Welcome And What’s Changing

Michael Hartmann 0:24

Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of OpsCast, brought to you by MarketingOps.com, powered by other MoPros out there. I am your host, Michael Hartman. Today we are stepping slightly outside of our usual lane, but in a way that I think will matter deeply for our audience of marketing and revenue operations professionals. And so what we're going to be talking about is social media platforms are changing quickly. Instagram is shifting towards search. Video continues to dominate. LinkedIn is still central for B2B, but executive visibility and employee amplification are becoming more important. And behind all of it, the way people discover brands is evolving, especially with search behavior influenced by LLMs and AI tools. Our guest today joining me to talk about this is Stephanie Gardner. She is a freelance social media and marketing strategist who works across B2B, B2C nonprofits and small businesses. She focuses heavily on strategy, helping brands define purpose, align content to goals, and avoid chasing vanity metrics. Stephanie, welcome to the show.

Stephanie Gardner 1:28

Thanks for having me.

Michael Hartmann 1:29

Yeah, this is going to be fun. So why don't we start with this? This is a common thing, but can you walk us through your background, how you ended up focusing more on strategy and consulting versus like discourse social media execution?

Stephanie Gardner 1:45

Yeah, absolutely. So my background initially was uh in neuroscience. And I studied it because I was really interested in how the brain works and how people think. And I wanted to like help solve Alzheimer's. And so I worked in a lot of animal research labs. And by the time I got to grad school, I thought I would kind of harden to being in an animal research lab. And I'm I'm just a softie at heart, so I realized that it wasn't for me. Um, so then in 2011, I was like, I need to figure out something to do with my life. And I found a marketing job on Craigslist, and I thought I have social media, so I should be able to do this, and I kind of bluffed my way into it. Um, but back then social media marketing was really different. It was, you know, you post a thoughtful image and you make a caption, and if you're consistent, then your account grows. And uh over the last decade, it's it's really grown into something completely different. You know, it's copywriting and SEO and media production and graphic design. Um it's it's like a whole different beast now. And I realized that while I can I can do those things, um it's not where I create the most value. And that's not really why clients were hiring me, not because I'm like the best video editor, graphic designer. Um, they were hiring me to like help them build systems and connect their content to revenue and strategy is is where I shine. So, and it also allows me to help more people at once. You know, sometimes I'll do like group coaching calls, things like that. So uh that's kind of why I got here.

Michael Hartmann 3:14

Yeah, it's interesting because you sort of the the journey you just described is probably parallels a lot of the people who are listening to this who sort of ended up in marketing and ops not because it was like a grand plan, but just because it needed to be done and nobody else was doing it, right? And so they end up doing it. Uh I'm fast, I don't think I remember us talking about the neuroscience bit because yeah, so my wife was uh worked for a brain research place a few years ago. Um, and I remember the thing that struck me is just uh A how much we are learning right now, like in the last 10 years, the whole idea of plasticity and all that, and um, but actually like how little we actually know still. Yeah, absolutely. It's it's it's it's crazy. So um, but tons of stuff. So I think that's really interesting. I bet it also helps you when you think about the I mean neuroscience and psychology are a little bit different, but I bet there's overlap, right? And so do you does that come into play at all at all when you're doing your strategy, like that experience?

Stephanie Gardner 4:19

Yeah, I think it does. I think about the way that people think and pattern recognition and expectations, and I do think that it helps guide my strategy, just the knowledge that I have in neuroscience, yeah, definitely.

Why B2B Social Now Matters

Michael Hartmann 4:31

Yeah, that's interesting. So um, that's really cool. All right, so you know, one of the things that I think I feel like I don't really know, and probably some of our listeners do, is it feels like there's lots of shifts happening. You described a few of them. So, from your point of view, what are the big shifts that are happening right now across the major social platforms? And I think just because the majority of our audience, I think feel it leans B2B, like maybe a little more heavily focused on B2B, what like what's your take on what's going on there?

Stephanie Gardner 5:08

So I think one of the biggest shifts in B2B is that they're even on social media at all. Because for a lot of years, people didn't really think that serious buyers were scrolling. They thought they're in the boardroom, right? Making the important decisions offline. And that's not really the case anymore. A lot of the decision makers now are scrolling LinkedIn or watching YouTube videos for education. And so now social media, it's not that it's replacing sales, but it's really uh supporting it. And B2B visibility is expected because if a company has no presence, um, it it almost reads as risk, like digital silence is risk. Um, another big shift is that personal profiles are outperforming the company pages. Um, people are looking to like founder-led content because it it builds trust faster. Um, it feels more like human and not just sales. People feel connected and like they're a part of it. Um, and then just content is being used as sales collateral, also. I talk to some clients who sales people. You will talk to a decision maker at a company that they're pitching, and maybe that person's not on social media. So sometimes they're on their phone, like, hey, look at this content we made, or look at that content. And so it it's ironic that to post something on social media can sometimes support sales off of social media as well.

Michael Hartmann 6:30

No, that's interesting. Yeah, so offline. Yeah, I think I would have put myself squarely in the camp that um social media was interesting, but not really a lead driver. And then I had this actual related to the podcast here, when we were looking for technologies to help with different parts of getting a podcast off the ground for people who don't know, it gets very disjointed. There's not a lot of single platforms. I was doing some research, and next thing I know, I'm getting ads on Facebook and Instagram, and I'm seeing them, and it actually led to us at least one of the platforms we use. That's how we found it, right? And I was like, oh, maybe there's more to this thing. And that was a couple years ago, and things I think have accelerated.

Stephanie Gardner 7:17

Yeah. Um, one more big shift I wanted to add too is that right now production value is less important than the clarity of your content. So you might remember like 10 years ago, people's picture perfect Instagram feeds where everyone was in the same color scheme, and it was very curated. And then around the time that TikTok got big during like the pandemic, people started posting more authentic, you know, a selfie style of them walking down the street that wasn't pre-planned, it wasn't polished, and people's feeds started looking a little bit sloppier, but it was more authentic. And I think that led to like a deeper connection on social media and not it's not all the picture perfect, uh curated feed that we are were used to seeing in the past.

Michael Hartmann 8:00

Oh, that's interesting, yeah. So and maybe we'll get to this a little bit. It feels like that authenticity will help. I think there's this like connection to AI now, too, where that's AI cont AI generated content or AI um at least significantly influenced or produced is feels less authentic, like and it's hard to put a figure on why, but it like truly authentic stuff feels like it stands out now.

Stephanie Gardner 8:29

Yeah, I think so too. I agree with the the AI. And I know that there is a time and place or there will be people who have struggled to get their own content, so they need to use stock photos or they need to use AI. But if that's all of your posting, it's really difficult to build trust with your audience.

Michael Hartmann 8:46

Yeah. Yeah, I think this it's interesting. Um so they um I think it's also interesting that you point out that that uh company profile pages don't perform as well as individuals. So is one of your suggestions then for companies to be thinking about who in their organization should have use their personal profile, social profiles to help with promotion or brand awareness or even lead lead gen?

Stephanie Gardner 9:16

Yes, I absolutely I think that um having like founders uh posting, part of it is because right now there seems to be like a lot of distrust of companies and big brands, and you're right now right things are expensive, budgets are tighter, and people are choosier about where their dollars are going, and also like what brands that they're aligning with, and they're skeptical of like the big faceless brands. So if you are posting on your own page about, you know, this is what my day looks like, or these are the important decisions I'm making in the boardroom, people are feeling more connected to you as an individual. You're not just a logo, you're not just a faceless brand, like you're an actual human helping guide these decisions and and shape your products and services.

Michael Hartmann 10:01

Yeah, it makes sense. Yeah. Um, okay, so I think I've known for a while, right? Obviously, Google is like still probably the biggest search engine out there. Um, but I remember a couple years ago, I was surprised, but also not surprised, that I heard you know, YouTube is like the next biggest search engine. And you I think you talked about Instagram is shifting towards being more of a search-based and SEO-driven platform, too. Uh, that's like I didn't realize that. So can you talk a little bit about what that's like and how that change should be how how people are listening might like go back to organizations and say, like, how do the how should they think about that change and affecting how their brands show up and things like that?

Stephanie Gardner 10:47

Yeah, so the the search, uh the shift towards like search-based discovery on Instagram is really important because uh it's you're not it's not just like hashtags and vibes anymore, right? You need to think of uh your searchable intention because the algorithm can't categorize things that you aren't clearly stating. So now Instagram is indexing um the keywords in your captions, the on-screen text in your reels, um your your biodescription. That's a huge one that a lot of people don't think about. And I'll work with a lot of nonprofits who use buzzwords like transformation and philanthropic and community. And it's like those aren't everybody uses right. And people aren't going to find you based on that. Um, so everything on your Instagram post, if people are Googling, you know, I'm looking for the best uh Asian American fusion restaurant in Long Beach. If you have those like SEO rich keywords in your captions, in the your uh text on screen, all of that, that will help your Instagram posts show up on on Google as well, um, which is a really big shift because it used to be you only would find Instagram posts searching on Instagram. So we need to be like choosier about now. We want our captions to be like micro search assets and not just um uh like instead of saying, you know, big wins this quarter, it's like you know, how do B2B software companies can reduce churn through better onboarding systems? So you want to be like really specific with what your messaging is and what um how you want people to be able to find you.

Instagram Shifts Toward Search

Michael Hartmann 12:22

It's interesting. So that's very much in line uh like that micro search asset. Um the but that's so it sounds like so. One of the things I did when I was uh ran like web content for company, I actually did like writing for search, and it feels like some of the principles are still the same, right? You it's like because what a lot of executives will say, we want our site, right, the whole thing to show up for these keywords, right? And I'm like, well, really what you need to do is get one piece of content that really, really pulls in people for that keyword, right? It needs to be unique enough, which is kind of what you're talking about, right? You give that example for the nonprofit. Um, and then you have to have general themes across the site, but like you can't make the whole site stand out for a keyword because it's actually competing, those individual things are competing. But it sounds like with Instagram or others, right, over time, right? You want to be be consistent about that. Is that the what you're talking about?

Stephanie Gardner 13:16

Yeah, you definitely want repeatability. Um, you want to be consistently repeating like your core positioning terms, your industry keywords. Um, and then what will show up on search usually will be the most popular post. You know, I mean, based on who most highest viewed, most engagement. So that's why you and and because you don't know when you're creating and which one that's going to be, you kind of want all of them to have these same like core themes that will make you searchable. Um, and in the past, when uh reels and TikTok, you know, kind of got big, people were putting less effort into their captions because you know, not as many people were reading captions. So we kind of got lazy about them, myself included. And now with the shift, even if you don't know that people specifically are going to click the see more button and go through your caption, um, you still want to be careful about what you're putting in there and make sure that it aligns with your brand messaging and has like those keywords for search.

Michael Hartmann 14:16

Sort of interesting because like I my perception before this, like really like today, was that the video part was the more important part for these platforms. But it sounds like it's the video plus the cat text and captions that go with it.

Stephanie Gardner 14:32

Yeah, it's all of it now. Um it did really used to be the video because when you think about it, when people are scrolling, that's really what they're watching. Um, and you you you need to hook them quickly, but you also want them to continue to watch the rest of your video to get the messaging. And then what you say in the video helps with search. Um, the text overlay helps with search, and then what you put in your caption helps with search. So all of this is being indexed. So even though it feels redundant to put your caption, putting your caption pretty much what you just said in the video, right? But it it does help um to kind of drive those points home.

Michael Hartmann 15:09

Oh, it's so interesting. I mean, it's just so this is what's like my stance right now, and I know again, well, I think we're gonna talk a little more about LLMs and AI driven search, but like I keep going back to it. Feels like the fundamental stuff that I always tell people to focus on for traditional, if there is such traditional search optimization, was content that's good for humans, um, and keyword dense for a particular one that, but also unique across different pieces of content. I mean, it sounds like there's a little bit of a tweak here with these social ones where you want over time consistency in the keyword density for specific terms you want to be standing out for. But otherwise, it seems pretty similar. Am I like, am I am I missing something?

Stephanie Gardner 15:54

No, it's absolutely similar.

Michael Hartmann 15:56

Yeah. Yeah. Like these core principles, like it seems like they're timeless. Like is but because people always like, oh, we got to change for Google's algorithm change. I'm like, if you just do the basic stuff really well and consistently, like you're gonna be fine no matter what they do.

Stephanie Gardner 16:13

Yeah, I agree. The only exception would be the hook. You really do kind of, especially video content. This is less true on LinkedIn, but like Instagram, TikTok, um, you have uh the average person looks at a piece of content for 1.7 seconds before they decide if they're going to watch or scroll. So you do need to rope them in quickly and then provide value. So in addition to the SEO, you still need to make sure that you're you're grabbing people's attention quickly.

Michael Hartmann 16:39

Yeah. I mean it's still a visual medium at the at the core. Although you said on LinkedIn, I I am starting to see, I don't know that I'd say anecdotally, I see more, but I definitely am seeing consistently more people putting video content. In fact, I had and audio content for that matter. I've gotten several people who sent me audio messages like through DMs on LinkedIn. Yeah. It's it's crazy. Yeah.

Stephanie Gardner 17:04

Yeah. I've I've gotten that too. Actually, I I I hate the audio messages too, because I'm like, this is convenient for you. It's not convenient for me. I want to do this on my time. So that's actually the audio address we have to do.

Michael Hartmann 17:18

Because I was going back and forth with someone and and he kept putting coming back with audio messages, and I kept typing.

Stephanie Gardner 17:25

Yeah, same. I do the same thing. Like, stop sending me these.

Michael Hartmann 17:30

Um, I will say, like, I I've gotten to the point where this is a little bit varying off here, but I started using things like Loube, and I just think there's others, right? Rather than written like documentation or process guidelines or whatever, what I found is there's writing it is leaves too much to be interpreted. And if you add in a video component that fills in the gaps, right, and is it it gives you a little more ability to fill in those gaps? And the video part of it helps to clarify where there might be confusion if it was just written. So I'm torn.

Stephanie Gardner 18:09

Yeah, I could see that too, especially instructional things, and or if you have someone less familiar with technology, like where do you click? How do you I get that?

Michael Hartmann 18:18

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean it goes back to this. Like, have you ever seen these videos where they have like kids who have to write instructions for how to make like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Yeah. And it's like we all make these assumptions about things that just like, oh, they're just gonna know to actually take the bread out of the bag. Yeah, right. So yeah. Um, yeah. So all right, sorry, sorry for that little jaunt down nowhere land. Um since our our audience is mostly marketing ops or other ops leaders, um so and and some are some may have more or less sort of domain responsibility for things like search optimization and social search and discovery, like findability in general, I would say. Um given all these changes and the overlap between these different platforms that are becoming different sources for search and things like that, what like where should they be starting to think about looking and paying attention to across these different platforms?

Stephanie Gardner 20:46

Um sorry, could you ref could you elaborate a little bit more?

Hooks Clarity And Keyword Discipline

Michael Hartmann 20:50

Yeah, so if I if we've got somebody who's listening is going, okay, I'm I'm I believe that I understand that these social platforms are changing, but now like what do I need to do within my organization to take either take advantage or or make sure that we're not you know losing ground to say our competitors or other things based on like what's going on with those platforms? Like what from an operational standpoint should I be doing or thinking about?

Stephanie Gardner 21:16

So I think um thinking about social media being integrated with um LLM and uh traditional search, and stop not thinking about them is is all separate channels, but that they're all like can converging on the same thing, really, like the intent-based visibility. Um, because you know, LinkedIn is also a search engine, right? Like Instagram is indexing keywords, um LLMs are synthesizing content like all across the internet. So the discoverability isn't like platform specific anymore, it's really like behavior specific. And um ops leaders are need to think more about um not so much about the channels, but more about like the searchable, uh structured searchable authority. So you're gonna want um keyword alignment across all your platforms. Like, are your LinkedIn posts also aligned with what your ideal customer is searching? And is your messaging consistent across um the the internet across social media? Um and then founder and executive visibility that I know we touched on, because like LLMs are also pulling from indexed public content. And if your leadership doesn't have a digital footprint, you're not discoverable. Um, and then just like the searchable, the searchable like content architecture too, you want your clear positioning, um, repeated terminology, and just having like a really consistent narrative. Because like right now, the companies um that are going to win, they're not just ranking on Google, they'll be referenced in AI. They are searchable on social media, um, and they're recognizable before you get on a sales call with them.

Michael Hartmann 22:54

So does that imply that the language that is used should be uh transparent is not the right word I was gonna use, but um I guess clarity is really what I'm going for. So one of the things I've seen before, and I've talked about before, is how in particular B2B websites, so I'll just keep it to that. Where if you don't know what that company does, right, you could read this stuff and it just is a bunch of word salad, you know, and it doesn't really tell you anything. And so you're you're spending a lot of mental energy trying to figure it out if you're interested in so are you s like I is that important too, especially with the uh uh uh the credibility that the search engines and the L L Ms give to pieces of content. It feels like the clearer it is, it would be better. Is that what you Would say say as well?

Stephanie Gardner 23:45

Yes, absolutely. Um, the average person reads around like a fourth or fifth grade level, so you do want things to be as clear as possible. Um, that being said, uh, it's important to know who your audience is as well. Um, LinkedIn makes this pretty easy. You can kind of see what jobs people have that are following you and what what companies they're working for. So analytics, I know we're I'm not gonna get into this too much, but paying attention to your analytics is really important. And then you do want to be putting out different types of content based on who you are trying to track, attract. Like if you are um putting out content for engineers, you can be a little bit more technical. Um, if you're putting out content maybe for uh the the higher ups, the CEOs of a software company that maybe have less technical knowledge, you want it to be more clear to attract them, and then you know, maybe they push the relationship off to the end. Once you start working together, then the engineers can get into the more in-depth content or like the nitty-gritty of what your business relationship will involve. So you do want a little bit of both. Some technical content is not only okay, but will be required in some industries, but you're gonna want some that will be more towards like the average person. Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, so a healthy mix of both.

Michael Hartmann 25:08

Yeah, it makes sense. I I know you said some about the metrics you didn't want to go down that path, but I'm gonna poke on a little bit if we can do it. So I'm curious. So um, because I've had exposure a little bit um to some of the LinkedIn metrics as an individual, like content creator, whatever, whatever, the little bit I do there. And I I mean, I don't know if it's the same as what other people see or what the company profile see. I did I do have some of that. I don't spend a lot of time on what are like what should we be paying attention to when it comes to that stuff? Like you mentioned stuff about understanding the profile of the typical follower, people who react to posts. Like, is that the kind of stuff we should be looking at?

Stephanie Gardner 25:48

You absolutely should see who is looking at your posts, and there are a couple things will play into that. Um, so looking at posts that get a lot of engagement um tells you that your post is resonating with an audience, right? Right. You want the messaging to be aligned. I think um uh I think I had a little bit about this in another question we were going, but I'll just get into it right now. That um if your messaging, your target messaging isn't in line with your your ideal audience, it doesn't matter how many people like your posts, right? If it you it's just you doing TikTok dances, your engagement doesn't matter. But if you have like a targeted post that is perfectly aligned with your ideal audience, your messaging is uh is on point, and a lot of people are interested in that post, you are gonna want to do more of those posts. This is clearly like this is like this is a bullseye. So then you can look at your analytics and see um what what types of things can you see about that post that stand out. And then maybe if you have other similar posts, like maybe it was one person at your company that's really charismatic and that's landing with people, maybe it's could be something is like your dogs in the background, right? It doesn't you don't always know what's gonna rope people in, but you want to look towards like repeatability there. If you have a post that's like landing hard, um the and and it's your the people looking at it are in your industry um or working for companies that you're wanting to work with, you want to do more of that.

Michael Hartmann 27:21

Yeah, I know I have looked at um posts across time and some of the top level metrics because what and I've run them through in my case, ChatGPT, um to help identify like what those patterns are that seem to resonate, right? Get more engagement or more um yeah, engagement in general. And I and it's been interesting because it's I continue to be surprised at which things actually like get engagement, which ones don't.

Stephanie Gardner 27:53

Yeah.

Michael Hartmann 27:53

Is that a common experience for most of your you and your clients?

Metrics That Connect To Revenue

Stephanie Gardner 27:57

It well, sometimes you usually have a pretty good idea, but then there's always like a sleeper post that you're like, really? This one, like this, I didn't think this was gonna, I didn't think this was gonna land that hard. Um, I also see this really frequently with Instagram stories. Um, that's why I recommend if you're gonna do a set of stories to do like, you know, maybe three or four surrounding the same topic, because you'll see your link clicks and maybe two people post on the first story and two post on the second, and then the third one has like 40 link clicks, and it's like you just they seem to be similar, but the third one, it's like something was different about this one that really made people think like this is this is what makes me want to learn more or purchase.

Michael Hartmann 28:41

Or maybe it was just the fact that it was the third one, right? That too could be. I mean, I and I I don't say that totally flippantly because like when I started when I moved from consulting to marketing space, it was in direct marketing, and one of the things that the story we had heard is that if you this was back when direct mail was I guess it's making comeback, but direct mail was the most like used channel for that kind of stuff for consumers in particular. The Visa companies had figured out that it was the third mailing promoting a card that was the one that would get the most response. And so what they did is they just went through the first two super fast, right? It was like and they got some response, but they were like they were they they they paid attention and realized that the third one is the one that generated. I don't know if that's still true, but like it's a it's a good story that like sometimes it's a matter of just being consistent.

Stephanie Gardner 29:35

Yeah, absolutely.

Michael Hartmann 29:36

Right. And so um anyway, well, so okay, so one of the things that I remember I guess in general, right? People call them vanity metrics. I try to avoid that because I don't necessarily agree with that term in general, because I think it's a matter of the metrics are useful for the right audience for the right purpose, but um but what I've seen a lot of marketing teams or Marcom teams do is when it comes to social media, they talk about followers, right? And it feels a little bit disconnected from revenue and things like that. So how do you balance the tension between needing to know the I mean the follower stuff probably is important from one perspective, but it's like I I don't know, I don't know how to just like how do you guide people to deal with those two different at least those two, maybe there's others that we're not even talking about.

Stephanie Gardner 30:29

So the there is a lot of uh pressure for the vanity metrics, um, followers and and views. Um, I I want to go viral. I can't tell you the amount of times I've had a client, like we really want to go viral. And it's like, well, well, why, right? Why you want you want people to like you? Because followers are not a business model, and your vanity metrics, they're not they're not sales. Um so like views, they they will tell you that people watch your content. Um, but if you're not an influencer, that's not that's not going to like pay your bills. Um and engagement is a little bit better of a metric because it does tell you that people are engaging with it. Um likes and comments take a little bit more time than a view. Um, but we've also all watched something. I mean, I've totally ended up following some small town library because I'm entertained by their posts, and it's like I'm I'm never gonna go to that library, right? Um so yeah, if you chase every trend, that's the best way to build your followers and build your views, but those posts don't align with your target audience. Um, they're not gonna get your your clicks or sales. Um, and it's better to have like 500 followers. Like I I've had clients who have 500 or 1,000 followers and they're getting sales left and right. And then I've had clients with 10,000 followers who have you know eight likes. Like people aren't engaging with them, they're not buying from them. Um, that being said, having some views or followers is important because for two reasons. One is that it tells you that people are enjoying your content a little bit or or right following you because they are interested. And um, the other one is you don't want a completely empty page. It's kind of like how bars will try to manufacture a line and people will be like, Oh, is should I should I try to go there? Right? Yeah, like other people like this, should I like it? So you need a baseline, you want some followers, some views, some likes, but ultimately that's not the the bottom line. Um yeah.

Michael Hartmann 32:34

Yeah, I mean it's creating that sense of FOMO kind of yeah, that's interesting. Um yeah, if like part of what you you were saying, since we're just coming out of like the post-Super Bowl time frame, is like I often wonder how these big brands justify how much they spend on creating, producing, and then actually having their ads on during and around the Super Bowl. Because I like I see a lot of these ads, I'm like, I don't get the connection, right? It's uh yeah, it feels like a little bit like that too.

Stephanie Gardner 33:10

I also wonder how they measure it because I can't come back to a client with no metrics. They're looking like, what do you mean they're we didn't get any website clicks this month? And it's like I I wish I could make a Super Bowl ad and be like, I don't know, it's vibes, people seem to enjoy it, right?

Michael Hartmann 33:25

Vibes, that's it. Yeah. Um okay. Well, maybe maybe we can we take this down a little bit and get to some tactical stuff. Like one of the things when we talked before, you talked about an example of a realtor whose and I know this is not B2B probably directly, but whose engagement dropped um when I can't remember if it was he or she uh focused more on business. Yeah. Okay. But then her sales improved. Um like what what's the story there? Maybe go talk through the story, what happened, and and how did that like how did that like help? How did you help bridge that gap with her?

Stephanie Gardner 34:06

Yeah, this is actually one of my favorite examples of like why engagement can be misleading. Um, so I worked with a realtor and she was like doing everything right, like doing uh you know good photo quality, and she was posting consistently and replying to comments, all the things that people tell you to do. But she was using her account, like it was a personal page, it was like photos with friends, like you know, her going to the bar, um, her to like cute dresses, you know, she was young and attractive and and had great energy. So she she was getting a ton of likes and you know, the fire emoji comments and stuff like that. Creepy, but she was yep, exactly. But she no one was buying any homes from her. So when I took over her page, um we switched, you know, I've strained changed the strategy to um business goals, like here's here's a home walkthrough, um, local market insights, like highlights, things to do in the neighborhood, um, things that would attract buyers and sellers. So the engagement dropped, I mean, like a lot. Like we went from maybe 80 likes to eight. And I was so nervous to go back to her because this has never happened to me before. I'm like, oh my god, I've never been hired, and come back and you know, now you have your your your metrics.

Michael Hartmann 35:18

10% of yeah, 10% of what you had before in terms of those metrics, right?

Stephanie Gardner 35:22

Yeah. So um, yeah, engagement went down quite a bit, but within a month, she sold a home. And so, and she, I mean, she even lost followers during this, but all of her content was more relevant. So she sold a home in a month, and then she kept selling homes. Like, people were more interested in her content. The ones who liked it, even if it was only eight of them, but like if one of those people buys a home, I mean that's that's like your whole goal. So, like what I what I really learned was that like engagement measured attention, but your sales will measure alignment because like not all attention is qualified attention, and you know the algorithm will reward popularity, but that's not businesses, don't it's aren't looking for popularity. So a smaller, more targeted audience can be uh better for businesses sometimes.

Michael Hartmann 36:12

I I love that distinction between attention and alignment because I think um even like that seems like more of a B2C model, but I do think a lot of you've probably experienced this, right? Where you have B2B even B2B or senior leaders who go they they want those numbers to be high. It's kind of like the same reason why they go, like, oh, this target, this email list we're gonna send to is too small. And it's like if it's the right list, like it doesn't really matter.

Stephanie Gardner 36:41

Yeah, I think too, also like we're all human, and I think sometimes we forget that like you know, CEOs, business owners, like even the biggest CEOs and business owners, it feels good to get likes and views, right? It's even we don't want to admit it, we don't want to say that's why, but you know, if you're like, oh, look how many people like this, it does feel good, but we don't want to lose sight of the goal.

Ops Playbook For Social Leads

Michael Hartmann 37:02

Yeah, no, I mean our egos all like it. I mean, I think about it's funny you bring up nonprofits because my my wife has been in that space um both as a volunteer and as a practitioner. And one of the things that I think she does really well is that she like events are a big part of that, right? And it's easy, well, it's not easy, it's much it's it's comparatively, it's easy to throw a really great party. But if that party, if the goal of the party is to uh generate donations, right, which is like then like if you don't that does if that outcome is not a net positive, then like I mean, yes, you can go for we made connections, yada yada yada, but it like there's usually a goal tied to it. A net goal, but that's the other people thing people don't realize. Like so put on a really good party can be expensive, and if it yeah, so it feels like the same thing, right? So, yes, like you want that. Oh, I love to hear everybody talk about me and I love to see the engagement. Um I definitely I feel it, right? When I post and I say, Yeah, same, you know. I'm like, oh, I got you know, instead of a hundred re you know responses, I got a thousand, right? It's like small potatoes compared to some people, but it's for me, I was like, oh. But then I'm like I I what I guess the what I'm trying to I try not to do is chase those numbers. Yeah. Right. And I feel like that's I think what you're describing is especially for like this realtor example is great because it sounds like the shift was from it's about me to what can I do for you, right? And I'm how can I provide value to you who are paying attention? Um, that ultimately may lead to me earning the right to get your business.

Stephanie Gardner 38:48

It's so true. And actually, I'm glad you brought that up because the the messaging, the way that you package your content really does matter. Even if you're giving the same basic information, the way you tell the story, is this about me or is this about you? And for on social media, everyone wants it to you want it to be about your audience. If they feel like you're just talking about you, that's that doesn't land. But if if the same content can land differently if you make it about your audience.

Michael Hartmann 39:24

So I do coaching, and one of the things I'm often teaching, especially leaders who are not comfortable with difficult conversations, is the way you approach a conversation with somebody where it's a difficult conversation can make all the difference. You may say the same thing, it may feel like you're saying the same thing, but the way you say it matters. Yeah.

Stephanie Gardner 39:44

Yeah. Um, another good example is memes, how right it's the same image with you know, one might say, like, oh, this is how I feel when my kids are getting ready for bed, and then someone else is like, This is how I feel when I have to go to the gym. Right? We are taking the literal exact same piece of content and changing one line, and different people will share it with different groups.

Michael Hartmann 40:07

Yeah, that's interesting. Um you've talked a little bit here today about the importance of executives and founders um being visible on LinkedIn and I guess LinkedIn being the big one for B2B from B2B standpoint. Um what do you think that our ops audience could do to help support that with their their leadership?

Stephanie Gardner 40:35

Um like uh people working for companies to try to encourage their leadership to get on. Yeah. Um yeah, I do I do. I think I know a lot of founders and owners are passing some of that on to um someone else at the company, like the marketing team. I think I'm not saying the founder or owner specifically needs to be crafting all of the posts, but I do think um, you know, people in marketing could be approaching the founder or owner and say, like, we want to be using your page. We would like your take on this, and maybe like I help craft the way we write it and and maybe package it a little bit better. But we want like these thoughts to come from you, we want your perspective on these things and things that feel relatable as well. You know, have having the owner founder like you know, before I went to this meeting, I was, you know, I'm working on this idea and I stopped with my kid at Starbucks or whatever, like even those stories, they seem like they aren't that important, but it it really humanizes leadership. And I think that that's what makes people feel connected to a company is feeling like this is a person. This isn't like right now, we have like robot cars and robot, you know, everything. It's like I want to know that you are a person. So I think approaching leadership and saying, um, you know, I could help with this, but it is important for you to be a part of this because that's what buyers are looking at. They don't just want like your pitch deck or to see like your product features, they want to like see that authenticity we talked about, right?

Michael Hartmann 42:21

Yeah, the relatability. I mean it's interesting because I what where I head went is this good, I don't want to get go too far down this path, but uh preachers, right? It my own personal experience, like uh at churches where the preacher does a really good job of being relatable tends to connect more with me, right? And I think that's yeah, inconsistent across this, right? It's a sort of a similar thing.

Stephanie Gardner 42:46

Yeah, relatability is really important. Um, building trust because right now, like, look how many products there are and services there are in the world. Like the odds that you are the only one, it's unlikely that you're the only one or that your it yours is so different, right? Products are similar, pricing's competitive, like the market's really saturated right now, and trust is like what can make or break someone choosing you over choosing a competitor.

Michael Hartmann 43:11

Yeah, and trust trust is really hard to build, and it's so easy to lose.

Stephanie Gardner 43:17

Yeah, absolutely. But like also, um, the brain like equates familiarity with safety too. So like people when they feel familiar it and feel trusted, it feels like they feel safer with you. So like connecting with people on that personal level, yeah.

Michael Hartmann 43:37

Yeah. So this this might be a technical question I want to get into. Um, so a lot of things that happen for our audience, marketing ops professionals, is they're usually kind of at the back end, someone will go, like, hey, we're gonna do a social media campaign and we need to pull in those leads, right? Um how so because our those teams are don't usually own social media as a channel or something like that, what should be the like how should they be guiding their organizations to include them or and when on these like the when they're doing things like that where they're trying to capture the metrics, leads, whatever it might be from the social media platforms?

Stephanie Gardner 44:19

So it is it all does really need to like work together. And I think a lot of times people kind of defer to marketing, like, well, you you know, you like go market this for us. Um but it really needs to like start at the top. So before like you build your integrations or like any campaigns, like you want to start with uh clarity, you want to start with um we like you. So the questions that I would go through is uh I would start with what is social media supposed to do for our business? Like, what is our goal? Right? Do we want brand awareness? Do we want sales? Because it's completely different for some people, they do just want brand awareness. Like I mean, I live in LA with Sweet James, he's one of the lawyers, right? We see Sweet James billboards everywhere. Okay, right? That's brand awareness. And so it's like if that's your goal, right? That's fine. Um, but defining your goal is the the most important first step. And then defining what you want to happen after that. So, like if someone sends us a DM or comments or they watch a video, like, do is is there some sort of nurture sequence? Is there um a sales handoff? Uh and even on social, even who is going to answer these questions, right? Because if you have a big marketing team, you know, the they might be making their like TikTok dances for your company, but then if someone has a really technical question, is that same person? Even able to answer the question for you, the same person I mean. Um and then also just thinking about uh what uh like building up your email list, like what are you going to do with this audience outside of social media? Because is as important as social media is, um what if it disappeared tomorrow? What if the platform shut down? What if your account was hacked? Which, by the way, reminder use a strong password, change it every three months. I've worked with people whose accounts were hacked, it's detrimental. Um but like, yeah, but like your followers are rented and your email lists are owned. So moving people through your pipeline um is also important. So once you figured out you know what your social media goals are and what you want to happen, uh looking at what uh you want to do with this audience down the line is important as well.

Michael Hartmann 46:41

Yeah. I mean, I think to the two points that I'm what I mean, I know you covered more, but the two big ones for me are being clear about what your goal is, right? That's I think a lot of people just skip to we're just gonna we just need to be have more of a presence, whatever that means. Yeah. Um and we need to go viral. Like that's the uh let's that's the new like let's make the website pop thing, right? Let's go viral. Um, but the other one, which you just you sort of went over um is this idea like what happens, how are we gonna handle when someone does something? And I think about my own like I've had situations where I couldn't get the attention, like I fill out a form because I'm interested in some product or service and I get nothing. And I keep trying, I keep trying. Eventually I go to their social site and they go like, hey, is anybody gonna respond to me? Right. Yeah. The same thing, right? If you were gonna do this stuff, you need to be ready to handle what comes in. And I I've see I've seen it myself where again, going back to when I ran websites, so I get product marketers who go like, hey, let's let's let's open up a forum that lets people give us ask questions or give us feedback about our products. I was like, that's easy. What are you gonna do with it if they do something? Because now you're setting expectations whether you meant it or not.

Stephanie Gardner 47:56

Yeah.

Michael Hartmann 47:56

So you you gotta like think through the downstream, like if this works, what happens? Or if someone's upset, what happens, or someone asks a question, what happens?

Where To Connect And Closing

Stephanie Gardner 48:07

Yeah, I think within Teams too, you need to have those discussions with your marketing team. I think um earlier when I talked about the shift that's happened with social media, um, when it used to just be like post a picture, write a caption. Um, a lot of people still want to pay their marketing team according to like those standards. Uh-huh. And it's like if you want a marketing, if do you want someone to be responding 24 hours a day? And if you do, you have to hire someone that's willing to do that, and then you have to pay them for it.

Michael Hartmann 48:37

Right.

Stephanie Gardner 48:37

Because that that's like a more than a full-time job now, right? This is this is constant.

Michael Hartmann 48:42

I mean, I don't, I guess I don't follow this. So, like, but I'm gonna guess because I feel like I've heard of these, like at least in the back of my mind, like stories where that they set this up and people just ignored stuff, and then it went viral the wrong way, right? Yeah, and it damaged the brand. Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah. Yeah, so it's interesting because I I think um for those people who are who've hung on, right? I think there is so like so the strength of our operational mindset that we have, a lot of these people in the marketing ops, like it it needs to translate to this too, right? That idea of like helping the the team see like if we do this, like what are the downstream impacts? What do we need to do? How do we gonna measure it? Like, uh what's our core goal? Like, those are all the same, like it feels like it's a lot again. I keep coming back to like these are fundamental things, and it just a different model, yeah. Maybe it's more visual, you know, and all that, but uh, there's a lot of things that still need uh discipline that goes with being you know, handling these things and anticipating challenges and all that. So cool. Yeah. Well, um I would love to keep going, but I think we're gonna have to wrap it up here, Stephanie. So, first off, thank you so much. Like this has been a fun conversation. Um, if folks want to connect with you or learn more about what you're doing and the kind of stuff you're doing, what's the best way for them to do that?

Stephanie Gardner 50:10

Um, LinkedIn, yeah, absolutely. Connect with me on LinkedIn. I love you know talking to people and answering any questions.

Michael Hartmann 50:17

Fantastic. All right, well, again, thank you. It's been a fun conversation. I think our audience is gonna get a lot out of it. So I appreciate that. As always, we appreciate our uh audience out there for supporting us. And if you have ideas for topics or guests, or you want to be a guest like Stephanie, feel free to reach out and we'd be happy to get the roll ball rolling on that. Until next time, bye everyone.