Marketing Happy Hour - Monetizing Your Online Presence | Marketing & Monetization Strategist Michelle Thames

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.

Starting point is 00:00:56 This week, we're joined by Michelle Thames, Marketing and Monetization Strategist. Michelle takes us through her must-know strategies for using AI to efficiently create content and streamline process across various marketing functions. Plus, how to build and engage social media following and monetize your online business through digital products, affiliate commission, courses, and more. I got so much out of this conversation and now have a few ideas for monetization in my business and for my clients. I'm excited to hear what this episode inspires you to do as well. So grab a drink and let's get into it. All right, Cassie, before we dive into today's conversation, I have to ask you what's in your glass or should I say our glasses today?

Starting point is 00:01:41 So we are both sipping on our Magic Mind productivity shots this afternoon. Cheers. Yes, it's been a long day of podcasting community prep work together here in person. So we needed a pick me up before chatting with our next guest. Magic Mind ceremonial grade matcha and lines made mushrooms really helped me feel re-energized and ready to focus on the tasks at hand. Totally, totally agree. Our listeners know that I'm a big coffee person, but I don't love the jitters that come with it in the afternoon. So drinking Magic Mind instead really helps get rid of my brain fog later in the day after I've been working all morning. If you would like to try Magic Mind too, because we highly, highly recommend. Their team actually gave us a great

Starting point is 00:02:25 offer to share with you guys. Visit magicmind.co slash MHH to get up to 50% off your first subscription in the next 10 days with our code MHH20. So exciting. Now, Michelle, welcome to Marketing Happy Hour. We're so excited to chat with you and learn all about the social media tips you're known for sharing online. But before that, could you briefly share your career journey this far? Sure. So I actually started off on social media in a totally different niche. So I started off as a beauty and hair influencer and content creator. So back in 2009, I started a beauty blog and a natural hair channel on YouTube and it was so new I think influencer wasn't even a word back then and I was like you know I love this this is you know my passion it I didn't really have a hobby so I feel like this was what I kind of got

Starting point is 00:03:18 into and once I got into it I'm like oh my gosh we can get paid for this. I can talk about hair care products. And so I found out about influencer marketing and content creation. And so I'm like, I can take this to the next level. And I don't have a background in marketing. My background is actually in healthcare administration, but in 2016, I was fired from my job very abruptly. And so I decided to go full force on my passions and lean into some freelance writing. I was working with brands. And then I got the opportunity to work for a startup beauty brand in the natural hair space. And so I was able to help that brand reach multi-millions of dollars with marketing campaigns. I learned so much. And then I said to myself, well, I got this tugging feeling kind of

Starting point is 00:04:02 sort of like, you have to leave this job because there's something else on the other side. And while this is a great career, I mean, I got to travel the world, go to London, Jamaica, all over the United States to be a part of this amazing brand and movement, but it was just something else that was on the other side. And so I say, you know, I can help more people. And I started, me and my husband started our marketing agency. So that's kind of my career path. Many, not like many others career paths. I definitely started out in corporate, worked in healthcare for a long, long time. I got a bachelor's and a master's degree, both in healthcare administration, but you know, life happened and I decided that you don't have to have a cookie

Starting point is 00:04:42 cutter. It doesn't have to be go to school, do this, do this. You can lean in on your passion. So whatever that is, maybe you like to write copy, be a copywriter. Maybe you do virtual assistant. It's so many different opportunities now in a digital age that I think that we can definitely go full force on our passions and make a living off of it. I love that so much. Do you have any like tips or advice for listeners who might be thinking about making that same type of jump? Maybe they don't really know where to begin and just trying to look for new opportunities or new clients that they can branch out and talk to.

Starting point is 00:05:14 Do you have like any tips around that? Yeah, I definitely think you just have to reach out, reach out to people, showcase if you, you know, if you're say you want to be a social media manager, showcase your work online. Maybe it's you take on a friend of the family or, you know, somebody that you know, and help them with their, their social media to see what the results are. And then take that, created a case study and then give that to other people. I mean, you just have to, in this day and age, you just have to go for it. Like there's so many opportunities. I mean, I worked with a client who was a plant influencer. When, when was that, you know, when was that a thing, but plant therapy is a real thing. And so she has such a niche market and is able to really expand in that

Starting point is 00:05:56 because there's not a lot of people who specialize in plant therapy and helping people with house plants, taking care of them, the different benefits of them all. And so there's so many opportunities. That's awesome. Yeah, no, thank you for sharing your journey with us too. I commend you for making that leap, even with a bachelor's and master's. I feel like a lot of times we hold on to that stuff and feel like we have to continue on that path

Starting point is 00:06:18 because that's what's expected of us. And making that leap is very, it's a tough thing to do, but very courageous of you. And I think a lot of people need to be inspired to do that and know that others have, have done it and tried it and it works and just don't have fear and making that decision. So thank you for sharing that. I want to talk to you a little bit about some of the recent content that you have been creating. I believe this post specifically, I want to ask you about is something that we shared on our page from your, your posts,

Starting point is 00:06:50 which was really helpful. And it was how you use AI to create a marketing strategy. So I want to hear a little bit more about that. Can you share your best AI tips for marketers? I know that's a hot topic right now, chat GPT and how to utilize those platforms for just optimizing your content creation efforts. Yes. AI is here and it is here to stay. Do not get, you know, afraid it is going to be okay. So I think chat GPT, which is what I probably use every single day is a really great tool for idea starters to help you start, to help you get an outline. And so, but it can also help you create marketing campaigns. I mean, I have one client right now, we both use it together. And so what ChatGPT does is helps you with time. You would

Starting point is 00:07:37 spend so much time researching to create a post and put it together or researching your podcast outline, for instance. I'm sure you might go to Google and say, okay, I need these types of statistics. I want to talk about this. Okay. You go to this article, this article, but what ChatGPT will do is you have to tell it. And here's the thing with the prompts. You really want to be specific and talk to it and tell it who you are, what you do, what you want it to come up with. And then it's able to pull from the internet all of the resources that you would have had to go to yourself and now puts it together for you in an outline or a format. So there's many different ways to use it.

Starting point is 00:08:14 I've used it for email marketing, sales emails. I've used it for Instagram captions. You can even make tables. You can tell it to make a table and create captions for you for every single day of the week based on a theme and it will give that to you. Now, some of the stuff is super basic, but you have to just really tweak it. I always put my own tone to things, and so I'm pretty sure you all may be on my email list, and a lot of the emails I send are from, well, created with ChatGPT. I feel like it's an extra assistant to the assistant that I have, and we can get more done in less time by using and leveraging ChatGPT.

Starting point is 00:08:48 So don't be scared. I don't think that copywriters or anybody's jobs are going to go away. But for someone who's just starting out in business, think about it like this. This is a great resource for you if you don't have someone who can put a sales page together for you. You can get some copy and be able to tweak some things to help you at least get started. So look at it as a starting point, if anything, but I think it's a very helpful tool for us in business to streamline and automate things because you can, it can automate chatbots. So chat GPT is

Starting point is 00:09:16 just one platform. There's chat GPT, poll, there's apps that you could create photos. There's apps that you can create even podcast episodes with your voice. So it's been. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's, it's been very helpful. Like, for example, this is outside of content creation, but we were just putting together a onboarding packet for a new intern.

Starting point is 00:09:36 And I was like, Hey chat, what are some of the elements I need to include in the onboarding packet? And I just went kind of down the list. And like you said, it saves time rather than me having to go find nine different templates or articles or whatever. So it's a great tool. And I think the biggest thing I've learned from is just test, just play with it, see what kind of makes sense for you in the process that you need it for. But you mentioned a couple other platforms too, you know, the image creation, things like that. What other AI platforms are you utilizing, if any, and any thoughts on the Canva AI platform and stuff like that? Like what else can you share on that

Starting point is 00:10:11 topic? Definitely Canva is bae because Canva now upload a photo and it'll just give you 20 versions of that. Like it's so crazy. And you can take an outline and create a powerpoint from it so i'm definitely using canva mid journey is the one with the images that you can use i'm not sure which what the one is called it um but otter ai is really good it's transcription so i'm writing a book and my coach was like oh did you forget about otter where you can just talk and transcribe what you're saying so you can also transcribe meetings so that's another great tool that i've been using that i love um but i can't think of the one that is that can create like it can create portraits for you like it can create yeah and everything is it dolly dolly or jasper i think

Starting point is 00:11:03 it is dolly d-a-l-L-E, something like that. Yes. Yeah, yeah. There's another cool one too. It's so easy. It's like endless. You'll go down a rabbit hole. So go on TikTok and type in AI

Starting point is 00:11:13 and I guarantee you, you'll find all the tools. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Quick safety tip though, because we did have to talk about this last time. We talked about AI on the podcast. You do have to be careful because you don't know who is behind every AI platform. So you have to make sure you're not giving like proprietary information, like very personal information, like normally, like you wouldn't do that online

Starting point is 00:11:34 anyway. So don't do it within chat GPT or any of those platforms. I feel like that's just a good call out to like share with people. So they're not like, I live at this place. I don't know to give me directions to this place or something. I don't know when you would ever use your address, but you just want to make sure you don't do that. So I like to call that out. Anyway, switching gears kind of totally, I'd love to just hear more about how you built your engaged following on social. You're always like going live, you're posting actionable and approachable tips like Cassie pointed out. Is there a method to structure how you're operating on those platforms?

Starting point is 00:12:10 So I definitely love community. I think that especially Instagram, if you're not building community, I mean, what are you doing? So I've been on Instagram since it started. So I kind of built a following when I was a natural hair influencer and like carried everyone through the journey to where I am now. So I think that that was very helpful. So people have seen my evolution and they feel connected with me. They know that like, I'm a real person and that I go, I mean, I share a lot, but I don't share a lot. I feel like you should share enough so that people can like, know, and trust you and you can be relatable, but you don't have to share your whole life. I know that's something that a lot of people struggle with. It's like, well, what do I share? Like, I don't share a lot of my, me and my

Starting point is 00:12:48 husband. I don't share a lot of things. I mean, but sometimes I might, so it just depends on what you want to share. I think being a real person and responding to comments, I respond to everybody. If you DM me, I'll respond. I mean, I might have 50 DMs every day, but I'm going to respond to everybody, even in the other inbox. Now, if it's spam, I'm deleting that. But I respond to everybody. I respond to every comment. It's really you have to take time in the beginning to be social on social media. Once you once you build that up over time, it starts to get easier because I feel like maybe my community has been following now and we've all been conditioned. Okay, I'm going to comment on Michelle's post or if they like it, right? If it resonates with them, I really don't force people to comment. I mean, I do comment on other people's content, but I feel like I've built a really great

Starting point is 00:13:34 community where they love to interact with my comment and support me. And so, yeah, it's been 13 years just building and really caring about people. I think that I really love what I do and it just comes across in my content so if you love and genuinely love what you do and you just want to help people put it out there and start to build that connection and really be a people person I don't think that if you want to be an influence or anything like that if you don't like people then it's not going to be good So really just that communication and really building that relationship with your potential clients, customers, community members, podcast listeners, all of that. Totally. And we noticed, too, that you have a link to a broadcast channel on your Instagram page as well. Could you tell us your experience using that? using not oh it's been fun I know I haven't utilized it as much as I should but once I saw

Starting point is 00:14:25 that I had the opportunity I was like oh let me do this and I think it's really good because number one it it automatically updates whoever in their inbox instead of being in the algorithm so if you have a message that you may want to get out I think it's really great um to use the broadcast channel I think I have like 200 plus people in mind, which is great for a start, but I definitely promote that more, but I just share tips, you know, marketing gems, anything that people can use. I think it's just a quick way to really interact. And maybe if you're selling something, I would say build a relationship first. Don't just go in there and be like, oh, I have this thing for sale. But I think you can use it like as a SMS text and not have that. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:15:06 Another app you can just use Instagram and the people who already follow you and like have a strategic plan, of course, because again, you just don't want to post random stuff. Yeah. No, that's an awesome way to look at it. Like it's almost an extension of your brand, like an SMS text. I know. That's really cool.

Starting point is 00:15:23 That's a good way to look at it. I love that. I've never heard someone say that. I know. cool. That's a good way to look at it. I love that. I've never heard someone say that. I know. Yeah. And it's like a way more intimate place. And those people that are in that chat are going to be the ones that probably buy from you because they're engaged. They're tuning in. They want to be the first to hear your new ideas and your new tips and things like that. So super cool. We are trying to utilize that too, but we haven't yet. I mean, there's just so many things, everything. There's like platforms added every day.

Starting point is 00:15:47 There's like features added every day. It's like so hard to keep up with everything, but we're all, we're all doing it together. It's fine. We are. Cause there's limited too. That's the new app. So yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:15:59 Yeah. Crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy. Okay. If someone is trying to grow a community online from scratch, you said, you know, you're all about community. What are your best tips for them? Definitely have to show up. I think one of my major things is I'm visible and it's not even like I post every day, but I feel like you have to be visible. If you want to be the choice, there's a lot of marketing people out here. We all know this, right? There's a lot of people who

Starting point is 00:16:23 may in every single niche, but if you want to be that visible choice, you have to show up and just be there, but you also have to provide really valuable content. So when I say valuable, I mean, what does your community want to see? Like what would really make them say, oh, wow, this was really great. I can use this. So you really need to know who your audience is that are on these platforms because you could just be talking to nobody. if you're not talking to the right person. Like for me, for instance, I know there's a lot of women that follow me. Many of them are moms. All of them want to know how to make money online doing what they love. And that's exactly what I teach. So you will learn easy marketing tips. You'll learn about some AI. You'll learn how you

Starting point is 00:17:02 can make money. And so I bridge that all together. And so I think, again, when you're first starting out, you just need to be really, really clear on who it is that you're talking to, build that community, but also give back, go live. I think that lives really work, even if it's five people. I've converted from a room of seven, from a room of two. So you just have to, again, show up, have something really great to say. No, I don't like to do lives more than 30 minutes. Before you just have to, again, show up, have something really great to say. No, I don't like to do lives more than 30 minutes. Before I came on with you all, I was on a live and I was telling people about my program and trying to get some more signups. So again, I'm using it to be visible. I'm using it to tell people about my programs. Yeah. The first tip I have is to be

Starting point is 00:17:40 visible. But the second thing I would say is to use a really great marketing mix. Don't just worry about Instagram. There's email, there is LinkedIn, there's TikTok if you wanna be there. So just think about the places that your potential client is. Is she or he, are they on Instagram? They may not be. One of my clients' Instagram is not her strongest point.

Starting point is 00:18:00 It is her email list that makes her the most money. So while we have an Instagram presence, it's not the best for us to focus on that like really heavily. We want to focus on email and say, okay, who's clicking? What type of emails do the best? So we spend more time on that. So once you figure out your marketing mix, I would say like three to four places where you are and come up with a plan where you can promote effectively on each of those. Oh, totally. And I think too, like maybe a couple of years ago, almost everybody's number one platform where they were the most active and had the most engagement was Instagram. Lately that's changed and people are surprised like our engagement, even on my personal channels,

Starting point is 00:18:39 my highest is LinkedIn. Like who knew, you know? But back to Instagram, however, could you tell us more about the comment to DM feature where you're asking followers to comment specific phrases like AI tips or something like that to then DM them the resource that corresponds with that? Yeah. And there's Manichat, which is auto DM automation. So you can set up an automation and tell anybody to comment an emoji or a word. And what Manny chat does is it follows up and sends them an automatic link to whatever it is you're talking about or the resource. So it's a really great tool. Like the link in bio works and like the link in the stories, but are they really clicking it? I think you should give them a action or tell them to reply to your story instead of just having them click on the link.

Starting point is 00:19:30 Because honestly, most people don't even know they could click on the link. We know as marketers, but everyone doesn't know. So I think when you tell them to do a specific action, and even if you didn't have many chat, you can just send them whatever it is um because instagram has the feature from if you're commenting you'll see it says reply message you can just hit the message button and send it to them easily that way too so there's both of those ways but i think that when you give someone an action it just converts more than just saying oh click the link in my bio because they may or may not go there and they may or may not click the link in your stories yeah that's good and that allows them to i, to quickly comment while they're on the post and then maybe later come back to the

Starting point is 00:20:09 link versus like you said, having to click out of the post, go and take a separate action. That's such a great way to look at it. I know too, with creators and building a community online, monetization is a hot topic. That's something everyone aims to achieve. So what are some of the top tips that you have taken on for yourself or also share with clients in terms of just landing monetization opportunities across the board? And what are some of the opportunities out there available that you feel like more people need to kind of go after? Definitely digital products and services. That's one of my top

Starting point is 00:20:46 way. I mean, it's a really great stream of income. I think that courses really work really well. If you have expertise in the area, you could have a course, $97 and you could sell it. I like to use the platform called Stan. I know I talk about it a lot, but it's really great. It's very easy, user-friendly. So there's many platforms out there where you can host your digital products and services and promote it. I think that's a really great way. Influencer marketing is really good. UGC content creation. You don't even have to post the content to your page. Become a UGC content creator and create content for brands. If you love to do this, maybe you love to do reviews. You can do a really authentic review for the brand and post it to your page. I know girls that get paid $250, $750 just to post a video. So yes, you're listening. Yes, you can get paid that or more to just post

Starting point is 00:21:36 videos and reviews. So I think that's a really great way. Speaking engagements, you can utilize social media to get speaking engaged. I think that's a really great way to monetize your brand. You can become an author. You can write a book. I mean, there's so many different ways to monetize. But again, I definitely think digital products is a great place to start. Affiliate marketing is really great too. You can sell other people's products.

Starting point is 00:21:58 You don't even have to sell your own. So if you want to be an affiliate of my course or something, you can create a commission. You can get a commission off of that. So those are the top ways that I would definitely say you can monetize right now. Again, digital products, it's passive income. You create what it is upfront, and then you just have to market it or put it in a funnel or put the link on your YouTube that's always in rotation. So there's many different ways, but those are my top. Yeah. If someone is curious about, you know, what kind of digital resource should I create? Where would you recommend that they start and kind of dig down into their expertise

Starting point is 00:22:31 to kind of find out, you know, what it is that they should actually create and sell? Oh, this is good. Can I, I do have a resource. It's free. Can I give it to them? Yeah. A hundred digital product ideas for many niches. Teacher, maybe you are working health care maybe

Starting point is 00:22:47 you are a nail tech I have a hundred different digital product ideas for you and so I will make sure I give the link but I would definitely say what do you really like to do tap into your skill sets maybe you know that people struggle with social media and they need a checklist what should they be doing on social media every day? You can offer a checklist. You can offer an Instagram audit. Maybe you do an audit of Instagram or TikTok, whatever platform you can offer that. Webinars. I mean, there's so many different things that you can offer, but I say that definitely start with this amazing ebook that has all, I mean, a hundred different ideas. So I'm guaranteeing you that you will probably come up with one today and start selling it tomorrow. Love that. Love that so much. And we

Starting point is 00:23:29 will link out to that in the show notes as well. So everyone can have access to that resource. Thank you for sharing. Okay. Well, we're approaching the end here, which I feel like that went by super fast, but I feel like there's a lot of really good tips in here. And we'd love to ask this question on the show. And that is, what do you know now that you wish you knew all the way back when you were working in healthcare, even before that? What is something that just kind of sums up your journey overall that you wish you knew earlier? Well, this is a really good question. What do I know now that I wish I knew then? That you can do anything. Like I had no idea I could create a business. I think I'm an accidental entrepreneur. I never thought that I could be an entrepreneur. It just kind of happened.

Starting point is 00:24:10 And I just kind of went with my purpose and say, you know what, let me lean into this. And the least it could do is work. And so just go for it. I mean, I think everybody goes through things. Of course, being an entrepreneur is not easy. I mean, I will say I probably cry every week, but it's fulfilling. I get to help people. I get to wake up and do what I want to do. I get to travel the world. So if I could tell myself one thing,

Starting point is 00:24:35 it would just be keep going because it might be something that you're going through right now, but you never know what's on the other side. So just keep pushing forward. Yeah, that's my tip. Great advice. So good. So simple, but so effective. And remembering that why, like you said,

Starting point is 00:24:49 why did you start doing it in the first place? Recall that if you have those times of struggle, because it definitely happens. It's not easy, but it's like you said, it's so, so worth it. Well, Michelle, this has been absolutely wonderful. Thank you for all of the tips and resources and everything you've shared with us today. As we close out the episode, my personal profile is a professional profile. So you can follow the page and keep up with all my latest updates. I share a lot of good things over on Facebook. I know many people don't focus on that platform,

Starting point is 00:25:34 but it's my highest converting platforms. It's my personal Facebook profile that has been turned into a professional page. Wow, that's awesome. Super cool. It's good to know. We'll have to check that out. Yeah, and we'll link everything in the show notes,

Starting point is 00:25:46 like I said, about your resource with all of the links that you just shared. But thanks again so much for coming on today. And we're very excited to join you on your podcast as well. We're about to record that next. So everyone, if you're listening to this, head on over to her podcast as well and check her out there. Yes, thank you all so much.

Starting point is 00:26:04 Thanks, Michelle. What a great conversation with Michelle Thames. What did this episode encourage you to think about in your career or business? Shoot Erica or I a LinkedIn message and let us know. Our profiles are linked below. We hope you enjoyed this conversation. We'll see you next week for another great interview. Cheers. 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 you're at and investing in your

Starting point is 00:27:04 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 - Monetizing Your Online Presence | Marketing & Monetization Strategist Michelle Thames

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