Today's episode revolves around the relationship between you, your business and social media. My guest Angie Gensler shares her personal experience with the impact social media can have and is fully immersed in that industry, which at this point I think it's fair to call it an industry.
We go over the challenges small businesses face when deciding where to put their resources, what having a following can do and what are your key objectives with the platforms in the first place. The clearer your expectations are as well as the more realistic they are, the better off you'll be; and above all else there's no metric quite like "am I enjoying this?"
Angie Gensler help entrepreneurs grow their business using social media and digital marketing. She is a blogger, serial entrepreneur, former corporate marketing leader, mom of two amazing kids, and wife to an amazing stay-at-home-Dad/tech guru/website developer.
For nearly 10 years she worked as a professional marketer for a large corporation. After receiving her MBA in 2010, she quickly rose through the ranks and orchestrated every promotion she received.
Challenges businesses usually face
Joseph: So you said that you helped small businesses, right?
Small. Does that also mean that there are also mainly local businesses or it, it could be a small business, but still has an online presence and is still targeting a niche market say, as far as they can reach?
Angie Gensler: You know, I actually have a wide variety of customers. So I have anywhere from small mom and pop, you know, local businesses, they have a brick and mortar all the way to, some really big online e-commerce companies in, but maybe they have a small marketing department.
I know my background, I started. A marketer and I was a marketer for $150 million business. It was just me. I was a team of one. And so that's kind of how I got into this because there are so many people out there, whether it's, you're running your own business or you're doing marketing for someone else's large business, you know, you need this additional support.
You only have so many hours in the day. So, yeah, my customers, it's actually kind of a big variety, but I would say the majority of them are online business owners.
Joseph: Yeah. And I think it comes with the territory. I guess I don't get as many opportunities to talk to people who are like, you know, working specifically primarily with small local businesses, really only one episode comes to mind.
So just using that extrapolating based off how often it comes up, it's, you know, it's meshed with the territory. What came to my mind is I guess the relationship of the growth of the social media platform in a way that's healthy and effective for the growth of the business. And what I mean by that is if it's possible that things can actually go maybe like a little too well on the social media side to the point where they're gaining more attention and demand, then they can actually keep up with, and so now they're forced to perhaps scale upwards.
So, has that actually come up? And then B, you know, what have been the challenges that you've seen business. Largely get on the small side I deal with as their, as they're scaling their business, as well as scaling a social media platform in alongside. Yeah.
Angie Gensler: That's a good question. So I would say the majority of the people, most small business owners will never get into that issue of, you know, I grew too quickly on social media and now I have so much demand.
I can't fulfill it. That's honestly, I don't know if I've ever have that challenge from anyone. I wish it was a problem, but really the biggest issue that I see is business. A small business owners will start researching social media. Maybe they have an interest, or they hear from a friend like, oh, you need to be doing this.
And, or they hear a story of another business that had success. So they start researching it and then they get overwhelmed and realize, holy crap. All these people are telling me, I have to post five times a day. I have to create videos that, you know, maybe I hate video and I have to be on this platform and that platform and that platform.
And I don't even know what this one means that I've never heard of that one. And so that's typically the problem and they get into this overwhelm and, and then the other issue is maybe they are trying to go on all these different platforms and it's not really bringing any significant results. And so that's kind of the other thing that I like to teach is when you're first starting out as a small business, you need to also have realistic expectations of how much can you do?
How many platforms can you realistically be on be actively creating content for, what are realistic expectations from those platforms? You know, is it truly going to. Is that the only way that you should be growing your business? No, you should be doing lots of other different marketing tactics to be growing your business.
And especially when you're starting out, probably focusing on other tactics and strategies are just a little more providing more value, able to reach more people, maybe creating good blog, content, podcasts, those sorts of things, going to trade shows if you're kind of a more traditional business. And then, but you need to have that social presence to support everything that you're doing, right.
To always have this place where people can come back to and as you're growing your business, it will become more and more important as a place to have these meaningful interactions with your customers and prospective customers. But just a lot of with social media, with small business owners, it is having those realistic expectations of what you can be getting from those platforms.
Redeveloping social media strategies based on growth
Joseph: Just as a follow up on my own question, it's good to hear that, you know, the, the overgrowth problem is, is nonexistent. I have like a particular, affinity with it just because one of my previous sales jobs, the way the business model worked is that they were in touch with other suppliers for, for luxury watches.
And what would happen is, you know, people would call our sales line and they would find. We may say, yeah, it looks like we've got about three available, which was great until six people placed an order. The company was actually encouraging this because they want us to create that sense of demand.
Almost that sense of, you know, things were they're going to well. And once in a while, did we have somebody in Germany call up and let us know how upset he was? Yes, it has happened. Absolutely. So for that reason, we moved our shift down about an hour. And then all of a sudden the Germans were a little, little till late in the day for them.
But that was a heck of a year. I think once in a while you will see that almost as like a strategy rather than it be a, an unintended consequence. But nonetheless, it is still good to hear that doesn't come up very often. The other thing that stuck out to me, in your response is what are the things that I think is key is, you know, when a smaller business is, is finding its legs and I guess, you know, establishing his roots, it's important for them to I think consider how their presence on platforms will evolve as they evolve. And what I'm wondering is if you've seen businesses have to pivot, let's say they, you know, they enter into like a five figure range, enter into a six figure range and yes, they can look for new opportunities to create content.
Like maybe they have the resources now to make YouTube content, or I guess more elaborate YouTube content. They have the resources to make podcasts, but also maybe other platforms have had to have actually lost their ethicacy because they don't have that same, same traction. Cause if you, one of the things that I looked at and this is actually one of the very helpful infographic, but I want to make sure that we link to is the diff, the breakdown of the different major platforms and how many people are visiting Facebook is, is in the millions. And it's the only one in the billions. And then it goes downwards until around like, like 80 million.
So coming back to the question is, have you seen businesses have to pivot actually have to redevelop their social media strategy based off their growth?
[00:09:21] Angie Gensler: Yeah, absolutely. I think it happens all the time and I know me personally, I have had to pivot with my own business. So when I was first starting out, I was all in on Pinterest. And I teach that Pinterest, isn't really technically a social network. They're more of a search engine, but you know, still people kind of consider them a social network. And so I was focused on Pinterest. I was focused on Facebook groups and over time, and it was working great for me, but as my business grew, and as the demands became more.
Other things we're starting to work. So SEO is starting to work for me. Then I was making a little money. Then I could start investing in Facebook ads and really shifted that time and energy. So instead of spending as much time on Pinterest, now I'm spending more on page traffic and paid ads and then started shifting more into Instagram because then I had built a big audience and I had, you know, all these people and I thought, you know, now I think I can start creating more personal content and showing them more personal side of me over on Instagram.
And now that makes sense for me to be putting time and energy into, into Instagram before it was like, I really only have so many hours in the day and I need to be focusing solely on Pinterest and solely on engaging in groups and finding people who need specifically what I have to offer. So yeah, that's kind of an, an example of how I've had to pivot throughout the years.
So I think it's, you know, definitely something that is realistic and you should expect it, you know, as your business grows, the uses of the different channels and the people that you're reaching on them, it's going to shift. So you will have to shift your strategy over time.
Transitioning to a different social media channel
Joseph: And then what about the, the, the presence or the lingering presence on these platforms? I guess my visualization of it is that it's not a hard, you know, pull the bandage off and it's all over. It's a gradual decline of content as the audience starts being funneled to a different location. Does it, you know, does it get to the point where all they have left is almost. I don't dunno, a museum exhibit of their, of their previous activity there. Is there a method to just keep, like, it's just a tiny trickle of content.
So at least that way, at least it stays like a little bit active or what would just, what have you seen have been like the ideal ways to exit and if possible, have you seen ways that people have transitioned off of them that actually didn't go so well, maybe the audience is like, hey, I'm where are you going? What's happening here?
Angie Gensler: Yeah. I don't know if I've ever seen an example where it was a bad transition, but there's a couple of different methods that you could do. So the one I would recommend if you have built a decent following on the channel, you know, don't just abandon those people. Don't, don't leave them.
Have, you know, like you said, that steady trickle of content. So maybe now you're creating content for a different channel. You're really focused on that, but you can always cross share it. And that's one of my kind of, I call them social media myths and it kind of is like a pet peeve of mine. So many of these experts will say like, oh, you can never post the same content on multiple channels.
And that's a no-no. And I'm like, okay, what real person can honestly create completely unique content for every single channel. Only major corporations can do that. And some of them don't even have the budget because, you know, everyone has budget cuts and employee cuts and, and so let's think realistically, you know, you can create one piece of content and share it on all these different channels.
Now, maybe you are engaging fully, like let's say you're okay, we're going to go over to TikTok. That's what our content is going to be for. That's where we're going to talk, have conversations with people, engage with them. That doesn't mean you still can't post it on your Instagram and your Facebook and posted on these other channels.
And, but maybe you're not actively engaging in conversations, but you still have it there. So those channels don't turn into, like you said, like this museum of what you used to be, you know, you can still have content and maybe you even put a little disclaimer in there, like, Hey, if you want to join the conversation, come check out, come check this out over at TikTok.
Joseph: This was question 13 of my list, which was what you, what you're describing here, which is cross-pollinating content. You answered the question prior to, because I guess it, it sticks out in your mind as being a major issue, but that would have been my position as well, which is there is a case to be made that if you, if I write a post on Twitter, given the character limit, there's a cadence to tweets.
If I were to say, take that exact post and move it over onto Facebook. And the cadence is lost because it's up against all this other kind of content with all this other formats as well. I mean, the question was, you know, where do you stand on it, you know, is a better to post anything anywhere, but has ever been reflected poorly on a brand image.
If you know the content doesn't quite fit the mold or seems out of place and I'll touch on one other example, before we follow up on this. So say for instance, like you know, YouTube started doing YouTube shorts, I think as a response to the bite size or even the crumb sized content of say a TikTok and Instagram tries to do the same thing with Instagram reels.
But if I were to just say, post a TikTok onto YouTube, is that it's that like, this is a 10 seconds, you know, when I'm used to see content that's anywhere between five minutes to six hours. So where have you seen people, I guess, deploy their content on other platforms the most effectively, even if they're planning for it to show up from one place?
Angie Gensler: I think it makes much more sense on platforms. So there's what I call traditional social media platforms. And then there are search engine platforms. So Pinterest and YouTube are search engines. And so I don't consider them social channels. I know some people do there's a social aspect, but the beauty of those platforms.
There is that search aspect to them. And so someone is going to that platform looking specifically for something, you know, some sort of help a video, that's going to walk them through something. So it doesn't make sense to take your traditional content and then also share it on those search platforms or take your search platform content and share it on the traditional platforms.
So to me, that doesn't make sense, but where it does make sense is like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. Those are what I call kind of your traditional more of the old school, social media, you know, it's like you can do a text status or maybe you share an article. Those all make perfect sense to kind of cross-pollinate and share that content across and then Instagram and TikTok also work really well.
Like if you're doing the Instagram reels and the TikTok videos, those work really well to kind of share that content. You can get away with sharing your TikTok videos on other platforms. Um, but they work best to, I feel like to then go over to Instagram. So be thinking about, you know, those types of, the type of channels. And so, like you said, a TikTok video and it doesn't really make sense on YouTube because your ten second video, like, are there really many keywords search terms that people are searching for, for whatever your TikTok videos about. Probably not.
Joseph: A compilation of TikToks, I edit them together and put on a button on YouTube.
That's taking advantage of, I guess, both platforms.
Angie Gensler: Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, there are ways you're right. If you're creative, there are ways that you can still repurpose the content, But I would say like, if you just wanting to, one-to-one like, Hey, I created this and then I want to share it on all these. Really try and focus on sharing it to the channels that are like similar types of channels.
Joseph: I like your, your, your perspective. And I think, I don't know, it's probably come up, but I, but this is definitely the, the most recent on my mind of viewing, you know, YouTube and sorry. I blanked on the other one.
Pinterest. YouTube search engines. And I mean, you know, being a millennial, like I was born and raised and educated on YouTube. From my perspective on it, I agree, but I also identify that I think what we describe is their most dominant and most prevalent feature, but then they also have these other features too.
Like how YouTube channel can form a community. People can discuss things in the comments, but I think for the community to have the functionality that it needs. It usually ends up moving on to discord or onto the Facebook channel or something like that. So what I think the assessment here is based off, what do these platforms do to full satisfaction of the users needs versus what do they do to partial satisfaction or to limited satisfaction, which require funneling into other to other channels as well?
My question is, let's say somebody else had a point of view and it's not mine. I'm not like hypothetical, but not really being hypothetical. This is hypothetical. If somebody viewed YouTube in a different way, And they saw it more as no, for me, it's a community platform or for me it's just a pure form of entertainment discovery.
Let the algorithm decide, you know, what's my day gonna look like. Is it a hard stance for you? Is this objective and it's based off, you know, your expertise. Are you coming from more of a subjective point of view and these platforms are malleable in such a way that different points of view can have different takes on it?
Angie Gensler: I mean, absolutely. I think they're very malleable and I guess I'm coming from it from the perspective of a marketer. And so I guess if you, if you're on these platforms, to market your business to grow your business. That's where I'm saying, I feel like you really need to approach YouTube and Pinterest to get the maximum value out of them as search engines, you know, and you need to be focusing on your keywords and focusing on creating content that people will be searching for.
Just because it is it, I mean, it is harder, especially when you're just starting out to be shown in those algorithms. So if you can be shown based on search terms, that helps, but I think the beauty of these platforms is. They can. They're always evolving. Right. And they can be used for different purposes and different reasons.
And I'm sure there are probably hundreds, if not thousands of cases, of people who have created amazing communities through YouTube and they've just grown it, you know, organically creating fun content and not worrying about keywords or any of that. I'm sure there's plenty of cases, but yeah. I always approach these things.
As I guess from my marketing background, I come at it as, you know, kind of the professional marketer and we need to be strategic and you gotta be smart with the amount of time you have. So if you have the time to, you know, play around on YouTube all day and create fun videos and go for it. But most small business owners don't have that time unfortunately.
Joseph: Coming back to small business owners and it doesn't make me wonder if some of that can actually be ironed out in terms of trying to build up a different habit structure. So I wouldn't suggest outright for somebody to like set up a mini studio, get your lighting, get the sound and sound proof, everything.
Write a script. To look, maybe look for what fits more organically into their, into the routine. You know, if somebody could just as easily pull up their phone and do a quick video saying, all right, here's me and mixing the candle wax. And then they post that starts significantly changing their, their presence online.
Angie Gensler: Yeah. And I love that you make a good point. And that's another thing that I teach my customers is don't worry so much about, you know, oh, I have to be on this and I have to be creating video. It's like take all the advice that you're getting and then sit down and decide, okay, what am I really amazing at?
What do I enjoy? You know, if it's the thought of video absolutely terrifies you and you hate it, know. Don't do it, you know, if, but if you are really comfortable, like you said, just opening up the phone and creating a quick video and you don't want to deal with editing, then think, go that route, you know, just figure out what, what you enjoy, what works for you.
What makes sense for you find a channel where that type of content works really well. And just go all in on.
Keeping up with the social media trends
Joseph: For you and keeping tabs on social media platforms, we can definitely go all day on the main ones, but I'm wondering if there's like less known ones or even ones that are up and coming that have cropped up in your radar or when's that maybe you're keeping an eye on that have a potential down the line.
Angie Gensler: Don't really jump on the bandwagon too early on these platforms. Again, you know, I'm teaching other small business owners that have limited time. So if I'm going to bring them a new platform, it better be killing it. And they better be able to prove that it can work for marketers. So one new one and it's not new.
So I say new.
Joseph: Kind of quotes anyway. So, you know, it's all within like a six month differential. Right?
Angie Gensler: It's like, some people listening are going to be like, what is she talking about? That's not new is TikTok, TikTok, not at all new, but for small business owners, especially if you are not gen Z.
TikTok is new for you. I mean, it's a new concept for business and I've been watching TikTok very carefully. The last probably six months actually, well, probably a year. My husband jumped on it really early. I've just been watching them and following them. And every week I'm seeing new releases specific for business owners and marketers.
And so they keep coming up with new resources, new features to help market businesses. And so now I'm finally starting to teach my audience and kind of, hey, get TikTok on your radar. And maybe here's some resources, some best practices, because that is an up and coming platform where there is so much potential and it's growing insanely fast and they're really coming out with some incredible resources to help.
Actually market your business and, and send people to your website, which is really cool.
Joseph: Ah, geez. It's the one where, you know, you had the list of the, of the, of the major platforms as one of their key advantages. TikTok wasn't on there to identify that it's still a platform that's being proven, but if you were to add that on to that list, what would you say is, you know, the key challenge of it as, as well as the main objective that a business can have, if they're going to devote to it.
Angie Gensler: So the key challenge would probably be keeping up with the pace of the content. And I think for some businesses, the key challenge would be keeping it casual because I think a lot of businesses go onto social media and they're very buttoned up and very formal and TikTok is not at all formal, which is something that I absolutely love about it because.
You know, I don't like to be all polished and I'm not, you know, I don't have pictures of myself with perfect hair and makeup all over social media. So I love the idea that TikTok is not at all polished, but for some businesses, that's a scary thing, you know, to be casual. And it's, I know a lot of businesses are kind of anti-social media because they don't want to say the wrong thing or get attacked, you know, especially nowadays in the environment that we're in.
And so that would probably be the biggest challenge is having a voice as a business that is not filtered, but also doesn't open you up for a tax, I guess, would be the biggest challenge on TikTok. The biggest opportunity is that what you, you asked me. Sorry. I apologize. You had two things, biggest challenge.
What was the other one biggest challenge?
Joseph: And then the biggest opportunity that summarizes it is, you know, in the way that, uh, Facebook is, you know, about cultivating community and it's tricky. Cause I want to get the right word for it. Right. Which is what is the main objective?
What is the most important thing that you extract from your activity on there? There's a word it's swimming around. I can't get it, but yeah, it'll come to me when I'm half asleep.
Angie Gensler: Okay. So at TikTok, I would say going on to the platform, I would say like the agenda, when you go on, like on some platforms you can go on there, like on LinkedIn, your objective is to probably educate, to inform, to be helpful.
To your followers, right. to provide value as the expert in your industry. That's really kind of the objective with LinkedIn, with TikTok. TikTok is more about entertainment, right? Entertaining content. So as a business, I teach about social media marketing. Okay. Well, there's not a whole lot of like entertainment I can do.
I don't know if I can do pranks or jokes. I mean, maybe I could spoof other trends and stuff like that, but it would be more about providing like quick value, quick little pieces of like quick tips, ideas, maybe inspiration. So could you create some sort of inspirational motivational type content?
That kind of stuff works really well on, on TikTok. And I think the main objective on there is to. Build an audience and to start building the following. I think honestly, every business owner, your objective should always be anytime you're on social media is to get traffic back to your business, to your website.
That's whole point, right? It's to grow your business. But if, if all your videos are centered around that on TikTok, people mean the TikTok audience is not going to like it and they're going to see through it. Right. So you really need to be about focused on how can you provide value, education, entertainment, and, yeah.
Joseph: And, and, and one thing that I think at least is somewhat advantageous about TikTok is others less means for being both to trash something they don't like.
They can just, I'm not a fan of that, but that only took 10 seconds out of my time. So onto the next one, that's somebody goes onto YouTube. They have a lot of they can do, and that could be helpful. It's important to, to get your negative feedback to one channel, I'm a big fan of the, they as a rapid their video, they don't do the, the usual YouTube follow up, which is like, and comment and subscribe and all that.
They were saying that ironically, and they're like, you know what? This like, everybody, I want everybody to dislike the video. I want to see the next thing. And I was at 47,000 dislikes.
Angie Gensler: It's funny. It does kind of catch you off.
[00:28:27] Joseph: Yeah, it gets the attention. These are both pretty to me.
They're interesting. They, they came up over the course of this. The first one is a follow-up on making sure that if your, you know, your students, your clients are going to move on to a platform. The platform itself has to have a lot of momentum. I completely understand my question ties into a holistic image of the trying to find your, your colleagues and your peers.
And what I mean by that is a, a small business might reach out to an equally small, you know, like a micro influencer on a platform and, and build a relationship. They might reach out to a sponsor of comparable status, build that relationship. So you see, I hate the rising tide lifts all boats.
So that's basically what I'm going out here. So is it, is there a possibility that a small business and, and I mean, specifically small businesses, this can adopt an up-and-coming platform and actually yield better benefits in the long run because they were one of the early adopters. It could be a resource intensive problem, but is it at least?
[00:29:36] Angie Gensler: Absolutely. Yeah. It's absolutely possible. The only downside with that, I mean, there's risk, right? So, you know, there's huge risk, huge reward. So you could possibly jump on the right one. If you jumped on TikTok at the right time, you could have a massive following, be a big TikTok influencer and you know, helped grow your business and your reach that way.
But the problem is there's so many different places. And there's new ones all the time and clubhouses one that's was really growing for a while and then it had some controversy and I feel like it's kind of leveled out. The problem is, it was.
Joseph: Just funny to me what a platform where people can come in and say, whatever's on their mind on the internet, how could.
Angie Gensler: And we don't really have a good way to moderate it and kick out the rude people. It's very interesting. And what's funny too, is with those platforms, once clubhouse showed success, Twitter was instantly like, oh, we're going to create our own version of clubhouse. And so, and I think Facebook did too. And LinkedIn did all these, all the existing platforms were like, oh, that's working, we're going to create our own version.
And the problem is okay, well, clubhouse was desperately trying to get funding and to, you know, work out their kinks and their algorithms and who has a bigger team and more funding than them, you know, all these other existing platforms. So that's part of the problem of trying to put all your eggs in these baskets of these new up and coming platforms is, I mean, you don't know if there'll be able to hit it big, fast enough before the existing ones can come in and kind of take their ideas and, and run with it.
The other issue that I see is for small business owners. Again, you only have so many hours in the day. And so to be chasing after all these different platforms is really taking away your focus from growing your actual business, instead of, you know, your focus really shouldn't be growing a following on a single solitary platform.
It should be growing your business on your platform, whether it's your brick and mortar store or it's your website, you know, focus on that and the social channels should just all be complimented. You know, not that they're not the entree sides.
Joseph: It's interesting to me,I don't know, very nice things to say about, you know, the idea of a business, taking somebody else's business model and then, you know, adopting it to them.
It, it comes across as not competitive for one, right? It's not fair. Yeah. Not inherently a bad thing. You know, it's also somewhat insidious or even malicious to rob another business of their uniqueness. What I would say on the other side, just to balance it out is if you look at Facebook, they pretty much just take everything.
Like, I don't think that there's a form of content. That's not on Facebook. There's streaming, there's a whole section where you can watch people overcome their highest school bullies. Like every, like every it's it's this whole thing, this whole video where you just watch video after video, after video of people getting picked on and then coming in the next day with the baseball bat and humbling.
Now, for those of you who didn't get that, the actual video section, but for some reason, they're all like Dharma and videos. They're bullies in the face.
Angie Gensler: Now they're trying to get into game. You know, and, and I'm streaming gaming, and.
Joseph: It's crazy to summarize why I bring this up. The other point that I want to make it ties into this larger philosophy that has helped me make peace with like, you know, big companies is that you have large companies or you have large personas or profiles.
And I think their duty, their job is to show people, the content opportunity. If people have no idea that they can watch videos online, Facebook is a good place, cause it might be on Facebook for a dozen other reasons. And then as people develop a taste, they will move on to more specific platforms in the same way that a very, very popular comedians have broad reaching and general comedy.
But then as people like, you know, this guy might be a little, a little low brow for me. And then they find comedians with more specific tastes and then they, then they go into some pretty dark territory, but I've spent a number of years in that dark territory and they're just as they're just fine people.
They're just fine. So, is this a digital marketing myth or could platforms actually take advantage of the fact that larger platforms are adopting those business models and just saying, look, they're doing it. They're helping people develop a taste for it. Here's what we have to do to curate and develop and nurture that taste.
Angie Gensler: That's an interesting perspective. I like that. I mean, in a perfect world that could work. Yeah. I don't, I don't know if I really have a whole lot of thoughts on that. I mean, I'm kind of with you in the sense of, I also struggle with the idea of these big platforms like taking, like, it makes me sad that clubhouse.
My, and they might be able to make a comeback, but it appears at this point that clubhouse has kind of died because everyone else was just kinda like, oh, well now you can just come do it on our platform. And they stole the idea and the uniqueness and what made them special. And that's really sad to me, but I think if you can differentiate yourself enough as a small business and create a unique enough niche then yeah, I think there is probably a possibility where someone could get interested or, or start going down that rabbit hole, like on Facebook and then maybe they come across the more unique niche, smaller aspects of it.
The empty dance floor problem
Joseph: It's possible. And it's surprisingly given that I blast off into space all the time. It is based off a pretty consistent pattern right there. I mean, you know, there are, there are I, I related to the hamburgers, so there's for every hundred McDonald's there's one or two niche ones. Everybody say, you know, I'm not, I'm not eating poison I'm going to eat that poison because that poison is, you know, well, I mean, better, better ingredients, more fair detention, but into it. So it is, yeah, it is a real model. It's just, it's difficult to the, sometimes I think it's hard. It's harder in the digital space because you know, these things they can crop up so quickly.
It's not like they have to buy real estate, you know, to start taking the pigs and then of course here in a year in, in Canada, everybody's going to take a piece out of our coffee shop Tim Horton's Canada anyways. Okay. So here, here is a problem that I invented specifically to ask you about, I call it the empty dance floor problem.
Oh, okay. But who go back to say, you know, elementary school prep, prominent high school, elementary school dances. So the dance floor is set up the DJ's there there's lights, there's punch, but not in the middle of the dance floor. It's on the sides. And then you have the boys and the one side and the girls on the other side.
And no one wants to act because nobody wants to be the first person to do it. The empty dance vote, blah, blah. I think a lot of businesses struggle with this too, because everything is set up the tables are there, the punches there, but because no one else is doing anything. There's a reluctance to be the first person to act.
So, A, have you seen this problem and B, have you seen a solution?
Angie Gensler: That's a good question. I don't know, like on social media or in business, if I've seen the problem, because I feel like there's always, I mean, there's always the early adopters and that's kind of the beauty of. I think just humanity is there's always those people who will be the first and early adopters.
And then there's always those people that will, oh, I'll go on a little bit. And then there's the ones that are like, ah, never no way. You know? I mean, we're seeing that with vaccines right now in the world. Yeah. I mean, we always have the early adopters, but I can't think of anything.
Joseph: Well, what you said is important is early adopters. And that might even be the answer that I was looking for because going back to my metaphor, eventually somebody steps up and gets into it and they almost, they don't, there's a part of them that either. They don't care. What other people think, or they just they're. So an average, or they're just doing it for the hilarity of like, finally somebody is breaking the tension and saying, okay, he took the bullet for this one.
Now everybody can, it can come, can come on in. Yeah.
Angie Gensler: Yeah. That reminds me of the video. Have you seen on YouTube? The lone nut video? Oh, you'll have to. I think it's called the lone nut. You'll have to look it up. It's hilarious. But it's like, there's a musical fest, a music festival, and this one guy is just dancing, like a complete nut by himself.
Like you could, he's probably on drugs. He's like totally crazy. And then after a little bit of time, someone else comes to join them. By the end of the video, he has this whole mosh pit going on around him and he wasn't even trying to create a movement. Having a good time. It's just, it's cool video. It's interesting about how human behavior works.
Joseph: Yeah. I just, I just looked it up. I wasn't gonna watch the whole thing, but yeah, I know that's a new one to me.
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So a couple of other social media ones for you. So the next one, this is a pretty, pretty granular. It's just about your method for setting up content. So it'll almost like an in batch early in major batch, from what I've seen, like, people can't even go so far as to set up content like six months in advance or even a year in advance.
A, how do you do it? And I mean, that's, there's a lot to say there, but you know, we'll keep it general. And then B is it can get to a point where content is like a little bit too far prepared in advance because you know, society can change pretty rapidly, pretty drastically as we've seen. So next thing you know, like, oh, well we got to go, I have to re batch the 50 of these that aren't going to count it.
Angie Gensler: Yeah. So funny I had a customer once that she batched an entire year of content. So I provide content calendars to my customers and I have daily prompts and I plan it out very strategically throughout the year on like the type of content that you should be posting every day. And so she took that and she created a whole year's worth of content and it blew me away.
But. I was like, okay, I wish I could do that. But I've also knowing just the nature of our world. And especially if she would have done that at early 2020 here would have been totally blown up. Right. And so I've always taught bashing one week at a time because you can pretty much stay up on world events one week at a time.
And if something completely catastrophic happens, like let's say there's a massive terrorist attack or, you know, just something horrible or a pandemic. You can easily shut off that week's worth of content and not much harm is done or time is wasted. So what I like to recommend is you take one week at a time, ideally you would have some sort of content calendar or other type of resource, similar to what I provide for my customers.
And you take that, sit down at your computer, open up your schedule or whatever it is that you use to schedule your posts and go through and just start taking those prompts, let it spark your ideas, create your content. You can use a, so like I also have social media images that I provide, or you could open up like Canva or whatever it is and create your own and just schedule outbound.
Week of content, because the other thing is you'll find it depending on how good you are. It can take you anywhere from 15 minutes to about an hour, and then you have that whole week done. And then I personally, I'm about kind of by then I'm about creativity creatively tapped out after about a week of content.
And then again, it feels more of the contents, more fresh, it feels relevant. You can kind of make it a little more time-based and if you do have to shut it down, for whatever reason, you didn't lose out on a whole lot of time.
