2023 Social Media Marketing Strategies You Have to Know

All right guys, this is the first ever episode of Running with Wolves. We are doing a marketing podcast. You guys asked for this for so long and I am so excited. So we are going to take some of your favorite TikTok videos that you guys have been commenting on wanting more content from, wanting more information about, and we're going to dive into them. So today we're going to talk about how the old era of marketing is completely dead. We're going to talk about what it used to be. We're going to talk about what it is now and what it's looking like as we move into the future. Marketing is shifting and changing. Platforms are shifting and changing. So this is going to be really exciting. So I want to talk first of all about what the old era of marketing looked like. We all know when Instagram reels a couple of years ago TikTok really took off. It was so easy for you to go viral. Even before that, obviously we had Facebook ads. Everyone was buying those. There was no such thing as organic content immediately. Facebook was something that people were constantly on. Pinterest was huge. Instagram, you could just post like one singular photo and people would be like, oh my gosh, take my money. Let me just buy everything that you were selling from. So we used to be able to just post singular photos of our products or if you sell services yourself in a suit and talk about all of the information of what it was exactly that you were selling. And all of a sudden, people just wanted to give you their money by whatever it was that you were selling really without asking a lot of questions. If you were able to evoke some sort of emotion from people, a lot of times they would buy it really, really easily for you. There was really in-depth hashtag strategies, right? You had people being like, okay, this is how you have to do the hashtag strategy on Instagram. 30 hashtags. Now Instagram has said it's 15. No, it's five. Things are so different. And I feel like content is really taking over. SEO is still going to be really important. Hashtags is still obviously going to be really important, but organic content, video content, viral content. And then also content that's really meaningful to your target audience is really going to be taking over. And then my other favorite part about how old marketing was was just like straight up cold pitching, either in your content, in the DMs. People just line into your DMs and be like, hey, I'm posting this masterclass on blah, blah, blah. Do you want to be invited? Do you want to attend any of those things and be like, yeah, absolutely sign me up. That's just how it was with marketing. And unfortunately, I think that caused a culture of people being super burned with making purchases, investments, whether it was a really nice product, whether it was a service. Now we also will have like a slight recession happening. People are a little bit more skittish when it comes to spending money. They're going to be a little bit more cautious. And consumers and buyers are getting so much smarter when it comes to how they go about making a purchase or an investment, right? There's a lot of times where maybe they're going to lurk a little bit longer. If they really are obsessed with your brand and your products or your services, maybe they're going to, you know, stock your TikTok. Maybe they're going to stock your Instagram and kind of be looking for the answers that they need before they make a purchase. And this could take anywhere from a couple of days to a month, six months, depending on what the price point is, depending on if they really need that product or for the luxury purchase or services or any of those things, right? So people are a lot more cautious when it comes to how they're making a purchase or an investment. And so because of that, a lot of businesses are struggling to see the sales that they used to see even a year ago. You cannot believe how many conversations I've had with business owners. I just had a conversation with somebody last year who ended the year of 2022 with $1.2 million in sales. And this year is barely making half of that. And their marketing has not shifted. The way that they sell has not shifted, but the way that people buy has shifted. And so because there hasn't been that shift to adapt and keep up, they're really seeing a struggle to create sales. What I always say to those people is if you're not adapting, if you're not shifting, if you're not ahead of the curve, when it comes to marketing and sales, you're very much going to get left behind. It was so funny because threads obviously came out the Instagram app a couple of weeks ago, maybe a month ago. And there were so many people who didn't hop on the TikTok bandwagon who now are like kicking themselves essentially because, you know, they are missing out on so much visibility, so many sales because they're not present on TikTok where a lot of their audience is consuming content. And so they immediately got on the threads bandwagon. We're like, nope, absolutely. I am here. I'm ready. I'm going to be posting. I'm going to be current. All the stuff. So people understand the importance of staying up to date and shifting your marketing and sales strategies. But I think it's really difficult for a lot of people to realize when to realize how to do that, to know the right strategy. So we're going to also talk about what the new era of marketing is going to be looking like the right strategies that you need to be using in order to create consistent sales. Because I will tell you that because we and our clients have kept such a pulse on how marketing is shifting and changing, we have seen no shortage of sales. We're consistently growing and scaling and so are our clients because they understand how they need to shift and change with the times and with how people are, you know, shifting and how they're buying and consuming content to make sure that they're still seeing sales. Because sales is very much the heartbeat of your business, you guys. And marketing fully controls that. If you have not mastered your marketing, if you're not consistently shifting, and like I said, changing your marketing to keep up with the times, your sales are going to suffer and therefore you won't have a business, which we all want to keep our businesses obviously. So let's talk about how to make sure we can make that happen. So when it comes to marketing principles and frameworks versus strategies, let's talk about this really quickly because there's a key difference. Some things will stay the same. Some things are going to shift. So the way that I like to talk about it is marketing principles and frameworks is the what's what you're doing. And then the strategies is the how. So for example, we talk about our alpha framework, which is attract, warm, convert. When it comes to attraction, that means you're creating visibility for your target audience. That means that you're getting in front of more of the right eyes every single day. You're exposing your brand or your business to potential buyers or consumers. When you're warming, you're creating brand recognition and awareness and trust with your audience. You're creating hype and fomo to get to a point where these people not only know who your brand is, they understand that they need your product or your service or that they want it. And then you're converting. You're creating sales, which means that you are consistently selling to your audience in a way that makes sense to them. And so you're taking them from this super warm phase where they know that they want your brand, your product or service, and you're converting them into a sale. That is a marketing principle. That's a marketing framework. Those things are never going to shift and change. You will always need to create visibility. You will always need to create trust with your audience. You will always need to warm them up. You will always need to know how to convert them into a sale. But how you go about doing that, the marketing strategy will shift and change with the times. So for example, in terms of creating visibility a couple of years ago, Reels was a fantastic way to go about doing that because once that feature was announced, it was super easy to go viral. You got tons of new eyes with the right hashtag strategy, the right content topics, any of those things, even with really low quality video, honestly, it was super easy to go viral. So that marketing strategy was how you were implementing that marketing principle, essentially, of creating visibility. Now, fast forward a couple of years, Instagram Reels are obviously not performing that the way that they used to. It's really difficult to go viral on Instagram Reels consistently, whereas TikTok is a great platform for that, right? Organically, obviously. It's really easy if you know exactly what is going to, you know, get your target audience's attention to go viral. It's getting a little bit harder because TikTok is becoming more of a standardized platform. Eventually, there will come a new platform that we can use to leverage that visibility. So how we go about creating that visibility will always shift and change. That's the marketing strategy, but the framework, the principle of creating visibility will stay the same. Hopefully that makes sense to you guys. So now that we've talked about that, you guys understand the importance of attracting, warming, converting your audience in order to create consistent sales. Let's talk about the new strategies that you want to be utilizing in order to create faster sales. And the one thing that I do want to highlight for you guys is if you are saying that sales does not feel easy to you, sales feels like pulling teeth, sales feels like you have to like force people to buy from you. I would say like you either feel like a used car salesman or you feel like the weird uncle like cornering their niece at the Christmas party being like, give me a hug. That's like how you are with your audience. You're like, hey, buy from me. Like it's super fucking creepy and gross. If you feel like that with your sales, you haven't mastered your marketing because I will tell you that creating sales, it should literally be the easiest part of your business. For us, it absolutely is. We know exactly what we need to tell our audience at all times to get them to buy from us as do our clients. So it's really not difficult to create sales. If you know the right marketing principles, frameworks, and strategies. Now that I have given you that little heads up, let's talk about changes you need to make to attract warm and then convert your audience faster and easier. There is so much that we could obviously go into with this. We have a very limited period of time in a very short podcast episode. So this might have to be a couple of episodes in terms of a series. But let's talk about really quickly before we talked about attract warm convert. I want to talk about the buyer types. We're going to do another episode on this in terms of the four buyer types. So if you guys are interested in learning more about those in depth, make sure you go listen to that one. But there are four buyer types and I always group them into two separate audiences. We have analytical and assertive buyers. Analytical buyers are the people that need all the information in front of them to make a buying decision. Whether that's purchasing a product, investing in a service, they have to know every little piece of information that goes into that. So if it's a product, let's say it's a skincare product, they need to know the ingredients, they need to know the price point, they need to know if it's right for their skin type, like they need all those tiny little pieces of information in order to add it to their cart and actually purchase it. If you're a service, they need to know the exact deliverables that it includes timelines, if there's anything that they should keep an eye out for in terms of how they're going to be serviced, they need to understand like exactly what they're getting. So like for our group program, for accelerator program, for example, they want to know who all the co-coaches are, what the modules are, what time the calls are, right, they want to know all that information in order to make a decision. Assertive biotypes are very, very similar. I always compare these to like the very driven high power CEO likely. There's somebody who needs all that information, but they need their ego struck a little bit in the buying process in order to feel good about it and they need to feel very in control of the buying process. So if it's a product, for example, it can be like, I know you have fabulous skin, but you want this, like for example, for someone like me are, you know, going into, you know, your 30s and you deal with like acne, stool and wrinkles or something like that. I know that you have great skin right now, but you're also going to need this in the future. So you know that you need to buy this right now, right? That's something where it's like, I know you have great skin. I know that you know about skin care, but you also need this product. If it's a service, I know you're a great business owner. And also at the same time, if you are struggling with or you want x, y and z, this is the service that you need in order to make that happen, right? You're kind of stroking their ego. They need all the information in front of them to make that decision. And a lot of times assertive biotypes will kind of lurk in your audience for a really long time. And as soon as they have all the information that they need to make that buying decision, a lot of times they don't even need to have a conversation with anyone. If you're selling a service, they don't need a sales call. They don't need a DM conversation. If you're selling a product, they don't have questions. They're looking on the website for FAQs, any of those things. They will jump on that investment or purchase decision very quickly. But it's because they have all of the information in front of them. They're very driven by data and analytics and statistics and real social proof, tangible results, testimonials, reviews, if you have a product, any of those things, right? So that is kind of one grouping of people. The other grouping of people is going to be our more emotional relational buyers. So those are our amiable and expressive buyers. Expressive buyers are those that are very much activated by their emotions. So same thing if we go back to the skincare product example, if you're more talking about you're going to feel so confident and beautiful and all of these things with this skincare product, they don't really care what's included in that skincare product. They don't really care what the ingredients are. They just want that feeling. Same thing with the amiable buyers, except the only difference is they're very much motivated by emotions, relationships, things like that trust. But on top of that, they also take a lot of consideration into how that purchase or that investment is going to impact other people around them. So if they're thinking about their partner, if they're thinking about their family, their kids, their team, any of those things where they're like, okay, how is this purchase going to affect these people? That's also something that they take into consideration. When it comes to creating really effortless sales, the old era of marketing being dead and the new era of marketing really coming into play, a big, big part of that is knowing how to sell to the buyer types that are in your audience. A lot of times people will ask, how do I know the buyer types that are in my audience? Market research is going to be huge. And then observing how your audience responds to the marketing and the content that you put out. Market research, you can pull your audience, you can ask questions of people who are in your audience. You can have conversations with people. I used to have like five minute, 10 minute coffee chats with people where I'd ask them five questions, you know, about what's important to you in a buyer's process or any of those questions that are really going to illuminate what they take into consideration when they make a buying decision. I used to ask people questions in the DMs. There was so much that went into that, but really uncovering and pulling your audience and asking them and engaging with them as to what's important to them when they make a buying decision. Like I said, the other thing you can ask past purchasers, clients, things like that. And that will kind of illuminate the buyer types that are in your audience. You can listen for what they say is important to them. And like we just talked about data, analytics, statistics, all the information. Do they take all that into consideration or is it more about the emotions and the feelings and the relationships? So knowing all of that information, let's talk really quickly about what you can shift and change in each of those phases that attract warm convert in those strategies to really make sure that you're keeping up with the times and terms of marketing and effectively creating sales. So with the attraction piece, you guys, I can't with you sometimes. Some of you are out here being like, I don't understand why I'm not getting new followers. I don't understand why I'm not getting good views on my videos. I don't understand this. I don't understand that. And y'all are putting out the most basic content. And I love you for it. But we need to first of all step up our game. And if you're also not using video content because you would be shocked, the amount of business owners who still haven't even stepped into the video marketing side of things, which by the way, if you're not using video content in your marketing strategies, please understand that for the last two years video marketing has absolutely been king. And it will continue to be I think it creates a really authentic feel in terms of your marketing. People want to see the behind the scenes, the authentic side of your brand or your business. And on top of that, there are emotions and feelings and things that you can convey when you're on video versus written format or with a graphic or any of those things, where people are going to trust you that much faster because they understand your personality, your brand personality, any of those things. So if you're not using video content, if you're not using video in your marketing strategies for the love of God, please make sure that you are incorporating that. And also make sure that you are having fun with your video content as well. So on TikTok, we always recommend that you do one trend per day. And then we also recommend that you create two pieces of either educational, value based, nurturing content on TikTok as well. With the trend based content, because that's a lot of what is going to create visibility for you, with that video content, have fun with it. I just did a video the other day on TikTok, where I literally was laying on the ground. It was an office audio from the show, the office. I was literally laying on the ground with a bottle of wine, just like lip syncing it. And it was hilarious, with sunglasses on. People are not going to sit there and be like, oh my gosh, we don't take Savannah seriously, because she's like laying on the ground with the bottle of wine or any of those things. It's funny. It shows our brand personality. It shows my personality. People like it. There is a likability piece to creating sales. So if you're to brand or business or service-based business or your personal brand, any of those things, people have to like you in order to want to buy from you. At the end of the day, people buy from people, and they want to feel seen and heard. And so if you can showcase your personality, showcase the human aspects to your brand or your business, you create trust so much faster. And it also grabs people's attention that much faster. If you can entertain people, that is something that grabs people's attention so, so quickly. So that's something that I always recommend is using video content, obviously. If you're not using trend-based content on TikTok, that is something that you need to be implementing. On top of that, you need to have a really strong hook. This is something that I see a lot of business owners make mistakes on. The way that content used to work in the old era of marketing was very conversational, right? It was almost like you were writing a blog every single time you posted a piece of content. If you wrote an Instagram post, the intro was typically like, "Hey guys, today I want to talk to you about blah blah blah." That is not going to get people's attention. I love people, but they have the attention span of a fucking fruit fly is what I typically say. And so if you in the first three to five seconds, probably not even that three seconds, have not captured their attention with your hook, with your video content. It's going to be really difficult for you to get them to continue watching your content or reading through your content. Whatever piece that is, whether it be a blog, a video, an Instagram post, an Instagram story, a TikTok video, a podcast, any of those things. If you're not grabbing their attention with a really strong hook, which looks like a statement or a question, a lot of the times it's going to be really, really difficult for you to hold that attention because the whole purpose of that attract worm convert framework is getting people's attention, getting them to notice you or your brand. Then as you're nurturing them and warming them up, you need them like binging your content essentially so that they can go through all of that messaging, all of those things that build trust with them and feel those feelings and process them. And then you have to convert them obviously, but it starts with grabbing and holding their attention. And if you can't accomplish that, you're not going to get them to bend your content and buy from you. So have a really strong hook, get their attention. And then last but not least, it's going to be really, really important for you to do market research and understand what peaks your audience's interest, right? For example, I could name on one hand right now a minimum of five things that get my audience's attention. When we talk about the older of marketing is dead, that is huge for people. Typically, any video I do like that is going to go viral. My results, my journey as a CEO, how young I am as a CEO in terms of creating the success that I have, my audience loves it when I talk about things that are important to them in terms of pop culture references. So a lot of my audience loves sex in the city. They just watched the Barbie movie. That is a huge point of conversation for them right now. So I just posted a TikTok this morning about Barbie, understanding what gets your audience's attention, what is important to them in a buying process is going to be so, so important for your marketing moving forward. Because that way you can post any content that is fun and entertaining, but you also have clarity around what you need to be talking about so it makes the content creation way more fun for you. Because if you don't have clarity around what's going to get their attention, what's going to cause them to trust you to want to buy from you, a lot of times it's going to be really difficult for you to create content because you're going to sit there and be like, oh my god, I have no idea what I should be talking about today. I have no idea. Like, I guess I'm just going to create like this really silly trending audio and like hope something works, right? But when it comes to creating a ton of sales, we don't have room for playing the guessing game, right? And you also as a CEO, as a business owner, if you have a brand or a business, you don't have time to play the guessing game because then it's going to make your content creation process twice as long, right? So having clarity around what peaks your audience is interest, being really in tune with your audience is so important for getting their attention and also holding it, nurturing them, getting them to actually buy from you, right? So let's talk about warming. Warming, like I said, that phase is all about creating brand recognition. They need to know who you, your brand are, your business is, understand what it is that you're selling, what you do, what you stand for, your brand identity, essentially. So if you don't know that about your brand or your business, let's figure it out first because we can't convey what we don't know. The other thing too that I would say is different about the warming phase now than it was a couple of years ago is that you cannot be saying the same shit as everybody else. If I was talking about marketing in the way that everybody else is or it was teaching the same frameworks or strategies or any of those things, people would be like, okay, but why should we listen to Savannah? There's nothing different about what she's saying versus any of her other competitors, right? It doesn't build trust. It doesn't build authority with your audience. So if you're talking about your industry, your product, your service in the same way as your entire competitors are, your entire industry is, it's going to be really difficult for you to build trust, brand recognition, and the authority with your audience. Stop saying the same shit as everybody else. And what that comes down to in terms of feeling creative or feeling really innovative with your marketing, with your content is being in tune with your audience, right? Is knowing what they want to hear about, having conversations with your audience. And then also being able to infuse all of that information through a lens of what is entertaining to them, of what they're talking about right now, of what's pertinent, relevant in their lives, right? That comes down to really knowing your audience. It's important to know what do they need to hear to trust you. And then the other thing too is most brands or businesses do not know how to communicate, how they uniquely solve or meet the needs of their target audience. So for example, let's go back to the skincare product example. If you're selling a skincare product and your target audience is struggling really, really hard with acne, but they're not talking about, oh, I have acne or I want to go on Acutane or any of those things. They're talking about retinels, they're talking about skin cycling, they're talking about snail mucin because of TikTok, and you're not talking about those things, you're not going to connect with your audience. You're not going to build trust with them because you're not going to talk about what's important to them. Same thing with services. For example, as a marketing agency, if I'm sitting there and I'm talking to them about how, oh, yeah, we help you create a ton of sales, that's the same shit everybody else in my industry is saying, right? I'm talking about how we uniquely help them create sales. If you do not know how to communicate to your audience effectively, how you uniquely fill their needs or meet their needs or solve their problems, you're really going to struggle to create trust with your audience. On top of that, please provide some value. I see one of two extremes with most businesses or brands in how they're marketing. They either only provide value or they are only straight up selling to their audience and you have to have a good blend of both because a lot of times, if all you're doing is providing value, they're just going to come back to your platform, to your profiles in order to consume all that free content and they're never going to buy from you because all you're doing is educating them because you're not saying what they need to hear in order to activate them to buy, all you're doing is providing a ton of value and education. On the other extreme, if all you're doing is selling to people, it's going to be really, really difficult for them to trust you because they haven't gotten a lot of value, they haven't been able to hear your expertise or your knowledge in your different industries. Regardless of if you're selling a product or a service, they need to be able to trust you and a lot of that comes back to creating value for them before you go straight up sell to them. I know so many people who have not posted on Instagram or on TikTok in like six months and all of a sudden want to relaunch different things, they want to, you know, start selling out a program or any of those things and right off the bat go into selling onto their stories and TikToks, any of those things and their audience is like, whoa, like it's almost as if you were on a date and they like showed up at dinner and they're like, okay, do you want to go back to my house and you're like, I don't know you, sir, what's happening right now, right? It's like your audience needs to be primed and wind and dine essentially before you're going to go like sell to them basically because they need to see the expertise, the knowledge, the authority, they need to trust you and a lot of that comes from value. So if all you're doing is providing too much value or just selling to your audience, it's always going to be really, really hard to create sales. And then the last thing that I will also say, there's two things. First and foremost is create content that causes your audience to binge your content. And then on top of that is create conversations with your audience. You want to be having them talking back to you, you want them to engage with your content. If all you're seeing is like a couple of people liking your posts every single day, no one is connecting with your content. And if they're not connecting with your content, they're not binging it. If they're not binging it, they're not buying from you, right? So every single day we have people who are responding to our stories on Instagram, who are commenting on our TikToks being like, oh my gosh, this was so good, asking questions, right? If you're not creating engaging content, they either entertains, gets people to talk back to you, gets people to ask questions, any of those things, you're really going to struggle again to create sales. All of that really truly goes back to knowing your audience, which we've already talked about. So you guys don't need to hear more about that. The last thing that I want to be talking about in terms of the new era of marketing is probably the most important, which is that conversion phase, right? So so often I see business owners who do not understand what is important to their audience. They don't understand their buyer types, any of those things. And so they will only talk about this is the product that I'm selling, right? They won't sell them the problem. They won't sell them the desire that that product or service meets. A lot of times, people don't actually want to be sold your product or your service. People don't want to be sold to point the length. We have to sell in order to create sales. How do you do that in a way that doesn't feel like a used car salesman? And it is to sell the problem or the desire that your product or service meets and not actually sell the product or the service itself. So for example, if we were talking about that skincare product, again, going back to the buyer types that are in your audience, if they're, you know, more emotional, creating content that talks about their desires to feel confident, to feel beautiful, to be wrinkle free, to look more youthful, any of those things, right? If we're talking about a service and they're more analytical and assertive, I would be talking about the fact that data showcases and statistics showcase that, you know, there's X amount of users on TikTok, if you're not creating sales, if you're struggling to get your videos in front of the right eyes and you're not on TikTok, you're not going to be creating sales, right? So I'm going to plug the strategy that we are going to sell them or the framework that we're going to sell them that helps them create that visibility consistently so they can create sales consistently. I'm not talking to them about the package that that comes with or the program that that comes with. I'm talking about what they're struggling with right now and what they desire and how our services uniquely meet that. What it comes down to and the old era of marketing is not just straight up selling, the new era of marketing is selling more the problem or the desire in relation to that product or that service and not necessarily the actual product or service. And then last but not least two things. First of all, please anticipate any objections, questions, any of those things that your audience is going to have in relation to your product or your service. Handle those in your content before they're going to make a buyer's decision. If they're going to be binging your content consistently, you want to be anticipating those things. So for example, I know for a fact that a lot of are more analytical buyers who join like our group program. For example, it's going to be one of their first investments that they make into marketing or sales. They're going to have a lot of questions about what's included. They're going to have a lot of questions about timing. They're going to have a lot of concerns around making that investment. So I really need to heavily lean into why it is the right time to focus on marketing and sales. Why any of those things that are important to them, right? So that as they're binging my content, we're almost getting them to subconsciously like check off like, oh, yep, that was a question that I had. Oh, yeah, she's right about that. Oh, I don't have that objection anymore because the fan already answered that, right? If you're able to put all of that into your content, it's going to be so much easier to create like a hell yes sale essentially where people aren't like, ooh, I have questions. They're just like, you know what? I don't have any more questions because you answered all of them in your marketing or you handled all of my objections, add to cart or send me the invoice, right? Last but not least, listen to your audience. A strategy that you consistently implement without analyzing and assessing if it's working or not or listening to your audience to figure out what they're telling you is like futile. There's no point to it at that point because I could be consistently talking about data and statistics and analytics. But if my audience isn't responding or engaging with that content, it's very clear to me that that does not activate them. So I need to understand what does and go back to the drawing board and do more market research and look at the data, right? I would say every three months, you should be looking at your marketing and sales data and be looking at the topics you were talking about, how you were discussing any of those things, the buyer types you were talking to and make sure your sales are going up, make sure your visibility is going up, your engagement is going up. The other thing that I will also say about this is that no response from your audience is absolutely a response. So if you're not getting engagement with your content, if people aren't buying from you, that is a very clear sign that whatever you're saying in your content is not connecting with your audience and you need to go back to the drawing board. So with that being said, you guys, like I said, the old era of marketing isn't very much over. I hope that you got a lot of information from this podcast about how you can shift and change the strategies that you're using, not the frameworks of the principles, but the strategies that you're using in order to stay ahead of the curve, first of all, but then second of all, also be creating way more effortless and consistent sales. And as always, if you guys have any questions about this, make sure you follow us on TikTok, on Instagram. We talk about this all the time. You're welcome to slide into my DMs about this and I will see you next time. Bye, guys.