Marketing at Slate | Ep. 397
00:52:21
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- [00:01]
A
There's a big gap between having data and turning that data into real customer personalization. Customer IO closes that gap. Fun personalized experiences for Every channel with AI to handle the boring stuff. Learn more at Customer IO TMM. Welcome to the Marketing Millennials, the NoBS Marketing Podcast. I'm Daniel Murray and join me for unfiltered convers 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. We are back with another episode of the Market Millennials podcast. I am here with the head of marking up Slate, Christina. I'm so glad we finally get to chat and this is our first time actually chatting. But it's good to chat on a podcast because then the you get to hear the non filtered thoughts come out of both of us. So welcome to the podcast.
- [01:09]
B
Thank you so much for having me. Been a big fan for a long time.
- [01:12]
A
Let's get into your journey first and then we'll get into the conversation. So how did you get into the marketing space?
- [01:21]
B
Oh my gosh. So I kind of stumbled into this. I worked in social for over a decade. I had actually went to school as a political communications major.
- [01:30]
A
Major.
- [01:30]
B
And because I was the young person when I was working as a legislative aide for a state rep, they were like you, you, you're young, you can handle, you know, social media. Here's a, you know how to work a phone. And so that was the start of my initial bit with marketing is that I, I handled the state reps social media account and then that led to me going into like this leather goods company and then a fuel company and then I ended up in tech. I went from Panadoc to then open phone to then plot and now IMS Light. So the trajectory of my career has primarily been a social media marketer and I've, and I've gone into head of marketing sort of like because I, I became more of a generalist. I was always very interested in doing different aspects of marketing and I think social has just played a big role in helping me become a bit more, a bit more adaptable because I could just do anything because the social is always the person that's like here, take a post, create it. You know, how can we, how can we talk to our audience? It's the same, same qualities across the board.
- [02:39]
A
Yeah, I feel the same about marketing ops. I came from marketing ops and it's just the do everything, know everything department and I feel social media pretty much the same as the you know, everything, what the customers are saying, the industry saying, you're talking to the community all the time. So makes total sense going into this. You have a buzzword that you don't like that's in the industry. And I want you to tell us what the buzzword is and tell us how people use it and what it actually means to you.
- [03:13]
B
Oh my God. I hate authenticity so much because I feel like they wear it as a badge of honor and they try to position it as a way of like, you know, you need to always be authentic. But it becomes a buzzword because we're never truly authentic when social in and itself is pretty performative. And I, I find that it's really jarring when people are like, yeah, this is so authentic. But it's like that probably went through that campaign or whatever that post is probably went through, especially from the brand side, probably went through a series of revisions and back and forth and planning. So the authenticity layer, right. Holds people in this unachievable expectation of like how we're supposed to exist online. And I just think it's one of those things where people toss around as just another word, like we're being authentic. One, I think it's. Two, I think it's also very lazy. And three, I think it's kind of like a cop out to say, you know, we're trying to be edgy by being authentic because this is how we define it. But authentic is very subjective. It's just, it's hard to define what that is online. That is a very performative state.
- [04:23]
A
I feel like the only way you could be authentic is write a journal. And if you write a journal on social, it's probably not going to perform because it's not meant for, it's meant for you, not the audience. If you write your journal online, you would have to rework the journal to have a hook, some meat in there that will keep grabbing the attention, storytelling. And then it wouldn't be a journal anymore. It's just something to help make the audience.
- [04:53]
B
Yeah, because you fit everything into a framework. And then I also think, do you really want people to be authentic? Like, do we actually want that? We certainly don't consume the content that have, you know, the meandering thoughts or the half baked ideas. We ourselves, as you know, the active scrollers, we don't like to that type of content. So why are we saying we want to see people's authentic self? Because authentic could also mean trauma dumping on a daily basis. Like, you know, there's, there's different ways that people could be authentic. I just think when we think about the platforms, there are these social norms that, you know, get into place on how we should act and behave on there, that I think it would be completely disruptive if somebody was truly authentic and show every layer of themselves. And so, yeah, I just think the word authentic just feels really. I think the definition needs to be changed. Maybe, like, I would, I would probably say, because, I don't know, so much
- [05:52]
A
work goes into authenticity when people say authentic. But what do you think that. What does the market actually want? Because we kind of said that if these authentic posts aren't. If someone's really being authentic and laying it out the line and not caring about metrics or they're not caring about likes, they're not caring about comments, they're not caring about performance. If you would have being in your years in social and seeing that, what is like, what does the market actually want out of content online?
- [06:24]
B
Yeah, I think what they really want is to have content that's relatable to them in that moment. I think that's what they want. And I think often that's why, you know, we see the addiction happen when these algorithm becomes very specific to knowing you as a person and showing you content that you generally like to engage with. And so that's why I think like, even authenticity when we think of, you know, back in, like, I don't know, let's say 2016, 2017, when the Instagram, oh my gosh, I'm dating myself saying the Instagram. That sounds like my parents when they go the tic tac. But you know, when Instagram used to reward people for their authentic or not their curated posts. And then I think because that layer of performance where people had these really highly curated life started, people started realizing like, oh, this is making me feel bad about myself because I'm not doing things in a way that we're living my life in a way that is what I'm seeing online. And I think that resistance to engaging with that type of content started taking form. And that's why the word authenticity started coming around where they're like, no, show me the uncurated side. Show me like, you know, the, the. The messiness of your life, because that's what's innately human. Fast forward. Now we're in a place where the algorithm really controls what you like to consume and see, and everything's tailored to you. I think, again, I think the audience really controls what they want to see. So when they say authentic it's really uniquely what they like. Because again, you know, like, I could say I want to consume content that I feel is storytelling, human. Something that makes me feel like you're not being performative and fake and you're not an ad. But then another person might be like, I want, you know, I want somebody to be able to show me all the curated stuff. So I don't know, I think, I think it's all subjective and depending on the person.
- [08:16]
A
I totally agree. I mean, and authentic means different from a creator versus a brand, where.
- [08:23]
B
Yes.
- [08:23]
A
And the definition is changing all the time. Like, what does it mean to be authentic? You're not authentic enough. You're not showing the deeper side, but when they start the deep show the deeper side than they're getting trolled on or they're getting hated on. So it's really hard to, to actually be fully authentic online.
- [08:43]
B
Yeah. Have you ever seen a post where you think to yourself, wow, you actually had that thought. You typed it out and then you shared it. And it's like, that person might be very authentic in that moment. You know, they're just sharing whatever thought came to mind. And, and I feel like sometimes the way people react to things like, would dictate how that creator or that person who's sharing perform in the next post that they share, you know, so I don't know. Social media.
- [09:12]
A
Yeah. Because, I mean, as a, as a brand, you've done this a thousand times. You make a post and you, you think you have to go through the checklist in your head where, hey, is this fit our brand guidelines, our brand values? Am I going to get canceled for this or not? Am I? And you just start going down the checklist in your head before you. When you even start creating. And that already waters down what you were going to originally think, because your brain is filtered to have these guidelines and you know your audience. If you show a meme of this person or a picture of this type of person versus that type of person or this or that, you. You're at risk in the community for maybe not being authentic enough or being cancelable or. So you have to have a use. This isn't always on filter. As a social person or a social company or as a brand where you can't, you have, you can never be truly authentic.
- [10:13]
B
Yeah. And I think that's why we have these branding exercises in every team that I go through, every company that I've been with. I think it is important to know in the beginning, and this is from just, you know, the brand marketing side of the house. When I think about companies and how they appear on social, it's like, let's define what authenticity means to us. Meaning do we know ourselves and our values and the mission that we're trying to drive and how does that show up in our content? And I think oftentimes people get shiny object syndrome when it comes online and they're like, oh, I see what this company is doing. Like, they're totally disrupting the market. Like, look at them getting all this attention. How can we do that? But I do think as a social person or even as a general marketer, I think it's good to take a step back and be like, what is it that we're trying to do on here? Like, what is our goal with even showing up online? Obviously in business it is to drive business, right? But at the end of the day, I also think it's worth sort of considering everything that we share. It's always going to be we want validation from people to say what we're sharing is good, but is. I mean, I can share memes all day long. That means. Does not correlate to the things that we're sharing as a business. Is that going to be impactful? So, yeah, I do, I do agree with what you were saying, how we're constantly having this filter on and we're. And it's just so funny to even think about because I don't even think if you haven't worked in social in that capacity that you would even think like that. Like just an average everyday social media user. Do you think about all the layers that go into every post? Probably not. But for some reason the rest of us who like to share things online, constantly filtering through.
- [11:53]
A
You know, that's why some of the, the, the crate, the younger creators succeed faster because they have this innocence to them when they're posting where, yes, they, they haven't been through the trauma of layers of social over the year. But I wanted to ask, like, let's say a brand did say we're, we're authentic or we're sharing our authentic values as a brand. Let's say, like it's authentic values, what are the, like the receipts you want to see from them to show that they actually are delivering on that promise. Or if you, if you are trying to define authentic in your company and here are the values of being authentic, what are the receipts that the audience is looking for to show that you are delivering on the promise? You're, you're saying that it's.
- [12:40]
B
Yeah, I think just seeing it as being a repeated message over and over again. And I find this, this is actually a challenge for lot of brands. And I, and I do a lot of consulting on the side too, where it goes back to this shiny object syndrome where you start doing things because you think that's going to be in favor of whatever the platform algorithm is going to do and help you get more reach. But I do think that the slower side of building yourselves and your brand does require a lot of work. It requires a lot of iteration, but it requires dedication to actually like seeing the message through. And I find that if you are going to say that our brand value, like, I'll use Slate as an example. We really value the fact of, like, we, we do think social teams are the most under resourced group of people and they are typically under, they're under supported, they're under resourced, they are not utilized to the max capacity. They are often like the last to be considered for a lot of things, yet they have a high threshold of responsibilities that is, you know, pushed on them day in and day out. But for us, we're like, how do we continue driving the mission? We want to be there to support these teams. So every angle that we do, whether it's talking about our product or us as individual Slate employees, talk about anything online, it's always surrounding that message of how do we solve the social problems? Because we ourselves have existed in this space for a really long time, so we have empathy for that pain. So if we have empathy for these marketers, do the things we say actually help in that way? So we don't really think in terms of like, what formats need to go out or that content structure. We just know at our core, if we keep talking about these things more than enough times, like, you know, social teams need to be better supported or, you know, they need to have better tools built for them. Like, if we keep having the same conversations in different ways, it's eventually going to get sticky to people where they're like, okay, if we think of any brands that are the most supportive to social team, we're going to think about Slate because we see them posting about it all over the place, all the time. And it's just like keeping that center, that core thought. And I've, I've seen people, I've seen companies who say things like, you know, we want to be, we want to be super innovative. And innovation is like such a weird term because I'm like, how are you different than the next brand? That's Saying that they're innovative, you know, but then you have companies like Patagonia who are very mission driven and you see the things that they give back to the community. You see, like the way they work with their creators. It's every single touch point of their marketing, like fully validates the things that they post on their website and the things that they say that they stand for because you just see it repeated over and over again. I just went on a full tangent.
- [15:19]
A
No, I agree. I think the, I think the core of great content and great social and great marketing is going back to always delivering on that, that core and every, like you said, at every touch point, I think. And that, and that's why I think a lot of people don't have a lot of marketing problems. They just have a positioning problem or a messaging problem and they don't have, I need to put it, put out more content. I need to do this. It's usually that they haven't defined what you have defined at Slate, they haven't defined what they did at Patagonia and they, they rely on we are the most innovative, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then they, they're wondering why their content or marketing is not hitting as hard as someone who has defined a message that actually hits with their audience.
- [16:18]
B
Yeah. And it's such, and I know that, you know, we're, we're existing in this time where output and volume is just so demanding because a lot of times, and I do think it's honestly the lack of, the lack of deep, deep knowledge towards how, you know, marketing or social operates. But I think like this whole thing of we want that dopamine quick results, like we want to go viral. We want that attention is so like, everybody fiends for it that I feel like it distracts people from actually putting in the effort to build that sort of reputation, you know, because it requires a lot of work. It does, like, it's a slow burn in a way, but I think it's, it's worth the effort to push into that and really like develop your positioning because that is so important. And I find that you eventually double back on it anyway. So if you're focused so hard on, like, we just need more content, more content, more content. But then it doesn't relate to anything because now you have a variety of content that doesn't connect back to any core messaging. That's when people are like, how are you any different from any other SaaS company or any other company in the market for that manner?
- [17:29]
A
Let me ask you this then. So what matters more today in the market? Is it when it comes to content, is it distribution, differentiation or depth?
- [17:42]
B
I think depth, I think we are lacking a lot of depth, especially because we are existing in this whole AI bubble right now where people are serious, they are so. And honestly, I will praise people for being really adaptive and they're really quick to absorbing a lot of stuff. But man, the AI sludge that's coming, coming out because everybody is again feeling that pressure to put more output out there that I don't know it. I think people are creating really good quality debt. Like they want people who are more thoughtful, they want brands who are actually like putting some, I don't know, some strong point of views and opinions behind the things that they're sharing.
- [18:20]
A
You know, when you go down that depth, I think a lot of it comes from doing things that don't exist on the Internet, which is like getting first party data from your customers or getting the problem sets of interviews and reviews. And that's why I love podcasts because we get this raw transcript. This raw transit could be a whole new first party data article that nobody has because I'm taking it from something that's coming from your, your mind and creating something new that nobody has seen on the Internet. Because we haven't had. This conversation has never happened before between me and you, which I think that's where also I think that you, you said this. It's a lack of thinking. And also when you go to AI, you're just saying write me more marketing content instead of saying think about what marketing content is actually needed in this world. How could I. Because you could do create great content with AI if you know how to like take multiple pieces of AI, do deep research first, then take the parts of the research that is great and then plug and play together, which is a skill to take different information and put it into one place. I mean you could use AI and create something great. I think the problem is that we're just trying to, like you said, get this hamster wheel of getting the most amount of content out and it's not working for a lot of brands.
- [19:51]
B
Someone had asked me in the last few months because I, in the beginning I was a big, I was, I had very strong opinions about people using AI as part of their creative outputs and I had a lot of strong opinions that I shared across LinkedIn. But somebody had asked me the other day, like, do I fear AI is going to take my job? And I don't see it as taking my job Because I don't think, I mean, I would hope not. Maybe one, maybe in a few years, you know, who knows? But I don't think it's going to take my job. I do, I do think it requires a prompt level skills of how to use AI as a tool that could help me be better at my job and get me unstuck at some of those things. And it is like you say and, and I remember one of my response back to them was like, I think lazy marketers will always be lazy marketers regardless of whatever tool they're using or any of that sort. The output will always be the same whether they have the tool or they have not. It's just going to, you know, that is the way it is. But I think for us creative folks or people who are really like attuned with what good content is, they'll learn how to adapt and you know, partner with all of this stuff to take it to that next level. And I, yeah, I just want, I don't know, I think as a personal social usage and stuff, I just feel tired. A lot of times when I read, when I see content, I get really tired of the bullshit and the repetitive stuff that I'm like, this is not, I, I actually can watch things on mute and keep scrolling. But then there'll be something about one video that'll get me to stop and I can watch a full 15, 20 minute video as long as like, you know, it's good content. And I know a lot of people and this is like me rambling on. I know a lot of people also say like people have a short attention span. I think people just have a short patience for shitty content.
- [21:47]
A
So plus one, I've said that, I mean I, I agree too. I've said that a thousand times. I think, I think the bar for good content just gets higher every, every year. And a lot of people stay at the old bar or they stay below the bar and that's why they're not breaking through. I think since we're getting so much content out there, that's why, that's why when we go back and watch a movie that we liked maybe 10 years ago and we see how bad like the, like the effects were and this and this and then we watch a movie today and see how 10x better it became, the bar of creating a movie is now. I mean there is great storytelling and there are great movies in the past and I do believe that they are, but the, the ones that were created poorly and were great at that time are like supersede the ones that now are could supersede if they have the storytelling and the aspects of a great movie and have that extra layer of creating great content on there.
- [22:53]
B
That is such a good analogy to compare it to.
- [22:57]
A
It just the bar that's just the bar is getting and you just have to keep. And I think the thing about tools, what I think we just had the conversation about tools, is the, the marketers that are going to win is the ones that could make themselves 10x, 20x 30x better with the tools. It's not the ones that are going to be replaced by the tools. Is how can I make this tool make me as a marketer, right? 10x better at my job, 20x better at my job. And like not 2x because a lot of people are already becoming 2x better that job because they could do it. They can read things at super speed, they can digest information faster. But how can we get 10x, 20x, 30x, 40x, 50x better at a job with AI?
- [23:41]
B
I even think on the subject of AI, have you noticed how quick people, I mean even ourselves can detect AI content? Like first we can detect obviously AI writing, but now, you know, with all the AI videos coming out, it's just so funny how the human brain works because it's like, how do you tell the difference between AI writing versus a human writing? You know? But then there are these pattern detection that you pick up. And I'm just, I think it's just so funny. I wonder where we're going to be in about five years with this stuff. Like, am I going to have a harder time figuring out what is AI content?
- [24:20]
A
I think we're going to all have harder times. I just think if people are writing with AI, if you can, you always need that human sprinkle to go parse through it to make sure it sounds correct, to make sure it has taste, to make sure the examples are good, to make sure it. It's performative. And my audience would like that because I do, I do truly believe one of the harder and social people have it and content people have it. And one of the hardest things to teach is taste and creativity. It's hard to teach it and AI is only the inputs you give it. So if you have a great taste and expertise, that that's why I feel for the new marketers coming in, because expertise is what teaches taste. You have to be able to see things over and over and over to get taste. And I think the marketers who have built that muscle are going to be stronger and stronger. Now, like creative marketers are going to be the ones that are harder because now AI could just analyze data like this. You don't need to be great at data anymore.
- [25:37]
B
Yeah, yeah. It's crazy. I say in a way, you know, that is the flip side where it could handle all the mundane stuff that I hated about my job and let me focus on being creative. And maybe sometimes my focus on being creative is just laying on the floor and having a long think.
- [25:52]
A
Yeah, I mean, that's that. I think that's the benefit. I think we, we weren't for 10 years allowed to be able to have time to think because we had so much time to, we had so little time to do everything else. So. And that's the social managers. Like, like we're talking about social right now, like social media managers, since their jobs is blah, blah, like all the time trying to do this stuff, they don't have time to think about the next big creative idea because the next big creator, they don't have time to do it. They don't have time to just go on a walk and refer because the best ideas don't happen when you work and you're working all the time.
- [26:34]
B
Right. And it's so funny because this all goes in a full circle moment of us talking about authenticity earlier. If we want so badly to create original content that resonates with people, we do have to carve out that space to give ourselves the moment to just think a little more deeply on things.
- [26:54]
A
Let's, let's go back to something specific about. So what do you think social teens misunderstand about making content efficient or efficiently?
- [27:10]
B
What do I think they mistaken to build? Huh? That's a great question. I think they mistaken creating content efficiently by just like more volume. I really think it's just like, how can I produce the most amount of content in a short amount of time so that way I can plug it all on the calendar and batch it in a month's time. Social moves so fast these days that the method of managing these accounts that I've done maybe 10 years ago, you know, with the whole calendar, batching, doing social holidays and all these other things, that stuff doesn't work anymore. We have to move at the speed of culture. Yes, agreed. But we have to also be attuned with what's happening and be able to read the room a little bit and create content that's actually going to be sticky. So I think in order for folks to do that, they really just got to have I Don't know, better tooling, better understanding of their. What their company goals are, then the way they could be efficient is having all that clear in the very beginning. And so there's no hiccup along the way. Like, I think sometimes as social people, we have this idea of how we want to project the company forward by simply creating content, but it doesn't. It's very hard to tie it back to what the business trajectory is. And so we need to marry, you know, social and the greater marketing a little bit more.
- [28:33]
A
Yeah, I, I love that. I think the old, the old social way of doing things is never going to work again. And I think it goes back to what we said at the beginning and you said where great content is just relevancy and relevancy could be in a lot of different buckets. Like, relevancy is, are you relevant with the pain points of your audience, which is evergreen. That's evergreen bucket. You could do it. And the next bucket is, is there a trend that's happening right now that's relevant to my audience that I can hop on as a brand that fits my brand? That's relevancy. That's another stage of relevancy. And then the next bucket of relevancy is, is there something original that I could do to become a relevant brand? And there's like buckets of trend. There's a bucket of the evergreen stuff, which I know is going to work all the time, and then there's like that original bucket. And I think you 70% should probably go in the. The pain point evergreen stuff, because that won't. But you need to be able to have space for the. That 20 of trend jumping on and that 10 of original ideas to win.
- [29:47]
B
And so, yeah, I think teams just gotta have to like, have an agreement and work together. Whenever I join any new company, I spend about, you know, a couple of months just fine tuning everyone's understanding of what our goals are on social or even with, you know, broader marketing. Because having that clear understanding from the CEO all the way down to like your very junior intern and knowing like, you know, what our hopes are with this, that's gonna, that's gonna make the work so much better. I mean, I even know it's basic stuff too, like setting the brand guidelines in the beginning, implementing it across social, like, do we use certain graphics for this stuff? Do we use this font? Do we use this color? Those are the little thing, little details that I don't think people often think about, and then they get stuck into this whole tunnel of back and forth, back and forth, and that just slows the entire process of growth down.
- [30:44]
A
Let me ask you this. So what is the smallest amount of content a brand can produce and still win on social? Like how. What is, what is that level? Because, is it because there, there is a level where you're posting so little that you're not even in the feed and you're not being relevant? So what is that bar for you? We all know marketing has to feel human to work. But when each message has to be built, tested and managed across every channel, feeling human is easier said than done. Customer IO makes it possible with AI, automation and integrated marketing tools. So you could speed up repetitive work and skip the boring one size fits all marketing. Give customer experiences that feel like they were created just for them wherever they are. Learn more@customer IO team.
- [31:44]
B
I do think per platform, depending on what platform they want to prioritize. Let's say if they have one social person, they should probably only choose two platforms max, because realistically you need platform specialists to understand like the current culture that's happening on those channels too. That being said, let's say one or two platform max. I would say at a minimum you should do two or three posts a week. And the post does not always have to be something original and new. Again, you know, earlier you had just said we should have this bucket of evergreen content that's something that's created across the team, not just, just social. That can certainly be used again and again as time goes on. But then we save the space of being like, let's have, you know, some actually highly thoughtful original content come out too. I like to work in content sprints where I like to really think about what's happening in the space. And the content sprint could be like two weeks where we're always kind of leapfrogging. The content that we're creating now will probably show up in two weeks time and then during that two weeks, we're batching the next two weeks. So that's, that's the minimum, I think two to three weeks. So that way you stay relevant, keep it on. And if you only have one person, you should only do a max of two platforms because I think any more than that, you're rinsing and repeating and probably using the same content across all these channels and it's not going to land the same way and you're just wasting your efforts.
- [33:01]
A
Yeah, A plus. Better to be an A B to A on channels than a C on every. Because if you are posting all the Channels, you're gonna end up being a C across all, all those channels and you're not gonna win on one channel.
- [33:17]
B
Yeah. And realistically, how are you gonna know what's actually working if you don't have that focus there? We need focus, you know, and I think like expecting one person, that's why I feel, I think carrying the battle wounds from all those years ago of having to manage all the platforms. Meta being Facebook, specifically being the. I swear to God, I would rather swallow glass than ever have to log into Facebook again. That said, you know, I do think there are certain people who are just more. They're just hyper aware of what these channels are doing currently. And so. And they do it because the active users on there or they just like they're following the things, expecting one person to manage all those channels and the equal amount of focus is that that would be insane. They would probably have to work 90, 100 hours a week because there's no freaking way. Because social person has to be chronically online, they have to be managing the platform, not just in the content output, but then also managing the reactions, the community building, you know, also scrolling through the content that's on there. That's a lot for one person chronically
- [34:23]
A
online on every platform, which is. And then, and then you're mind sharing on a lot of platforms. So you actually aren't consuming enough on the one or two platforms that are you're trying to win on because you're trying to consume on all these platforms. And that a lot of winning on social is just the person who is consuming so much on that platform. They know what the community wants, what works, what format works, how I'm going to deliver this content, how I'm going to package it up. Is the, is it changing? Is it video now? Is it text? Is it this? Is it. That is because face Facebook, like Facebook works for some brands and Instagram works with some brands and X works with some brands and this work, LinkedIn works with some brands. But you should be the platform that works for your brand and be a winner on that platform. Then you can figure out those other platforms along the line.
- [35:24]
B
Yeah, 100%. I think the new wave of how people are developing their marketing team and especially when it goes down to social, I really think they should lean into getting platform specialists because I think it's good to have somebody dedicated in studying each of these channels.
- [35:40]
A
They do it for paid. I mean.
- [35:42]
B
Yeah, that's true. That's right. They do do it for paid.
- [35:45]
A
Yeah, for paid teams. You have an expert who knows how to do. If you have a well oiled paid machine, you have someone who's probably running paid and then you have someone who's an expert in Facebook and an expert in Google. And if you're on TikTok you have someone who knows how to run TikTok and TikTok shop, you don't have these one person running those five otherwise you're not going to win on those channels. And they don't do that. You don't treat, we don't treat social the same unless you're this a big brand who has the budget to be
- [36:18]
B
treated, who also has the budget to hire agencies to then focus on those channels. Which is that itself is always bizarre to me when I hear I'm lucky enough to be able to in the last two companies and especially right now I get to have you know these one on one times with different social teams across various industries. And the pain point is always the same where it's just like you know, they some of the bottlenecks that experience from the organic side it's like you have the conversation of always having to manage up in a way of telling people like hey we need more resources. They're telling you we want more attention and you're like okay great but I need help in this. And their idea of help is not, is not giving people the tools that they need. It's always like let's, let's hire a contractor, an agency to come in and do this focus where they could have brought on an in house person, ramp them up on this channel and really give them the tools necessary to build it to the next level. That's why I am very, I'm super opinionated and I think like not to do a plug here but I do think the way we're running Slate's marketing right now, we're all social experts in our own respect because we've all worked in managing social accounts across like in our experiences. And so our team is made up of people who are different platform specialists. And so we get to come together and have these like jam sesh where we could think of one piece of content but then see it through the lens of the platforms that we care about. For us our priority right now is LinkedIn and we also have substack but we're also thinking a lot about how Instagram was and do we want to consider Facebook. But that's the conversation we can have because we're in a fortunate position where we have enough social people on the marketing team that could have that.
- [38:05]
A
Yeah, because also platform insights. I do, I do highly believe that messaging on one platform will work on another platform. It's just packaging on platforms. So if you are dominating, let's say LinkedIn as a company and you're saying I want to go on Instagram, if you look at your top hun, like top 50 highest performing LinkedIn posts and you get someone who's an Instagram expert to package that into reels, into slideshows, into using the correct trending music and.
- [38:44]
B
Yes.
- [38:45]
A
And trial reels and all these things that are working on Instagram and you get someone to do that. I highly think you would will win on that platform. But that person needs to be able to convert that content into that channel.
- [38:58]
B
Yeah. Be that translator.
- [39:00]
A
Yeah, exactly. And I think that's, that's something that's hard to do, but you need someone to do that. But I just say like that goes back to saying win on one platform first and then.
- [39:10]
B
Yes.
- [39:11]
A
And then try another platform.
- [39:14]
B
Yeah, absolutely.
- [39:17]
A
Let's go to what are you, what are some of the content you seeing on LinkedIn, let's say about your space or marketing that is like bugging you right now?
- [39:30]
B
Oh man, am I going to get canceled for this? I think the content that has bugged me personally, personally bugs me is that I think gimmicky marketing is giving me the ick and gimmicky marketing in the sense of like almost like these cheesy infomercial style. I think that was trending a couple years ago, especially on a place like LinkedIn where people were doing the corny marketing as a retaliation to the buttoned up marketing. But I do think it's getting, it's. I feel like it's a little cheap and I don't know. I think that that's just my opinion though. I think, I'm sure that I always see those posts get engagement. So I'm sure it's fine. But for me I'm just like, it's a little gimmicky. I don't really like it. I do, I do like the type of content that is very, I think people could be very witty and very funny with their meme strategy. And I know memes for people are always like a hit or miss because they're like, oh, I don't know if a brand can actually like share this or say it, but I think that that requires a level of skill to be that deadpan funny. And I wish we could do more of that. Like, I wish more people had that skill built in them. But obviously that's something that, again, they'd have to consume and know what type of content fits in a meme.
- [40:47]
A
Yeah, I think. I think you have to be funny and also understand your audience and then also understand culture at the same time, which is to make a meme hit. I. I'm thinking of the content you don't like, and I'm. I'm one. I'm wondering if I'm thinking the same thing as you're thinking of because I've seen some content on. And it's hard to tell on LinkedIn because their content that's actually truly liked and there's also content that's in these deep, like, pods.
- [41:18]
B
Yeah. I'm just so glad, Daniel, that the content where people are crying online has, has dialed back because of crying CEOs and stuff. I'm really glad that that's dialing back and it goes back to authenticity. Right. Do we want to see people cry online or take a selfie of them going through a traumatic thing? Probably not. So I'm glad that we're not seeing a lot of those anymore, or at least hopefully.
- [41:41]
A
That's one. That's one trend that I see work and I've never got it, which is fine. I'd work. So I think people could see. I've never gotten the trend of, of continuously posting a picture and then advice that has nothing to do with the picture.
- [41:57]
B
Yes.
- [41:57]
A
You know what I mean? Like, like, I don't mind you posting a picture if it's. If you're doing something that's related. Related to the picture, but you're posting a picture and then saying, having this blurb about something that has nothing to do with the picture. I don't. I. It works, though. It works, but it, it works with certain people. People. It doesn't work for everybody.
- [42:19]
B
Yes. It doesn't work for everybody.
- [42:21]
A
I've never got that content. But if you. I'm all about. I, I hate to say it. I, I'm a fan of content that. I'm not a fan of doing it, but if your content performs and it's doing you, getting you business and it's working for you, keep doing it. I'm not gonna hate on it, but I just didn't. I don't get that it works. I don't get why it works. But that's just.
- [42:40]
B
Yeah. Well, I used to get asked a lot too. As I share more content personally online, LinkedIn or other channels, they're always like, you know, what is your approach to creating content. I'm like, whatever I feel like that day is my approach. But that being said, I am. I think a lot of times people seek advice on what content works. And for me, it's really hard because it is subjective to your audience and you know what you're known for. And that goes across for brand as well. It's hard to say, you know, memes might work for us, but it might not work for you because your audience don't care to absorb things that way. Like your audience might be a bunch of finance people.
- [43:16]
A
I also think memes too, because I've done. Obviously I've done, yes, a long time. But I think part of why I think memes worked for me is because that's a format that people connected with me as a brand. It's not like it's not because it necessarily was the memes. It's just they knew that if I post it would probably be, I mean, and that's. It's kind of something where if you show up enough in a feed and you do something consistently, which we talked about consistently, you start being known for that type of content. Where I know some people who are really good at video. They're. They shop very good at video and they consistently do video very well. And they, they want, they win that way because they, the next post, someone's expecting a video.
- [44:06]
B
Right? Right.
- [44:07]
A
Because that's what their brand is. And I think that's where it also sometimes if you post a random meme and then you don't post the meme for another five months, it's gonna not hit as well as you. If it's part of your strategy to post it.
- [44:24]
B
Yeah.
- [44:24]
A
So lastly, I want to ask you, because I ask everybody on this podcast, and I know you love hot takes, but what is a marketing hill you would die on?
- [44:36]
B
Well, the marketing hill that I would die on is probably. Oh, my gosh. I feel like this is a cop out answer. If I were to say that a lot of hot takes are actually not hot at all. They're just lukewarm at best. The hot takes could certainly not melt butter. But if I go for something that's more specific to probably marketing and social is that I just don't think the pray and spray model. Well, this isn't a hot take either. See, this is just lukewarm. But I think the pray and spray model is just not gonna work. I don't think you can exist on social by just leaning into the media side of the house and sharing content without actually Putting the same amount of work on the social side of the house, which means engaging more and, you know, spending more time on the platform and engaging with the community in the audience. I say community, but I think somebody the other day had said, why are we all calling our audience community? Because community requires these set of rules and values that's shared together. And that, you know, made me think more deeply about how we use that term. But yeah, engaging with our audience a little bit more.
- [45:45]
A
Yeah. So that's a good question. Are you. Is this not. This might be bit. A little luke. This is a lukewarm take too. But are you actually doing social if you're not also reciprocating to the social world, meaning commenting, replying, engaging with. With your audience? Is it so social? Is it just you posting and leaving what is actual social?
- [46:13]
B
I think when you say you work social media, I think you need to actually work social and media. I think you need to have a balance of both. And just the social side has always become sort of like the receiving reciprocal. Like, you know, they only react to people engaging with them and they spend less time being, you know, proactive with the community and spending time like figuring out the conversations to be a part of. So I do think you have to be both. I don't think you should just take a backseat on the social side of the house simply because everybody's talking about content and how to show up more. I think at the end of the day, you'll probably help your brand a lot more if you balance it. It.
- [46:51]
A
And it's funny because I know we talk, you talk. You said that social has all these roles blended into one. But inherently what you're also saying is the, the title, like the word social media and the title social media is technically two roles because social, the social and social media is really that engaging with the community being online, understanding what's going on. That's one side. And the media is the. The production. The. Yeah, the. The producing of the content and, and actually putting it out in the world. And there's two. Those are. Those are two separate. I would say sometimes two separate skill sets to like be good at actually engaging with community and knowing what to post all the time.
- [47:48]
B
Yeah. And I think that's why they broke the rollout, to have like the community managing side of the house. But I think, like, for those of us who've done this for a long time, I think it's one of those skills where we just figure out that balance. But slowly. Not slowly, but I'm starting To see more and more that the scale is heavily weighed on just the media side when it comes to this role that a lot of people very much lean into. Like, what sort of content can we, you know, create that's going to disrupt the feed and less time thinking of like, how do we build an audience through the social aspect of it? Because you can, you can do it with both. You know, you could create good content and now attract folks, but how do you retain them? Are you just gonna continue posting and never engage with them, never talk to them, never, never hear their feedback? You know, there's like, like there's a lot that gets involved.
- [48:37]
A
I mean, I, I would argue even for just LinkedIn sake that comments are, are way more valuable now than ever before than the. So if you're not, if you don't have a commenting strategy, you're, you're not going to win on LinkedIn right now.
- [48:55]
B
No, it's so hard to get strategy. Yeah, it's a total growth strategy and it's so hard because if you think about the volume of content that's going day in and day out, there's the other angle of the more time you spend on these channels and then doing that community engagement, the more return you're going to have and more opportunities of people noticing you. Because the wit that goes into some of the commentary certainly can land some attention grabbing things that, you know, maybe, maybe media won't be able to grab.
- [49:24]
A
Yeah, totally agree. Lastly, where could people find you and what you're doing?
- [49:31]
B
So they can find me anywhere on LinkedIn and Substack. My handles are these chapters because I was an avid reader. I say was because this last year I might have read three books, which is so embarrassing. Mom of three, you know, and working at a startup. So yeah, LinkedIn and substacks are my jam.
- [49:50]
A
I understand the pain now. I understand becoming a parent in the last six months. Like how hard is to manage a job. A kid and I couldn't imagine three kids and a job and being in marketing perhaps. So I give a shout out to anybody who is doing this. As a parent and a parent of multiple kids, you all are crushing it. So
- [50:15]
B
shout out to you because you're a parent too. And yeah, it is. All of this is all a labor of love. Sometimes I wonder if I, if I. And maybe this is a separate conversation, but I feel like being a woman in a startup and also being a mom, it puts me in this weird position where sometimes I don't know if I'm good anywhere. Like I don't know if I'm a good marketer or if I'm a good mom because my attention span, it's constantly getting pulled in every direction and working on social just makes it even accelerates that feeling even more.
- [50:44]
A
But yeah, well thank you so much for coming on and sharing your lukewarm takes for the I'm kidding. But I, I do I I think it's it's good to have refreshing thoughts of and someone who actually is in social and understands it deeply. So thank you for coming on.
- [51:06]
B
No, thank you so much for having me. This was really great.
- [51:11]
A
Thanks so much for listening. Keep tuning in to 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.
- [51:40]
B
Sam.