Mia Fileman 0:05
Are you tired of marketing jargon and empty promises? Me too. I'm Mia Fileman, and this is Got Marketing?, on the show, I deep dive with marketing insiders to unpack successful campaigns. I didn't earn the nickname 'The Campaign Lady' for nothing. Get actionable tips, learn from winning strategies and avoid falling victim to marketing fads and fakery.
Mia Fileman 0:30
Hello Friend and welcome back to the show. A couple of weeks, maybe months ago, I posted to social media, and this is one of my top performing posts, controversial opinion. 'You don't need content pillars'. This post went off like a frog in a sock because the status quo when it comes to social media marketing is content pillars. I had lots of people comment on that post, but then a social media manager, social media coach, came forward and put her own little spin on my post, and it was such a great I guess, perspective that I invited her onto the show today.
Kryshla Salaris 1:17
'People who have never even smelt a marketing plan are out there saying, educate, entertain, inspire, like, Fine, you can do that on your account if you don't want any business go for it. We actually want our content to be working for us, to be building those relationships, creating that sense of trust with potential customers or clients. Because who do we buy from people we trust?'
Mia Fileman 1:41
That was Krishna Solaris, a content marketing coach for service providers, freelancers and coaches who want to attract dream clients online with first class content. With nearly 15 years of experience in social media marketing, she's had the pleasure of personally coaching hundreds of small business legends to boost their engagement, improve their confidence, and implement sustainable marketing systems that work for them and not the algorithm. Welcome to the show, Krishna.
Kryshla Salaris 2:09
Hello, hello. Finally, we are here and ready to rant, yeah.
Mia Fileman 2:16
Oh my goodness. That's my new tagline. That's excellent, good one. Allright, tell us your backstory.
Kryshla Salaris 2:27
My backstory is really boring. I don't have a really cool backstory. I'm gonna have to fabricate one. But basically, prior to what I'm doing now, I was working as the events and social media manager for a not for profit. I was the manager there for 10 years. Had a team under me. Did you know all the things, 200 events a year, plus, I did the social media management for the company. I went on maternity leave. And while I was on maternity leave, somebody approached me and said,Oh, could you write a social media strategy for my sister's company.And I was like, Yeah, I could do that totally.
Mia Fileman 3:04
It's always a sister's brother's cousin.
Kryshla Salaris 3:06
Exactly, and this person I'd worked with beforehand, so she knew that that's what I did. I wrote the strategy. They said, can you just do it for us? And then they referred me to someone else. And suddenly I had two clients, and I thought, hey, this could be my job, and I wasn't loving my previous role, and especially, like events are really long hours, it's really not kid friendly. So that's how shall we social was born, or rather, what it used to be called, before I received a cease and desist letter.
Mia Fileman 3:40
Such a cool story. I know I'm a cool story.
Kryshla Salaris 3:45
Right back at the start I had so I had to change my name, and this happened to somebody else as well, from the same person. We both received these cease and desist letters as soon as we'd started our our companies. And so it was actually really nice, because we bonded overour trauma, became friends. And what's really funny is, after all of that, that person no longer uses the name that they were so desperate to hold on to. So be cool, but I ended up with a better company name. Yeah, like you said, gives me a story, and it gave me those great connections as well. So you know, there's always a silver lining with these things.
Mia Fileman 4:20
What was the name previously? Can you share
Kryshla Salaris 4:22
Yeah, previously I was, it was get social style with my handles. And, you know, social and style, they're not super unique words, but apparently they were, according to this letter. So I contacted a lawyer. I'm like, look, you know, we're not the same. Like she actually had her name in her company name. So I was like, well, obviously, that's her. It's got her name in it. But he's like, look, it's not even worth fighting. Like, just, just change it. You're good, you know you're not. You've only been in business a few minutes. And so I did, and, yeah, I'm a lot happier, actually, with the direction anyway.
Mia Fileman 4:22
So, it's fascinating to me that people think they don't have a good story when that story is so relatable. And like, I felt that viscerally. Like,imagine if someone said to me, you can't use Campaign Del Mar anymore. Like, okay, I know three years of Canva templates and like, Imean, it's trademarked, so that's not going to be a problem. But like, yeah, people can really relate to that crucial.
Kryshla Salaris 5:27
Yeah, do you know what's really funny? A couple of years ago, somebody else set up an Instagram account and started posting a 'Shall We Social' there, over in the UK. And I'm like, wait a minute, she's on the other foot here. But because they're in another country, there's not a lot you can actually do. And so I was like, we'll just wait and see. But nothing ever came of that. They never really posted. So I didn't have to take any action, thank goodness, because that's just more life admin that I don't need.
Speaker 1 5:54
Correct. It's so hard to run a business already and have to win the clients and invest in the branding and build the website and maintain the bloody socials every day, and then to then add to that legal dramas of somebody copying you, somebody impersonating you, someone, you know, intellectual property. I mean, it's just a whole other thing that we just like, come on. Can it just be like 10% easier? That's all I needed to be. It's just like 10% easier.
Kryshla Salaris 6:23
Oh my gosh, copying is rife, isn't it, in the online world, that could be a whole nother episode, because I've got some rants on that too, but I see it so often, and it's why do people think that it's acceptable just to go and help themselves to somebody else's IP.
Mia Fileman 6:41
Just because there's no consequences, there's zero consequences.
Kryshla Salaris 6:45
It's like temu. I saw this creator on Tiktok the other day, and she makes these incredible Nordic designed, hand knitted jumpers. And she ordered the copycat one from Shein, and they had actually just ripped her images like it was photos of her wearing the jumpers that she and were using to advertise their dodgy polyester version. But can you imagine how heartbreaking that would be, and also a bit creepy to have someone using images of you and their campaigns to rip off your product, like, equal parts creepy and infuriating.
Mia Fileman 7:26
Yeah, I'm loving, like, take down top talk, like it is, like, the best trend on Tiktok is creators coming to the table and being like, all right. This is my video posted October 2021, this is her video posted February 2022, Spot the difference and people are like, holy shit balls. This is the thing. And like people are actually like, this is the this is one of the things I love about social media, is that it is democratised people. And so now they can. They have a platform to get on there and be like, Hey, I'm going to call this person out, because so much time and effortgoes into content creation for someone to just swoop in and steal your shit. It's literally heartbreaking.
Kryshla Salaris 8:14
I know didn't something like that happen recently with NARA Smith and like, was it a Chanel bag? It it was some kind of bag, wasn't it? And she put it in the oven, and then, like, a MIDI one, and then a big one came out, or something like that. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 8:27
And of course, she was, like, the person that she had stole that from was a woman of color, a minority content creator who had, you know, 1/100 of the followers that NARA Smith has, and people are just like, just another day being a woman of color and having your stuff stolen.
Kryshla Salaris 8:47
Oh, my goodness, I love that. We've already got on a complete tangent in this episode.
Kryshla Salaris 8:52
Welcome to Got Marketing?. Yeah, we talk about whatever we want to talk about, and then we retrofit that into an episode. Cool, cool. Well, let's get on track and talk about content pillars. I guess what I'd really like to understand from you as a social media specialist and a content specialist, what are they and what aren't they?
Kryshla Salaris 9:17
Yes, and I have some very strong feelings about this as I posted on my Instagram account, this is something that has been annoying me for many, many years, is these people coming on and saying, your content pillars should be, educate, entertain, inspire. First of all, those are not pillars. Those are typologies or the objectives for your post, they're not actually pillars at all. So pillars essentially are like the core topics or themes that you want to talk about and that you want to talk about time and time and time again. So that people get to know what it is that you do. They get to understand, you know, the key messages, how it applies to them. You're memorable for something which, of course, is really important on social media, because it's such a busy place, we need to stand out, and we need to make ourselves memorable, because otherwise, you know who's going to stop somebody going to the next content strategist or coach down the street? You know you've got to have something that's going to help you to stand out, and so people know what it is that you do. I see a lot of people who are posting lots and lots of random stuff, and people look at their account and they're like, I don't know what this person does. Now, fine if it's your lifestyle account, but we're here using social media to grow our businesses, to attract clients into our world and hopefully to get them off of social media and buying our things, working with us, signing up to our courses, and all of that good stuff. So essentially, they are content themes. Some people call them content buckets. Whatever you want to call them, it doesn't matter, but a collection of the ideas, the topics that you're going to be sharing on a regular basis.
Mia Fileman 11:05
I love that. So campaigns would be a content pillar for me.
Kryshla Salaris 11:08
Yeah, you could do it like that. I find it's quite useful when you're thinking of your content pillars, to frame them in slightly different ways. And I know you said that, yeah, people don't use content pillars anymore. I think they're a really great starting point for ideation, but if you stop there, that's where you run into trouble. And we can talk a little bit about that, because, you know, that's a very simplistic, blanket approach. And again, as I said in my post, this is the type of thing that those people selling the roadmap are out there spouting, right? People who have never even smelt a marketing plan are out there saying, educate, entertain, inspire, like, fine, you can do that on your account if you don't want any business, go for it, right? But we actuallywant our content to be working for us, to be building those relationships, creating that sense of trust with potential customers or clients. Because who do we buy from... people we trust? So it's really important that as a business owner, as somebody whose aim is to get people off of these platforms, that we are really thinking ahead to the business objectives of our content, and not just the nice to have engagement or going viral, or all of the kind of on platform measures of success.
Mia Fileman 12:35
Yeah, and that's exactly what I said in my post, is that we don't use content pillars, per se. I definitely have the themes that I talk about regularly, like campaigns or female entrepreneurship, email marketing,those things. But what we do instead is that every single post, every single piece of content, every podcast episode, every blog, leads to a specific marketing objective, so I post to social media with the explicit objective that this post is about driving traffic to my website. This post is about converting to a sale. This post is just about building affinity and earning the trust of people. We have so many different objectives in our marketing suite and that we overlook because we just go make money, make money, make money, make money. And we don't realise that to make money, there are other way points you need to pass through before you can make money.
Kryshla Salaris 13:33
Yeah, absolutely. Look, and I think those are pillars, by the way, you're just not calling them that, but you know, it's you're taking into account all the different purposes of your content. So if we're thinking of content, and I always go back to Instagram, because everybody's on Instagram, but we want content that is going to attract the right people into our world. Yeah, we want content that's going to nurture them, that's going to create that sense of community, conversations, all of that good stuff there build that trust position you as a credible authority, etc, etc. And then, of course, we want content that's going to serve our business goals. So I think that's probably more useful than pillars to think about those objectives, as opposed to: Oh, this topic or this topic, and I find people get very distracted by the pillars, and they come up with an idea, and they're like, which pillar does this fit under? And I'm like, if it fits under one or two or all of your pillars, great. It's just a good idea. Like, don't worry about that. And so I've really started moving away from pillars when I'm teaching this, because I find it just causes more confusion than anything else.
Mia Fileman 14:44
I agree. It's also a bit can become quite formulaic and quite boring, because people are like, well, I've got the pillars, and so I need to stick to the pillars. And then, as a result, something comes along in the news cycle or in culture, or, uh, you know, in society, just generally, and they're like, oh no, I can't talk about that, because today is Tuesday, and Tuesday I do case study day, and it's like, no, no. Social media is like an inherently now platform we need to be responding to the zeitgeist.
Kryshla Salaris 15:17
Yes, absolutely. And look at I even say if you are really, you're one of these people that needs that plan. So Monday, we do this. Tuesday, we do this. I think that can be really good when you're in the beginning stages and you just need something to follow so that you are consistent. But if something dynamic comes up, you simply just swap it out for another day. And people go, Oh, yeah, it's, I don't know, maybe it feels really obvious to us, Mia, because we're so in that space, but yeah, take this as your sign that you can lean into that dynamic content if something's happening now, talk about it now, because that's how you're actually going to be able to have those conversations. And it's going to feel a lot more natural. I mean, like us chatting about Nara Smith, right? That's something that's happened recently. It makes sense to talk about it now, not to go, Okay, I'll talk about that in three weeks time, but then everyone's forgotten at three days time they've forgotten on social media. It's just so fast moving.
Mia Fileman 16:19
I did a post about Ballerina Farm, and he just had the biggest reach of any post I've ever done. Because when you can tap into what's trending, I'm not saying jump on every silly trend and use all the trending audios. I'm saying, like, true culture jacking, then that's what people are interested you know, we all go down these, like, rabbit warrens when something happens, like the Ray Gun Scandal, The Olympics, or, yeah, Nara Smith controversy, or Ballerina Farm. And like, we want to consume as much content as we can, but just for a short period of time, and then we'll, we'll move out. I think why this isn't so obvious for other people Krishna is that they're still in that mindset that marketing is a broadcast platform. And so it's like, okay, I go away, I batch a month's worth of social media content, and then I schedule it in Planoly and move on with my day. And they're like, great. And then what they've essentially done is they could have published in a newspaper or a magazine, and they're just like, here I am broadcasting information to you. That is not effective. B to B marketing, you work with service providers, so do I also work with some product based businesses, but B to B marketing is about relationships. It's that two way conversation. So my content is actually not designed to broadcast anything to you. It is designed to start a conversation with you so that you can be like, Hey, I saw your post. I made my own post. Now we're having this podcast episode, you know, like, that's the point of marketing on social media.
Kryshla Salaris 17:58
Yes, oh my gosh. I love that Take That is, yeah, it's so important, and it feels a bit easier and more natural when you approach it like that as well, right? Because often I think people are sitting there going, I don't know what to say. And we know a big part of the I don't know what to say, conversation is around maybe not having a strategy in place. Because once you do have a strategy, and we can talk about that. Once you've got that, it's actually really easy to know what to say. And when you see something happen in the news or in the media, and you can be like, Oh, I know how to apply that to my customer or client, to give them that insight or perspective that's actually going to matter to them. And I think that's that's the piece that's often missing from these huge list of ideas. And this is why it doesn't work. When I see people giving out lists of content ideas as like a freebie, you get those kind of lists. I'm sure everybody who's listening has downloaded one of those at some at some point in time, lists of ideas for your reels. Great. The problem with that is, yeah, like you say, it's very formulaic. It's it's not you and it's not your customer. And so it just, you'll get these lists and look at them and be like, none of these apply. I don't know how to take that idea and make it happen. And it's because you don't have that underlying strategy to see something and know how to apply it so that it actually is relevant for your audience.
Mia Fileman 19:30
And what does strategy mean to you? Like? What does that mean in the context of social media?
Kryshla Salaris 19:34
Yeah, so, I think strategy is it's having that really clear understanding, first and foremost, of the problems that you solve. So what's a problem that you solve? Yeah, that's question number one. We've got to get really, really clear on that. And then who do you solve it for? So who is that ideal customer and client? And everybody's heard this to death, right? We all make our little avatars, and that's lovely. Um. But so many people don't do it, and actually, you really need to do that strategy. They have 12. Yeah, look, and I recently completed a strategy for a client, and she has three really distinct ideal customers, but there's also three really distinct products, I say in inverted products, that actually services that they have. So it was actually really easy to kind of map out that customer journey for her. And I think that's the piece that people miss a lot. They get all these great ideas, cool, now what? And you'll have all these great ideas, and you'll know what to post, but it's not necessarily serving your business. So that's the strategy piece. I think it's taking, okay, I've got these ideas. How do I now align those to my customer and where that at in your customer journey when they first discovered you, or first realise that they have a problem that they want solved? What are we saying to them at each point? And so it's really about, I think, nailing down your key messages. And you don't need heaps, like there's a few key messages, it's better to have, I think, less, and just repeat those same key messages over and over, again, again. That memorability piece that we were speaking about, it also makes it simpler for people to understand what it is that you're talking about, especially if you're in quite a complex industry, having just a few key messages is going to help people decide, oh yes, I do want this problem solved. There is a way to solve it, and I want to work with this person or buy from this person in order to receive that solution.
Mia Fileman 21:38
Love that. That's really great. Very, very clear.
Mia Fileman 21:42
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Mia Fileman 22:25
I totally take your point about those content prompts. I don't provide those during a brainstorm session in Marketing Circle, which is my membership, we will ideate on behalf of a specific member. We'll be like, Oh, why don't you try this, Megan or Gerrie, this could work for you, because it's all about being tailored. There was this pseudo celebrity entrepreneur. She has like 500,000 plus Instagram followers, and she's been in business for several years. She's got a big audience. And she was, like, shaking these papers on Instagram, going, I have, you know, the exact posts that I used for my latest million dollar launch, and I'm giving it to you for free. And I'm, I was thinking, how is that of any use to anybody else? Like, I've been doing this for a really long time. And I can tell you right now that anyone that doesn't have the same amount of followers as you, that doesn't have your persona, your background, your community, your existing community, all of that content would be useless, absolutely useless, like if, if I was a quite established in business, I would lean on to that authority and that credibility. And I would talk about how I've helped 10,000 entrepreneurs, or 1000 entrepreneurs that, you know, I've collectively helped my audience earn 10 million like I would use that if you're a brand new business owner, you don't have that so what posts is she saying that is going to apply to other people who are not at the same stage of business as her?
Kryshla Salaris 24:09
I know and this people fall into this trap so much I did a free coaching call for a few members of my community. When was it, September? Who knows time, right? But a little while ago, and we got onto this conversation, actually, about how we should avoid saying 'should' all the time and copying the things that the gurus are saying online, not only because, again, it's it's very personal as to what you should be sharing, you know, related to your own business goals, the problem you are solving, your customer, your products, the way that you want to show up and communicate with your audience, all of these things make this whole strategy piece really personalised. And so, like you said, you can't just take somebody else's emails copy and paste them. But also comparing yourself to somebody else who is miles and miles ahead of you. All that's going to do is hurt your feelings, seriously. And we do it because we see these people that are super successful when we think, Oh, okay, I'm going to copy what they're doing, but we don't want to copy what they're doing right now when they're already, you know, bringing in multiple six figures, seven figures, in their business. We actually need to copy what they did back when they were a four figure business owner. Yeah, back back in the day. And, of course, you can't see that now. That's long gone. We also don't know what's going on for them behind the scenes, in terms of their support, their resources. Are they pumping, you know, hundreds of 1000s of dollars into Ads. Sometimes they are, and so we're trying to copy their organic strategies, not realizing that they've got all these other paid strategies in place, or they've got a team of setters who are out there making appointments for discovery calls, and all you're seeing on social media is they're like, Oh, I only post once a week, and I don't even use hashtags, yeah, because you've got all this other stuff happening. So it's so dangerous, I think, to compare ourselves. And look, we all do it. I do it sometimes, too. And then I catch myself. I'm like, wait a minute. But also, you don't know. And actually, I went live my Facebook group about this today. You don't know whether what they're doing outwardly with their marketing is actually bringing in the sales you don't know which post got people off of the platform and into, you know, a sales call, or onto their sales page, or whatever that next step is. So, I think we have to stop comparing and copying and actually spend that time creating our own strategy, testing for ourselves and our audience as to whether what we're doing is actually working for them. There's no one right way to market yourself and or I think all you end up doing is getting overwhelmed and burnt out by all the things that you think you should be doing and trying to do it all at once instead of working out, okay, what can I do say for the next 90 days? What's an extra thing I could do every day? Could I go live once a week? Could I commit to posting three times a week and see if that works for me? Could I try branching out to another channel or collaborating, or whatever that is, but it has to be really personal, and you have to be able to stick to it. I think that's the most important part.
Mia Fileman 27:31
Yeah, absolutely, that is such a good point about we don't know what's working and what's not working for people, so just looking at their organic social media and making these deductions is so dangerous for all the reasons so many of those guru, pseudo celebrities purchased followers like it is like I they have, you know, you can tell, okay, you can look at their engagement. I've got this cool little widget that sits on my, um, that plugs into my Instagram, and I can see each person's engagement rate. And I'm just like, Mm, hmm, yeah, good times.
Kryshla Salaris 28:11
And there's actually a website you can go and see if they've bought followers too. Oh, wow, yeah. So it's yes, absolutely, there's the buying of followers. Yeah. I mean, there's just so many reasons why you shouldn't be copying what someone else is doing. But number one, it's gonna hurt your feelings. I think that's the
Mia Fileman 28:32
Totally and just like what you said, like, we also small businesses need to stop comparing to bigger businesses as well. I had someone push back against me when I said, you need to do more founder led content, like, you need to be the face of your brand. And she was a product based brand. She's like, but dish the label. They don't do any founder led content. I'm like, they have a store in Chadstone with $30,000 a week rent, probably to be in chats, and they spend probably around $200,000 a month on Facebook advertising. Are you really going to compare yourself to dish the label like, sure, if I had $250,000 a month to spend on Facebook ads, I also wouldn't have to show my face on social media, but like horses for courses, babe.
Kryshla Salaris 29:21
Yeah, do you remember there was that trend going around, or they had done a study, and they're like, oh, the most successful posts on Instagram have, like, only seven hashtags, or no hashtags, or whatever. And I'm like, but those results are being skewed by celebrities that already had a following, so that when they join you. I mean, Kamala Harris joined Tiktok a couple of months ago. The day she joined, she exceeded like a million followers right straight off the bat, it's not their social media strategy that's getting that. It's the fact that they already had a following outside of social media. You're just a vice president. Exactly, people already know who she is, so going, Oh well, she doesn't post, she doesn't use hashtags. She doesn't have to. She's already got that awareness. People know who she is, and they're going to flock to her right same with celebrities, so let's not compare ourselves to them. And again, as business owners, we need a different strategy for the way that we show up on social media. We're not trying to get paid by Instagram or YouTube or whatever. It's not about reach. We don't get paid for going viral, right? We get paid by getting people off of the platforms. And yeah, I think we get so caught up, not only in follower numbers, but also in engagement that is such a big thing at the moment, everybody is always complaining about, oh, my engagement sucks. Rah, rah. Every single time I have launched a new course or a service, I will have people buy who I have literally never heard from before. Like, I'm like, Who are you? And they'll say things like, I've been following you for years, and I'm like, really like, because and they just don't engage, like, shout out to the lurkers, okay? Because they're there, they're watching everything, and they're biding their time until they're ready for that product or service that you're offering, and then they'll just buy it. And that's that. So if we wait and we only post when we're getting that engagement, and we're getting that little dopamine hit. We're missing out on a lot of opportunities to connect with the people who will just never engage and think about yourself like when you're tired and you jump on social media, you just lie in there, like scrolling through watching you might even binge watch somebody's content, but not even hit that like, because you're just too busy consuming the content, and then you scroll on, but you're still watching it, you're still learning, you're still getting value from it. And you will remember that person and come back to them if you want to buy their thing, if it's, you know, a business related post.
Speaker 1 31:53
Totally. Even LinkedIn, like most people on LinkedIn don't like and comment like, it's a very passive platform, but I've still made a lot of money from LinkedIn, from people I've never heard of. Yeah, oh, okay, how did you hear about me?
Kryshla Salaris 32:06
I have a very hate hate relationship with LinkedIn.
Mia Fileman 32:09
Rally? It's my favorite.
Kryshla Salaris 32:12
I hate it so much, but I know it would actually be beneficial. And every now and then I'll get on and I'll just pop a post up, and then I'll run away, which is not a great strategy. Don't do what I've done. I know I need to spend some time. I It gives me the ick big time, the showboating and the I'm delighted to announce blah, blah, blah. Like, just roll your eyes at it on crucial, but the people in your DMS as well, just like, accosting you the moment you're like, Oh, I actually turned off all my DMs. And I know it's probably not the best thing, but I'm like, Just come talk to me on Instagram if, because I don't know it's just the cold pitching does my head in, I know I have to just get over that and give it a go, because it would be a really great platform for me. But just the ick factor is so wild. I can't stand spending any time on there. I don't know. I just hate it.
Mia Fileman 33:07
If you're having a really good time on Instagram and it's working for you, then doubling down on just one social media platform, it's risky, because you're putting your eggs all into one basket. But right now, these platforms are so needy and that you need completely different content for each platform. Like you're not going to share a reel to LinkedIn that's so lame, but you need to be creating reels for Instagram that they require so much work that I think it's probably even just for the best to just stick with Instagram.
Kryshla Salaris 33:41
Yeah, look, I am all about the no eggs in one basket, because I've had my Instagram account shut down, not once, but twice. Thanks.
Mia Fileman 33:49
What did you do?
Kryshla Salaris 33:50
Nothing, nothing. Five times they went, Oh, it was a mistake, because I got my account make each time. But since that second shutdown, boom, my reach is just tanked, like, and so I'm like, okay, it is what it is. I'm going to branch out. That was one of those, you know, as the young people say, Canon moments in my career where I was like, Okay, I have been relying a little too much on Instagram. And so that's where I really had a look at my content ecosystem, and went, Okay, what else can I do? So the first time my account was shut down, oh my gosh, the imposter syndrome was on day one of my Instagram course launch, oh my gosh. And at the time, I called myself an Instagram coach. Now, because of this, I'm I really focus on more general content marketing and having multiple platforms. But yeah, day one Instagram course launch, Instagram coach has her Instagram account shut down, and I just felt sick, like I was like, Oh my gosh, no one is gonna take me seriously. Like, that's the end, you know? And luckily, I had an email list. Yeah, it wasn't huge, but I had another way to communicate with people. This happened back in 2020. Facebook pages by then were dead. Tiktok, wasn't I mean, I had Tiktok, and I had a few things on there, but not an audience to sell to yet. So I was like, Alright, I'm not focusing so heavily on Instagram. Yes, I still love it, and I love using the platform, and it has all the different surfaces, which is really great, and different ways to create content, which I like, because I enjoy making content, but I'm not just relying on that anymore. And I think again, if we're talking strategy. Once you've worked out what you're going to say, you also need to work out where you are going to say it, and ensure that you've got multiple touch points and touch points that work with each other, because there are some platforms I think that are inherently more top of funnel, or awareness kind of leaning platforms like working like Tiktok, I would say is really great for getting your brand out in front of a whole lot of new people. Can you sell on these platforms? Of course, of course you can. But you know, if we can use them together and be like, Okay, well, I know I can get great reach on Tiktok, so I'm going to post a lot of top of funnel content there, then I might be posting more of the nurturing style content on Instagram, for example, and even within the platform, the different surfaces do different things, so your stories are pretty much only seen by your existing followers, yeah, which means they're a warm audience. They already know and like you, if they're following you or they're spying on you, either way, right? But that's where you can do that nurturing. And then, of course, you need, then the bottom of funnel, touch points as well. So your email, your email list, which you know, everybody needs an email list, landing websites, landing pages, all of that stuff, right? And again, yes, you can share nurturing content in those other places as well. But it also, as we know, you're more likely to have conversions via email than social media. Like it's a huge it's a huge difference in terms of the percentage. I can't remember the exact percentage, but you know from experience that. What is it? 6% of people so you post on Instagram, versus 30, 40, 50% open rates for your emails depending on your list.
Speaker 1 37:32
2.4% average reach across all Instagram and then the average open rate for service based emails sits at about 22% open rate.
Kryshla Salaris 37:44
Really, oh my gosh. Mine's 49 so I must be doing something right.
Mia Fileman 37:49
But Humble brag, mine's 64.
Kryshla Salaris 37:55
Yes, yeah, I would expect that.
Kryshla Salaris 37:57
But yeah, I think it's, it's making sure that you've got those touch points, and of course, again, that you can produce content for all of those and that's where being really clever with your content creation, having systems in place for the creation of your content, but also the distribution of it. This is where you can lean on tools like AI to repurpose your content or to share it out for you. Or my favorite strategy is really starting with long form and then breaking that up and using it for your shorter form placements as well. I think that's the most sensible way to do it, especially if you're time poor or you're a solo operator.
Mia Fileman 38:39
I love that hero content approach, like a podcast episode and and you can, I mean, you can make 6,10, posts from one podcast. Question for you. So you mentioned Tiktok, really good for top of funnel. So then, okay, you're posting to Tiktok. You're getting the reach. How are you then getting those people that you've reached to move down the funnel?
Kryshla Salaris 39:04
Yeah, so people, naturally on Tiktok, will come and find you over on Instagram, yeah, okay, I just find that they tend to do that. You can blatantly say that. You have to say it in code, though, on Tiktok, right? Yeah, because otherwise it was a fresher post, but you could be like, over on the picture app, come and find me. You can also talk about the different styles of content that you share on there. So you could say, look, I provide more in depth content about XYZ over here. Of course, you can share the same thing on both, and I usually do because I'm like, if I've already made a reel, I'm just going to chuck it on Tik Tok, it might not perform the same on both platforms, and sometimes it's really surprising. Sometimes I'll have something that's reached 100,000 on tick tock, and then it'll reach like 1000 people on Instagram, or vice versa, like it's it's still worth reposting it, because, again, what if there's one person in the team that it reaches and you're like, Oh, that was a flop, but that one person becomes a client, well, it was totally worthwhile reposting it then.
Speaker 1 40:10
And like, as much as we can look at the data and the analytics and the trends on any given day, you don't know what's going to work on Instagram or on Tiktok, like, you know. And then something works for two weeks, and then it stops working. Stops working. So we it's not an exact science. Marketing's not an exact science, but social media platforms are not even close to being the exact science. So when you said that you needed to diversify away from Instagram after your account was taken down for the second time, I presume that meant moving to Tiktok. Is that right?
Kryshla Salaris 40:42
Yeah, as I said, I already had a Tiktok account. I was an early adopter of Tiktok, which was nice, and it was very, very different than to what it is today. Sometimes I'll see somebody using a really old audio because it was so much more about the music, and it'll kind of give me nostalgia for the old Tiktok. But yes, I started, you know, ensuring that I was posting over on Tiktok. I've always had Facebook as well the I feel like Facebook's only really good for groups at this stage, yeah, and I don't like it again, but also really leaning into growing my email list. That was a big, a big thing for me, ensuring that I'm writing SEO optimized content for my website as well. And just Yeah, I guess having backups of things, just in case something else goes wrong, touch wood, I think, is really important, and not getting too I think attached to these various platforms because they can change. Remember clubhouse and everybody all excited about that. I didn't like that because it's audio only, and I cannot listen like I just like. I need to see people like video is for me. I once was interviewed on a podcast, and she didn't like seeing people while she was recording, so we couldn't see each other. And I was like, this is horrible. Like, I don't feel like I'm talking to anybody. It was, yeah, it was so confronting, and I found it so hard to concentrate, like I was exhausted after that.
Mia Fileman 42:21
What about Threads? Krishna, you on Threads?
Kryshla Salaris 42:24
Do you know I'm on Threads? I kind of just forget it exists. Every now and then I'm like, oh, Threads. And I go have a little look. Back in the olden days, I used to be on Twitter, and I used to, I was always tweeting. I don't know whether it's because I have more time then and because that was a lot more prominent platform, and people were hanging out and it was actually fun, or whether, now, you know, because we're really into video, I've kind of just changed my preferences a little bit. I'm not sure, but Threads, I'm still I feel like threads is great for talking to industry peers.
Mia Fileman 43:00
Yes, agree. That's a really good take. I love that.
Mia Fileman 43:05
Yeah, if you're on Tiktok and you're on Instagram and you've got Facebook, then definitely don't feel the pressure to be on LinkedIn. Like, I think it's a two, two social media platforms maximum, with just the amount of work that they take. Let's bring the conversation right back to the beginning and talk about, okay, so if we're not using the inspire, educate, entertain, content pillars, what should we be doing?
Kryshla Salaris 43:35
Yeah, so I think content pillars. Let's forget about them, right? As I said, start with that question. Okay, what problem am I solving? And you might solve a few problems, but just start with one problem, one customer. Yeah, make it easy on yourself. Let's not go too wild. We want to start there, and then what we want to do is work out the steps that that customer goes through, through your customer journey, from awareness, consideration, conversion. We could talk about loyalty and stuff later, but let's just focus on that first part, right? So what do they need to know, understand and believe at each of those stages to move to the next stage, because sometimes people need permission to seek out a solution. I'm thinking off the top of my head, mums don't always invest in themselves for things like self care, even though they know they should. They feel, Oh, no, I should save my money for something else, especially if maybe they're not earning at the time. You know, I'm thinking mums with young kids, for example. So some of your type of funnel content might be helping them move their mindset from Oh, I probably shouldn't spend this money, to No, it's really important that I look after myself, or I invest in whatever it is that you're selling in order to get them to even that consideration stage. Because if they don't believe that they should be. Are investing in themselves. Well, they don't care about how much your product or offer is further down the track, right? So we need to move people through that customer journey with our content. I think, if you keep that in mind, you know, I think that's the easiest way to do it. And you can, you can find out how people are feeling at each stage of the customer journey by drumroll, please, talking to them.
Mia Fileman 45:26
What a foreign concept.
Kryshla Salaris 45:28
Talking to your actual customers. Can you imagine? Right? Look, if you don't have any customers or clients yet, you're going to have to take an educated guess. But as you start working with customers or clients, and especially ones where you're like, Oh, I wish all of my clients were like, This person, go and talk to that person. Pick their brain. You can, you know, you can offer them half an hour coaching session or whatever, a product or whatever in return for this data, but actually getting the exact words that they're saying and where they're at. Okay, so how, when you came to me, how were you feeling? What did you need? What were you struggling with? And now that we've worked together, you know, where are you at? Now can really help you work out what those key messages should be. And this is something that takes a little bit of time to do, and those messages will probably evolve over time as well strategies, not something that you create and then pop up on the shelf and leave it there. It's a working document. It's a working framework, and it's kind of it's a springboard for your action and activity, but it's actually the action and activity that you learn from and get the results from. So I think we don't want to get too hung up on that strategy piece. We want a bit of a plan. All right, here's what I know about my customer. Here's what I want to talk about and be known for. Here's what I know about the social media platforms that I want to use. Okay, I'm going to try this, this, this for 90 days, six months, whatever, and then see how we go and come back and evaluate, and that's really the process, I think we we over complicate it when we really don't have to.
Mia Fileman 47:11
Yeah, I think a really helpful analogy is that everyone should be approaching their marketing like a scientist. So your strategy really is a hypothesis, and then you test that hypothesis, and then we need to tweak and refine. We're constantly make refining this experiment, and experiments fail more than they succeed. So this is, I think, much more helpful analogy than whatever else we're using at the moment.
Kryshla Salaris 47:40
Yes, I love that. Yeah, and the failure, it's not a failure, it's lessons. We all know this. I know it doesn't feel like that. It hurts. God, it hurts when you fail in business, because I think you've got your identity so wrapped up in your own business that, yeah, it feels like a sucker punch if something doesn't work for you, if you launch something and it flops, but that all lessons, that all things that we can learn.
Mia Fileman 48:07
Amazing. That was fabulous, absolutely fabulous. I so loved talking to you. I think we should definitely do it again, because I didn't get to half the questions on my little documents. And we'll just come back and talk about content stockpiling and all that sort of fun stuff. Hero content, we'll do that another time. But thank you for being so open and generous with your ideas and your insights, Krishna. It was a pleasure chatting with you.
Kryshla Salaris 48:31
Oh, thank you for having me. Yes. I mean, I could chat about this all day, so anytime. And of course, as I mentioned earlier, once I get my podcast up and live, I would love to have you over there to chat more about this too, because, yeah, I think these conversations are really needed. Some brutal honesty has got to help everybody. I think count me in.
Mia Fileman 48:57
Thank you. You listened right up until the end. So why not hit that subscribe button and keep the good marketing rolling? Podcast reviews are like warm hugs, and they're also the best way to support a small business. You can connect with me, Mia Fileman on Instagram or LinkedIn and feel free to send me a message. I'm super friendly.
