Marketing Happy Hour - BONUS! Q+A Panel: Social Media Marketing

Episode Date: June 6, 2023

Welcome back to our Q+A Panel bonus series where we'll dive in to specific topics with experts in a bite-sized, "crash course" format. Next up: Social Media Marketing! Meet our Social Media Marketing Q+A Panel guests: Sarah Archer + Hannah Best are the co-founders of Firecracker Marketing, an award winning social media and marketing agency that was designed to be a modern iteration of the traditional agency model. Along with their team of 15 social media and digital experts, they offer social media, influencer marketing, digital advertising, copywriting, and marketing strategy services to hospitality clients across the country. Arielle Berlinsky is the Social Media Marketing Coordinator at Delta Vacations, where she supports the execution of social media marketing strategy across established and emerging platforms to boost brand awareness, customer satisfaction and achieve revenue goals. Listen in for a behind the scenes peek into Sarah, Hannah, and Arielle's latest successful campaigns, how they measure ROI, their advice on improving community engagement, and standing out above all of the noise on social! ____ Say hi! DM us on Instagram and let us know which bonus episodes you're excited for - we can't wait to hear from you!  Please also consider rating the show and leaving a review, as that helps us tremendously as we move forward in this Marketing Happy Hour journey and create more content for all of you. Download the Dream Career Game Plan! Check out our website! Join our email list! Connect with Co-Host Erica: LinkedIn | Instagram Connect with Co-Host Cassie: LinkedIn | Instagram Follow MHH: LinkedIn | Instagram | Twitter Subscribe to our LinkedIn newsletter, Marketing Happy Hour Weekly Join our Marketing Happy Hour Insiders LinkedIn Group

Hi, everyone. So excited to have you here today and welcome you guys to the Marketing Happy Hour podcast. I know your go-to happy hour drink. So let's start off with, how about Hannah? I mean, I'm like pretty basic. I will probably just have a glass of white wine, probably Sauvignon Blanc, or if it's been like an exceptionally hard day, I will have an espresso martini. I'm not above it. So that's probably my go-tos. Awesome. How about Sarah? What's your go-to happy hour drink? Similar to Hannah, usually white wine, sometimes orange wine, depending on the day. And same espresso martini, if it's been a hard day or if it's been a really hard day,

just like a really Cuban rum on the rocks. Love it. We are kindred spirits. I love a good espresso martini and a good orange wine. That's my favorite kind. So, and how about you, Arielle? So for me, mine is easy. It's between two things. It's either any drink with tequila and a ton of spice, or it is a bourbon on the rocks. Delicious. Awesome. Thank you guys for sharing that.

So just diving right into the content for today. So we're talking about all things social media, of course. So would love for each of you to give us an example of a recent successful social media campaign you worked on. Sure. So over at Delta Vacations, we recently did a campaign alongside a nationwide contest called First at Last. And for us, we really wanted to take it to the next level going beyond just buying a vacation, right? You want to have those first time experiences, your first time drinking a hot chocolate in Paris, your first time, you know, going on a hike in Costa Rica. Those are sort of unforgettable experiences that you have. And so through our sort of immersive journey, we took our followers and new followers to see what the experience would be like to book a

vacation with us and what it would entail, not only just the vacation, but the transportation involved, the activities, et cetera. And we even got to go further with our social campaign in person by going to airports and giving out cameras for further to all the benefits that SkyMiles members could have through booking, you know, amazing fun vacations with us. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, for us, one of our, the campaigns that we're the most proud of is actually like a longer term campaign, um, a mountain Valley water, which is those big green glass bottles, um, is one of our, it was actually our first client, um, at firecracker and we've been working with them for the almost three years now. And we've been working with them for almost three years now. And we've really seen them grow a lot.

And in the last year, we actually implemented a brand super fan campaign, which has been really fun. So that's taking just regular people like you and I, that are huge fans of the brand, and working with them to showcase that love of the brand, both on our own socials and their socials as well. So we've had a number, we've had over a thousand applicants in the last nine months as a part of the brand, both, you know, on like our own socials and their socials as well. So we've had a number, we've had over a thousand applicants in the last nine months as a part of the Superfan

program. We usually choose about 10 a quarter, like eight to 10 a quarter. We've had everybody from a major league baseball pitcher to an NFL player, to an Uber driver, to a video gamer. So it's really ran the gamut and it's been so great to see how people are, you know, using a product like that in their daily lives and how big they are as fans. And, you know, I would say it's been interesting to take, you know, who really is our biggest brand fans and turn them into an influencer, right? And work with them on that and let them showcase their love in a way that's so organic. So we've seen a lot of success with that. And it's definitely something that we're continuing and, you know, hopefully implementing in an even bigger way in the future.

That is so cool. I love that so much. I think it's super important to tap into the like brand fans, like you're talking about the people that are already using this stuff in their day to day. I love that so much. Hannah, do you have another one that you're excited about? I know you guys are on. Yeah. I mean, we work together, but Firecracker is big enough that we do work in a lot of different accounts. I would say probably our client, The Hideaway in Beverly Hills, is one of our best campaigns. It's a celebrity-owned restaurant on Rodeo Drive. They opened last July. We've been with them from the start. We've grown their following to 30K followers in about eight to 10 months, which is pretty crazy.

All organic. We don't do a lot of paid for them at all. But I think, you know, when I was kind of thinking about like what has made Hideaway a success in our opinion, starting from scratch that you really kind of do, it's like grassroots. We worked really, we still work really closely with their PR team. I think that that's the best accounts that we have. We, it's like a whole integrated marketing campaign. Um, so we work super well with them. It's kind of like the one, two punch. They have a lot of awareness and we make sure we're amplifying it on social. And then we, we leaned really heavily into influencers. I mean, it's in Los Angeles. It's a very Instagram friendly, um, restaurant and we went fully for it.

So we brought influencers in before it was even open, like borderline hard hat tours. We brought them in for the grand opening party. We've continued to bring them in ever since. And I think that that for us was really helpful because they are local and they're big influencers. They have felt like they've been a part of the hideaway since the jump. So they're very loyal and they continue to help us promote. And I think another thing, the last thing that I thought was a big portion of why hideaway has been so successful and led to so many great things as far as like ROI is that the team at the hideaway who are still

our clients that we work with, they've just let us do our jobs. And I think like when you work in a social agency or even a social position, it's so easy to have, I mean, it happens all the time where someone like tries to tell you how to do your job or, you know, wants to regulate every little thing or overcorrect every little thing. And the hideaway has really been like, no, do your job. You're the experts. We trust you. And it's, it makes all the difference in the world. And like, as far as ROI goes, the hideaway is pretty much everywhere. I mean, it's all over everyone's Instagram.

We've seen it on Dumois. We've seen it on TV shows. It's gotten huge. And that is like, though it's not a vanity metric and something that we can put quantifiably in a number, that is a return on investment. When we have influencers going in there, promoting it, and then 10 people that week come in and say, oh, I saw you on so-and-so's account. That is a return on investment. When we have influencers going in there, promoting it, and then 10 people that week come in and say, oh, I saw you won so-and-so's account. That is a return on investment.

And our clients have always considered that a return on investment. So I think that's been a really successful campaign with Firecracker. Yeah, we've heard multiple times from the client that one of the things they hear the most when they ask people why they came in is I saw it on social.

And for us, that's really the biggest win we can get. So. That's awesome. Thank you for sharing that. And I love the idea of bringing in influencers. Like you were mentioning Hannah to just the, the start of the experience, building out that restaurant. It really, I think allows them to have ownership, uh, in, in the development of that new business. And also too, when they're sharing that with their followers that allows the followers as well to have ownership in that. So love that idea. I would love to hear from any of you and feel free to chime in when you'd like, just what are some key elements that you ensure to involve in the campaign planning process to ensure they're effective? Is there anything that you do around just measuring KPIs? You know,

what do you look for in that realm? And I know it can depend on what kind of campaign you're building, but would love to hear any of you speak to that. So when it came to our contest, the way that we really set up involvement with followers for, you know, finding reasons to share it on their profile. It was about a opportunity to share their travel story, a, you know, experience that they would want to share with a loved one, with a friend, memories that want to be made. It's finding those opportunities for human connection to give your followers a voice, not just be talking to them, but with them. Act as though you are a friend who is hand in hand to support them to their goals and lead them to better lives and happiness. And, you know, it's not it's not just about money and products at the end of the day. It's really just contributing to living life. that a brand and especially us at Delta Vacations can do that. We really, really try to because it

is such a beautiful thing to see a community being built through, you know, doing that, whether it's in a campaign or your day-to-day social media marketing. It's really beautiful to see. Yeah, I think that's actually like really similar what I was going to say, Arielle, is, you know, when we look at our campaigns, we're in similar industries, right? It's the experiential industry. So it's, you know, it's food and beverage, it's travel, you know, and vanity metrics are great. It's great to get likes, but where we really look towards the win is that conversation and socials, whether that's DMs and comments, but also shares and saves. Like that's a really big thing for us that we report on, you know, when we look at, you know, the success of a campaign is we want people engaging beyond just,

you know, the casual one second. Oh, that's a cool photo. That's a great video. You know, when we look at, you know, the success of a campaign is we want people engaging beyond just, you know, the casual one second. Oh, that's a cool photo. That's a great video. You know, but they're sending it to their friends and saying, you know, we want to visit this hotel or, you know, we'd really love to make reservations at this restaurant. They're saving it for future planning. You know, those are things that when we look at those and we see those numbers spike in a campaign, we feel like that's a real win for us.

And you mentioned it a little bit, the touch points with the community on social media can be huge. What advice do you kind of have for businesses who are looking to improve their community engagement on social? Sarah, I know you talk about this a lot with our clients, but it takes a lot of time. And I mean, it's something that I think a lot of people think you just go on social media and you just explode and growth the next day. And it takes a lot of work. Sarah, you have your analogy that you always say and you go from there. Yeah. I'll give my analogy. I, we tell all of our clients this, but look, it's like when you move to a new city and you're trying to make friends, right? Like you, a don't make friends by sitting in your house and doing nothing. Um, but you also don't make friends by walking out into the street

and shouting like, hi, I'm here. I'm cool. Be friends with me. Right. So when we look at social, it's like the way you, you make friends on social and the way you get that engagement is the same way you do in real life. Like you have to build relationships. You know, you've got to get out there. You've got to ask your friends to connect you with somebody else. You've got to set coffee dates. You've got to go out to drinks. You've got to do happy hour. You have to get to know your audience and let them get to know you in a way that feels really authentic and organic. You know, obviously at the end of the day, we all want, you know, flights booked, heads in beds, like butts in seats. But really the way to do that is by building that, that friendship and that relationship and, you know, giving your brand a personality.

And that's something that we're very big on is, is, you know, when we, when we're talking with our clients, we, the first thing we do is a brand exercise. And it's not just, what are your goals? Right. It's, it's like, we want to get to know you and who you are as a brand. I mean, we put that into a personality, right? Like we, we think about them like they're human beings, you know, because I think that that's the best way to connect, especially as social has gotten, you know, just so much, you know, more crowded. And then the other thing, which we tell all of our clients and hopefully everybody knows by now, but just don't buy followers. Your engagement's going to be skewed for life if you buy followers. I don't care if your CEO wants to say hi follower count, worst vanity metric of all time. But you know, if you really

want to, you know, drive awareness and drive that, you know, brand loyalty, build it from scratch and understand that it's going to take time, but that it will be worth it in the lean run. You can't just post pretty content. Like you, you have to be active. You have got to be talking to other people. You know, and that's, that's really how you build engagement. Totally. And funny story with how you mentioned not buying followers. I was working for a brand that didn't technically buy their followers, but they participated in one of those giveaways with like the Kardashians. Do you remember those like giveaways follow these like 50 people, all of this stuff, they

did gain like 200,000 followers or something like that. And it did add some like credibility somehow when like partners were looking at their page, but if they really dug in, that was like tanked their engagement. Maybe they had like 50 likes at most on a post with 200,000 followers. It just didn't add up. And it was just the worst thing ever. So don't buy your followers and don't do those giveaways because I don't think they're really like that prevalent anymore. I don't think people are doing. Oh no, we still get the emails. There they are. Oh gosh. You're very careful about the influencers you're partnering with too. I've seen that also be really lead to some sketchy things. So yeah.

Yeah. I think it's, it's, I think people feel like social is so immediate because it's like, you can, you can have an idea and post it right away. Right. But the results aren't as immediate. Like it's about the long game, you know? And I think, you know, some of the greatest success stories we've seen are people who have, have really organically built that community over time, you know, and have allowed it to grow in a way that gives them that credibility versus being a flash in the pan, you know, and I think at the end of

the day, most of our clients are trying to do that. They're not a, they're not, you know, they're not looking for one viral moment. They're looking for, you know, people who are going to love them over years. They're going to, you know, visit every year on their anniversary, or they're going to buy their wine every time they have a special occasion. And I think that that's, that's the biggest thing we tell our clients is like, this is the long game. We don't even take on contracts that are less than six months, ideally a year, because it just takes so much time to build.

And we are never going to promise that we can do anything that quickly. Because if you do, it's just, it's not going to really benefit anybody in the long run. And I think a big thing too, is not only finding that human voice and truly who that character is that's speaking to your audience and your profile but engaging outside of your own page I know for us I mean we'll comment some witty joke or just a fun you know remark on a post that's in the industry of travel or could be completely outside of it and it's that shock shock value, you know, when they see us engaging, but it's a way that all of a sudden we'll get thousands of followers

because people cracked up over something we said, you know, it's finding ways to just hop in. And, you know, especially with trends, you can't hop on all of them, right? It's not that simple. It needs to work well for your voice and, you know, the audience that you're trying to achieve, but really finding a space to allow for your followers to engage and talk. I know

shockingly in this past year, Facebook statuses for us have had the largest organic engagement that I've seen in such a long time. It is such a throwback and people miss them, but it's a really cool space that our followers get to talk to each other. They get to engage with us. They get to ask questions or give recommendations. And so to kind of see that community being built within our page and not even having to make little sad convo private groups, you know, to make that happen is a super cool thing. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you all for sharing that. And I agree. I think personality and community are two of the things that can certainly make you stand apart. And

speaking of that, I would love to know from you three, any other tactics or strategies you have for ensuring your message is heard above the noise? Cause we all know there's so many brands out there on the platforms. There's a lot of content being shared on a regular basis. So what are some steps that you can take to cut through the clutter and engage with your target audience and make sure you stand out? Kind of what Sarah mentioned is that we have this in-depth brand exercise that we do with clients. One thing that we always try and tell clients is it's so easy because there are so many

platforms and it's so oversaturated to be like, I want this strategy, this strategy, this strategy. Like when be real came out, everyone wanted to be real strategy. When clubhouse came out, everyone wanted to turn to clubhouse. And it was like, Oh my God. And it's your target audience is usually on two to three platforms, I would say. And so it usually those platforms fall in Instagram and Facebook. And now I think TikTok is kind of playing into its own thing. But if you focus on those and have a legitimate strategy on where most of your audience is, that's, I think, where you're going to see the most like return. I think having a strategy and I'm not just saying this as like a social media professional.

It's like everything. It makes all the difference. I know like I've seen videos on TikTok where it's like making fun of the social media girl, like walking through the office with her tripod. And like, they make it sound like everything is just winging it and you're just hopping on trends and that's your whole job. And for some that like works,

but I think that that falls flat in the personality zone. Like if you're just constantly hopping on trends, you really don't have that much of a personality yourself. So the strategic plan combined with like finding your authentic voice, I think are the two big things I would focus on. And I really like, we have this conversation with clients all the time, like really understand who is buying your product, who is, who is showing up, what are they interested in? Like if you are a bar and I can't tell you how many times we get this. If you are a bar that fits 25 people into your bar, it's probably not a great idea to go on Tik TOK because it's heavily kids. And if you're

booked out for six months, the instant gratification of that is really, that doesn't make a lot of sense. Instead, you can utilize Facebook or Instagram, mostly Instagram to tell your story and to get people interested in booking that six month in advance reservation. So it's really just about understanding and really taking a deep dive and being realistic with yourself. That's another thing that we tell clients. There's a difference between like an aspirational goal and like a realistic goal. We've had it before, you know, where people are like, I want to be just like Pepsi. And I'm like, okay, well, Pepsi has been around for like 70 years and you just got on the market and they have billions of dollars in budget. So we have to rein ourselves in and, and be really honest with ourselves of who we are and what we can do and where we can go and then keep

building it up over time using strategies. So that's kind of our way of keeping above the noise is staying grounded and really, you know, utilizing our followers and where they're at. Yeah. I think Hannah, just to add to that really quickly, it's also quality over quantity. We talk to our clients about this a lot. You know, I think that especially with emerging brands, they're like, I want to be on everything all at once. And it's like, well, why don't we do one thing really well first? You know, we don't need to post every single day on TikTok and Instagram and Twitter. It's like, let's, let's talk about like where we think your core audience is and do that really well and then expand. And so I would say like, and I think that goes for any platform, right. But it's like,

and just like consistency and marketing in general, it's the same thing, whether you're looking at like advertising or press, it's like, it's really about like, how are you telling your story? Are you telling it well? Not like how often are you telling it, right? It's so true because otherwise you spread yourself way too thin. And it's so crucial in the mix of it all. Too many companies will assume that they can just put the same content on every platform, but you have to assume that they can just put the same content on every platform, but you have to know that you can have a different tone and different, you know, amounts that you're posting with your frequency weekly. But another thing too, is knowing that your content truly has to put out value. If you are just talking to your audience all the time saying

you should buy this do this experience this versus giving them a reason to come back especially if you're just selling one product right if they have to hear about it so many times why would they have a reason to keep following you on social give them so much more valuable pieces that they can keep with them that's shareable right don't leave it limited to your audience. Give pieces of content that make people want to put it on their story, send it to their friends. It's, it's often too overlooked and it's unfortunate because you just can get so much more from that. Absolutely. Such great advice from all three of you. Thank you so much for that. And I can't even

believe that we're already at the end of this interview. I feel like we have so many more things that we could ask you. So we'll have to have you guys come back and chat some more about like digging deeper into your strategies and things like that. But where can everybody find everyone and follow along with what you're up to? I'll let Arielle go first. Yeah, so you can give me a follow on LinkedIn. I love to immerse everyone in all things Delta vacations, especially as I do my come along with me journeys around the world and all things,

social media marketing advice as long or actually as well as career advice. We're going to follow you because we're Delta girls to our core. Delta loyalists. Delta forever. All right. Yeah. Delta or bust. Um, no, we are, our baby is firecracker marketing. So you can find us on Instagram under firecracker marketing. And then if you dig around, you can find our personal handles, but I assure you, like most social media people, like we're our personal handles are trash.

So you can just find us on firecracker amazing thank you guys so much again for joining us this is so great thank you so much thank you