Marketing Happy Hour - Creating Your Own Dream Career Path | Social Media Consultant Rachel Karten

Starting point is 00:00:00 you're listening to the marketing happy hour podcast where we discuss career and industry insights with our peers in marketing we're here to talk about it all like the ups and downs of working in social media how to build authentic relationships in the influencer and pr space managing a nine-to-five and a side hustle at the same time, how to be productive in your life and career without losing your sanity, and more. Ultimately, we're here to build a community with you because we're all trying to navigate the world of marketing together. Are you ready? Grab your favorite drink and join your hosts, Cassie and Erica, for this week's episode. Hey, Marketing Happy Hour listeners,

Starting point is 00:00:53 thanks for tuning in today. In this episode, we're catching up with social media consultant Rachel Carton, known for her link in bio newsletter to chat through all things social media and what it means to create your own dream career path through consulting work. Rachel is someone that I truly admire in the social media space. She even works with one of my favorite brands ever, Kava, and she shares some great insight that I can't wait for you to hear. So grab a pen and paper or your notes app, your favorite drink, and settle in for this great marketing happy hour conversation. Hey, Rachel, how are you doing? Good. How are you guys? Doing really well. I'm so excited to have you here today. I've been following you on LinkedIn

Starting point is 00:01:39 for such a long time, and I'm a huge fan of your newsletter. And I know a lot of our listeners have definitely heard about it. So, but before we get started, I do have an important question for you that we ask all of our guests and that is what is in your glass tonight? Well, I am a dirty martini drinker famously. So obviously that. I love it. Are you a stuffed olive kind of person or no I am yeah I like a good pimento stuffed olive yeah always good always good Cassie what are you what are you sipping on I right now have a poppy and a water I am gearing up for a big client event this weekend so I'm like trying to avoid alcohol and just stay clear-minded for the next couple of days. But typically I do like a Aperol spritz is my go-to. Um, so that's my usual. What about you, Erica? Yes. I love that.

Starting point is 00:02:32 I know you always said that you would get made fun of like when you lived in New York for drinking Aperol spritzes, like in the winter time when summer, but I mean, it's a good drink. I have just a classic glass of white wine. I think it's a Chardonnay, um, leftover from my cooking pasta. So love that. Love that. Well, Rachel, we want to dive right into it. We of course, love your newsletter as Erica said, and want to just talk about all things, how you built that scare scaled it. But first, can you just give us a clue into your background, how you got started, how you got to where you are today? Tell us all the things. Yeah. So currently I'm a social media consultant. I've worked in social media for about 10 years. So I work with brands on their social strategies. And then I write a newsletter, like you mentioned, called LinkedIn Bio.

Starting point is 00:03:26 Before that, my first job in social was at a company called Plated. It's a meal kit delivery startup that does not exist anymore. But I was like their 10th employee. I was doing their social, HR, and customer service. Quite the role, all in one. But I basically had to like convince them that they needed a social manager full-time I eventually did that and I worked with them for around three years and then um I started working with Bon Appetit right after that um and I led their social

Starting point is 00:03:58 for about four years um up until 2020 which is when we get to where I am now. And I started consulting. That is so awesome to hear just the behind the scenes of where you've been in your career until now. And you mentioned that you transitioned into consulting after your time at Bon Appetit. What was that transition initially like? And how did you find your first clients? Yeah, so I left Bon Appetit without anything lined up and also just in 2020, when, you know, there weren't, you know, a lot of jobs to, to maybe jump to. So I sort of left Bon Appetit and was like, Oh crap, I need to like make money. And I need to sort of bridge this gap or what I thought would have been a bridge, but turned into just my career now. And so I reached out to like a lot of friends and I posted on social media. And that was like a huge

Starting point is 00:04:50 sort of moment for me, I think, just letting people know that you are a consultant now and that you are available to work with is such an important tool. And I had a bit of a following from Bon Appetit. And so that was helpful. So it was sort of a mix of just people who followed me, friends, old colleagues who reached out. And I'm so grateful for those projects, which were probably the most like chaotic. Like I didn't know how to consult. I didn't know how to like structure proposals. I like literally was Googling like, what is a proposal?

Starting point is 00:05:20 What is like invoice? But you just sort of figured it out. And those first clients were so helpful in that way of just like letting me learn how to consult especially with social media where all my experience was like working with brands and being fully like enmeshed in the brand like I knew everything about it I knew the engineering team I knew the operations team and so then I had to come at social media media from an outsider's perspective, which I think had its pros and cons. And so there was a lot of learning, I think,

Starting point is 00:05:50 in those very first clients that I had. Oh, definitely. And I feel like it's a lot of networking. You know, we had someone on the podcast who was talking about their leap into consulting and just into freelancing. And they were like, make a list of every single person like you've ever talked to and narrow that down to people that, you know, work at brands that you kind of want to get involved in. What else would you kind of suggest to someone who wants to pursue consulting to get started? Yeah, I think, I think it's really about, I think like a platform like LinkedIn for as much like shit as it gets is really important.

Starting point is 00:06:27 Those connections, your network there, hosting there. I also, I mean, I think that something that's been really useful for me, and I hate like suggesting like any career, any sort of, I don't know, job requires you to have a social presence. But I do think like putting yourself out there as an expert or as, which I also hate that word, but just like as somebody who likes to have conversations around a certain topic, let's say that, is really helpful. And so, you know, my newsletter has been a huge funnel for me in terms of my consulting because I've sort of talked about social and then people hear about the way that I think about social and it's through Twitter, through a newsletter. I think about like Tommy Clark is somebody who I think of on Twitter who's really good, or Emily Sundberg has a newsletter that's really good. And they just

Starting point is 00:07:32 are talking about what they're interested in. And then I think that keeps them top of mind for people when they need a consultant to think of like, oh, I remember like that newsletter Emily wrote or that tweet that Tommy wrote. Definitely. And I think too, just like putting it out there, like you said earlier, that you're available and willing to help in any area, even if it's something that's maybe not going to be the full-time consulting gig that you think that you want to get into eventually, even if it's just like a here and now call or something like that, it's a great place to get started. You did mention on your intake form, and we were really excited about this because Kava is one of our favorite,

Starting point is 00:08:11 favorite brands. They actually just now, like a couple months ago, came to Florida. We were so pumped. We were there like the first week it opened. How did you get started working with them and what have been some of your favorite experiences working with that brand? Yeah, I mean, the way that I started working with them is how I just described how I started working with a lot of my clients, which is that a couple people from the art team at Bon Appetit started working there full time. And so they were like, we're doing some exciting stuff. I loved working with them at Bon Appetit. So they brought me in as a consultant and that was like almost two years ago and I still work with them.

Starting point is 00:08:52 They're honestly like a dream client to me. They give me a lot of autonomy. That's like so important for me, whether it's a full-time social role or consulting, like having the autonomy to make decisions, to, you know, put up social posts that don't maybe get 10 sets of eyes on them, whatever it might be. And it's been really fun because I get to like flex muscles outside of social media. So I've gotten to work a lot with their creators and influencers. I worked on the Emma Chamberlain campaign that they did I just um launched a collab bowl with Wishbone Kitchen and Lobco um with them and so that's been really fun it's sort of like the partnership angle of it and that's something that if I was in like a full-time social role I'm not sure if I would have gotten the opportunity to do because I'm a consultant like and I've worked with them for so long it's been really fun to sort of flex my marketing muscles in other areas and yeah it's just been like fun growing their social they have

Starting point is 00:09:49 like a very very ravenous fan base and so I think when I started with them they're at like 60k Instagram followers we're almost at 200k now and it's just been like so fun to tap into to sort of what makes their followers um tick and what they you know their little sort of inside jokes that we've been building with them through the years and um yeah it's been so fun working with them that's awesome yeah i was gonna say two of us being two of those ravenous fans we are addicted like erica said but um that's so awesome to hear about that. I'm curious too, with like consulting, especially if someone's shifting from the corporate space to consulting for the first time, they're trying to get the lay of the land of how to provide a great experience for their clients. And you mentioned Kava is one of those clients that you've had for year over year. So

Starting point is 00:10:41 any tips on maintaining those great client relationships, providing the great experiences so they stay with you for a long period of time? I think it's just a lot about building trust and building sort of good rapport with your clients and not treating them like a client or treating them like you're an outsider. And I feel like I, you know, I'm friends with all of the people on the team and sort of, I don't know, I feel like that's really important. And so I, I found with my consulting over the years, cause I've done like one month long project based consulting things. And then I've done like a two year or one year. And those didn't

Starting point is 00:11:26 start as like two-year contracts. It's just sort of like, let's keep doing this. And so I find that the one month long projects, like I can't get in deep enough to like see what the like issues are and then actually execute the like strategy to like show that working with me was worth it. And so I prefer like a longer term consulting project like Kava. I worked with West Elm for like over a year versus these like shorter one month projects where I just feel like I can't like get my hands dirty. I just want to like start like making posts and like start testing things. Whereas when I work with a brand for a longer period of time, it just helps me to sort of gather the learnings and create the change that I see possible for them. Yeah, absolutely. And also

Starting point is 00:12:10 from a service provider standpoint, I think it's always hard to show a brand what you can do for them in a one month period of time, let's just say. So I'll have brands come to me and they're like, let's test it for one month and see how it goes. And I'm like, okay, from a client communication to brand standpoint, sure. Like we can kind of see how we communicate and vibe together, but seeing results and really seeing the impact that that work has on you, it's really hard to see that too. So always try to push for those longer terms and providing great experience hopefully will naturally make those uh those client relationships extend anyways so yeah great advice um curious too about just brands everywhere whether you work for them or don't that are just doing a really great job on social media and why you think they're doing a great job. Yeah, I feel like on TikTok,

Starting point is 00:13:06 I talk about them all the time, but I think that Plant Money, which is NPR's podcast TikTok account is so good. They don't do trends. They don't use trending audio. They just have these like really amazing sort of sketches that talk about economic principles that should be very hard to understand, but they make it very easy to understand and it's

Starting point is 00:13:31 entertaining and fun. And I just, I'm a fan of a lot of TikToks that use Trending Audio. I think that they're fun, but when I think about what like stands out to me, whenever I think about brands that I think are like absolutely killing it it it's always the brands that are just doing something totally weird out there not using the trunnion audios and really you know developing a personality of themselves um and then in terms of Instagram um the like fashion company Essence um which is like s-s um does a really amazing job of like creating memes but it's in their own brand and it's in their own sort of voice and they feel just like memes for like the high fashion set in like a really fun way and so I'm a big fan of what they're doing I also love a24's Instagram account that is always so fun to hear.

Starting point is 00:14:26 I love hearing like social media. I know you said you don't like the word expert, but I'm just going to call you that. A social media expert's perspective on brands that are doing a great job on social. I mean, I feel like we're bombarded all the time with branded content that it's just like seems overwhelming, but it's really when some brand is doing something that's out of the norm and not just following suit with every other brand. So I love that for sure. Let's shift gears just a little bit and talk about LinkedIn bio, your newsletter. What inspired you to start this newsletter?

Starting point is 00:14:59 How did you come up with like unique content for every week? I know for our, just for example, for marketing happy hour, we were having these conversations organically with our friends, just in the marketing space. And they were really great conversations that we were getting, you know, really great insight. And we were like, every other people need to hear this. So we started going on clubhouse and then that turned into the podcast but just curious to hear what really inspired that initial launch of the newsletter for you yeah kind of similar I think that a lot of the social media resources out there were very like SEO focused very sort of

Starting point is 00:15:40 got to like was like helpful in the sense that it like taught you how to like make a reel or how to like set up an Instagram account or whatever it might be. But it didn't get to the sort of like root and interesting things that I would talk about with my social media manager friends all the time of, you know, oh, my God, the approval process is the worst. Just like that really like can kill a social strategy or whatever it might be, these sort of like internal conversations that I think that more people could relate to than just like you know you can only

Starting point is 00:16:09 read so many articles about like you know the ideal time to post like that's not a social strategy that's just like a tactical tip that maybe is helpful maybe it's not so I really wanted to create a resource that felt like it was from social managers where I interviewed actual social managers instead of, you know, there's the CMOs or the bosses who are typically in like the Forbes interviews, taking credit for the work that likely a social manager is doing. And I just, it's basically like the resource that I wanted when I started out in social media. And so I just built it myself.

Starting point is 00:16:46 Yeah, that's so good. That's literally exactly why we created this too. We saw this gap in conversations that need to be had because sure. It's awesome to hear from the CMO or the C-suite executive that's made it and hear that success and maybe a little bit about the steps that they took, but actually hearing from the people actually in the day to day doing the work was, was such a big need. So I love that you're doing that with your resource too, but I'd love to know too, do you have any tips for kind of twofold copywriting, improving your writing skills, but also getting into a creative block? Like what do you do in those moments where you're thinking about what to write? I know a lot of your stuff is coming

Starting point is 00:17:30 from interviews, but just overall creative ideas you're trying to come up with, like how do you get out of those situations? Yeah. I mean, in terms of writing, I just think like writing helps. So just sitting down and writing. And I also had and still work with an editor. So if there was ever a newsletter send that I feel like needs another set of eyes, I hire her and she is able to like give me lots of notes and feedback. And that is really helpful just in terms of like growing my expertise um and then in terms of just like finding things to write about in creative blocks I feel like honestly like consuming social is probably the best way that I do that and I in order to like have a good like balance I just set aside you know a half hour to just scroll, see what people are talking about,

Starting point is 00:18:25 see what brands are posting. And also just thinking about like what interests me. I wrote about like how reformation is uses creators to remake viral videos, but wearing reformations clothes instead. And that to me, I was like, that's interesting to me. I don't know if anyone will find it interesting, but I think that's kind of a cool influencer strategy. And that like totally blew up and insider and Buzzfeed news and all these people wrote about it. And so I think trusting your gut, I think like I get a question a lot of like, how do you know what's interesting? It's like, if it's interesting to you, then it's probably going to be interesting to other people. So I'm really trusting sort of your instincts in that.

Starting point is 00:19:08 Yeah. Really great advice. Thank you for that. And then I'm excited to hear your answer to this question, but just how have you grown and scaled your newsletter? Do you have any tips for doing the same thing? You know, are you posting about it? Are you creating free resources in exchange for emails? Like what are you doing there to build your list? Yeah. I think my number one piece of advice is consistency. And just as soon as I started posting weekly and like committing to that, I saw a lot of growth. So I'd say that is my number one piece of advice. Number two is thinking about what platform you build your newsletter on. For me, Substack, I get a ton of internal recommendations and referrals from the network that give me subscribers. So that's like something that I feel like people don't talk about a lot is like what

Starting point is 00:20:01 platform you use to actually build your newsletter on. And because of the recommendation platform within the Substack app, I about a lot is like what platform you use to actually build your newsletter on and because um of the recommendation platform within the substack app i get a lot of subscribers that way um and then the third is knowing how to promote your newsletter on social i think um there's been a few shifts that like have changed the way that i promote my newsletter on linkedin i used to just post like a link to that week's newsletter with like a little, you know, this is, I talked about this, this, and this, and it would get like seven likes. I was like, okay, clearly this is not working. So then I started just writing, you know, taking a piece of the newsletter, breaking out what the learnings were and just treating it like a standalone post, no link, no anything. The link is still in my bio if people

Starting point is 00:20:42 want to do it. And sometimes I'll comment the link to the newsletter, but just treating the platforms. And when you promote your newsletter, like you don't need to treat it like it's just like putting your link everywhere. You can actually just take the story that you're telling in your newsletter and make it platform specific, make a Twitter thread, like try new ways to promote your newsletter. And don't feel like you always need to be putting a link to it to get new subscribers. The like reformation example, I tweeted like a thread of that and it went, it took off. And that was my highest traffic day of my newsletter, despite the fact that there was never like a

Starting point is 00:21:13 link to my newsletter in that thread. So like the buzz that you can get from like the reach of not putting a link is sometimes worth not putting a link. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. I have noticed that a lot of people that have newsletters are doing that same thing, not really putting the link anywhere. We don't do a good job of that. We have our own newsletter, but we every week just, it's kind of right now, at least it's just a checkbox for us because we're doing so many things. Yeah. We should do a better job at that. Thank you for that advice. Awesome. I mean, it takes me, it takes me like a good hour, hour and a half after I send a newsletter to like promote it

Starting point is 00:21:50 on social and all of the like specific ways that each platform sort of requires you to do. So it's, it's work. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it, but it's work that pays off, which is good. Yes. Awesome. Well, we are approaching the end of this interview here. It's been so great to learn from you and just have you on the show today, but we'd love to ask this question on the show. And that is what do you know now that you wish you knew early on in your career? I'm very curious to hear. Yeah. So I think early on in my career, I felt a bit frustrated that every manager that I had had never worked in social. And I was career, I felt a bit frustrated that every manager that I had had never worked in social.

Starting point is 00:22:27 And I was like, I really want to learn from somebody who's worked in social. I want a boss who's worked in social. Let me learn from somebody. I felt like that was putting me at a disservice. And I wish that I knew that nobody knows what they're doing in social. Even if I had a boss who had worked in social, it probably wouldn't have helped me that much. And my curiosity and my interest in telling stories online and my consumption of social was making me a really great social manager. And it

Starting point is 00:22:57 doesn't have to do with like having a boss who, who had worked in social. And even, even then I probably didn't realize that I probably didn't have a boss that worked in social. And even, even then, I probably didn't realize that I probably didn't have a boss that worked in social because it had only been around for like two years before I started working in a company. So I think understanding that in terms of like learning about social media, your best resource is social yourself, reading newsletters like mine, listening to podcasts like yours. It's not going to be some manager who's worked in social, you know, I think that I wish that I told myself that and stopped focusing on that being such a like disservice to my career. No, I totally agree.

Starting point is 00:23:39 Are there any resources aside from your newsletter that you would recommend for somebody out there looking to just kind of get a fresh perspective on things who may, you know, just be looking for additional resources? I actually think a lot of the platforms resources are really good. I think the like Instagram creators account. I think that LinkedIn has like a good LinkedIn. If you want to see what's working there, look at their LinkedIn. I think like looking to a lot of the platforms and how they use their own platforms is actually really helpful. But yeah, that's usually what I do.

Starting point is 00:24:15 And then there's other sub staff newsletters that I really like. And I like consuming a lot about like the internet at large, as opposed to just social media. I think that there's a lot you can take and sort of apply to social media and not just look at only social media resources and looking at the internet at large and marketing at large. Well, speaking of that too, do you have any predictions or things that you're seeing just

Starting point is 00:24:39 on the interwebs in general that we should be looking out for in your opinion? I would say, I mean, today I feel like everyone is talking about blue sky on Twitter. So I'm very curious about that and it's invite only right now, but I do feel like it's like potential to reach a tipping point that people might move over there and it has the exact same UI UX as Twitter. And so I don't know, I feel like it's like the only one so far that I've heard of that seems like it might stand a chance. So I'm curious. Yeah, no, same, same. We'll, we'll have to keep our eyes open for that, but Rachel, this has been wonderful and you shared so many great, just straightforward, simple, easy to apply tips.

Starting point is 00:25:21 And so thank you for that. But where can everyone follow along for you? This with you, this is your chance to place your link everywhere. So tell us where we can get in touch with you, join your newsletter, all the things. My newsletter is link. Oh, it's not LinkedIn bio. My newsletter is milk carton, M I L K K A-E-N at subs.substack.com. Well, I should really learn how to say that. And you can follow me at Elk Carton, spelled the same way on all social platforms. That's amazing. So creative.

Starting point is 00:25:55 Awesome. Well, thank you again for coming along with us and sharing your expertise. We're super excited to get this out there and super just honored to have you on the show today. Yeah. Thank you guys for having me. That's all for this week's episode. Thank you again for listening. And if you enjoyed this episode or learn something new from the conversation, please consider subscribing,

Starting point is 00:26:21 rating, and leaving a review on your favorite podcast platform and reaching out to us on Instagram at marketinghappyhr. I know we say that every week, but it really helps us understand what you're loving and how to continue serving you the best content we can. For more from Marketing Happy Hour, head on over to our website at marketinghappyhr.com. See you next week. We are so excited to share that our first ever free marketing happy hour digital resource is now available. Download the dream career game plan today at marketinghappyhr.com forward slash freebie. That's marketinghappyhr.com forward slash freebie. This five-step workbook will guide you through defining your goals, building your network, diversifying your skills, influencing where

Starting point is 00:27:17 you're at, and investing in your growth. Cassie and I created this resource with marketing careers in mind, but the framework can be applied to any industry. Our hope is that this workbook will help you truly elevate your career, whether you're in the market for a new position or just looking to make your mark in your current organization. No matter where this resource finds you, we are cheering you on every step of the way. So go check it out at marketinghappyhr.com forward slash freebie to download and make your career dreams come true.

Marketing Happy Hour - Creating Your Own Dream Career Path | Social Media Consultant Rachel Karten

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