Marketing Happy Hour - How to be a Confident Marketer in 2023 | Bari Rosenstein of Auntie Anne's and Jamba

Episode Date: January 5, 2023

Welcome to Season 7 of the Marketing Happy Hour podcast! We're excited to kick things off with Erica's conversation with Bari Rosenstein, Social Media Manager at Auntie Anne's and Jamba. Here's a peek at what we cover in this episode: [00:03:30] - Bari shares her experience working for agencies, transitioning brand side with Coca-Cola, how she found her current role with Auntie Anne's and Jamba, and how she and her team are bringing pretzels and juice to life on social! [00:08:47] - Bari reveals which platforms each of the brands are utilizing and what content does well on each platform. Her advice? Tailor the content to each audience and "drive the crave." [00:11:09] - Bari walks us through the importance that audience sentiment plays in determining a campaign's success, and gives us a behind the scenes look at building each brand's TikTok presence from scratch. [00:16:51] - Bari uncovers how Auntie Anne’s and Jamba's strategies differ on social, and how each brand promotes LTOs (Limited Time Offers). She shares tips on how to juggle multiple brands and how to let management know if and when you need to bring on additional help!  [00:25:10] - Bari chats all things Twitter and shares how brands can make a splash on social by standing out amongst the noise in their categories. [00:29:44] - Learn how social media truly impacts the bottom line for a brand, and the lasting impact that branding yourself as a professional on LinkedIn can have on your career. Grab a drink and listen in to this week's Marketing Happy Hour conversation! ----- Other episodes you'll enjoy if you enjoyed Bari's episode: Social Strategy 101: What You Need to Succeed | Lauren Freund of Shutterfly Audience Insights 101: Sliding in the DMs | Sara Arbelaez of Heelys ____ Say hi! DM us on Instagram and share your favorite moments from this episode - 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. NEW: Check out our website! NEW: Join our email list! Follow Bari / Auntie Anne's / Jamba on Instagram: @basicallybari / @auntieannespretzels / @jambajuice Connect with Bari on LinkedIn: Bari Rosenstein Check out Auntie Anne's and Jamba on TikTok: @auntieannes / @jamba Follow MHH on Instagram: https://instagram.com/marketinghappyhr Follow MHH on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/marketing-happy-hour/ Subscribe to our LinkedIn newsletter, Marketing Happy Hour Weekly: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/marketing-happy-hour-weekly-6950530577867427840/ Join our Marketing Happy Hour Insiders LinkedIn Group: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/9238088/

Hey there, welcome to the Marketing Happy Hour podcast, where each week we're learning career-defining advice, powerful social media strategies, unique creative tips, groundbreaking influencer marketing tactics, and more from marketing experts that represent some of the world's leading brands. Let's dive in, grab a drink, and join your hosts, Cassie and Erica, for this week's episode. Finding something you're passionate about is one thing, but making it fun and making it a job that you want to wake up to every single day. We live to live. We don't live to work. Life is too short for that. So don't settle for less. Settle for something that you think you deserve because you do deserve that.

To kick off Season 7, Barry Rosenstein, Social Media Manager for Auntie Anne's and Jamba, is joining us for a discussion on becoming a confident marketer and how to infuse that confidence in your brand marketing. In her day-to-day role, Barry exercises her passion for creating imaginative concepts by turning them into practical strategies. Barry implements a variety of tactics, including community management, paid social, and influencer marketing to build brand awareness and engagement and drive traffic. As a blogger herself, Barry also understands the importance of brands building

the right relationships with the right influencers. Specifically on this episode, you'll hear discussions on why brand confidence strengthens social media audience connections, the benefits of agency experience for future career growth, how to use Twitter to build buzz around your brand, and tips for communicating the value of various digital marketing channels. Are you ready? Grab a drink. It's time to dive into today's happy hour discussion. Hey, Barry, how are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm doing well. I'm so glad that we could connect today. I'm a huge fan of Auntie Anne's. I remember growing up, we were like going to the mall every Saturday and that was like a staple that my friends and I had to get was the

cinnamon pretzel. So yeah, very excited to have you on the show. But I do have an important question for you that we ask all of our guests. And that is, what is in your glass? I guess it's this morning because we're recording this at 9am. But what are you sipping on? So today I have my first Starbucks holiday cup, but not a holiday drink. It's just black coffee with a splash of the vanilla cream and sugar-free vanilla because I'm in the office, which means there is always food around. So I want to save my indulgence for what might be in the kitchen later today. Oh my gosh. I love that.

I can't even imagine. It's probably so fun to work there. You're always trying like new things that might come out on the menu. So excited to kind of just dive into your experience there. But first I kind of want to hear, I want to have our listeners hear your career journey in social media this far. Could you just walk us through your experience working for marketing agencies and then transitioning over to the brand side? Yeah, of course. So I went to college. I went

to a liberal arts college, Elizabethtown in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania. The only reason I chose to go to college in Amish country is I played lacrosse there. But I did a bunch of different agencies in college and I knew right out of college, I wanted to work in social. And this is when social was becoming a career path. And I wanted to work at an agency because I loved the fact that I could touch many accounts at once. So I worked at a B2B agency in Baltimore, and then I went to see agency in Baltimore. And after, you know, doing that for probably around five years, I decided that I wanted to be on brand side. And that is when I got a call from a company working on the Honest Tea brand. So I moved to Washington, DC for that job. And I led organic social for

Honest Tea and then eventually Zico Coconut Water and Costa Coffee. And then in December 2019, Coke decided to close that office. And that is when they shipped me down to Atlanta to continue my role. And then at the end or in the beginning of 2021, that is when I took my job with Focus Brands to lead social for Auntie Anne's. And then in December, there was a little bit of a rework and I was able to take in Jamba and hire specialists. So right now I lead social for Auntie Anne's and Jamba and have a team, finally been a team of one until we said so. It's been really fun working in CPG and food and beverage. And I think for me, like the biggest thing and consistency in my job is I know, I knew from the beginning what I wanted to do. And I put all of

myself into finding dream jobs and I write time, right place, you know, networking. And that is how I've got here. Awesome. Would you recommend that then if someone's kind of like in college, maybe they're not sure exactly what they want to do, but they know maybe a company that they want to work for, would you recommend just like networking with that company, figuring out what jobs are available, things like that? What are your best like interview tips for maybe like your first job? Yeah, I actually got one of my agency jobs from messaging one of the partners at the agency on LinkedIn. Yeah, it was, you know, like I shot my shot and it worked. And I think now like really making yourself stand out is important and just really being confident,

I think is the best thing. Like things on LinkedIn, go into the comment section, have your name known. I think that is really important. And just being firm with what you want and don't settle for less because you deserve the best and you deserve a career that or a job that makes you want to wake up in the morning and not dread your life. So I definitely think that being confident and having a clear direction on what you want to do is a great starting point, especially right outside of college. I love that. And that's such great advice. And especially the LinkedIn piece. LinkedIn is like my favorite social media platform. So totally agree with you there. But I want to shift focus

to Auntie Anne's for a minute. We obviously all know and love that shopping mall staple, like I mentioned earlier, but how are you positioning Auntie Anne's on social to connect with your audience right now? Yeah. So we're really trying to make Auntie Anne's, we're really trying to make pretzels part of the conversation. And that's part of our strategy is we want to be your go-to snack brand. And we want to be irresistible. We want you to crave our pretzels. And social is a great way to do that. Especially now with content being the way content is, it's imperfect, it's real time. So we really try to personify the pretzel and we try to be fun, lighthearted and edgy

and be in conversations that we might not be in or partner with people or other brands that we might not be in or partner with people or other brands that we might not necessarily partner with. So I think for Auntie Anne specifically, we're already part of culture. So how can we turn it up to the next level and be nostalgia in a way that's more modern? And we're not just an afterthought. Of course, we love that everyone has memories going to the mall. But now you can get pretzels delivered outside of the mall.

Now we're popping up with drive-thrus. So I think really trying to switch that mentality into thinking about Antien's the way you think about Chipotle or the way you think about Jimmy John's. We want to continue modernizing this brand and getting away from that nostalgic vibe. Oh, that is so cool. I love that you can get pretzels delivered now. I didn't know that. So now that I know I'm going to look into that for sure. Yeah. What platforms are you utilizing right now and how does your content kind of differ between those?

Yeah. So we're on all the major ones. We're on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok. And our content differs pretty heavily. You know, Twitter, we really use that, you know, as quick, dumb thoughts, things that make you laugh, things that are relatable, things that you want to retweet. And we don't really use images. We just use status updates. Facebook, obviously, that's where our demo is a little older, but it's our most followed platform with, you know, a million followers. So we utilize that in a way, you know, we put our offers, we highlight our LTOs, but we also use status updates. People, what we have found is that people love to comment on our statuses. Like if you think about the way people use Facebook, they love tagging people. They love sharing things. They love, you know, being part of the conversation. So we have found that putting our tweets on our Facebook page works. So we do a lot of that. Instagram is really where we drive

the crave. So we really focus our content on that very perfect, yummy picture of a pretzel that makes you literally want it right now. And we also use Instagram stories as a place to showcase new store openings, our loyalty offers, you know, free delivery and things like that. And then finally on TikTok, we use that to show pretzels in every way, shape or form, whether that's, you know, rolling the dough, dipping it in butter, taking it out of the oven, showing you behind the scenes and really the entertainment value of how beautiful this pretzel can be and things that like doing things that are fun and hopping up on trends and really trying to make pretzels part of the conversation.

Oh my gosh, that's so fun. I love seeing food brands on TikTok because, well, first of all, it makes me crave every time, but I just like think that's such a unique opportunity to create like a connection point with the audience. So totally love that. Do you guys work with influencers right now? Yeah. So we don't really, we have more of like a campaign to campaign influencer program and influencer setup. We would love to do a brand ambassadors and we know that influencers love Auntie Anne's, but right now we do it by campaigns. So this past year, we did our first ever NIL campaign with March Madness in our basketball buckets.

This summer, we use influencers to help promote our new dragon fruit mango frost. So with that, we did day in the the life content so we really focused on lifestyle um influencers and we have an influencer coming influencer program coming up to help promote our snack stadiums and our game day snack pack i don't want to give away what the campaign is going to be but we are using influencers that are heavily involved with football and having game traditions and how you know choosing pretzels is your new game day snack versus pizza or wings or whatever um but you know we're constantly working on our influencer approach and really trying to figure out how we get the biggest bang for our buck and how we can use influencers to push Auntie Anne's into homes and people and to people that, you know, forget

about us and forget that we have delivery and forget that we are a snack brand and we want to promote Auntie Anne's as a snack versus, you know, an indulgence. Awesome. Yeah. How do you measure the success of an influencer campaign like that? I know a lot of our listeners out there that may run influencer campaigns, they don't necessarily know what metrics or numbers to show leadership and to get that all translated to like show them that the program's working. What do you guys currently track and how do you display that? Yep. So we actually work with, we see that kind of do all the reporting, but, um,

when we look at the reports that they give us, you know, we look at views, we look at engagement rate and we really look at, you know, the cost per, you know, engagement or cost per view to see how hard our money has worked. Um, I mean, I think, you know, engagement or cost per view to see how hard our money has worked. I mean, I think, you know, since we're focusing heavily on TikTok, I look at views because that's how many people we've reached. So if an influencer, you know, gets 100,000 views, that's 100,000 people that saw the content, watched it, you know, potentially commented. And that's 100,000 people that we might not have gotten, you know, by doing it, you know, ourselves. So we also look at the sentiment, I think,

looking at comments and how people perceive the content is really, really important. And I think sometimes to overlook, you get so stuck on the numbers. But if the comments are positive, that means people are having a positive experience watching the content. If the comments are negative, it's the opposite. So we wanna make sure our content is entertaining, but also that people and is watched, but we also wanna understand if people are enjoying the content, which I think is really important.

Yeah, that's so important. The sentiment piece. I'm so glad that you touched on that because that is really, really important. And I think a good way to value that is to look at the comments and get an audience. your product, they're going to tell you. And if they're also going to tell you, so it's really important to be part of that comment section and to get into it and really understand what, what people are saying. Totally agree. Totally agree. So what has been your favorite part overall of just running social media for Auntie Anne's? I think building the TikTok presence, that is a passion project for me. I joined Focus when TikTok was becoming a thing for brands and, you know, Auntie Anne's wanted to be on TikTok and I was really nervous.

I had never made a video before March 2021. And I was like, oh my God, what do I do? And, you know, I think this journey of, you know, starting the TikTok to now having, you know, close to 5 million likes on the page, over 200,000 followers and over, you know, a couple million viewed videos, like it's all about confidence. And I think it's all about just trusting your gut, being an active user on the platform. I think seeing how positive our brand is and sentiment is on TikTok is a great, you know, confidence booster. And I think just seeing how much people love Auntie Anne's on that platform, you know, inspires me. It makes me want to continue making

content that people want to watch. And also, you know, there's, it's not all, you know, rainbows and butterflies, you know, there's been a lot of failures on TikTok, a lot of videos that have flopped. And I think that humbles, you know, me as a marketer, because it's not all perfect. And we have to learn from these mistakes. And I think just seeing the growth of that platform, you know, not all social media managers get to start a platform from, you know, the beginning. So it's been really cool to see it grow and flourish, you know, how we can keep iterating, you know, our TikTok videos.

Absolutely. That has to be so fun to see like the fruit of your work, just totally go and like run with it. That's amazing. I love that. Yeah. I feel really lucky to have had that opportunity too. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So we wanted to talk a little bit about Jamba, which I know as Jamba juice, did it? You dropped the juice. Okay. It's just Jamba.

Awesome. How does your strategy with jamba then differ from your strategy with anti-ans if at all yeah no it definitely is different so jamba the consumer is completely different yes it's a mix of millennials and gen z but if you think about the occasion of going to anti-ans versus going to Jamba, it's completely different. Auntie Anne's is an indulgence to people. It's when you go to the mall. Jamba is more functional, right? You can go in and get a smoothie with protein. You can go in and get your apples and greens and get your kale. So if you think about the two times you use, you know, Auntie Anne's or Jamba, they're completely different so for jamba we when i

joined the team and i really started getting into the work was in this jet this past january we needed to redefine our social strategy and redefine the purpose of jamba on social on top of that jamba is going through you know a little bit of a rebrand, which we'll get into next year. But really trying to figure out what makes our Jamba consumers and fans tick. And I think that has been a huge puzzle for me and my specialists, because some days things pop off and sometimes they don't. It's not as consistent for Antienne. So Jamba takes a lot more work and a lot more listening and reporting to understand what makes our fans tick and what makes them want to like our content. Plus, on top of that, Jamba has a lot more LTOs and MTNs. So really figuring out a way to promote these LTOs in a fun, engaging way that is not redundant and it's not the same over and over again.

And, you know, but how did a pumpkin has a pumpkin, um, a pumpkin smash smoothie? How do we get out of the clutter of that pumpkin smash or that pumpkin latte pumpkin, whatever conversation, because, you know, a pumpkin smoothie is different than a pumpkin spice latte. you know a pumpkin smoothie is different than a pumpkin spice latte so um it's been a lot of work trying to figure out who jamba is on social and redefining that purpose to get our fans reignited and back excited for jamba i love that i think that's so cool that you have like this challenge in front of you but it's like fun and you're finding a way to like make it interesting and speak to it.

I love that so much. Also, I just wanted to pause because you've said it like twice now, I think LTO, I want our listeners to know what does that mean? So it is limited time offer, correct? Okay. The new, you know, limited time Starbucks holidays offer. Yeah. Awesome. I love it. Love that. And I think it's so fun. I think we get into this mindset as marketers where we're just like, Oh, everyone knows the terms, but then so funny because we've had people on the podcast that will say certain terms. And, and we have listeners that are like, Hey, um, in your latest episode, what did that three letter acronym mean? I'm just curious. And I didn't know. Yeah, I know we should, we should make like a marketing glossary for something like that. I love it. Okay. Awesome. Well, I wanted to also ask you what the experience then is like juggling the two brands,

because you do have such different voices, such different consumers. And did your agency experience kind of prepare you for that? Because I know at an agency, you're used to working on multiple brands. Would you say that that worked to your advantage in the role that you have now? Yes. So how we juggle both brands, you know, we would think about how many platforms we're managing. It's around eight, right. And they all need attention. So, and we tweet on both brands every single day. We post on TikTok every other day or every day on both brands. It's a lot of work and I would not be standing breathing without Kenna, who is my specialist. And we really divide and conquer.

And, you know, I gave her jobless TikTok as her passion project. But obviously, we work together on both brands. And we're constantly thinking about content. We're constantly thinking about the next trend and how we can hop on for both brands. And it's all about testing and learning, you know, not every, like I said, not everything's gonna hit and things are gonna flop and rotate that because we learn from it. But it takes a lot of work, you know, shooting smoothies is a lot different than shooting pretzels. And we're constantly in photo shoots. And we're constantly, you know, connected at the hip, when we're constantly in photo shoots and we're constantly connected at the hip when we're in the office because, you know, it's our chance to get content.

But I definitely think having my agency experience has helped because you're able to switch your brain really quickly. And that's a reason why I really wanted to start my career off with agencies because it has set me up for so much success. Being able to juggle a lot of things at once, being able to switch my brain and my tone of voice and the way I think to both brands at a snap of a dime. And I think too, it's given me the discipline to tick things off my to- do list in a thoughtful way, knowing I have to manage so many things. So I definitely think my agency experience has helped really make me not feel overwhelmed with all the work and all the things that we have to do.

Yeah, absolutely. And you mentioned that at one point you were just a team of one. How did that conversation start of, Hey, I need some help because that seems to be such a common thread throughout the social media world is like most of these large brands really do only have a team of like one or two and people don't know how to, I don't know, I guess, demonstrate that they need help and be taken seriously with that. So what do you think are tips around that? Yeah, I mean, I was lucky because there was a rework within focus where able to get a specialist because I had two brands. But I think, you know, a great, you know, idea is to start with hiring freelancers. So, you know, for me, it's me and Kenna. So we do all of the things, but we also have a creative team.

So we don't shoot all of our content. We have a photographer, we have designers. So I think, you know, and when I worked at Honest Tea, I raised my voice saying, we need to redo our content. Can we hire an influencer? And so with that, I started doing my research. I started reaching out to freelance workers and I started to figure out how much money it would take to, you know, have a photo shoot here and there.

So I think that's a great way to kind of segue into raising your hand that you need help. It's not, you know, you're not raising your hand in terms of failing. You're raising your help saying, I want to do my job to the best of my ability, and this is how I can do it. And outline how much it'll cost. Outline how much resources you may need. And I think that will help, you know, bring attention to that. It's a social media manager does not necessarily mean you're a designer. And I think those two job descriptions are completely different. So I would start with that and really, you know, make a case for yourself and tell your boss or your manager, you know, I need help and I can't do it all. And if you want me to hit my benchmarks

and hit, you know, get as many eyes as I can on this content, this is how we're going to do it. No, that's such good advice. And I think you can't be scared of that conversation too. I mean, it's probably difficult. You think, oh my gosh, I'm being a burden if I ask for help, but that's not the case. So I think a lot of times, I think that took me way too long to learn. And a lot of times you struggle because of

that. So great advice, amazing advice. So I wanted to shift a little bit, something that we haven't really talked a lot about on marketing happy hour yet is Twitter. And I took a look at both Auntie Anne's and Jamba's Twitter. You guys are killing it. Could you just share a little more about how you found each brand's Twitter personality and kind of how you're utilizing that for the different goals of each brand? Yeah. Oh my goodness. I love Twitter. I love Twitter so much. So like I said, we post once a day and we just, we joke that they're like, they're silly, dumb tweets, but they actually work. And I think just industry wide, you know, seeing how brands are interacting on Twitter,

it's just inspiring. You know, I think overall people want to see brands more human because there are humans running these accounts. So I think that was the one thing that kind of helped kick off finding our turn of voice. You know, with Annie Ann's, we wanted to make pretzels part of the conversation. So how did we do that? We just started tweeting about pretzels.

And, you know, for me, I'm a heavy Twitter user. So I do a lot of stalking. I do a lot of researching, you know, like big brands like Oreo, Chipotle, Sour Patch Kids, all of those, you know, QSR brands that, you know, are tweeting and they're industry leaders. And I, you know, take a look at what they're doing and figure out a way to put our pretzel twist on kind of the same thing. And same with Jamba. We talk about smoothies, we talk about our menu, we talk about flavors, and we talk about our limited time offer. Talk about pumpkin spice.

And we really try and lean in on the trends. And I think Twitter is such an easy way to get the conversation started for brands. If you're not on Twitter, I would highly recommend changing that. Because it just starts with a tweet. You don't need images. You don't need links. You literally just need fun and entertaining ideas so why um we do so well on tick on twitter is because we don't take ourselves too seriously and the content that doesn't really get much thought always does does the best so um

highly recommend being on twitter super low hanging fruit for any brand online, especially personal brands, you know, as yourself on Twitter. And it's a great way to see where the trends come from. So highly recommend Twitter. I love that. And that was one of my follow-up questions is, should every brand be on Twitter and why or why not? But I'm assuming that that's a yes for you.

Yeah. And I think too, I think what's interesting is a lot of people are on Twitter, just like TikTok. Like you might not think that there's people on these platforms that have no interest in your brand, but there are, and you have to work hard to find those eyes. So it's not always a slam dunk because everyone has their interests, but it's definitely worth trying. I love that. I love that so much. What would you say then is your best advice for a brand that's looking to make a splash on social? It sounds like a lot of what you have been talking about with your strategy is just those personal connection points and things like that. And just making your brand a part of the conversation. So what would you say, like like how can a brand stand out amongst the noise in their category like

Auntie Anne's and Jamba has yeah I think it's really owning your brand so you're one of one you know you have your mission you have your vision you have your brand book you have your brand colors really owning that and shoving it in people's faces. Like with Annie Ann, we own our blue and yellow. We own all of that. For Jamba, if you look at our Instagram, we own our colors. We own that offbeat, upbeat vibe and that energy that Jamba gives you. So really own it times 100. And that is how, if your brand shows up confident on your feeds,

your followers will feel that energy but also owning up to you know what you do best in the end we make pretzels so we post pretzels for jamba we make smoothies and bowls so we're going to show up with our smoothies and bowls and we're confident behind that and i think that is you, when you start giving off that energy, that's how you, that's when your fans will give you that energy back. Yeah. That's, I feel like that's when you attract the right people and speak to the right audiences when you do show up like confidently and just like true to the brand. And I think you guys do an amazing job. So props to you for that. Working in social, we kind of know, we talked about it a little bit earlier with influencers, but sometimes company leadership really doesn't understand the consumer impact of the marketing channel of social media. Could you just share a little bit your thoughts on how social media truly impacts the bottom line for a brand? Yes. So great question because again,

organic social is free and you can do it for free, but the importance of organic social is that you are building a community on all of these platforms. You are attracting people that are interested in your brand and you're talking to them on a daily basis, sometimes in one-to-one conversations. What other platform can you do that on? I don't know. So, you know, it's quick feedback. It's understanding your consumer to another level because you can see the brands that they're interacting with. You can see how they're interacting with your brand. But also it's about consideration and relevance and keeping your brand relevant with the times, you know, platform. Can you make silly videos on and, you know, post it for free and get millions of views? Like you can't do, I mean, you can do that on paid, but you might not be attracting, you might not be pushing your

content to the right people. And I think, you know, you're planting seeds in people's heads. I get this question a lot, like, how is your Annie and you know, did your tick tock send people to my store? I don't I don't know. But we're planting seeds, we're making people want this, this pretzel or this smoothie, or showing up and saying, seeing people comment like, Oh, I'm gonna go to Jamba today. Oh, I just got my mango a go go, or I'm definitely ordering a bucket. Oh, I'm going to go to Jamba today. Oh, I just got my mango a go-go. Or I'm definitely ordering a bucket. Oh, I didn't know you had delivery. It's all of those things that you do on a consistent basis that reiterates your message, reiterates your brand to these communities, big and small.

And you're able to have this connection with these people. And your fans know that you're talking to them, not at them. And you're really showing this personality that you can't really show on other platforms. So, you know, to answer your question, it's really about consideration, relevance, and planting seeds in people's heads that next time they go to the mall

or next time, you know, they're driving by a Jamba, they're like, oh, I saw that. I want to try this new LTO that I saw on TikTok. Just like how people are like, you know, they're Abercrombie TikTok. They're like, I'm going to go try this. And I'm going to go next to them at the mall. I'm going to go try these, these jeans. It's the same thing with Annie Enzenjamba. Oh my gosh. I totally agree. That was an excellent answer. I wanted to ask you about LinkedIn. You

are pretty much an expert at branding yourself on LinkedIn and getting involved personally as a professional on that platform. What would you say is the impact of that in general? What are the benefits for someone who wants to get involved on the platform and what are the types of content that you can post? Yeah, I think it's really important to be an advocate for yourself, whether that's, you know, posting some thoughts about the social industry or about your job, things that you see. And I think you are your number one advocate, like no one is going to speak for you. So you need to speak for yourself. So start off with, you know, social wins, start off with career wins, whether that's you started a new process or your posts got a hundred likes,

or, you know, you went viral or something. That is where I begin. When I turned 30 this year, I posted things I learned in my twenties and that did very well. And I think just posting, post things that are relatable to people. We're all going through it and we all kind of, you know, deal with some of the same issues. So I think it's really important to be your biggest advocate and you have no idea who's watching. It could be the CEO of your company seeing your posts. It could be, you know, hiring managers seeing your posts.

I think it's also a great way to showcase how much you love what you do. And that's helping not only you, but your employers as well. If you can, you know, even for me, like understand, like talking about, you know, the new Java strategy and posting that on LinkedIn, it's just showcasing things that you find out in your day-to-day work that might help someone. So I think it's really important to talk about wins, you know, maybe even failures and things that you learn from that, but also things that are relatable that, you know, other people can connect with, I think is really important and a great way to start posting on LinkedIn. Yeah, absolutely. You make the best point ever of like, you never know who's watching because the way that LinkedIn's algorithm works

is the discoverability is like insane. So if somebody likes your post and they have all these other people in their network, all those other people in their network can now see or may see the posts that that person liked on their newsfeed. So that's just like such a cool way to connect with people in the industry too. I agree. Awesome. Do you have any predictions for the future of social media? I think this episode comes out in January of 2023. So anything that you're looking forward to this year or thinking about as we head into the new year? Well, in January, 2023, I have no idea what, you know, what's going to happen here in November of 2022. But Twitter, obviously, is a big question mark.

Be real is another question mark. But I think one of the biggest changes that I hope to happen is the creator economy and working with influencers from a brand perspective. And really, hopefully, there become more of a guidelines on, you know, how much these influencers charge and how much brands pay for it. I think being a content creator slash influencer is a lot of work and it's really, really, really hard. And I think from a brand perspective, you know, brands don't have as much money as you think they do. I can attest to that working at Coca-Cola and, you know, at Focus Brands. And I think there

needs to be a better way for both parties to reap the benefits. Obviously we want these content creators to get paid, but we obviously don't want to be spending all this money on not guaranteed wealth. So I think there is going to be hopefully some change in influencer marketing and content creating. But I think, you know, I'm interested to see what happens and where brands are going to land after this whole Twitter fiasco and be real and Twitter, I mean, and TikTok. So I think, you know, we're going to sit here and wait and see what happens, but I think we all need to be flexible and all need to do what's right for our brands. Even if, you know, I love Twitter, I don't ever want to get off of it, but there might be a time where we have to. So we are ears to the ground and monitoring all of the

social networks as we speak. Yeah, absolutely. It'll be fun to look back and hear this part of the interview at the end of 2023 and say, oh my gosh, we could have never predicted that all of this stuff happened. Who knows what that will be, but we'll see. Awesome. Well, we are nearing the end of the interview here and we do love to ask this question on this show. So I wanted to ask you as well. What do you know now that you wish you knew early on in your career? Love this question. And we're tell my younger self a couple things. One, trust the process, whether that's with layoffs or you hate your job or you hate your manager or you're just not in the right industry, trust the process. You're there for a reason,

doors open for a reason, you meet people for a reason. Number two, we're not heart surgeons. We are marketers. So work-life balance is very important. So make sure you set boundaries for yourself and make sure you, you know, don't get burnt out. I think for, I think I have a whole, you know, spiel about burnout culture. And I think if you're in the right job doing something that you love, burnout should not be a thing. I have never experienced burnout, which is very hard to believe because I'm constantly plugged in, but I genuinely love what I do. And I'm so passionate about social and working with brands. So really creating boundaries for yourself, curating your feeds, and also just like having fun. I think finding something you're passionate about is one thing, but making it fun and making it a job that you want to wake up to

every single day. We live to live. We don't live to work. Life is too short for that. So don't settle for less. Settle for something that you think you deserve because you do deserve that and just have fun with it and don't take yourself too seriously. And, you know, life is too short to be upset about your job. So make changes. Yeah. Incredible advice. I couldn't agree more.

Well, we're at the end here, Barry, where can everybody find you follow along with what you're up to keep up with the brands and LinkedIn and all the good stuff. Yeah. So I'm basically Barry on all social platforms. You can connect with me on LinkedIn, but no, you will not get free pretzels. I get that question all the time. I cannot do that. But yeah, I'm always on thing. I love Twitter. I'm on Instagram. I don't post much industry stuff on Instagram. That is my personal page, but I am available. If anyone has any questions about social and things like that, I'm always here to be a sounding board. Awesome. I love that so much. Thank you so much for joining us. I knew I had to get you on because of course I mentioned earlier, but I love Auntie Anne's.

Such like a part of my childhood. And now that I know about delivery, it will be a part of my adulthood as well. And I'm just so excited that we got to connect today. So thank you so much. Yes, thank you so much. This was so much fun. And I hope whoever out there is listening, gets the confidence to post their draft,

start their first LinkedIn post, start on TikTok. It's all about confidence and it's all about the journey. So you're not going to be a one hit wonder. So just be consistent and have fun with it. I think that is the key to working in social is to have fun. Perfect. I don't even need to say anything else. You were great. Thank you again. Thank you so much. What a great way to kick off season seven. Thanks for joining us, Barry. We love your support as we launch into Marketing Happy Hour 2.0 in 2023. We have a lot coming for you, so make sure you follow us on both Instagram and LinkedIn to keep up with all the happenings. And if you love this episode, don't forget to rate and subscribe the show. See you all next time.