EPISODE 5 OF THE MARKETING SOLUTIONS PODCAST: WHY YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA ISN’T WORKING
Sonya:
Hey guys, earlier this year I was over the moon to be asked by Employsure Australia to be a guest on their Better Business Podcast. Employsure are this amazing workplace relations and health and safety organization servicing over 22,000 businesses across Australia. Talk about massive.
Sonya:
In this episode, we spoke all about why your social media isn't working. And there are some great gems in here, which is why I wanted to add this to my own podcast. I hope you get some value out of this, guys. Enjoy.
Lee:
Sonya, welcome to the show.
Sonya:
Hi, Lee, great to be here.
Lee:
Let's jump in. Can you tell us why it's so important for small business owners to be using social media properly?
Sonya:
So, you know how much I love my stats, Lee. So, I'm going to throw a couple at you this morning. So, there are currently 22.2 million Australians above the age of 14 actively using the internet. And last year on average, each person spent 8,760 hours each on the internet. So, 5.9 billion of those hours were spent using social media. I think I've mentioned it to you before, but have you seen that meme that's like, "No one ever says be right back or got to go anymore because we live here now on the internet."
Lee:
That's true, yeah we do. We do, that's right.
Sonya:
So, the short answer is you need social media to be competitive. It's where the eyeballs are. It's where the attention's going. I'm not sure about you, but think back to when you're sitting watching TV and an ad comes on. A lot of the time, you'll pull out your phone and start scrolling through Facebook or Instagram or YouTube. It's just human behavior now. We are addicted to our devices.
So, as small businesses, we can actually use that good and use it for our advantage as well. It's about generating leads, brand awareness, and really build your business using social media. So, I always say to people, "Okay, you don't use social media, you don't think your customers are using social media. But what if your competitors are using social media? They really have the one up on you there. And if you're not using it as part of your marketing and they are, you're the one that's falling behind. Even if your competitors aren't using it yet, but you want to jump onboard and start using it, then you have a leg up on them." So, that's fantastic, rejoice, and get onto it quickly.
I love social media so much because most marketing channels are just a one way venture. A business sends out a marketing message, the consumer receives it, hopefully they take action. But with social media, you actually have a conversation and build that relationship with people, and on a much larger scale. So, I still think, I'm a marketer, but I still think word of mouth is the best thing for businesses. But word of mouth will only take you so far. So, you will get to a point where you're getting a fair number of leads or inquiries coming in each month. But if you really want to expand on that, taking it to the next level with social media is a great place to start. So, that in a nutshell is why I think social media should be used by small businesses.
Lee:
Yeah, it's certainly not a luxury anymore or something you should just get around to. It's a key part of business practice nowadays and people really do need to be really strong in their social media presence. Can you tell us what are some of the consequences of getting it wrong? Say for a business who does have a social media presence, they are kind of active, what if they're not doing it correctly or as well as they can be? What are some of the consequences of that?
Sonya:
Honestly, quite simply, if you get it wrong, people won't even see your content nowadays because of the way the algorithms are working. They're really designed to show the highest quality content. So, if you're putting all of this time and effort into crappy content that's just not getting any engagement, then you're wasting your time. So, that's the number one thing. As small business owners, we are all time poor. You can't afford to be wasting time putting content together that isn't getting any traction.
If you get it really wrong, and I usually see this when, say there's been a complaint or a comment on a post and the business owner has written back a narky reply, that's getting it really wrong. And that's sort of handling that customer service side of things because if you're letting yourself down in some areas of your business in regards to your customer service, people will take to social media and just take it out on you publicly.
So, with business, you can't really hide anymore. You can't get away with not delivering a great service for people. So, that's probably worst case scenario is that someone will take to social media and give you a bit of a roasting.
Lee:
I think a lot of small businesses have probably experienced that already, and it isn't a present experience. What is the most common mistake you see business owners make on social media? I mean, you work a lot with small business and people who have aspirations to be active in this area. What is the most common mistake that you're seeing?
Sonya:
Yeah, look, I think the biggest mistake, if people approach it like old school media channels. So, this is not radio, it's not a TV ad, it's an opportunity to start a conversation. So, a lot of businesses will set out there and go, "Okay, well, I've got a limited amount of time. I'm just going to push my sales message out there." They're not using it in a way that's really human. I think as small businesses, we do have an advantage over the big businesses because we can show the face behind the brands.
When you're not doing that, then you're making a mistake. People want to relate to people, they don't want to relate to a logo. So, I think people not acting as humans on their company Facebook and social media pages and blasting sales message after sales message, rather than thinking, "Okay, what does my audience want to hear? What do they find interesting? Can I educate them in some way? And how can I build trust before I earn the right to actually deliver that sales message?"
Another one I do see with businesses is not having a sales funnel in place when they're running advertising. So, so many businesses will come to me and they're like, "Well, I tried Facebook advertising and it didn't work." And I go, "Okay, so talk to me about what you did. What was your offer? What was your budget?" And they think spending $5 or $10 a day boosting a post is doing advertising. Reality is, it's not. That's a great way to sort of build brand awareness and reach more people. But you might reach those people once and then it stops. We need something like 11 contact points now with businesses before we actually take action. So, you've got to have a strategy in place if you are spending money on advertising. And you've got to have a great offer.
So, I am so sick of people putting, "Sale on now. Get 10% off," or, "Get a free quote." That's not an amazing offer. It takes a little bit longer to warm people up online than it does if you have them walk into your shop, for example. So, giving them a reason to reach out to you in the first place, something that really is irresistible, they feel like they're getting value from it and they're not wasting their time is something you need to really think long and hard about and put together something really attractive.
And then the final one is businesses not having the Facebook Pixel installed. So, the best place to start when it comes to advertising is just retargeting anyone that has visited your website with ads on Instagram and Facebook.
Lee:
And that's where you're talking about where you visit a website once and then you see the ad everywhere else you go online.
Sonya:
Everywhere.
Lee:
Yeah, okay. That's happened to me quite a lot.
Sonya:
Exactly. Yeah, and people think they must be spending a ton on advertising. Reality is, no, they're not. But they know that you've shown some sort of interest. So, they're going to go after you. So, if you are a small business, you've only got a small budget, that's probably where I'd start is just be retargeting your website traffic to stay top of mind.
And this walks really well. I'm from Albury Wodonga, the country originally. So, I'm used to working with regional businesses that aren't sort of necessarily living in Sydney or Melbourne where they have massive audiences. They've got a small audience to work with. So, it's about being really strategic and smart about where you're spending that advertising money.
Lee:
And that's probably one of the other benefits as well with social media, whether it's organic content, and we'll touch on that in a minute, or whether it's through advertising is that you actually have the power to be very kind of agile and nimble and really responsive to how people are responding to your content.
Sonya:
Exactly right. I have worked for not-for-profits and big organizations. And the number one most frustrating thing for me was that it would take forever for anything to be approved. When you're a small business, you can throw something out there, see if it works. If it doesn't work, don't stress about it. I mean, I always hear people say, "You put it up on the internet, it's there forever." Unless you've made a big mistake and a lot of people have screen shotted the content, you're fine. So, don't be scared to get out there and actually try some different things. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. If it does, great. Do more of that.
Lee:
What are a lot of small business owners doing on social media that they think is useful, but is actually a massive waste of their time?
Sonya:
Oh my gosh, I think this really comes back to Instagram, to be honest with you. People get so hung up on, "What are the right hashtags I should be using?" They get really into gimmicky hacks, like, "I need to post this. And if I don't touch my comment within 24 hours, it'll get more engagement," and all of these little things that I hear flying around. And I just think, "Guys, if you were to put more effort into creating better quality content, rather than trying to make your subpar content work, you'd see much better results." So, I'd rather you post less, but actually put some effort into the content that you are putting out there.
Lee:
So, a small business owner that does delve into the world of social media, they're going to hear a lot of things about content, and specifically around organic content and promotional content and why it's so important for businesses. Can you tell us what those are and why it's so important to get the balance right?
Sonya:
I think a lot of business owners don't actually approach it in this way. So, I'm going to break it down really simply. So, when I'm referring to organic content, this is sort of the day to day posting on your Facebook, your Instagram, your LinkedIn account. It's content that you're just putting out there. You might boost it. So, you might put a bit of paid behind it, but it's not designed to really drive action. So, the organic content is all about starting conversations, building relationships, entertaining, educating your followers.
I will say though, this will only get you so far. The way that algorithms have gone, if you are using social media as a key method to drive leads and sales to your business, you do need to add an element of a paid strategy in there as well. So, I like to think of your organic, so your day to day posting of content, as warming up your audience.
Then I like to think of your paid strategy as taking that warm audience and delivering them a sales message or an offer. Boosting a post or promoting a post that you've put on Facebook or onto Instagram is great if you want to build that warm audience more. But I would never say to someone, "Take a post you've put on your Facebook page, boost it, and then expect sales." So, that's the difference between having a paid strategy and an organic strategy. And they both go hand in hand.
So, a lot of businesses will just do organic. And that's great. It's amazing for brand awareness. It's amazing for keeping you top of mind with existing customers and to have people find you. But if you are looking to scale a lot faster, having a paid strategy in there where you take all of those people that have been engaging with your content, might have visited your website, might have watched a video that you've put together, and then driving them to take action. So, this could be filling out a lead form for example, on Facebook, which are amazing for service based businesses. It could be driving them to a website to complete a sale or an inquiry form. It could be a whole range of things.
So, when you are sitting down to build your strategy, you need to think of it in the two different areas. So, you've got your organic, which is like the content day to day. And then you've got your paid, which is the lead generation or sales making activities. Does that make sense?
Lee:
It does. So, organic is kind of talking to people. That's where you post your photos and you tell your stories and you announce your business news and things like that. And promotional is more around the harder sell when you want them to take some kind of action or to sign up for something. So, you get their details so you can nurture them towards a sale.
Sonya:
Absolutely. And do you know what? I will say this, a lot of businesses will just go in and expect to do one or the other and have good results. They work amazingly hand in hand. So, if you want to get the best results, you need to be doing both.
Lee:
Okay, that is really, really good advice. And for the purposes of this episode, I mean every platform is going to have a slightly different approach. I want to focus on the big three. We could do a whole series around social media. But let's keep it simple for our audience. I want to do Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. So, let's start with Facebook. Everyone is on Facebook, it's the behemoth in the industry. What should small business owners do to improve their Facebook presence?
Sonya:
Definitely video. Video is still the flavor of the month. It's been the flavor of the last two years on Facebook. And we are finding that it's getting watched a lot more and consumed more than any other content on Facebook. And I love it so much because it does give you the ability to, with your advertising, if you post a great video and put some time into it, you can then calculate, "Okay, who's watched 25% or more? Who's watched 50% or more?" And retarget, re-advertise to those people that you know are interested to take action. That's why I love video so much on Facebook.
I will say if you are going to do video, make sure you have your videos captioned. 80% of videos are watched on silent on Facebook. Don't use the auto-captioning that Facebook has. They just can't get our Australian accents. It's all done by a computer. And I've done it for clients in the past, and we've had some very inappropriate captions come up.
Instead, there's a website called rev.com, $1 per minute for captions, they're amazing. They return it to you in like an hour. So, go and get on that. And then, what else with Facebook? So, I would say stop linking out to an external site for every single post you do. A lot of business owners will do this. They're still in the head space of sort of 2014, 2015 where it was like, "Okay, we need to drive as much traffic as possible to our websites." Yes, that's still important, but think about it this way, Facebook doesn't want you leaving the platform. So, if you're linking out on every post you do, they're not going to show your content to as many people.
So, if you've written a big long blog post, for example, you might take some key dot points from that and make it into a longer post. Don't be scared to have a long caption and tell a story on Facebook. You'd be surprised how many people actually stop and read it. And stop using hashtags on Facebook. It's okay if it's ironic. But if you are adding 30 hashtags to your Instagram posts and then sharing that directly over to Facebook, just don't do that. It gets something like 35% less engagement.
And the reason for this is that Facebook bought Instagram back in 2012 for a billion dollars. At the time, Instagram and Twitter were using hashtags, and Facebook sort of went, "Okay, well we need to use hashtags as well. We've bought this platform. Let's sort of integrate the two." The thing is, it never really took off. And the actual search function for hashtags on Facebook doesn't even work anymore. They've sort of removed that. So, if you're using it ironically and doing something funny, that's fine. But just think, do your friends add a ton of hashtags to their Facebook posts? Probably not. They do that on Instagram. If you can act like a human on Facebook, half the battle is done.
Lee:
That is amazing advice there, Sonya. And really, really actionable. I want to look at Instagram as well, which you just mentioned is now a product of Facebook, which some people may or may not know. Also, one of the really big players in the field. Can you tell us a little bit about how small business owners can use it to their advantage?
Sonya:
So, I gave you one word for my last answer, I'm going to give you two words for this one, Instagram stories. They are so important. I'm finding with my clients at the moment that our stories are getting watched more than our posts are actually being seen on the grid. So, I sort of say to small businesses now, "Look, I know you're time poor. Let's scale it back in terms of the Instagram posts. Let's get out say three or four posts a week on Instagram, but be really vigilant with getting a daily Instagram story out there."
The way it's working, we've all seen that little queue at the top of Instagram, and you'll notice that some people always pop up first. They're the people whose stories you always watch. So, if someone's used to watching your stories and then suddenly you drop off and don't do a story for two weeks, they're going to watch other people's stories just because human nature, we're addicted to our phones. And then, you'll start coming up behind those people.
So, if you are on a roll with it, make sure you have something up every 24 hours, that's really important. And don't overthink it. I think a lot of businesses go, "I don't have time." Take a photo of you opening up the business in the morning. Take a photo of reception being ready to go for the day. Jump on in your lunch break and do a 10 second video where you're answering a question that you get asked over and over and over again. Instagram story content doesn't have to be as polished and as beautiful as what the grid does. So, just jump in and start being consistent with it. Don't expect it to be perfect. It won't be. And you will get better as time goes on.
Lee:
Okay, so it doesn't have to be perfectly curated and polished content. It's okay for it to be a grainy little selfie video or an action shot or something like that that you may not want to put on a brochure on your website, but it works okay on your Instagram feed.
Sonya:
Actually, it works better. So, I've seen some brands now are designing up pretty Instagram stories. And it just looks like an ad, and people flick straight through. Again, it comes back to that human connection. And as small businesses, this is an advantage we have over big corporations. So, get your face out there and make the most of it.
Lee:
Now, let's look at YouTube, the second biggest search engine on the internet behind Google, which people may not realize. It's super popular in terms of a searching platform. If a small business either has a YouTube channel already or a YouTube presence or want to move into that space, you've just mentioned how powerful video is now. Can you tell us a little bit about some of the best practices that they should think about?
Sonya:
Yeah, definitely. So, I think YouTube is something that is really underutilized in Australia in terms of actually getting organic content out there, so posting videos and also ads. So, Facebook and YouTube each have 15 million daily users. So, they're on par with each other. And what a lot of people don't realize is that Google actually owns YouTube. So, you'll start to see now that when you do search something on Google, sometimes videos will pop up in the top of the search results if it's something that's really [inaudible 00:19:01].
So, as small businesses, we can take advantage of that. If you are going to go about creating video content, a couple of things I do recommend. Make sure you invest in some equipment. So, make sure your lighting's right. You can just go and buy a couple of lights from a photography store. If you go in and talk to someone, they'll be able to help you. I recommend getting two of those. And also, having a proper mic as well. There is honestly nothing worse than when you can't hear someone, people just switch off immediately. And YouTube videos usually are watched with sound, unlike Facebook videos. So, sound quality is important.
If you are going to go to the effort of creating content for YouTube, make the most of it. So, what I mean by that is take some snippet videos to use on Instagram stories or your Instagram feed. Do a one minute teaser video on Facebook that you can then direct people to your YouTube page if you need to, to watch the whole video. So, be smart about it. It does take a lot of effort to create video content to go on YouTube. So, I think that's why a lot of businesses sort of shy away from it.
So, whereas on Facebook we're sort of looking at videos being 30-60 seconds long as the most effective time, videos on YouTube, I mean, you could have videos up to an hour long and if people are interested, they'll sit there and watch it because they're in that mindset when they are going onto YouTube. It's a really addictive platform. I'm sure you know once you've played a video, it then auto-plays another recommended video straight afterwards.
Lee:
Yeah, yeah. And to be honest, Sonya, it's usually revolved around puppies. So many puppy videos pop up all of a sudden.
Sonya:
Exactly. And I think something about YouTube as well is that there's a lot of generations on there that did not need to sign up for a social media account to actually consume the content. So, if you think about Facebook and Instagram, you have to create an account to actually view the content in there. With YouTube, you don't. So, my dad who's a baby boomer, he is so opposed to social media and thinks it's the biggest waste of time ever, completely does not understand what I do at all. But he's got just a basic Samsung phone, nothing flash. And sometimes I'll find him sitting on the couch talking into his phone.
And when he does that, he's searching for fishing videos. And then, next thing I know, he's watching the 10 greatest truck crashes in the UK videos. Like, ridiculous stuff like that. So, he's someone that I as a marketer or small business owner can reach through digital advertising or content that I wouldn't be able to reach through Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn because he doesn't have those accounts. So, there's a lot of opportunity there for small businesses, even if you're just advertising, to make use of it. I love it. It's something I'm really pushing at the moment with my clients. A lot of opportunity.
Lee:
A quick shout out to your dad as well. I'm sure he's very supportive of your career choices.
Sonya:
You know what? He is, but it's safe to say he won't be listening to this podcast because the word podcast is not in his vocabulary.
Lee:
We'll get him eventually, Sonya. We'll get him there.
Sonya:
Yeah.
Lee:
One of the things that is kind of running throughout your advice so far, Sonya, is around the consistency and really committing to posting on these platforms. Obviously being a small business owner, timing and resourcing can be a bit of an issue. It's hard to really do this. It's hard to really commit for an extended time. Can you tell us a little bit about scheduling content and how often a business should be posting? And how they can go about posting their content in advance?
Sonya:
Yeah, great question. So, I'm just going to say this, if you ever come across a guru or a marketing expert that is telling you, "Every business needs to be posting six times a week, or here's the rule," it's not the case. Every business, every industry is different. So, don't be guilted into thinking, "I'm not posting six times a week, so it's not worthwhile." That's not the case at all.
With the algorithms currently, we are seeing content on Facebook that can even be months old if it's a great piece of content. We're seeing content on Instagram that's say three or four days old sometimes. So, what I say to businesses is, "Look, I'd rather you just pick one platform to focus on as your primary platform. And then maybe introduce a secondary as well if you've got the time."
So, with Facebook, definitely go for higher quality content, video if you can. And I recommend as a small business, posting two to four times a week would be fantastic. With Instagram, a little bit more frequent in terms of how often you're posting on the grid. I usually say to businesses maybe four times a week would be fantastic. But don't stress if you only get one or two out a week, as long as they're good quality posts and you put some time and effort into your captions, you're using a great quality photo. Crappy photos just don't fly on the grid on Instagram anymore. It's a given that you're going to have good photography. And then, if you're doing Instagram stories, every day is the best bet, or even just trying to do one Monday to Friday would be amazing.
Now, when it comes to YouTube, because the lifespan of a piece of content is a lot longer, it is built like a search engine, even if you just get a video up once a month. If you say, "Okay, I'm going to do one day a month where I create my content, and part of that is going to be filming a video," that's fantastic. I do recommend if you are going to do that, though, make sure you actually go and have a look at the volume of search for what you're going to title your video. So, make it something that people are interested in so they will find it.
Lee:
Before you go on there, Sonya, is that something easy to do? How would someone go about searching for a high ranking title of a video?
Sonya:
Yeah, so look, there's a few ways you can do it. I mean, there's no scientific way. You can go and have a look at the Google Keyword Planner, which is usually used for Google Ads. But you can actually go and search for ... Say you wanted to do a tutorial on Instagram scheduling, for example. Actually go and have a search on YouTube and see what else is out there. And maybe you can come up with a better catchier title to sort of trump over the people that have already created content.
So, do a bit of research around it. Think, "Okay, if I was just someone off the street with no technical knowledge," I think it's very easy for us as small business owners to get caught up with our own internal sort of jargon, not realizing that when we use that to our customers, they've got no idea what you're talking about. And previously, people would think, "That's great. They think I'm an expert." Well, actually, no it's a bit of a turn off. People now go and do research, they want to understand what they're getting themselves into. So yeah, I'd start by just doing a bit of a search on YouTube, to be honest with you, to come up with a title.
Lee:
And I know that you're a big advocate for scheduling tools and platforms. Can you tell us some of the ones that you would recommend?
Sonya:
Yeah, scheduling tools are the bomb.com. I love them so much. So, for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, I love Buffer. Buffer is amazing. And as an agency, we use that because it has some amazing analytics tools. So, as a small business, I think you can actually get a free account for up to five social media accounts to be connected to it. You won't get the advanced analytics and things that I just mentioned, but it's fantastic in just making sure that you've got a queue of content happening at all times.
Now, when it comes to Instagram, I love Later. So that's later.com. Indeed, these guys should sponsor me, I talk about them so much. But it's amazing. It's specifically built for Instagram. It allows you to have a preview of your grid, you can drag your content around. You can save groups of hashtags. It'll calculate the best times to post for you. You can actually even schedule out some Instagram stories as well. So, it will send you through a reminder to say, "Hey, you've created this story. It's time to post it now," which is fantastic.
So, again, I sort of go back to, if you can sit down once a month and schedule out your content and create it, that would be amazing. So, I usually say around 80% of your content scheduled in advance. You know what it's like, social media is the first thing to go out the window as you get busy as a small business owner. I completely understand that. But having stuff scheduled and then just trying to jump in and supplement it with some realtime happenings. So, maybe something funny happened at work that you can post up. I don't know, there was a possum in the tree, for example, a conversation point. I don't know, people love animals. And your Instagram stories as well, really important.
A lot of small businesses will do a Facebook Live say once a week, once a month as well. So, you could throw one of those in too. So, I mean, we're savvy as social media users now. We do kind of know when someone has pre-scheduled all their content. So, it's really good to have some realtime happenings in there as well.
Lee:
Now, I want to move onto the boring stuff, metrics and measurement. We all know about the vanity metrics, things like likes and followers and retweets and that sort of stuff, and they're nice. But can you tell us why that's not necessarily a good measure of success and what business owners should use instead?
Sonya:
Man, this is something that I've come up against on Instagram all the time. The amount of business owners, or especially startups that will come to me and go, "I need to grow my Instagram following." And I go, "Okay, why?" We are so, so obsessed about follower number and that number of likes on a post on Instagram. I think it's because when you log into your Instagram account, it actually smacks you in the face. So, it's sort of like a constant reminder. And so many people are validating themselves and their businesses through that number of followers that they have.
I really want people to get away from that. Instead, and this goes for every single platform, focus on your engagement rate when it comes to your organic content. And then, focus on the number of leads you're getting for your paid strategy. So, really good businesses will know, "Okay, it costs me say $50 to get a lead. When they come through a digital platform, I'll close one in five. So, I know it costs me X amount to get a new customer." So, knowing those number is really important, and making sure you're getting as much engagement as possible for your organic social media is key. Focus on that above all else.
Lee:
And in reality, 100 followers can be more valuable to your business than 10,000.
Sonya:
Oh my gosh, absolutely they can be. I mean, if they're people that really maybe one day will become your customers, then they're so valuable. So, a lot of small businesses, and especially if you're a local business that doesn't service all of Australia, all the world, don't even look at your follower number, it's not important.
Lee:
So, we're all about the quick wins on this show, Sonya. And I mean, there are so many actionable steps here that a small business owner can take. Can you tell us what are the things that they could do today that will instantly improve their social media presence?
Sonya:
Yeah, okay. So, a couple of these I've touched on before, but I'm just going to fire them at you, Lee. I haven't counted. Number one, go and get some professional photos taken. If Instagram is a key platform for you, go get some professional photos done. Every six months for me, I get someone in just for an hour just to take some photos of me, take photos of me working, take photos of the computer, stuff that you can just mix in, say if you are using some stock photos and your own photos as well. It will really elevate your content.
If you are getting someone within your company to execute social media, a lot of people would delegate that to the intern or the receptionist, don't just set them loose. If you're paying for their time, make sure you get a strategy created so they have some guidance. And on that note, come up with your key content pillars for your organic strategy. So, this might be five different sort of silos of content. So, say you're an accountant. So, you might have a section on bookkeeping, you might have a content pillar on tax. You might have one on the people in the office. You might have another one revolving around who your clients are and their achievements. That makes it really easy to look at and go, "Okay, I'm going to do a post about this, a post about that, and a video about this one over here." And you're sort of just having it as an idea bank, really, to draw upon.
If you are going to be using social media, commit for the long term. It's not something that's going to happen overnight or even within a few months. You really do need to be consistent and build at it. And start acting like a human, rather than a company or a logo. So, the personal brand is something over the past few years that has really exploded. Think about Richard Branson. Jane Lu from Showpo. Personal brands are where it's at. And again, I feel like a broken record, but people connect with people, they don't connect with a logo or a business name. So, really view social media as a way to build relationships and to be human.
Lee:
Sonya, you've been so generous with your time today. We really appreciate your insights. Before I let you go, can you tell us what's the best piece of business advice you've received and why?
Sonya:
Yeah, so I think the best piece of advice I've ever received is go and chase business. So many people get into business thinking it will come to them if they have the pretty branding or social media accounts, the beautiful website. Reality is, it's not a build it and they all come situation. When you're just starting out, spend 80% of your time focusing on marketing and sales so you can build it to the point where you have a team or you can outsource some key components. Don't feel like you need to do everything yourself, and invest in experts. So, I think that all comes back to just keep chasing business and be hungry.
Lee:
Sonya, amazing advice. Amazing business advice, amazing social media advice. You're one of the emerging stars in this field. Tell us where can we find out more about you and your work? How do we get in touch?
Sonya:
Yeah, so my social media platform of choice is Instagram, so go and give us a little stalk. We are Kiss_marketing, or you can visit our website, which is kissmarketing.com.au. We do do a lot of small business workshops as well around Australia. So, keep an eye out for those also.
Lee:
Sonya, thank you so much for being so generous with your time. We can't wait to see what else you do in this field.