On a very special episode of 5 Questions, ENX2 Photographer and Graphic Designer Keith R. Stevenson sits down with ENX2 Social Media Assistant Mariah Curtis and talks Facebook, Twitter, and the digital landscape of modern marketing.
Keith R. Stevenson: Hello and welcome to Five Questions With ENX2. My name is Keith R. Stevenson, photographer, designer and a newcomer to the world of digital marketing. I have a lot of questions about the ins and outs of the business, so I’m sitting down with a member of the ENX2 team to pick their brains to learn more about this dynamic industry. And today is a very special episode because I am joined by Social Media Assistant Mariah Curtis. Thank you for joining us here today, Mariah.
Mariah Curtis: Thank you, Kieth. Thank you very much for having me.
Keith: Now I’m pretty sure you’re familiar with the format that we use here. Basically, I have five questions for you that you are going to answer to the best of your ability and most honestly. And sometimes I will throw a couple of curveballs your way.
Mariah: All right.
Keith: My first question for you, Mariah, is how important is social media for marketing?
Mariah: So, social media is very important for marketing obviously or I would not have a job. Just from the basic definition of marketing, it’s just connecting with your consumers and educating them about the product or service that your business has. So social media is really cool because it’s under that digital marketing umbrella. And basically what I get to do is connect with the consumers and possible customers for our clients and businesses on all social media platforms and also educate them about the services that the company provides as well as generate leads and sales for that company.
Keith: So what platform do you think gets the message across best for attorneys, in particular? And why is that?
Mariah: I would say for our legal clients, I feel that Facebook is probably the best platform.
Keith: Facebook?
Mariah: Yes. I think just because of the diverse users that use Facebook. There are so many people on that platform so you’re able to do your organic posting but with paid social, you’re really able to target who you really want to reach out to. So for a medical malpractice attorney that’s looking for people who have medical malpractice cases in a certain area, you really can hone down and look into that area and find that person that might be needing your services but they don’t know who you are. So, you’re able to go and hone in on the paid aspect of social and find that consumer. And Facebook is really cool because, of course you have your graphics, but you can also use web links, and video, anything to really educate your consumer on your product or service. So I believe that Facebook is the best platform.
Keith: Ok I understood a good portion of that.
Mariah: Good, you’re learning.
Keith: I am learning. I would have thought I never would have understood any of that. But I did now. That’s really cool. So you said Facebook is really the most effective way of getting your message across. So when you’re crafting a post, what are the elements of an effective post? On any platform.
Mariah: You definitely want it to stay consistent with your voice throughout all of your posts. So for a law firm, you want to be more serious. You don’t want to be as goofy and as fun because you’re usually targeting serious situations in people’s lives. So you want to make sure that your messaging across all your social media platforms, not only is consistent on that platform but is consistent with your website as well. It’s super important that your content is high quality, so if you’re referring back to your website you want to make sure that if you’re writing the content as the lawyer or if someone outside is writing your content for you, you want to make sure that is consistent and high quality.
And also it’s super important that your graphics are personalized. They don’t need to be extremely custom, but if you can afford to have custom graphics, that’s also really important as well because all of these aspects together qualify for a good post. But it’s also, as the viewer, as the consumer, looking at your company — whether that be a law firm, I’m saying that because we do a lot of law firms, no matter if you’re a restaurant or a lawyer, you’re consistent on your social media websites. And the consumer that’s looking at you for your product or service is going to trust you a little bit more that you have all your stuff aligned and it all makes sense.
Keith: I was just going to ask why it is important to be consistent. So having a unified message is good.
Mariah: Correct. So if you have your organic social and your paid social and the wording is not the same, and then if that wording is not the same, then you go to the website and it’s different, the consumer is going to be, “Ok, it seems like there are three different people writing three different content.” Which could be the case but you want to make sure it’s all consistent in the end.
Keith: Well that does make sense. Ok so we’re up to our fourth question, Mariah.
Mariah: All right.
Keith: What is it about social media marketing that you like and what is it that you dislike?
Mariah: Let’s see, for social media, what do I like about it? I think it’s really cool that from my chair in Wilkes-Barre, Dallas, whatever office I’m in, that I am able to connect with individuals from all over the globe just by a push of the button. I think that’s really awesome. And just being able to connect with those consumers any time of the day is really cool. I would have to say, dislike, maybe just the fact that social media is pretty much compressing our attention spans. So we kind of fly through our feeds. As a social media marketer and graphic designers, like all of us together, content writers, it’s extremely difficult to to stay innovative and be catchy and catch a consumer’s eye basically, and get them to be engaged with your content and want to, maybe not necessarily follow us but engage and learn more about our brand.
Keith: Do you guys have to deal with all the negative trolls and stuff like that out there? Is that part of your job?
Mariah: It is. And that’s tough too because depending on the client and stuff, you have to make sure that you’re on top of how you’re responding and stuff. And, of course, you never want to be disrespectful or rude to anybody. So yeah, it’s definitely interesting.
Keith: It’s like walking a tightrope. You got to try and maintain.
Mariah: Yeah and it’s honestly incredible what people have said on certain platforms. It’s honestly amazing.
Keith: Yeah, at my old job, I went off the rails a little bit online with the company account. Somebody was really critical with something that I did. And then I did, and I felt good about it. I told my boss about it.
Mariah: Oh boy.
Keith: I said, “This is what I did, this is why I did it.” And he said, “All right, don’t do that again.” Like, all right. He was more impressed that I owned up to it and told him before he heard about it. I’ll tell you about that later.
Mariah: Off the mic?
Keith: Off the mic. So as far as social media, where do you think — this is the fifth question, by the way — where do you think things are going to be going in like the next five or ten years? What do you think is going to start happening in social media?
Mariah: I think Instagram is slowly rolling this out now, I feel like if anything, likes are going to go away and I feel it’s going to be more focused on engagement, of how many people are engaging your posts, impressions, stuff like that. And also I feel like maybe virtual reality might be a thing. Like there will be more virtual reality, augmented reality, as well as, maybe not as much content as with words but with video. Definitely, I mean we already see this now, but we’re going to have to stay top of this short attention span that our consumers have and just keep catering to that. So I would definitely say the next five to ten years.
Keith: So if we’re not measuring engagement through likes, how are we measuring engagements in posts? In this hypothetical future.
Mariah: Well just seeing how many people are clicking on it and stuff. See we can see that. So maybe focusing more on that so we’re not necessarily so obsessed with the likes on a post. So you can engage more with the content itself, not necessarily how many likes it has, I guess is what I’m trying to say.
Keith: Ahhh.
Mariah: As people who are on social media, we’re obsessed with that. Maybe not showing it to the consumers. You will be able to see it as the marketer but not having it be shown. Or, I know with Instagram they’re doing like “your friend and others have liked this post.” So you can see that people have liked it, but not necessarily who has liked it or the amount, I guess is what I’m trying to say. So you’re not so obsessive getting likes, is what I’m saying.
Keith: So if you have a circle of eight friends, and then only seven of your friends liked the post, and then you’ll be like, “What wrong with that person? Why didn’t she like my post?”
Mariah: Right, that’s what I’m trying to say. Sorry, that was a little confusing.
Keith: Because it happens to me all the time. My circle of seven girlfriends, like “Gosh, you know, they don’t like a picture of my Jeep?
Mariah: Or your selfie.
Keith: “What’s wrong with you? My amazing selfie with my Jeep.” Because that’s the only interesting thing about me. Anyway, so thank you so much for joining us today.
Mariah: Absolutely, Keith.
Keith: Answering all my silly questions. Well that’s all we have time for this episode of 5 Questions With ENX2. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a nice review wherever you find your podcasts. And be sure to join us next time when our guest will be Junior Web Developer Philip Trout, otherwise known as Slush Daddy P. Until then, thanks for listening and see you later!
