 Welcome to Keys to Success which is live on the Think Tech live streaming network series weekly on Thursdays at 11 a.m. we are your hosts my name is Danilia D-A-N-E-L-I-A and I'm now there for the duo John Newman welcome to the day show the goal of this show is to provide professional and personal development tools and profound insights and how to achieve success in life career and or business Paul Brown CEO of Paul Brown companies was our guest on our last week show and his words of wisdom can be accessed on Newman Consulting Services website NewmanConsultingServices.com or our landing page Danilia.org if you've been reading the news headlines about social media for the last few years you may be tempted to think that merely opening a Twitter account will triple your revenue this year or that you are only one blog post away from a guest spot on Oprah or if you build a Facebook or LinkedIn page customers will come in hordes then you look around at the real world and realize that sadly none of this is true the truth is social media when used strategically over time is the most powerful form of marketing and market research the world has ever seen but it's not a magic bean that grows overnight into business success it's a platform for real work the artist to know the best places to put that work so you get results that's what we're going to talk about today today's topic is the power of social media joining us in the studio today as our on a guest is Danny Ladestro got it okay president and CEO of trend up incorporation incorporated my hello for joining us today Danny thanks for having me John welcome so Danny would you share with our audience a little about trend up and what prompted you to start the business sure trend up is a company that I founded with my wife Katie we started the company because we had been doing social media with another company based off the mainland for a couple of years learned a lot was a great experience and it was one of those things where we kind of looked at each other and said wouldn't this be great if we did it on our own and essentially what we do at trend up is we manage the social platforms for other businesses so day-to-day operation stuff we help them source and create content we engage with their community which is probably one of the most important parts and then the marketing aspects will help them build advertisements to reach more people showed you know show off their product and service as well okay so what are the top most used social media platforms in Hawaii it's a great question I think here in Hawaii you know from personal experience and the businesses we work with Facebook and Instagram are really popular they're super powerful they have some of the largest user bases and so that means you know you have a wider demographic there's there's more options and more people to reach I'd say if you're trying to reach a younger demo you know like 13 to 17 18 to 24 snapchats really popular right now it's growing super fast yeah I heard that yeah I don't even know what snapshot is but I heard it was really good I could just imagine snapchat is a it's a platform where you can share short videos or pictures with friends and then the you know the caveat is that it disappears after that you can replay it once or a few times right and then it's and then it's gone forever it's just another platform to message your friends and it's more raw and real and uncut right there's no edited video it's kind of what's happening right now so as far as leveraging that for a business it's a great way to show people kind of behind the curtains behind the scenes what's happening that being said you got to be aware that it is a younger demographic I think I read something like less than 2% or of the users on snapchat are over the age of 50 so it really is a younger demo that's what we haven't heard about it there you go yeah so it's Millennials okay what are the benefits of outsourcing to other companies you're and marketing for management for social media I think the first two that come to mind would be the time and money that you'll save time being you know now you as the business owner don't necessarily have to become a full-fledged expert or even proficient at marketing your business on social it can be extremely time consuming like you said Danelia so just to learn and put your business on multiple platforms is takes a lot of time and resources so once you find somebody who you can outsource to you you've saved a ton of time right you can focus on the day-to-day stuff and then money you know people pay us of course it's a business but I think you'll you'll be able to pay us less than what you pay somebody who you'd have to pay a full-time salary and benefits right exactly yeah now how would a person go about finding someone to outsource to that's probably the more difficult part right I mean I've seen people as simple as posting Craigslist ads and you're not really sure what their experience exactly you have no idea what they've done and maybe it's they are attractive because the price is so low and that can also be concerning I think there's definitely what's that say you get what you pay for sometimes so it's there's definitely it's clouded I think there are a lot of self-proclaimed gurus and experts if anybody refers to themselves as that you might want to be wary but you know LinkedIn's pretty powerful you can go and check somebody's resume quite quite easily and quickly and see okay where did you work before what did you do what is your experience and then just talking face-to-face and really figuring out what they're capable of doing is there a lot of companies out there like yourself I think there are yeah I you know there there are a handful here in Hawaii there are larger marketing agencies that are kind of full-service we decided to focus solely on social just because it's changing so fast oh absolutely yeah and there's there's I feel like there's kind of an opportunity to work with smaller businesses because they might not necessarily have the money to advertise traditionally you know whether it's print or radio or TV that can be really expensive so dollar for dollar you'll be able to reach more people on social than you would say with a radio or TV at I mean we're talking about a really small business and they might only have a hundred two hundred dollars to spare you can do a lot with that on Facebook and with advertising whereas I don't think you could walk into a radio station say hey I've got two hundred bucks what can you do for me right they said come back when you got a little more that's so true so how do you determine a company's brand and voice and what's the process so again personal experience we haven't really had the opportunity to work with a startup so the brand for us has already kind of been established I think that our job then is to transfer that brand and make it work on social so you know showcasing what the company is about who they are and then the voice is probably something we have more influence over we kind of get to decide and help the business owner I mean they're always involved right at the end of the day it's their business but we want to make sure that the voice is attractive to their target audience so that's I think where we come into play and the process for that is figuring out what makes them unique I think that's a really easy way to kind of put yourself at the front of the pack and and amplify that you know it's interesting for us you know we've been in business for over 30 years thanks but the difference between branding which really there was very little branding back right as opposed to now now you have to brand yeah I mean back then you know you just provided a great service people told each other not that that's changed but you have to do a lot more now there are other ways to do it right right so you can kind of speed it up a little bit right right so what advice would you give companies just starting to grow and engage with their online communities if I'm talking to a business owner who's starting tomorrow right like they're they're planning on opening the Facebook page in an Instagram account maybe a Twitter account I think the the advice would have to be engaged with your audience as you would real time like we are right now we attribute social media you know answering questions and comments there just like you'd answer your business phone or an email but it's got to be instant so you need to put a lot of urgency into it and treat these people like you would a real person I think social media is so cool and so powerful because you have the ability to have a two-way real-time conversation with I mean hundreds of people if you'd like I don't think you have the opportunity to do that when you're you're doing something like radio or TV right it's kind of a one-way message where you've got 30 seconds to tell them about you and why they should buy whereas this you can kind of set them up and build trust and equity with your audience and say something like you know here are a bunch of people that have used our service and our product and this is why they like it and then you can kind of lead up to you know you earn the ask and then you say here's where you can buy so what do you feel the best social media platforms to focus on to market and grow a business okay I think that will be dependent on what type of business you have and then who you want to reach right I think Facebook and Instagram just can't be ignored they're too powerful to really forgo those and you know Facebook purchase Instagram so those two platforms alone have so many features and the ability to advertise the ad platform on Facebook is now connected with Instagram so you can do a lot there so I feel like you've got to be on those two Instagram is very visually driven so if you have a business that might not be as visually appealing there are still ways around that you can showcase yourself your employees meeting with customers and then you know Twitter is interesting it's not as popular as I thought it would be here I think they're they're going through some changes I think it's it's still going to be a valuable platform I think it's it's extremely valuable to larger companies that maybe you're looking for a direct line of communication with their audience and maybe more of a customer service aspect so Facebook Instagram for sure you know if you're talking business to business LinkedIn is still powerful you know you can create a business page there and post content there as you would change the messaging a little bit so it's more professional if I'm selling clothing or product Pinterest is another really good one they've got really great in-app shopping capabilities Pinterest it's another visually driven app and it's got one of the highest conversion rates as far as purchases within the app now that might change Instagram recently announced that they're going to do in-app shopping on Instagram so they're currently testing it that'll be really really interesting so if I'm you know a designer and I sell clothes or products and I have models you can actually tag the individual products that they're wearing and link directly to your website so purchasing power will be extremely increased so how do you how often should a company post to their social media it's another great question you guys got them all I think if you can post stealing that was his question that was yours okay so you're like locked in I took a breath and she says she's going yeah she pounds too slow I think you can post something one to two times per day you're you're in really good shape now having said that I think every piece of content you post you want to provide some sort of value to your audience and what I mean by that is give them information you know if I'm if I'm selling to other businesses I might give away some stuff that we do on on a daily basis and say hey were you aware that you could you know with Instagram you convert into a business profile you can click the little bars in the corner and see your your in-app analytics you can get a snapshot of what your audience is doing the times they're engaging with you you know share information that might make their life better yeah I think I think that's a great place to start okay so how do you generate new ideas and how long do you stick with one before you you know move on to the next brainstorming I mean classic brainstorming sessions I think if I'm speaking again if I'm speaking to a business owner who's just starting this and maybe they're in a creative rut you can always look for inspiration from larger companies maybe people that you know are very successful or have been successful on social now again saying that don't just copy and paste what they're doing but be inspired by what they are doing and make it fit for your business great thanks we're going to take a short break this is key to success on the think tech live streaming network series we're talking with Danny Liddestro the president of trend up regarding our topic the power of social media my name is Danelia Dane LIA and I'm the other half of the duo with John Newman we'll be returning in a minute so please stay tuned for more keys to success hey has your signal just been taken over or am I supposed to be here this is Andrew the security guy your co-host on hibachi talk please join us every Friday on think tech away thank you for watching think tech I'm Grace Chang the new host for global connections you can find me here live every Thursday at 1 p.m. we'll be talking to people around the islands or visiting the islands who are connected in various aspects of global affairs so please tune in and aloha and thanks for watching I am Tim Apachele I'm the host for moving Hawaii forward and the show is dedicated to transportation and traffic issues in Oahu we are all frustrated by sitting in our cars in bumper to bumper traffic and this show is dedicated to talking with folks that not only we can define the problem but we hopefully can come to the table with some solutions so I invite you to join me every Tuesday at 12 noon and let's move Hawaii forward this keys to success on the think tech live streaming network series we encourage you to call our hotline at 415-871-2474 to join our conversation or tweet us at think tech hi if you have any questions or comments we've been talking with Danny Lodestro the president of trend up regarding our topic the power of social media on denilia D A N E L I A and I'm the other half of the duo John Newman welcome back to the show so Danny we're gonna put you through your paces let's do it all ready share with you with us and our viewers if you will what advice would you give new businesses that want to utilize social media to that platform to market their business I think you know we kind of talked about bringing value in your content right and giving that to your audience I and we can expand on that a little bit I think it's really important to not get lost and just wanting to post content all the time there needs to be some sort of strategy behind it I think for a lot of businesses it's like you said denilia increase sales right you want to kickstart it but it doesn't happen overnight it's not a magic being I love that analogy so I'll give you a solid example you know we work with a local gym cock-a-cuck of fitness and they've got a bunch of personal trainers in there so if I were a trainer and the things that I try and tell them to do is share things with your audience on social and treat them as if they were a potential customer right so maybe you're targeting young professionals and they're working a nine-to-five and they're having trouble losing weight because they're out eating lunch every day with their employees right or their or their friends at work give them a piece of information of how to stay on track while ordering out or an at-home workout that they can do if they're not comfortable coming to the gym yet really easy simple things like that I think people are scared to do that because they feel like they're giving too much away for free and they're gonna put themselves out of business but plain and simple it's just personal trainers would have been out of business forever ago because there you could go on YouTube and find Navy Seals that are telling you how to get a six-pack so they still need you they're going to need you it's it's about building that trust and equity if you will and and saying I'm good enough at my job to give this away to you so that when you're ready you're gonna come to me because I want to do right by you right now so when you're ready to buy you'll come back wouldn't you say trust I think that's a very important thing people trust you right will allow you anyone that wants to move forward in their business they have to develop that trust absolutely I think that's that's one of the most important things you have to do so what are your top three keys to achieving success in social media I think first you've got to be consistent you know we we see a lot of people that pick it up and put it down fairly quickly because it's not working for them right and there's a million and one reasons why that could have been so be consistent about the amount of content you're posting the direction the voice the branding everything kind of has to align in order to reach your target audience value we just talked about that make sure you're bringing enough value so that you're attracting new people and you're retaining the people that you that you want and the other would be compassion or caring and an easy way to do that is engaging with your online community treat them like real people have conversations that's the power that you have through a cell phone now really it's the smartphone you can type message and respond to comments and do it as quickly as you can you know there's another study that we read by I think it was Digi day and they ran a survey that said you know there's been a massive increase in the amount of customer inquiries via social media right so it's a whole nother channel where people want to reach out to your business it's just it's more comfortable for them instead of calling and worrying that they're gonna get sold to right so instead I want to ask you on my own terms so with that in mind and the survey it was like 60 to 70 percent of the people expected an answer within 60 minutes but that was the top end they really wanted you to come back to them within five to 15 minutes yeah that's so true just like email I mean email expect you to come right back to them exactly exactly and I get it because it's like it's almost like a lead it really is it could be does it always pan out no but again if you show them that you care yeah you have a better chance of them coming back there's a really good app this is a great trick it's not really trick piece of advice so there's a it's called the pages app you find it in the app store you connect it to your business account for Facebook and now Instagram too it's got a unified inbox so all notifications that come through Facebook and Instagram go to that app and you can answer them right there so our phones are constantly if you're not sitting there watching right you know I mean and that's an all-day job yeah you know it really is I mean and that's why we tend to put our phones off to the side because we don't write you know we're constantly on them you know we don't have time to do anything but answer the questions but people want their answers they do and that's your audience and you need to you've got a nurture and that's all you have to outsource exactly so call us again I'm coming back what do you think are the biggest some of the biggest mistakes that companies make when it comes to social media I kind of touched on it in that in that last question I think the lack of consistent or inconsistency really picking it up and putting it down quickly you know we we were at an event a while back and we were just talking to a business owner and and we were telling what we do and how awesome you know Facebook ads are we all pumped up you know something had just changed with with how they were serving ads or there was a new feature or something and he was like oh yeah I tried that and didn't work for me so I kept digging I just wanted to know more I was like well you know how much do you spend how many ads you're and I ran one ad and to me it's like you got to ask yourself when you play t-ball or a sport when you're a kid right you didn't just have one at bat and then quit right because you struck out it's you got to keep building you got to keep going so and it's I totally understand it's completely overwhelming because people have been doing it since day one since inception right so there are companies that are just way ahead of the game and you have to kind of play catch up but they're you know welcome to the digital age where there's so many online sources where you can learn you don't necessarily have to go to a university and take a course right on how to do social again but just make sure you're verifying the source you're learning from that they're credible all right so how much content well how much promotional content should a business put on there their platform or non-promotional is there a balance between the two the promotional and non-promotional absolutely kind of ties back into one of the mistakes we see being made a lot is using the platform is solely a place to sell I think that's really unattractive to people I and you get something you know like pitch fatigue if you're if you're constantly serving ads or promotion so I'll give you an example if we're working with you know most of our customers we post five to seven times a week some are down to three just for cost reasons but if I'm posting five times a week for them across a couple of platforms one or two might be a sales driven piece of content and we'll we'll lead up to that like we talked about you know set them up Monday will be a piece of content it's an article that's relevant to your industry and then we're showing a video posted by one of your users or your customers explaining how they love the product or service Wednesday might be something similar to that and a five star Yelp review and then you're gonna follow up with the ask so I would say keep that to a minimum obviously you want to sell but if you you're competing with everybody else everybody else wants to sell too so stand out by by giving something away that building that value and then ask you'll be surprised how many people can sell without even asking just because you've built that trust like you've really showed off your product and service you don't even have to ask me I'm just you give them enough pieces of information where they're able to make that decision on their own and that's okay making that decision on their right you know exactly exactly so if you were conducting this interview what one question would you ask that we haven't asked it I thought about that a lot I think I would ask you know if I was a business owner sitting across from from all of us I'd ask a question like how do I ensure that I don't become too repetitive with the content that I'm posting right I think that's a that's another fear or maybe another mistake that we see is same thing every Monday every Tuesday everyone and that's okay you know if you have like a theme that's going on you want to pick a day that's going to be the same every time that's fine so the answer to that would be you know calendar meetings or build a content calendar so if you're lucky enough to have a business with employees it could be a fun experiment to kind of bring them all in bring them all together have lunch one day and say hey does anybody have any exciting ideas let's forecast the next four weeks you know if we're working with a restaurant we might check up on you know there's like national holidays for everything yeah that's so true fried cheese day national donut day so those are fun ones that you can just kind of put in and it eats up a day and you can do a fun promotion or a fun piece of content and that's that makes it really easy right and then but it's important you know don't plan it out and be rigid about it you need to remain flexible and fluid because something might happen you might get the last booth in an event that you weren't expecting it's like okay now we've got a post about that so make sure you're able to kind of slot that in when needed okay so Danny is there any other pearls of wisdom that you'd like to share with our viewers yes I think try new things don't be afraid to take manageable risks you know at the end of the day you're whether or not you have a Fortune 500 company or a small business you're kind of in the spotlight there are billions of people that use these platforms so be you know be conscious of that but don't let that scare you into just doing the same thing all the time you you know if you're kind of hitting a wall and your audiences are responding like they used to maybe think about changing the voice of the business like we like we spoke about earlier try serving the content a different way maybe try taking different types of pictures or videos take small risks and then kind of build up to to something bigger we're out of time that was great thank you so much Danny really valuable information we'll have to wrap it up John would you like to share your quote of the day yes I quoted today is from Norman Vincent Peel which says change your thoughts and you change your world Danny Liddestro's words of wisdom with regards to keys to success can be found on Newman consulting services web page in the consulting services dot com and landing page to nearly a dot org thank you so much Danny for joining us today sharing your insights to you your keys to success on social media keys to success well think tech keys to success will not be on next Thursday at 11 a.m. with our deepest regrets and the newly and I this is our last show we thoroughly enjoyed being your hostess here on in the studio on think tech and it was just a wonderful experience working with cast here Zuri and Nick and Jay it was just a wonderful experience for us but it's time for us to move on and we ask that all of our viewers continue to tune in to think tech or why my name is Danelia d.a.n.e.l.i.a. and I'm the other half of the duo John Newman we thank you all