Conversational Content Marketing: Build Customer-Centric Social Media That Sells! with Brooke Sellas

#ConversationalMarketing
#CustomerEngagement
#KrisWard 

You can find Brooke Sellas at:
Website: https://brookesellas.com/
Company website: https://bsquared.media/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brookebsellas/

#AIContentStrategy
#TrustBasedMarketing
#KrisWard

Brooke Sellas Podcast Transcription

[00:00:00] Kris Ward: Welcome to another episode of Win The Hour Win The Day. I am your host, Kris Ward, and today in the house we have Brooke Sellas. Now, boy, oh boy, you probably know Brooke. She’s everywhere and she’s always talking about social media and she does it well, and we’ve been blessed to have her on the show before and now she’s back. So first off, welcome back to the show, Brooke. 

[00:00:20] Brooke Sellas: Thank you so much for having me again. I love that I get to be on your show for a second time. Very exciting, very proud. 

[00:00:28] Kris Ward: Thank you. We do love it when people like to come back, so this is exciting. Okay, so let’s you, let’s just get to it. Let’s talk about social media.

[00:00:37] Kris Ward: I know you, when we started discussing, you’ll be back on the show, we were talking about content in general. And so let’s start there. What is it you think people are missing with content? 

[00:00:49] Brooke Sellas: Year after year, we look at these marketing reports that come out and every year, I don’t know if you read these reports or not, but that’s okay.

[00:00:55] Brooke Sellas: I’ll summarize for you every single year content marketing [00:01:00] budgets increase. 

[00:01:01] Kris Ward: Okay. 

[00:01:02] Brooke Sellas: But you also hear, I’m sure you see this all the time on social media because you hang out with marketers like me. Yeah. Social media doesn’t work. It’s getting harder and harder. Engagement numbers are in the toilet, right?

[00:01:14] Brooke Sellas: And I’m sitting here thinking, wait a minute, you just got more budget again for content marketing, and yet you’re telling me it’s not working, and I think I have figured out why this is happening. 

[00:01:27] Kris Ward: Okay. We’re glad we’re here. Okay, go ahead.

[00:01:31] Brooke Sellas: This is happening because content is merely the vehicle. Okay. The destination is emotion.

[00:01:40] Brooke Sellas: You have to get your customers to feel something, to stop the scroll and then to have them engage with that content. But if you’re just putting out content that is marketer driven, right? You’re writing around in jalopy because you’re just saying buy my stuff. Look at stuff. Here’s our new features.

[00:01:59] Brooke Sellas: [00:02:00] We just launched this thing. No one cares. What? Why is that gonna stop the scroll? Yeah. 

[00:02:04] Kris Ward: Yeah. You’re so right. Oh my gosh. And I lost myself in thought there thinking We do, we all do that and we don’t mean to do that because we think what we’re doing is okay. I don’t know, maybe last month I told you about our program and I listed these features and we just added something new.

[00:02:22] Kris Ward: So I gotta tell you about that. But but you’re right. It’s not tapping into the problem. You have the pain you’re having, the frustration, the isolation. Yes. All that stuff.. 

[00:02:31] Brooke Sellas: We tell our product driven clients all the time that features are facts about your product, right? We always wanna release new features because that’s part of checking the boxes, marketing and sales. However, features and facts do nothing to move a relationship forward. There’s no emotion in that, right?

[00:02:50] Brooke Sellas: The benefits of using those new features are where the emotion is, if that makes sense. 

[00:02:56] Kris Ward: Yeah, it does to me. So many of us, if we’re doing something like we have [00:03:00] this leadership program for their virtual assistants. So when we find, hire and onboard a virtual assistant for our clients, then they go in the leadership program.

[00:03:07] Kris Ward: And even just last week we added this great big robust new addition to the leadership program that really enhanced it and ’cause we’re always adding things to it. But if I’m to write a post about that’s great. But then I’m not addressing the people that, the client that’s working 16 hours a day and they’ve been in business 10 years and they think once they get past this next thing and they just think they need more discipline.

[00:03:30] Kris Ward: So they’re not going to see that as impacting them. ’cause I’m not talking to their pain. That’s great you added that to that program. How does that benefit me? I can see where I would get talked into writing that big post about the leadership program, but I’d be missing the boat and the person who needs it is buried in work and not even knowing I’m talking to them.

[00:03:50] Brooke Sellas: The customer always has to be the hero of your story, which we hear all the time, but we don’t actually put into practice often times. And instead of the story being about these features or these [00:04:00] facts, it needs to be like, what is the benefit? This is what will happen. We talked to Kris over at Win The Hour Win The Day about how this new feature has affected her business and this is what she had to say.

[00:04:11] Kris Ward: Okay. Okay. Oh my gosh, this is enlightening to me. Okay, we are doing these things, it’s almost like we’ve got ingredients in our kitchen for groceries and they’re in two separate parts of the cupboard. We put them together, it makes a whole new meal. Okay. So in that case, I could be saying.

[00:04:25] Kris Ward: Oh my gosh. We added this feature to the leadership program. So in that case the VAs also now have direct access to me every day through Voxer, and now they can ask the littlest questions before, it’s almost like they need, they’ve got weekly touchpoints and live training every month, but they can reach out to me by email.

[00:04:41] Kris Ward: But usually they justify it needing a bigger problem before they’re gonna take action and reach out to me. So now we added this Voxer component, so they have daily access. And we’re already getting feedback from the clients of, oh my gosh, I feel like I just got double my value from you ’cause you’re even training my VA more.

[00:04:58] Kris Ward: That’s the [00:05:00] benefit. So we could be tying that into a really real, sincere story versus just telling you about the program. 

[00:05:06] Brooke Sellas: Yes. Okay. Now you’re starting to get it. So when we talk about sales driven content, which is what you’re hitting on, right? You’re creating this content to hopefully drive more sales based on the features or the benefits of this new thing, right?

[00:05:19] Brooke Sellas: There are two algorithms, like formulas I’ll say that we use when it comes to sales driven content, especially on social media, which is the problem solution benefit formula. 

[00:05:31] Kris Ward: Okay, 

[00:05:31] Brooke Sellas: so you start with the problem, right? What was the problem in your situation? Let’s like run through the exercise. 

[00:05:38] Kris Ward: The I guess the problem is with the people come to me and they just think once they get past this next thing, things will be different.

[00:05:44] Kris Ward: So they’ve been in business 10 years, and they’re still working too many hours, and their family and friends say, wow, you work for somebody really horrible because you’re just killing yourself working. 

[00:05:54] Brooke Sellas: Yeah. So you’ve been in the business for X number of years, but you still feel like you’re spending all your time [00:06:00] working in the business and not on the business.

[00:06:02] Brooke Sellas: Yeah. There’s the problem. Yeah. Yeah. Then you present the solution, right? So the solution in your case is 

[00:06:07] Kris Ward: the solution often we start with every a virtual assistant. And why it’s different is ’cause we find, hire, onboard them and then they go into the leadership program and you’re not, you’re, that’s just a bonus of what we do.

[00:06:20] Kris Ward: We’re we, you actually pay us to help you with streamlined processes. If you move on, the VA goes with you on like an agency where you lose your VA. So the solution is you need some streamlined processes and you need this VA and you don’t know how to do it because that’s not your jam. And it’s a whole nother career on its own.

[00:06:38] Brooke Sellas: Yeah. It’s not your job. And by the way, it’s really hard to do. Then you did the problem solution, then the benefit, and you literally were just saying the benefit. So state that out loud again. 

[00:06:48] Kris Ward: I’m not sure what I just said, but the benefit is you start working a lot less hours, you make more money, you get to work on the business, not in it.

[00:06:57] Kris Ward: And frankly, you fall back in love with your [00:07:00] business. 

[00:07:00] Brooke Sellas: Yes. That’s the benefit. Falling back in love with your business. Yeah. 

[00:07:06] Kris Ward: I’m gonna start again. So now that’s a whole lot in one post. So this is where we get lost. We get lost because it’s I guess we, anything we tell, if I tell a story that’s longer, I can certainly tighten it up.

[00:07:20] Kris Ward: So can I make that whole journey? I guess I see that as a blog, not a post, but I guess we can tighten it up for a post. 

[00:07:28] Brooke Sellas: Yes. You can also use AI for this, which I’m a huge proponent of. 

[00:07:32] Kris Ward: Yeah, 

[00:07:32] Brooke Sellas: and you just say, here’s the formula I’m going to use for this following story. Oh, problem, solution, benefit.

[00:07:41] Brooke Sellas: Here’s the problem. Do all the words right. The more context, the better. Be as long-winded and as crazy as you want. Here’s the solution, here’s the benefit. Now put that into a blog post and then break it down into 10 different social media posts for me. 

[00:07:56] Kris Ward: You’ll. 

[00:07:57] Brooke Sellas: Okay, now you’re what it does ’cause you are [00:08:00] have the experience, but it can help you do the heavy lifting on the thinking part.

[00:08:05] Kris Ward: It helps us ’cause you’ve given us the formula. You can do anything if you have a formula. So we just tend to look at the ceiling and roll our eyes back and go, what am I gonna talk about this week? Okay. And also is, my accountant says garbage in, garbage out. So I, you can ask chat GPT to do anything, but when you give it the wrong directive, so the way you broke it down with.

[00:08:25] Kris Ward: You know that formula that changes everything. 

[00:08:28] Brooke Sellas: Now I’m gonna give you another one. 

[00:08:29] Kris Ward: Okay? 

[00:08:30] Brooke Sellas: This one is the Feature advantage benefit formula. 

[00:08:34] Kris Ward: Okay? 

[00:08:35] Brooke Sellas: So you actually start with the feature. So the new feature is X, Y, Z. 

[00:08:40] Kris Ward: Okay. So I guess the leadership program, is that my feature? Okay? All right. 

[00:08:45] Brooke Sellas: So we added this new Leadership Pro program that does this thing. Okay. And then you say the advantage of that program, what’s the advantage of taking this leadership program? 

[00:08:57] Kris Ward: It’s the VA’s it, we turn our va instead of [00:09:00] having a va, a virtual assistant. What most of my clients say, it feels like they have peers. And they really have someone that they can lean on now they feel like and the VAs feel as they said to me, I hope this job lasts for a lifetime.

[00:09:11] Kris Ward: Because they feel valued. They feel like they’re, they, a lot of them say they feel like they part of the, they own part of the company. So it really builds a team, which I think is a philosophy, not a number. 

[00:09:22] Brooke Sellas: And then after you sell the advantage of, how they’re feeling they’re a part of the culture, feeling like they’re invested in the business.

[00:09:28] Brooke Sellas: Yeah. Even though they’re just a VA, quote unquote. Yeah. And then you state the benefit of that. So this is how you, Brooke, as an entrepreneur or feel using one of our VAs. Versus someone else’s who just is gonna give you a an hourly rate. 

[00:09:47] Kris Ward: Yes. Okay. And that is so helpful. With that framework, you can even, I’m sure, reframe it to have chat GPT, asking those questions.

[00:09:57] Kris Ward: Like I think just that in itself is [00:10:00] gonna produce all kinds of content because like I said earlier. I have the information, but it’s like making something really simple like pasta. You know what? You boil some noodles and you throw some red sauce on it. There’s pasta, there’s different degrees to it, but there’s pasta.

[00:10:15] Kris Ward: If you get that order wrong and you just take the dry noodles of the box and throw some sauce on it is not a good meal. So I think for what you are doing is just, we had the content, we had the information, but you changing the framework and the order makes it a completely different piece. 

[00:10:32] Brooke Sellas: If you give AI a formula, I really like formulas too.

[00:10:36] Brooke Sellas: I was using these long before AI came along, but if you give AI these formulas inside of your prompts, it really helps you deliver more clear content and then your job, if you’re, say, if we’re sticking with recipes and spaghetti. The AI is a sous chef, not the chef the sous chef does all the heavy lifting, they do all the chopping of the carrots and the onions and the all the tedious work that the chef doesn’t wanna [00:11:00] do.

[00:11:00] Brooke Sellas: The chef is responsible for making those ingredients into a beautiful unique creation, right? It’s not just any bowl of spaghetti. What’s your spin on that spaghetti? What’s your story on that spaghetti? What’s your unique perspective? AI doesn’t have perspective. It doesn’t have experiences, right? The chef has to bring that in.

[00:11:20] Brooke Sellas: So let the AI be your sous chef, and you the chef, are responsible for taking all of that heavy. Lifting and all of that deep work and turning it into a beautiful creation. 

[00:11:31] Kris Ward: Yeah. And then when they write it out and there you go. It’s always easier to edit than create. So here I am and going, okay, fine. Now it takes five minutes to clean that up, tie it up, add another story, or tweak it or whatever.

[00:11:42] Kris Ward: That’s all well and good. So that’s a really good example versus sous chef versus the chef, because I, that’s a whole nother conversation, perhaps another day. But the idea where people just spit something in and ask chat GPT to write them something and it’s garbage, is what were you hoping for?

[00:11:58] Kris Ward: You know what I mean? Like you can’t [00:12:00] just do that day one. Okay. This. This is really helpful and I think it’s, I think anything done really is done in a sim simplistic sort of way because I understand the story. We’ve had lots of people on here talk about the story and the hero’s journey and there’s all different versions of how to tell a good story, and I get that and it’s value and it’s importance.

[00:12:21] Kris Ward: But I think what we’re doing here is very simple but incredibly profound and really just you asking me these questions. Really just pull the information out without me having to think much. So I think it really allows for a lot of product, like squeezing a lot of juice out of a lemon kind of deal.

[00:12:40] Brooke Sellas: I also think, I love that you brought up storytelling, because I also feel like we went a little far with storytelling, kinda like we did with content marketing. Which is all, yeah. Part of the same bucket most of the time. But storytelling’s great and it’s wonderful, and I think it’s important, but really you’re not trying to get to storytelling.

[00:12:56] Brooke Sellas: You’re trying to get to a conversation. Because you need your customer. [00:13:00] Customers and would be customers telling you what their hopes, dreams, desires, wishes are. You need them telling you if you make that product or that necklace, let’s just say in silver versus rose gold, I will buy it. You need all of this, what we call voice of customer data happening in the conversation so that you can go and sell them what they want because unfortunately we don’t just go. Hey Kris. If you added this VA thing, I would totally buy your services. That’s not how life works. We’re too busy.

[00:13:26] Brooke Sellas: Yeah, we’re in our own little bubble. But if you say something like, give me those opinions and feelings, emotions through your content on social media and a post that says something like, it could even be a poll, Kris. Say it’s on LinkedIn and you’re like. Hey, the most impart of important part of hiring a VA for me would be A, B, C, D, right?

[00:13:44] Brooke Sellas: Yeah. You can create that whole people picket. Pretty soon you’re saying things like, Hey, you all said the most important thing to you was whatever it was, and the second most important thing was. Price. Let’s dig into price. What are your concerns with price that you’re not [00:14:00] getting the value? And again, take ’em down the road of polling.

[00:14:03] Brooke Sellas: Pretty soon after they give you these little one click engagements, you’ll be able to get to bigger conversations where you’re asking these fun questions, you’re just having conversations about your day, and people are joining in that conversation and giving you voice of customer data to help you then tailor your services to exactly what they need to sell more.

[00:14:22] Kris Ward: And you bring up a really good point. It’s not even sometimes tailoring your services, and I’m sure you know this, but tailoring your message because one of the other reasons that VA agencies don’t work is a, they find someone for you. It’s billable hours. When you leave, you lose them. But more importantly, they don’t know anything about your business and you’re not set up for VA.

[00:14:41] Kris Ward: That’s why most of the people come to me if they’ve burned through three or five or six VAs. ’cause they’re just dumping tasks on them. They’re a hot mess. They’re pivoting all over the place. Really the biggest part of what we do is streamlining the processes with our signature super toolkits that take like seconds back to the chef.

[00:14:57] Kris Ward: It’s really sharpening your knife before you cook. It [00:15:00] just takes a few seconds and it just changes your results completely. We do the VA part because you need to get stuff off your desk so we can get into the streamline processes and have also the VA do that. We teach the VAs our signature super toolkits, but for many years I was talking about that because that’s 80% of what we do, but it’s not the part, it doesn’t sound sexy.

[00:15:23] Kris Ward: People think it takes time. I have no interest in doing that this week and blah, blah, blah. Talk to them about a VA. All we did was change the order. We were doing this all along. And I the VA is just a tool. It’s a really I don’t know like a lever to lift something or maybe it’s a hammer, I don’t know.

[00:15:39] Kris Ward: But the whole idea is it makes the job so much harder without it. But that’s not the blueprint of the house kind of deal. The hammer isn’t that solution. That was a drunken analogy. So here we go. But you’re right, changing the content, sometimes just the order makes such a difference. 

[00:15:57] Brooke Sellas: Yeah, and I think, think about the, again, [00:16:00] content is the vehicle, the destination is emotion.

[00:16:02] Brooke Sellas: Yeah. To get to an emotional destination, we can’t do that through storytelling on our side. Can’t we? Yes. 

[00:16:08] Kris Ward: No. 

[00:16:08] Brooke Sellas: We can give our emotions, our opinions, and our feelings, but we’re trying to get their emotions 

[00:16:14] Kris Ward: right? 

[00:16:14] Brooke Sellas: So if you think about content as a destination to emotion, how do we get to emotion from their side conversation, 

[00:16:21] Kris Ward: right?

[00:16:21] Brooke Sellas: So that content, nine times out of 10, should be leading to a conversation if it’s on social. 

[00:16:29] Kris Ward: I like that so much more too, because when I hear storytelling and I’m whispering, so those, you can’t hear me. 

[00:16:35] Brooke Sellas: You don’t get hate tweets from all the storytellers. I know. 

[00:16:39] Kris Ward: It’s not that. It’s, and we’ve had really great ones on the show when they talk about it.

[00:16:43] Kris Ward: They do well, and they’re not the ones that are on the show I’m not talking about. But you’ll see stuff online. And when we talk about storytelling and emotion, the first sort of default is, or the instinct seems to be, give me the heart wrenching, rip the heart [00:17:00] out of your chest. Here’s all the heinous things that happened to me before I was six and I built a business and I’m like, I don’t need to know that much about I’ve been in long-term relationships that I didn’t know that much about someone and I am, and you’re on LinkedIn and I don’t even know your last name. And it was just never something I wanted to follow suit for. I, it’s just, it’s not how I live my life. It’s not how I talk to my friends.

[00:17:21] Kris Ward: If something sad happens, I move forward ’cause I wanna get that behind me. So I’m sure as heck not digging it up for LinkedIn. So I always struggled with that, where I liked your version better. It’s oh, we’re getting to their emotion. I think that’s a better fit for a lot of us. 

[00:17:38] Brooke Sellas: Yes. And then it’s so funny that you brought this up because literally.

[00:17:42] Brooke Sellas: I was supposed to have a call today with a speaker coach working on my intro and outro for when I’m on stage and he was like, what’s the story that you tell, put it in this document and all that. And I was like, thinking of all of these speakers who I admire and love and you are exactly right.

[00:17:59] Brooke Sellas: A lot of ’em are [00:18:00] like, I was in my living in my car for six years ’cause I was homeless and blah, blah, blah. And then, that’s their opener. And I’m like. I was never homeless and good on you, but like also all of the trauma that I have been through, I don’t want, 

[00:18:14] Kris Ward: I don’t wanna be visited. I didn’t enjoy it the first time story.

[00:18:17] Brooke Sellas: Right? Why would I wanna talk? And by the way, like. Part of me, for whatever reason, feels icky about tying whatever it is that happened way back when to my business. Now, like I have cool stories about how that happened and hopefully when I work with him, we will get to use these cool stories. It was like I was trying to, 

[00:18:35] Kris Ward: because it reminds, you know what it reminds me of?

[00:18:37] Kris Ward: It reminds me, you’re right. First of all, my whole position on life is. I didn’t enjoy the trauma the first time, so let’s not bring that up 10 times. It’s just not my jam. But secondly, I also find when you’re tying together, it sounds like when you’ve got some, like former, I don’t know, NFL player on a commercial about being, I don’t know, life insurance.

[00:18:58] Kris Ward: When you got the [00:19:00] ball like I had as a blah, blah, blah, player. You wanna make sure that you choose the right life. Like the, this, the leap they’re trying to make is so from them being a pro to this new life insurance or dental plan. Yes. And it’s a real, it’s a really yes. Sad leap and it’s broken, but you’re like, oh, that poor little former player, okay, he’s got paid money for that.

[00:19:19] Kris Ward: So I just feel like I’m doing a bad commercial. 

[00:19:22] Brooke Sellas: Yeah, because it’s the storytelling, which again, I’m not saying that storytelling isn’t valuable, I’m just saying that we put a little bit too much emphasis on it. Yeah. ’cause storytelling is about us, not about the audience. And I think it’s gotten, I think we’ve gotten wise as the audience.

[00:19:37] Brooke Sellas: And so when you hear somebody say, I’m a social media expert, and how I got here was my alcoholic wife who cheated on me. Yeah. No. Like we, we’ve stopped looking at storytelling. I think we’ve stopped being so enamored with storytelling because now we realize a great story is a great story. It can stand on its own, but it’s not why I’m here.

[00:19:58] Kris Ward: No, 

[00:19:58] Brooke Sellas: come by from you [00:20:00] or watch you speak on stage or whatever. It’s, 

[00:20:02] Kris Ward: sorry about your father and the abuse, but that I actually just wanted because you’re really good at sales content. Yeah. So I don’t, that’s not, the abuse is not what I’m buying. And I remember sitting in an audience once at a, an event, and there they were there must have been four people up there speaking. Each one. By the time we got to the last one, who, by the way, her village was burnt down and yes, she was raped. By the time we got to that, then the person who was the second person who didn’t have use of their legs from a car, like it kept upping the ante.

[00:20:32] Kris Ward: So you then need to burn down two villages and lose you know what I mean? All of a sudden the trauma was getting higher and higher as far as motivation, and I’m supposed to be inspired now. I’m traumatized. And the level of trauma has to keep upping the ante. 

[00:20:48] Brooke Sellas: Yeah. And here’s what I think about that.

[00:20:49] Brooke Sellas: Trauma bonding is a real thing, but we have entered an age where there’s like an infinite amount of trauma. So like we’re gonna have to move on from trauma bonding Yeah. As a way to bond with [00:21:00] our customers and would be customers. 

[00:21:02] Kris Ward: Yeah. No, it’s, oh my gosh, what a breath of fresh air. Okay. Love those two formulas.

[00:21:08] Kris Ward: Fantastic. Alright, is there anything else you feel like we’re really missing the boat on when it comes to content? ’cause this is a beautiful, I have to say, beautiful broad overview that I think is really gonna be empowering, freeing for a lot of people. 

[00:21:22] Brooke Sellas: I hope so. Yeah. I think. If it, if you can get into the mindset of what we’re talking about, we are not gonna talk about ourselves. We are not gonna share the boring cliches and facts about our business. Yeah. Or our products or our services. We are going to start to share our own opinions and feelings, not in a trauma bind bonding kind of way, but more so how do we solicit, how do we get our audiences to share those opinions and feelings with us?

[00:21:49] Brooke Sellas: And you can do this in a fun way, right? It sounds a little bit scary. I know when I say it like this and you’re on the other side listening or watching, and you’re like no. I can’t even see it. But I’ll give you an example. Okay. [00:22:00] LinkedIn, most of us know LinkedIn. Kris and I are on LinkedIn, so that’s how we met and if you think about who LinkedIn is as a brand, right? They are a B2B software sales company, okay? They sell services to other businesses, but they are great at content. That’s Eli, that elicits emotion from their audiences because they’ll say something like, we’ve reduced the budget. We’ve reduced the budget, and then they’ll say, name another marketing horror story in four words or less.

[00:22:34] Brooke Sellas: And then you’ve got all these people commenting on horror stories for marketing. Guess what they’re doing? They’re taking what’s top of mind for marketers, their audience, their customers, and then they turn around and then they create content on them on the biggest reoccurring themes. Okay, that’s fun.

[00:22:55] Brooke Sellas: That’s not them saying, what would you like us to see to post more about? No, don’t do that. [00:23:00] I’m make it fun. 

[00:23:01] Kris Ward: Yeah. Oh my gosh, that is so good. Because nobody’s gonna answer those questions. What do you wanna see more of? And also we you the whole idea, you don’t. Henry Ford said, if you ask the customers, they would say at one point they’d want faster horses.

[00:23:16] Kris Ward: So the whole idea is we don’t know what we need. There are so many things that I, as they came out Airbnb, who the heck is going to, I’m gonna go to some stranger’s house that’s on vacation. That’s not gonna work. Who’s gonna do that? So you wouldn’t have talked me into that until it took off.

[00:23:33] Kris Ward: So asking people, they’re not they’re not going to tell you these ideas ’cause they don’t have them. So we have to You’re right. Pull it outta them. 

[00:23:41] Brooke Sellas: It’s so we had a celebrity jewelry client and we did her social care, which just means we were supporting her through social media with all of the conversations that were happening.

[00:23:50] Brooke Sellas: So sales support questions item support questions. 

[00:23:53] Kris Ward: I like, hold on. I like that language. Social care. Oh, go ahead. Yes. 

[00:23:56] Brooke Sellas: Okay. Social media, customer care or social care as we call it for [00:24:00] shorthand. But it’s really just looking at your audiences on your social channels and finding reactively, answering all of the questions and comments that come to you directly, your inbox, or if they comment on your post or if they send you a dm, but it’s also being proactive and using social listening to go find other conversations outside of, us being proactive, like looking outside of what comes to us. So in her case, we kept hearing silver or silver.

[00:24:27] Brooke Sellas: People really wanted silver jewelry. And she was like, no, my audience is young. We only do rose gold and gold. So we were like, okay, let’s do a quick audience analysis. And I won’t go into the long story here, but what we found was that her followers on social media were absolutely the girl, the young audience that she always talked about.

[00:24:47] Brooke Sellas: But her purchasing audience, when we looked at who was talking about the brand and then stacked that with her advertising data from social and online, her audience was actually like mid forties, like my [00:25:00] age, and they wanted silver. That’s why they kept asking for silver. So we were like, Hey, why don’t you just test this out?

[00:25:07] Brooke Sellas: Take the favorite necklace, the top necklace, your top seller, put it out in silver and see what happens. And Kris, what do you think happened? 

[00:25:17] Kris Ward: Oh my gosh. Okay. So in that case, you could have an audience of young people aspiring to own that piece of jewelry, because I either can’t afford it or whatever right now, but I’m your biggest fan and I’m on Instagram because let’s say, let’s simplify it and say, that’s my jam.

[00:25:35] Kris Ward: This is where young people are. So all the young people are gonna be gravitating towards that, but it doesn’t mean the purchasing. 

[00:25:41] Brooke Sellas: Yes, your here’s where social media has also gotten a lot of people in trouble. There’s the whole content thing, which we just talked about, but followers, follower, follow. You have to have 10,000 followers.

[00:25:51] Brooke Sellas: We have to have a million followers. We have to, everybody’s so worried about followers numbers. Nobody stopped to think about your [00:26:00] followers. If you’re playing that game, are not necessarily your buying audience, right? Because you’re just playing a number game. 

[00:26:06] Kris Ward: And you would think that, you would think, I would assume if I look at you and you got 30,000 followers, I’m assuming you’re rolling in it.

[00:26:12] Kris Ward: Look at you. You’re such an evolved human being, right? And that is so interesting. And that could just be aspirational purchases that they’re not making 

[00:26:21] Brooke Sellas: half the time it would tell you. Those are not their purchasers. They, some of them may be, but what those large audiences, half the time I would say they’re following that brand, but they’re not buying from that brand.

[00:26:32] Brooke Sellas: And I’m, I don’t know about you, but I’m on social media because I want people to buy from my brand. Yeah. I don’t need friends. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. So I’ve got enough friends. 

[00:26:42] Kris Ward: Yeah. 

[00:26:42] Brooke Sellas: That’s the other thing that we’ve done with social. So if you. Gosh, change that mindset and stop building a follower base and start building a customer base, right?

[00:26:53] Brooke Sellas: That whole content part that we just talked about is gonna be a million times easier because you’re gonna start to have conversations [00:27:00] with your actual customers and with people who are interested in buying your products and services, 

[00:27:05] Kris Ward: right? I think the simplicity of your language. Is just, instead of followers having customers, like those are just, were such power in that difference.

[00:27:17] Kris Ward: And just using those different words. It’s oh, so instead of, oh, you not about followers, and give yourself the pep talk. Oh, lots of people can have a lot of followers and then they don’t have a lot of business. Just, no, I’m not interested in followers. I’m interested in customers. Like now it’s boom, your eyes are back on.

[00:27:31] Kris Ward: The target. We’re good. Yeah. We’ve lost sight of the target. I guess that’s my little. Soapbox when I’m like, why is everybody getting more content budgets? But everybody’s saying content doesn’t work. Oh. Because we’re busy marketing to followers and not customers. Yeah, 

[00:27:45] Kris Ward: high school. We’re just trying to get everyone to like me.

[00:27:47] Kris Ward: Yes. Have no, I have no real relationships here. 

[00:27:50] Brooke Sellas: Please don’t make me go back to high school, y’all. 

[00:27:51] Kris Ward: Yeah. I remember one time a while ago and somebody had reached out to me and DMed me on LinkedIn and she was asking about her services and I, and what? When I [00:28:00] met with her, I’m telling you, I think she.

[00:28:02] Kris Ward: I think it was like she was at my house at Christmas. She knew more about me than some of my relatives. And I’m like, I don’t remember seeing you anywhere on anything, like on LinkedIn or anything I had done. And she said, yeah, I don’t comment, but you don’t know who’s watching you. And I’m like, amen to that sister.

[00:28:18] Kris Ward: ’cause she knew everything about me and yet nothing, never liked, never commented, nothing. What and what do I care? But I would’ve, I’m looking and going, oh, I’ve got a lot of engagement. Who cares? They, and I would say numerous times, I’ve had DMs in LinkedIn that they never, I, they just popped up in the dm, can I meet with you?

[00:28:37] Kris Ward: They bought, and they were nowhere to be found in my content. My engagement looks like it’s in the toilet. 

[00:28:43] Brooke Sellas: Yes, that’s exactly right. You a dark social is a real thing, which is what you’re touching on, Kris. But that happens all the time. And it think about this too. If you’re having those conversations through your content to get to emotion, you’re gonna make those people the lurkers.

[00:28:59] Brooke Sellas: I [00:29:00] like to call them the silent observers ’cause I feel like lurkers is a bad term and Yeah. Yeah. So many of us are silent observers because, we just don’t wanna add to the noise. So those silent observers are. Are still watching, but now hopefully they’ll DM you even more or reach out even more because you’re having the conversation that they’re looking for.

[00:29:19] Brooke Sellas: Yeah. We’re only wanting, we’re only wanting to speak to our customers and our Wouldbe customers, and all of a sudden your life on social is going to get so much easier when you embrace that mindset. 

[00:29:29] Kris Ward: I feel like we need you to make the hip hop manual for social media. Like now you got the dark socials, like you got all this street lingo that I’m like, oh, write that down.

[00:29:37] Kris Ward: That’s good. That makes sense. You got the dark socials we got whatever. Okay. All right. Okay. Good job. Oh my heavens. Okay. Boy, you do need to get your message out more, Brooke, because I think that you would give people a lot of relief, even more so because it would just, we go down the road rabbit hole and we get lost and you get overwhelmed and you get discouraged.

[00:29:57] Kris Ward: And I’ve seen that where I go on and I see [00:30:00] somebody hasn’t been on LinkedIn very long and they got all this engagement. I think, what the hell is happening over there? Are they putting, I don’t know, topless pictures up? What are they doing? Like I’ve been here all this time and not like it.

[00:30:09] Kris Ward: Here’s what I look like compared to them. But you’re, but all that, to say that the followers and engagement is so much more than that. It’s not a popularity contest, it’s a customer base. 

[00:30:20] Brooke Sellas: Look at the types of content they’re creating, and I guarantee you that they’re creating that conversational type content.

[00:30:26] Kris Ward: Yeah. 

[00:30:26] Brooke Sellas: Engagement is the most important metric on social media now. Your follower numbers, it’s your engagement rates. 

[00:30:34] Kris Ward: Yeah. 

[00:30:35] Brooke Sellas: And I’ll tell you this, we don’t know what the AI the algorithms are for social media. The social media algorithms that show your content to people or not. But we do know this. A comment is 10 times weighted.

[00:30:50] Brooke Sellas: It’s 10 times more like weighted more heavily than a yeah, 

[00:30:54] Kris Ward: right? 

[00:30:54] Brooke Sellas: So you could get 300 likes. Great. But if you get even two [00:31:00] comments or three comments. Three comments. I guess if we got 300 ’cause we’re talking about 10 x, you’re already doing better than the person with 300 likes. Okay? So you’ve got to start focusing on engagement and how do you get engagement through conversation?

[00:31:12] Brooke Sellas: How do you get to your customer’s emotions through conversation? What is content? The vehicle to get you to emotion, which is conver, which is, found, discovered through conversation. 

[00:31:24] Kris Ward: We’re gonna have to have another show called Back with Brooke. Here we are Win The Hour Win The Day 

[00:31:28] Brooke Sellas: third time’s the Charm.

[00:31:29] Kris Ward: Yeah. So much happening here. Oh my gosh. Okay, Brooke, where can people find more of your brilliance? 

[00:31:36] Brooke Sellas: Oh, thank you. I appreciate the compliment. You can find me, Brooke Sellas on LinkedIn. That’s where Kris and I hang out and talk like almost every day. I feel like you talk.

[00:31:43] Kris Ward: Yeah, I try. Yeah

[00:31:44] Brooke Sellas: I appreciate that.

[00:31:46] Brooke Sellas: And you could also go to just brookesellas.com and you could go to our website, which is my companyBsquared.media 

[00:31:54] Kris Ward: okay, awesome. Make sure you share this show with the business buddy because boy oh boy, there’s just all kinds of eye-opening moments here and you just can’t leave them behind. So thank you again, Brooke and everyone else who will see you in the next episode.