Social Confoes

Hosted ByDiego Ameerali & Jeanluc van Charante

Social Confoes 016 – Storytelling in Corporate Communications w/ Isaac Turner

On episode 16 of #SocialConfoes: Diego Ameerali and Jean-luc van Charante are joined by Isaac Turner to talk about journalism, digital marketing in the corporate world, the importance of brand storytelling with analytics, and some fun other topics.

You can also connect with Isaac:

Episode Overview

  • 0:00 – Introductions with a conference experience
  • 7:13 – How was the state of Social Media during your Journalism study?
  • 9:55 – Defining corporate communications
  • 14:57 – How important are writing skills?
  • 20:29 – What is a brand voice?
  • 22:26 – Storytelling in corporate communications
  • 28:24 – How would you handle when a company wants to make a 180 on their brand?
  • 32:10 – How relevant is digital marketing?
  • 36:59 – Strategies for solopreneurs
  • 40:24 – How do you get people to buy in and how practical is that?
  • 45:25 – How can organizations inspire their employees to be a brand ambassador?
  • 49:56 – How do you keep up with ever-changing trends in the industry?
  • 54:51 – The impact of Covid?
  • 1:03:49 – What are sought after skills?
  • 1:07:28 – Organic vs paid advertising?
  • 1:09:13 – Closing off

Video Version of the Episode

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Full Transcript

Diego: [00:00:40] Good evening. Good morning. Good afternoon. Wherever you are in the world. Welcome back to a brand-new episode of Social Confoes and we are back with Jean-luc on the right and me your host Diego. And we have a very interesting episode again for you guys today uh, with another international guests, but before we go right into it

Guys welcome. And just some quick announcements all the episodes we are back on track are all live on the website. We’ve updated them with transcripts as well. So for those who want to listen and read can check those out as well. And we already got a shout out from the chat from YouTube, from Saph we missed your Saph. Great to see you on again. And without further ado, let’s get into the episode. Jean-luc

Jean-luc: [00:01:48] I do wanna give you a compliment because I just looked at a website and wow. I mean, everything has been filled in all the episodes are fully up to date. So my compliments to you, man, Diego, it looks, it looks really, really neat.

Diego: [00:02:03] Thanks, man. Thanks

Jean-luc: [00:02:07] a team effort. Yeah, I, I thank you for giving me some credit. Hey so today’s guest is someone very special. He’s all the way from Atlanta. And I actually met him in 2014 in San Diego. So Diego here’s the funny thing about what I remember from, from, from that week. We basically, it wasn’t a week.

I think it was three, three days. It was a conference of three, three or four days. And there was some kind of snowball effect that happened that a lot of people from different parts and different kinds of companies came together. And after the conference, I was actually. I was like, yeah, I’m not sure what I’m going to do.

And then one of the guys from the group was like, Hey, listen we’re going to have something eat. Join us it’s gotta be fun. And that’s actually how the group, how I met the whole group, because I only know a couple of people from the group. And one of them was this young guy who was really dressed nicely because I saw him before during the conference.

And then we got into a talk and he told me a story about how you have to run corporate email marketing for. A group of over a hundred thousand clients. And I was like, wait, that’s like what? 20% of our own population of Suriname. And we got into talk. It was a lot of fun. So we might get into a little bit detail about those years in 2014 in a minute.

But right now I want to introduce the guy who has the name of a professional athletes. He has the looks of a CEO of a fortune 500 company. And especially today, he decided to also wear a cap for us, but in heart he’s really a family man and a very nice guy. So, Hey, let’s introduce Isaac Turner. Welcome.

Isaac: [00:04:00] Are you doing,

Diego: [00:04:01] I say, welcome to Social. Confoes glad to have a year. And. apparently Jean-luc always meets these interesting people on conferences. So from your side, how are, I guess, conferences in general for you when you go to these international events, what do you usually experience being there in the States and meeting new people? What’s that experience generally for you?

Isaac: [00:04:32] Well you know, it’s always a lot of fun. Always great to go to the conferences and gain insights from others and just learn more from other people and what they’re doing and how they’re doing it. And so when I met Jean-luc like you said it was, it was interesting because we had kind of like a random assortment of people from just all over the place and we just all kind of clicked Like basically day one of the conference in San Diego.

And all of us were doing very similar things when it comes to digital marketing and content marketing. And at that time, it was still a kind of a lot of the topics are still kind of fresh. You know, of course there was social media, but social media marketing was just kind of becoming its own thing.

You know, content marketing was basically like a new concept at that time. And so all of us were you know, just trying to learn more and we all came together and yeah, it was, it was great. I love going to the conferences and like I said, just picking up tips and learn what others are doing.

Jean-luc: [00:05:29] So it was really addressed. Just, just to give you an idea, like, so, so Isaac is really, was already in a corporate world and he was wearing these nice suits. And for me, I was the sort of used guy who wasn’t used to the California weather. So I, I don’t know, like for us, when we live in Suriname, we have like always have 30 degrees Celsius weather.

That’s kind of what the weather was like. And on we think in California, it must be nice and sunny. And then we get into this weather where you have to kind of, you still have to have at least one or two layers and I didn’t have anything packed so I kind of felt I did it. Yeah. I didn’t feel threaded or anything by how stylish you were, but I was a bit jealous. Okay. This is, this is how you have to go to conferences. And I was just, you’re like hope in a sports jacket then that, that was it for me.

Isaac: [00:06:22] But I felt like I was, I feel like I was overdressed most of the conference. And then, especially with, with our group, like you said we’ll start caught ourselves with the snowball crew.

I believe it was, it started off as a small group, a light as the conference continues to roll on just more and more people just kind of joined our circles. So that was pretty cool. But yeah, we had a wide assortment of people you know, videographers, photographers, digital marketers, social media, marketers Just all kinds of coming together and sharing ideas and, and what we were doing in this space.

And, and for our group in particular, it was quite a few young people just kind of starting off in our careers. And so I’ve actually been able to, you know, stay in contact with a lot of you guys. And so it’s been really cool. And a lot of people from, from that group were doing some pretty big things now.

So yeah.

Jean-luc: [00:07:13] Yeah. So, so Diego, to give a little bit of context one of the people in the group ended up working for the Tyler Robinson foundation and was named a youth as a top 40, under 40. And she was so she’s really successful in that space. Another one actually is the D Rock like the main videographer for Gary Vaynerchuk.

And its kind of, that was like the coming out party that was like, yeah, I’m going to make a video for Gary Vaynerchuk. And we had like, some of us had no idea who Gary Vaynerchuk was. So he, when he was saying like, I’m going to do this, we’re getting, I actually, his, his partner at the time business partner at the time told us.

And we were like, yeah. And we just didn’t know some, some of us didn’t know any of those of those legends, social media legends at the time. But after that year, we kind of started learning from it. So there were really under a lot of interesting people in that group. Who have done amazing things. And one of you, one of them is of course, Isaac and Isaac, you mentioned something interesting because at the time social media was kind of still in the starting phase.

And I I’m wondering because you studied journalism, so. W at the time when you were studying journalism, was social media already part of the curriculum that people were already putting it, whether already certain classes being taught on social media?

Isaac: [00:08:33] Yeah. And at the time I was in schools, I went to Auburn university study journalism. There was there from 2004, graduated in 2008. And so at that time, really the main social media channel was Twitter. And even in that space you know, the primary goal there as far as journalism was going, was basically to, you know, tweet out breaking news link back to your, your newspaper website. And so at that time, Facebook was still somewhat new cause that broke right around 2004, 2005.

And then, you know, for the first couple of years of Facebook, it was primarily for students. So if you went to university or college, you were able to. So assets Facebook that way before they opened it up to everyone. And so at that point as far as my curriculum went social media was a, a small part of it. And primarily focused on you know, using Twitter as a way to drive traffic back to your, to your article. But outside of that, you know, that, of course there wasn’t, you know, the video components there wasn’t you know, any live video at that time. And so at that point, actually I would probably argue that MySpace was probably still more popular than Facebook bicycles is

Jean-luc: [00:09:46] bigger.

Isaac: [00:09:47] Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah. So from, from a journalistic perspective there, there wasn’t too much, we had done in the space at that time.

Diego: [00:09:55] So, how does one get from, you know, getting your degree in journalism in 2008, 2008 social media, just in its infancy. How does one go from journalism to the corporate world?

But before you answer that, can you define the confines of what we should understand within the co what is corporate communications?

Isaac: [00:10:20] Oh, okay. Yeah. So really depending upon the organization you know, everyone treats it a little differently. When it comes to digital marketing, a lot of the positions in which like position somewhere to that sort of one that I sit in they kind of fall into two categories and some organizations they fall under corporate communications.

And others is more of a market strategy or marketing. You may find the positions there and then sometimes you have a little bit of both. And so from a corporate communication standpoint, I would say that the focus of a digital marketer in that world is more of a branding storytelling trying to build brand affinity for the brand, kind of telling the brand story where if you look at it from strictly like a marketing perspective.

So if you’re in marketing and market strategy there is more about driving sales. And so in that space, you know, it’s about of course, driving people back to the website, you know, trying to make sure that you’re pulling in conversions. Where on, in my role now is a little bit more about just, you know, getting those impressions and reach and making sure that our story is being told.

Diego: [00:11:30] And how did you get into that world in the first place? What it was the bridge from journalism to that world?

Isaac: [00:11:37] Yeah. So when I graduated in 2008 here in the United States now it’s during the economic downturn. And so a lot of newspapers and I primarily state with print journalism. And so and also primarily sports. And so at the time that I graduated, a lot of newspapers were actually laying off reporters. There were a lot of furloughs at the time, and so it was pretty hard to find a position in journalism at that point, especially in print. And then as you know, also at that time, you’d have where a lot of newspapers were going through the transition of going from print to, you know, strictly online.

There was a lot of talk about, you know, Hey, do we, do we keep printing? You know, do we focus more online? There’s a lot of transition there as well. And so when I graduated, I actually ended up going into just retail. And so from my retail positions you know, went into retail management at a couple of different stores.

And from there that led into a position at a local financial institution there. So I actually worked for a credit union just, you know, on the teller line, asking people’s checks, opening bank accounts, these are that nature. And at that time the financial institution I worked for was going through online banking conversion.

And so they needed a lot of content to be developed for their customers in regards to just how to use the new online banking system you know, instructional material and things of that nature. And so they knew that I had a degree in journalism and that I was a writer. And so I got a call from HR one day.

It was like, Hey, we see that you have a degree. Would you like to, you know, kind of move to marketing department and help them out? We have a lot of concept that needs to be written and it needs to be written fast. So, and I was like, yeah, sure. It’s a marketing department. Started developing that content.

And then from there that basically kind of walked me into developing more content for their website. I took over their social media channels. It kind of led those efforts. started running campaigns for them. They’re also email marketing as well. So start developing content for that based off the big online baking conversion.

And so once the online banking conversion was over, it was like, well, you know, you’ve developed all this content, you know, how to use all these assets and tools. And so they kept me on there as a digital marketing coordinator. And at that point it wasn’t too long after that, that I actually went to the conference that we were talking about in San Diego.

And so that was really my first conference regarding digital marketing and social media marketing. And so went there. I was trying to soak up everything, you know, just be a sponge and then also just soaking up just I’ll be content and tips and connections that I made there. And basically kind of self-taught When it came to, you know, email marketing and social media marketing.

Luckily for me at that point, it was, you know, kind of very beginning of you know, that world of that field being specific to those assets. And so it, it just all kind of fell into place. And so I was there at the financial institution was promoted to director of digital marketing there. And then from there moved over to Southern company, which is one of the top energy companies in the United States.

Diego: [00:14:57] So it’s like you’re actually your background in journalism. Got your foot into that door. And specifically, that the writing skill that comes paired with journalism, right. So, if you look at it back then and reflecting back to now, how important or how much weight does a skill such as writing have in this space?

Isaac: [00:15:20] Yes, I would argue that it’s is very important. And what’s interesting is that a lot of journalists have kind of transitioned over into the world of content marketing. Having a strong writing background definitely helps. You know, you have to be able to, to express ideas in a short and concise way, especially for social media.

And then also for those longer form content marketing pieces, it helps to be able to basically develop that yourself. So when you have the ability to, you know, go out and kind of get the story. Then the same way that you would as a reporter in the corporate space, it definitely helps and definitely opened some doors when it comes to content marketing and digital marketing.

Jean-luc: [00:16:04] So I, I just want to put this into context because we’re talking about max credit union. And if I think I remember correct how, how, how big is because we’re talking corporate so what, what kind of size employee wise should we talk about when we talk about such a company?

Isaac: [00:16:21] Yeah, so yeah, it meant squared credit union. It was a, a $1 billion institution and assets. It was probably, I would say probably about 250 to 300 employees in total. They served as central Alabama area. And I would say approximately probably like 200,000 customers or so, and so yeah, so, so stepping in That was definitely a pretty big role as, as far as, you know, as just stepping in and being able to dive into digital marketing at an institution like that, that was larger in size.

Definitely gave me the advantage of being able to use some more advanced tools and kind of have the backing of you know, the, the financial backing in order to grab the tools that we needed utilize different agencies and things of that nature. So I definitely learned a lot being there.

Jean-luc: [00:17:09] Yeah.

So that’s, I mean, that’s, it’s interesting because we also here for my company, for instance, we work together with Agora Pulse and like one of the issues that we had like locally is that at a certain point, of course the prices are in us dollars. And we had a devaluation of our local currency, which meant like we would make a deal with a company.

And then a year later the price would be twice as high in our local currency, which would be like, okay, but we can actually hire somebody. So can we stop using the software? But I think what is interesting is that we have a similar situation here. You’ve experienced it when it was still coming up. Social media was still coming up, but not necessarily that, but also being like a young person in a very big organization where a lot of people have like no knowledge on the subject, like.

They don’t know what a Facebook newsfeed looks like. And even for our most innovative banks locally, most of them have been on, on social media for, for max five years. So what advice would you give to young professionals that come into a position like into a big company? They come into a position where there’s already certain marketing guidelines.

Like often there are complete branding brand guidelines and they’re complete, like offline marketing is kind of set up already in the digital space. Everybody’s like, okay, we’re looking at you and you come up with it. What, what are kind of things that you’ve learned that are important to know when you get into such a position?

Isaac: [00:18:41] so what’s, what’s funny is starting there like you said, it is a big organization. But now looking back and it’s like in comparison to the position I’m in now, where you know, Southern company has a whole service like 9 million customers. And more specifically who I worked for Southern company gas, you know, we’re serving about 4.4 million, I believe it is.

So that is, is you know, looking back it’s almost seems small, but I would say that for anyone entering a, a large organization when it comes to digital marketing and especially if you’re, if you’re kind of starting you know, their efforts I would say first of all, just to set reasonable goals look at what assets and what channels they’re already using, and then focus on creating a strategy that is going to be effective versus, you know, just trying to put out volume a volume of content across so many channels.

I, I feel like a lot of companies Want to be in every single space and that’s not necessary. So you know, every single social media channel that pops up, you know, you have companies like diving to be one of the first there. And the thing is, there’s no point in being there. If you’re not going to have the content that is catered towards that audience and that channel in that group.

And so for someone just starting at a company, I would say really hone in on number one, your brand voice, and what your brand is going to represent and, and have an idea of you know, what type of content you’re going to have how fun the brand may decide to be, because that can also help you determine what channels she needs to be on.

And then start developing content for those channels specifically. And, and, and focus in on whichever channels that you’re going to be using in the social media space.

Diego: [00:20:29] you talked about digital marketing about four on a smaller scale. It’s about driving sales and on a more corporate scale, it’s more about the brand image and how you communicate and the impressions. So what, what you define, how would you define a brand voice in the first place and how does a company at that size develop it?

Isaac: [00:20:56] Yeah. So with your with your branding guidelines just like you have, you know, a certain look you also want to have a certain voice. And so when we’re talking about words, we’re talking about the way in which the company kind of conveys their meds message.

And the words and terms and individually, basically the feeling in which they convey that message. So I’m thinking of just adjectives, like, you know, friendly a lot of companies look to be have that like neighborly voice. And so one of the things with speaking to customers and consumers via social media and your website is that you don’t want to come across as, you know, being too stuffy or too corporate.

You want to kind of speak to people on the level at which, you know, you hold a regular conversation. And so different brands have you know, different voices and, and some brands are a little. More fun. More energetic. Other brands are still friendly, but you know, a little more buttoned up a little more serious. And so if you look at brands like for instance, like, you know, Wendy’s on Twitter is a great example. They’re definitely, you know, whey

they definitely a, you know, on the funds side of the spectrum in when you’re looking at you know, using brand voice and how you’re going to be portrayed. And so developing a brand voice you know, companies pay millions of dollars for agencies to help with that. You’re more tenured, bigger companies kind of already have that established.

Some of your smaller, newer brands, you know, are still developing that. And so I think it’s just something that comes over time. And then with your messaging you know, that voice has kind of developed.

Diego: [00:22:36] Could you talk to us about, cause we talked about brand voice and going down to, I guess the level of your consumer. Cause when, when people hear corporate big millions of people that there’s this big gap and disconnect, and before the call, we talked about a bit about storytelling. Could you, could you tell us a bit more how storytelling for a big company fits into this space and how corporates use storytelling to, I guess, connect with their consumers?

Isaac: [00:23:08] Yeah. Commit to the customer. It’s important. I feel like storytelling is very important. Especially from a brand perspective. And now, especially considering that, you know, people are primarily getting a lot of their branding and advertising from social media and from websites, you know, from video.

That’s definitely an important factor. And so I guess this is where, you know, kind of like that background in journalism comes into play when you can combine both that and marketing since it’s definitely beneficial to the brand. And so being able to tell those micro stories, like focus in on, you know, a particular group of customers or one particular customer, and kind of tell their story it’s, it allows you to connect to the customer.

Of course people feel more connected when, you know, you’re looking at an individual you know, versus, you know, a brand or versus an actress or actor on screen when you’re able to tell those real life real time stories. It, it builds a brand affinity. And then also from, you know philanthropy standpoint, you know, when you’re in the community, you’re doing things being able to capture those stories and tell them definitely helps build brand affinity.

Diego: [00:24:22] I know branding, and there’s no one formula that fits all because it’s very, you know consumer specific. But if you had to break it down just to basic fundamental concept in storytelling, what’s constitutes as a strong story, or what are the ingredients of a strong connecting story from your experience?

Isaac: [00:24:44] Yeah, I would say anything that anything that pulls at the heartstrings is definitely, always great content. So when you’re able to convey a story or tell you know, something that brings out emotions in people helps people connect. To that individual or to that story that that’s definitely the best content.

You know, in my time with some of the videos and stories that I’ve been able to tell over time, those, those are definitely been the most effective in both just impact as well as when you’re looking at the metrics, when you’re looking at, you know, impressions and reach and the type of stories that people share on social media definitely always has an emotional connection.

Outside of that, I would say really humor is another thing that always brings people together. And so you know, anytime that you have content that makes people laugh or brings out a, you know, some type of nostalgia feeling those always go a long way as well. So if you can bring those factors into a story, it’s usually a home run.

Jean-luc: [00:25:47] So, this is kind of interesting before, before I asked my question. So I do wanna do some quick shout outs when says joins in STC, agreed the topic and Stephanie joins in on LinkedIn saying Wendy is be definitely strong branding so, so let’s, let’s say for instance like the style of when you, for example, they kind of roast people online.

That’s kind of their style. We, we get to see in Suriname, we got to see a lot of Dutch companies that have a certain style that they, they respond. They kind of respond in a style that the question is being asked. So the question is like street lingo. They’ll, they’ll respond to it in street lingo, those kinds of things, which yeah.

Oh, really cool. Of course. But then you get to the questions, like we talked about a credit union, we talk about an energy company. Like how do you bring the cool hover? Do you bring the fun to those kinds of companies? I mean like insurance companies, like selling, there are certain things that are just kind of hard to sell online. Like what kind of, what kind of gives the effort for people working in those kinds of companies?

Isaac: [00:26:49] Right. Well first, you know, there has to be that, that appetite to kind of break the mold and do something different and do something a little more adventurous. And so really baby steps, I would say w would be the way to approach that. You know, you don’t want to try to push the envelope too far, and then you also don’t want to step outside of your kind of like existing branding. So it’d be a little crazy, you know, for, you know, you didn’t see the kind of typical day to day. Marketing and posts from a company then out of nowhere, they come with this, you know, crazy social media campaign or commercial or something along those lines.

And so I would say definitely taking baby steps, but for certain industries, like you said you know, your medical industry energy companies things of that nature where the topic is a little more serious. I think you have to find those areas where having a little more fun is, is applicable to the see the situation or the topic that you’re covering.

And so there are opportunities there you know, and there are opportunities to be kind of fun and, and express that you know, more fun side of your brand really depending upon the topic. And so I would say, you know, just, just look for those topics where you can be a little more fun nature. And then, you know, take the baby steps to try some, some new things.

And then once you see the results you know, it’s, it’s really hard to argue with the results. And so if you’re able to, you know, run a campaign, that’s maybe a little more fun in nature and then show the analytics behind it. Then of course you’ll probably have more buy-in when you come with another similar idea.

Jean-luc: [00:28:24] Okay, because I want to do good jump into the analytics part, but also another comment by very good question, Jean-luc thank you for that one, but Jair, but also for everyone watching the live, because that’s also the reason why we do this life is that while we live, we do allow questions. So if you have a question for Isaac, feel free just to drop it in the comments, whether you’re watching on YouTube or LinkedIn or Facebook, Phil, feel free to jump, jump in and ask any question.

I think about digital marketing. I think Isaac has seen it all self says Like Geico sticks, 15 seconds or less could save you 50%. Of course, car insurance. We’re not gonna make it a commercial mode kind of episode, but yeah, Geico does stick. And Stephanie wants to ask what if an organization wants to complete the 180 degree? Make a turn on your brand. How would you handle that? Is that if, if you don’t have a choice, like it’s a top down approach, the top says you just have to jump before one 80. What, what aside from of course, baby steps, but how do you do a baby step on a, on a 180 turn?

Isaac: [00:29:33] Yeah. Well I think first of all, you had to have definitely have buy-in from, from those within the organization. So if leadership is, you know, on board, I think that definitely makes it a lot easier. I think it also depends upon your industry and who your customers are. So if you’re looking at, you know, maybe someone that’s in a retail space, I think that’s a lot easier to accomplish versus, you know, some other industries.

And so in a retail space I would say with that, if you’re looking at doing a total rebrand, then that probably actually makes it easier. Because you’re completely revamping the entire way that the company is presenting itself. However, if you’re just looking at doing a one 80, when it comes to just some of your digital assets, your website, your social media and things of that nature it’s important to kind of hold on to your, your foundational aspects of your company and your role, and maybe look at doing yeah, something that’s a little more innovative and creative just in the digital space. And so yeah, I would say it really depends upon the industry. And it also depends upon the buy-in from, from leadership at the organization. I think if we have, we have the buy-in then it’s a lot easier to kind of do that one 80.

Jean-luc: [00:30:47] I want to know because it wasn’t in my head, but I, now I have to ask the question.

So if you have buy-in for Tik TOK, like Southern company, the Southern company have to take that.

Isaac: [00:30:57] No, we, we actually, we don’t, we know and you know, th under Southern company, there are several you know, industry energy companies under that umbrella, but I do not believe anyone is on TikTok as of yet. And so that’s, that’s a space that you know, we, you may see you may see as move into I do know that there, you know, maybe some things in the works, but I feel like Tik TOK is a, is a unique social media channel is definitely useful in a retail space. But for a certain industries, it’ll just be interesting to see

Jean-luc: [00:31:31] it would do it.

Yeah. What kind of

Isaac: [00:31:33] content? Yeah. Right. I see what type of content is developed for that space and if it’s received by that audience. And so I think that’s, you know, the, the combination that you have to have there when we’re looking at new social media platforms is number one, whose audience how’s it being used, and then is your brand going to be received there or are you just going to be, you know, producing content?

That has really, you know, no, no reason being in there. So I think that’s where a lot of strategy comes in where you just have to kind of know your brand and know what spaces you need to be in it.

Diego: [00:32:10] So I want to bring this into, I guess, a smaller context and in a context of Suriname and with a more serious companies like energy company, like Southern company, it’s more easily cover a large market share. And if you look at it from a perspective of Suriname, the companies that operate in these spaces are usually only two or three of these companies. And sometimes even just one. So if you’re talking about a monopoly or an occupy, I never can pronounce that word, but you know big companies in that space, how relevant is it still to do digital marketing? If you already cover a large portion of the market share with no immediate threat of another company taking over the share yeah, because it will drive more sales based on analytics, I assume, at least.

Isaac: [00:33:10] Right. So for, for, you know, Southern companies specifically like I said, there’s, there’s several different energy companies under that umbrella. And then all have you know, different goals and different goals that they’re trying to reach. And so for instance, for Southern company gas specifically which is the company that I worked for under us, there are four leading distribution companies. So we have Atlanta gas, light set, a new, the gas, Nicor gas, and Virginia natural gas.

And so like, like you said, in those spaces it really depends upon, you know, what goals you’re trying to reach. As far as driving sales is, is interesting in the energy. Industry specifically, because a lot of times the customer or your, you know, your service areas, it’s pretty much already selected for you.

And so at that point, what you’re trying to do is just continue to provide great customer service. And that’s one of the things you could do through social media. You can also inform the customer and that’s a big part of what we do. It’s just informing the customer of you know, different aspects of just energy sector and energy industry.

Safety is a big deal for us. We push a lot of safety messaging to our customers. And so you want to continue just to build that brand affinity. So a lot of the community work that we do is featured on social media as well. And so when it comes to sales more specifically, I think. For energy companies, which are like, what you likely will see is more specific to certain products.

And so of course you know, energy efficiency is a, is a huge deal. And so you’ll likely see the push for like smart thermostats for instance. And then some of these other smart devices that help reduce energy use. And so that’s one of the more specific ways in which you’ll probably see more of a sales pitch or, or digital marketing being used to target customers in order to say, you know, maybe make a specific type of purchase.

Diego: [00:35:12] So if I had to sum that up, it’s basically at that stage, you just want to. Inform and keep your community, your surface area, your consumers up-to-date that, you know, you’re conforming with safety that, you know, they can expect reliability from you guys et cetera. It’s not necessarily about getting more sales at that point anymore.

Isaac: [00:35:33] Right, right. Yeah. That that’s, that’s correct for the most part. Yeah, because you definitely want to drive home that message of, you know, it’s being safe, reliable affordable. But like you said you know, from, from a sales standpoint, you’re not necessarily trying to sell the product as much as you are just trying to keep the customer informed you know, safety messaging and environmental messaging and things of that nature.

Diego: [00:35:57] In that aspect. If you go back to analytics, what would be some key performance indicators that you guys are looking for in those kinds of analytics?

Jean-luc: [00:36:08] Exactly. The question I wanted to ask Diego. Very good one.

Isaac: [00:36:11] Yeah. So there for just brand messaging as a whole you know, those birds, birds, eye view, kind of analytics, such as reach impressions you know, your click through rates, those are always, and that’s, you know, for any campaign those are always important.

More specifically for any type of, you know, specific messaging that you’re pushing of course clicks through for a link. If we have an environmental story that is on our website, that we want to promote things of that nature, that that’s always important. And then. A lot of targeted messaging.

You’re looking at who’s coming in. So you’re looking more at the audience that is, you know, coming through the door for that type of messaging and then able to make adjustments and, and, you know, kind of make tweaks for there.

Jean-luc: [00:36:59] Then I guess something a little bit a different topic, but Jair just wants to know, but what are some successful storytelling strategies for a solopreneur wanting to create a community?

Isaac: [00:37:13] Yeah, so in that case I think, you know, the door is wide open there and the, one of the good things there is that you have the ability to create your own branding. And so it allows you the flexibility to you know, put out content as an individual or, you know, as your, your company, your brand, and you pretty much have leeway to, to do.

With your, around what you want. And so I think is important to for, for one, when it comes to content, I think right now, video content, you know, it’s keen. And so I would definitely suggest you know, pushing video because video not only allows people to see your products and to see you, but it also allows people to get a sense of your personality.

And you know, that’s, that’s important as, you know, a solo entrepreneur. And so when people feel like they have a connection to you or they feel like, you know, you’re, you’re someone that they connect with definitely helps as far as, you know, maybe driving your product or your services home. So.

Diego: [00:38:13] I want to layer that a bit. So from solo solopreneur to working at a relatively big company from a few hundred thousand, and now you’re serving millions of people and I quickly checked like Southern company is like also publicly stock listed. So if you will have to layer those levels, how much does in each level, the branding storytelling and their corporate communication differ in each level?

Isaac: [00:38:50] I think the, the main difference is probably just the amount of flexibility that we have. And then also you know, the buy-in that you have to receive in order to maybe do some, some certain things. So of course, with a smaller company you know, it’s most likely a closer connection to leadership.

And so you’re able to maybe gain some of that buy-in a little bit easier than you would a much larger company. Also there’s probably a little bit more flexibility as far as being able to shift focus and introduce new marketing campaigns and new marketing strategies with a much larger company, of course, you know, more people were involved.

And so a little bit more red tape to go through in order to, to be able to make some of those shifts. Typically, there’s a much larger strategy in play and like you have that macro strategy. And then there’s a lot of micro strategies in order to, to meet those macro goals. And so that also comes into play as well.

So I would say that the smaller, the brand is smaller to the company. Probably the, the more flexibility you have and then in a digital marketing space it you probably can’t, you know, make adjustments a little bit quicker and kind of steer the boat in the way in which would benefits a digital marketing campaign a little bit more in a larger company, I would say the digital marketing focus is a segment of a much larger strategy as a whole. And so I think that would, that would be the main difference.

Diego: [00:40:24] Cool quick quickly for clarification. You’ve talked about buy in a bit and if we hear buy in, should I imagine like buy in from like the corporate overlords that the people on the top, is that what you mean?

Isaac: [00:40:37] To, to a certain degree you know, at a, at a larger company, I would say that there’s typically like I say much larger strategies in place and from a branding standpoint there’s, you know, an overall message that it’s trying to be told. And so everything that you’re doing is geared towards, you know, promoting that message and kind of pushing that narrative forward at a, at a smaller brand that may not necessarily be the case. And so you may have a little bit more flexibility to kind of determined that story and that messaging yourself as the digital marketer.

Jean-luc: [00:41:13] So how practical is that? I think that’s, that’s one of the things, for instance, we’ve worked for a couple of international franchises and it’s always a struggle, like one of the biggest struggles. And I’m talking about five, five years ago in Suriname, was that at a certain point, people in Suriname began complaining.

Towards companies saying like, these people don’t look like us. These are just stock images. Can you please? And then we will burn that with an international brand, like they had a complete stock image site. So it’s basically, it’s like, wow, we don’t have to shoot content because, and then you look at, and you look at the background of those photos and you’re like, yeah, but that looks nothing like the Caribbean, it looks like, I think like Suriname.

So all of a sudden we’re, we’re kind of stuck. So from a practicality standpoint, I think it’s quite interesting. So, so could you give us like a couple of examples or maybe one example of where it kind of really works in your favor because there’s already like this big corporate strategy that makes it a lot easier. And what are some of the things that you’re kind of like, okay, this is kind of static. So you have to find a workaround or find a solution because this is kind of, it’s not very, very practical.

Isaac: [00:42:24] Yeah. So for, you know, very targeted messaging to, to certain audiences, like you said you definitely want to have your, your graphics and your imagery, you know, match the, you know, the customer base in which you’re serving. And so if possible, you know, use a professional photographer and basically build your own library of, of stock images. I know that always goes a long way, especially when developing content for the website. You know, it helps to have a kind of a stockpile of images that are your own that you can always go to.

Jean-luc: [00:43:02] the second question was like, yeah. So how do you deal with like, you have this structure already, and basically you said it because when you have this structure, you also have the budget, so you have the budget to get like a professional photographer in.

So I think that’s also a very, very big advantage was in when you’re in the corporate world, you just have to take the opportunity, which doesn’t lead to the next question. Is it difficult? Do you prefer working like with one agency who kind of does everything thus the scripting, the shoots, the video does the editing of the video creates the micro content, R D in some cases say like, you know, like this person, this company, our agency is really good in micro content. This agency’s really good in a video and. This agency’s really good in storytelling. Let’s get them all three of them together. And, and, and they do it as one. Or do you just say like, no, we prefer working with one specific equal kind of already knows our brand values and those are our brand strategy.

Isaac: [00:44:04] Yeah. I’ve actually I’ve experienced both ways actually. For certain projects you know, in the past, there’s been times when we’ve worked with one agency from start to finish from, you know, the idealization all the way to, you know, what you see as a final product. And then at other times there may be a larger campaign where you’re utilizing different agencies and different individuals just based off, like you said, their strengths.

And so. While you may use one agency to help develop the graphics you know, you may use another agency specifically for the messaging and the drafting of the verbiage that you’re using around those graphics you may use another agency specifically for, for video and for, for animation and things of those of that nature.

And so I’ve seen it both ways. I think that it’s kind of rare to find an agency or our group that is very, very, very strong in, in every aspect of what you need. And so I think with Mo with most or corporations, you’re, you’re seeing them utilize different agencies and different you know, maybe third party vendors and freelancers to, to help. With maybe one campaign, but you’re utilizing a lot of different strengths and a lot of different people in agencies in order to pull off that final campaign.

Diego: [00:45:25] I definitely think that’s a fair point because at that scale, when you have that clear vision of your brand voice, as you said, and the stories you want to tell it should be easy for you to communicate this to the specific agencies too. You know, this is what we want and you have all these assets and we got a comment, a valid point to that of owning your own stock photos, because content is basically king you can. If, if you have a report repository of a lot of content, you can always mix, match, reuse, repurpose it many ways you can even supply it to the agencies for them to create something new out of old content in that sense. But we’ll quickly go through another question from our viewers. Stephanie says internal ambassadors meet external ones. So what are ways organizations can inspire their employees to be a brand ambassador?

Isaac: [00:46:21] Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah. That’s a great question. Definitely as, as a digital marketer, if you have the ability to utilize people across your organization and help highlight those individuals at the end of the day, that just helps Brit build your brand because your brand is, you know, basically what people think and say about you and what people think and say about you.

It’s primarily based on the people who work for the organization. And so you want to be able to utilize those people to basically help, help build your brand’s persona. And one of the easiest ways to do that is to, to use the people that customers interact with and see on a daily basis as the face of your brand.

I think one of the ways that you can build brand ambassadors is encouraging them to of course share your brand’s content. But at the same time, you have to you know, you have to have some guidelines on, on who you want speaking for your company and for your brand. And so just, just keep that in mind, but you know, the ability to share content through their social media channels is always one of the best ways to tell, build ambassadors.

Jean-luc: [00:47:32] Yeah. Especially if you have like thousands of employees, you can be like, so if this pose doesn’t get $5, cheers, then basically not everybody is satisfied with what the post looks like, but it’s always a fun tangent too. I always do that with companies still, like you have 400 employees. Okay. So, so where are, Y are ended at 400 shares, but just fooling around.

But, but you mentioned a customer a couple of times, and I do want to ask, because I mean, there are all these channels, like seeing people can actually call the company to complain or ask questions, they can send emails, they can complain on social. And one of the things that we often talk about is like somebody has a complaint actually calls the company and then they kind of get upset because they don’t get the answer.

And then they send an email to hopefully get the answer from the call that. They didn’t end up the way they wanted it. And then they get kind of upset and then they go to social media and complain like this isn’t working and then if you’re not really structured and organized the person doing the social media says, Oh, I’m really sorry to hear that. Can you send us an email on this email address and, or can you call us on this number? So, I mean, for a bigger organization, would, it has a lot of channels. Like how can you kind of control or structure that in a way that it’s, it’s kind of integrated,

Isaac: [00:48:57] right? So for a lot of large organizations their call center includes a social media team. And so you have a team of customer service representatives who specifically monitor and watch the social channels and answer consumers questions via those channels. And so. That’s one way in which you can ensure that regardless of how the customer is reaching out to your organization, you’re able to cover both sides of that.

I think, again, it’s one of those things where depending upon the industry, you may see some, some differences, but at this point I would say that, you know, you need to definitely have a social media customer service aspect to any company, large or small and have individuals who are able to meet the customer at that place in which they’re reaching out to you and help service them in the best way possible.

Diego: [00:49:56] So we’re talking about meeting the customers halfway and meeting them on the platform that they’re, I guess, present active lead present on. So that brings the question, how, with this rapid development. So you said 2014, it’s not so long ago, seven, seven years. That, you know, you guys started really developing this space and really diving deep into the developments of Facebook YouTube, Instagram, social media. So how do you keep up with the industry and all these ever-changing trends?

Isaac: [00:50:32] that, that’s always a challenge because you know, specifically your, your larger social media channels the way in which they kind of play with your algorithms and things of that nature, like it’s, it’s ever changing. And so in, in a way you just have to, you know, just kind of stay aggressive of the trends and what’s going on. There are some, you know, kind of foundational things that are always going to be true. For instance, you know, video content is always going to reach a lot further than most of your other content.

There’s some of those kinds of foundational things that are going to be true across all different social media channels. But I would say one of the ways in which like I personally try to stay updated is really through the community of digital marketers. There’s a lot of online resources that you can use. There’s always people, you know, providing tips and giving updates and saying, Hey, when I do this, you know, I I’ve discovered this, has anyone else seen this happen? And being able to, you know, kind of lean on each other. Within that community, it definitely helps. And then now most of your social media channels are providing a lot more you know, marketing, I guess, instructional information, if you will. And so going directly to the platform and staying abreast of what changes they’re making and what they’re doing definitely helps as well.

Jean-luc: [00:51:54] I’d want to quickly jump into that because I also saw that you’re a Google certified and that you’re in a Facebook circle. So can you tell us a little bit about, about that?

Isaac: [00:52:04] yeah, so that’s one of the great things about you know, the digital marketing space is that honestly, like you can really educate yourself. I know that, you know, of course there are courses that you can say, you know, you can go to school for it and all of those things, but there’s really a lot of free resources out there that allow you to get a lot of the education on your own.

And so. For instance, Facebook circle is one of those examples where, I mean, primarily it’s just a group of people. You have, you have developers there, you have marketers there. There’s a lot of cities who have like basically chapters of the circle within their city. Most of them are pretty much free to join.

A lot of them are based on, you know, Facebook groups and things of that nature. And so just entering those communities and getting to know people definitely helps go a long way. And you’re also able to learn more gathered tips from others. You know, it helps to know what people are doing in, in different spaces and different industries.

And so, like I said, there’s, there’s a large community there and a lot of people are very helpful. And so. That’s one of the best ways to stay abreast of what’s changing what’s happening and what’s going on.

Diego: [00:53:16] So be engaged in basically active communities within your space to keep up to date. Yeah, I see that in any aspect of industry.

Isaac: [00:53:27] Yeah. Sorry, go ahead. And then there’s also you know, most, most companies, especially like Facebook and Google are great examples of, you know, they actually kind of go out of their way in order to, to help educate digital marketers. For instance, you know, Facebook they provide a lot of online courses that you can say they provide online certifications as well within you know, Facebook business.

There are different resources that you can reach out to that will help assess what you’re doing, whether your company is big or small and kind of give you tips there. A lot of them were hosting, you know, before COVID of course we’re hosting free events where you can go and learn more. I know one of the events that I attended was boosts with Facebook and that was a completely free event hosted by Facebook where you can go and speak directly to you know, marketing experts there.

And, and kind of learn more about what was taking place that year and some of the changes and innovations that they were looking at. And so there’s, there’s a lot of free material, a lot of a lot of free resources out there that you can use. And because it’s, you know, ever changing it almost has to be free because it changes so often. It’s so quick that, you know, if we were all to go to school, then like technically get degrees for this. Like we would have to be in school constantly because you know, the, the world is ever changing. So.

Diego: [00:54:51] Quick tangent there, you mentioned COVID before COVID you had these events. So in your space in particular, how has COVID impacted your job? Has it like, you know, benefited or made it easier because now everything’s everyone is moving more online because in-person, isn’t safe anymore. What’s your general experience in that?

Isaac: [00:55:10] I think that it’s definitely I think it’s definitely highlighted how important the digital space is and how important digital marketing is. And just having a strong digital infrastructure is for a lot of companies. You know, of course, companies that were already you know, geared towards meeting their customers in a digital space. You know, the impact of Kobe was probably relatively smaller for them versus customer. I mean, versus organizations that were still, probably based on, you know, brick and mortar stores, if you will And so I think that COVID-19 definitely, he helped to, I guess, put a focus on how important it is to meet customers in the digital space and being able to use the tools available to, you know, to reach those customers and advertise to them. Yeah, it’s definitely highlighted through the pandemic.

Jean-luc: [00:56:03] Before we go on about the dynamic a little bit further, I think actually we also had a Facebook boost. event in Suriname Diego. I’m not sure if you were here or if you remember it, but I think it was also an, they gave free training to locals to also give training on Facebook, but they were also only allowed to do it for free.

It was something like that.

Diego: [00:56:28] Yeah. But I have no recollection of it

Jean-luc: [00:56:33] actually. There’s somebody in our team that actually went to the training session and became a trainer as well. And actually, a couple of our clients actually also did marketing a marketing the bar, some of our clients that actually also did the training as well. But that’s interesting. So for, for COVID, especially yeah, I think, I think we’re kind of lucky. In, in our space, in the digital marketing space with coffee, because it’s actually providing a solution, but, but not everything, especially in Suriname, not everything is already properly connected. So also with the current situation in the U S how, how big of an improvement has it been to actually also do your payments online and especially for the groups that are not used to doing online payments, have you guys seen a move more towards that, that they become better aware on how they can actually do everything digital as well? Are you still finding hiccups with, with especially the older groups or people that are not that familiar with the digital space?

Isaac: [00:57:44] Yeah, I would say that we definitely provided more educational pieces. About how to you know, kind of us through digital channels of course you know, going paperless is one of the big pushes that we have for our customers. And, you know, from an efficiency standpoint, and also from an environmental standpoint, going paperless is, is great. We do have the ability for customers to pay their bills online. And so we provided additional instruction you know, lots of email marketing and social media marketing around how to do it, how to be informed about your bill different alerts that you could set up and things of that nature.

I think you’ll always have those who prefer to pay through more traditional means. But as time goes on and as these processes become, you know, quicker, faster, and easier to use I think you’ll definitely see, you know, more adoption. And then of course, you know, for, for most of the general, for most of the population now everything is done online.

And so there’s just a need to ensure that whatever tools that you’re providing your customers are kind of meeting that standard and meeting that expectation that they’re seeing you know, through other industries and other digital means. And so I just don’t want to be the, the industry that falls behind there.

Diego: [00:59:01] to move into the, I guess final phase stage of this conversation we’d like to hit you with some like quick fire your quick thoughts, first thoughts on what you think on what’s happening in the space. So any particular trends or hot topic that comes to mind that we can expect coming in the near future that will be big?

Isaac: [00:59:21] Yeah, I think that there’s I think there’s quite a few different aspects of digital marketing that are going to be you know, of kind of interesting moving forward. I think one of the ones that, that comes to mind right away is the programmatic advertisements that we’re seeing. They’ve always existed, but now they’re becoming a lot more a lot more targeted and the ability to target people is becoming pretty elite.

Now. And the reasoning behind that is that you’re not using like artificial intelligence to help cater as specifically for the individual. And so that’s something that you’re seeing larger companies do now you know, through social media and through some of that programming advertising that you’re seeing on websites.

And so that’s, that’s definitely interesting. Also I would say for social media geo targeting, you know, and geo-fencing again, that’s something that has been around for a while, but when you combine that with the programming advertising this taking place, like it gets, it gets pretty scary at that point because you’re now not only able to, you know, target people within, you know, maybe say a couple, couple mouths of, let’s say you own a restaurant.

You may be able to target people within a couple miles of your restaurant. So that’s, I’m driving by, you know, I’m getting this ad for your restaurant, right? And then with programming advertising, and the ability to, you know, kind of use my cookies and things of that nature, not only are you able to say, okay, I’s is driving by my restaurant, let me feed him an ad.

But I also know that last time he ordered from a see ordered this specific meal. So I’m going to make sure that’s included in advertisement as well as now you have this very personalized ad specific to me. And so that’s one thing says you know, pretty interesting that I see coming, especially in the retail space.

And so there’s that there’s committed reality. You’re starting to see advertisers use that and it’s already in place in some ways, but that’s the ability to kind of see the product or see the service without it actually being there. And so I guess one example is, you know, being able to go to a website and basically take a picture of your room and, you know, being able to select this piece of furniture and place it in your room

Diego: [01:01:51] glasses.

Isaac: [01:01:53] Right. And so yeah, there’s some, some interesting trends.

Jean-luc: [01:01:58] Just, just, just to, to fully grasp what you just mentioned, just, just give us an example of how that would work.

Isaac: [01:02:07] So with, with augmented reality I know right now you’re seeing it like for instance, let’s say home improvement. I have this room, I want to paint the room a different color.

With augmented reality, you now have certain services and there are you know, agencies that’s looking at, you know, how, how to do this, but you can take a picture of your room taking video of your room, using your smartphone. And then through the website, through this service, you’re able to basically paint your wall and see, you know, how it would actually look before actually purchasing the paint. There are augmented reality you know, where you think, you know, use, use different sources to see how a piece of furniture may look in your room. I’m trying to think of some other examples.

Diego: [01:02:53] I’ve actually seen one on a few months ago on Amazon, where they had this custom shirt tailor made, where you just take a photo of yourself.

And put in some dimensions

Jean-luc: [01:03:07] for sure.

Diego: [01:03:08] Yeah. And

Jean-luc: [01:03:12] perfect.

Isaac: [01:03:13] Yeah,

Diego: [01:03:16] yeah,

Isaac: [01:03:20] yeah. Being able to, you know, try on a pair of glasses you know, there’s makeup companies now where you know, you can try on lipstick without actually trying on the lipstick. You’re just, you know, shooting the selfie video of yourself and toggling through the different options. And so yeah, that, that’s something that’s I think there’s going to become a little more mainstream and I think that different industries are looking at ways to utilize that. Because of course, you know, that’s, that’s a, a great selling feature when I can, you know, basically try the product before purchasing it.

Diego: [01:03:49] Before I go to my last question, we’ve got some quick follow ups from the chat here on specifically what you are talking about. What are communication trends that you are guys are keeping on this year in particular? And her second question is what skills are sought after for following the strengths, I guess, skills in particular. Is it programming? Is it writing? Is it you name it? Augmented reality.

Isaac: [01:04:15] Okay. Yeah, so for this year I think that voice search is something that you’re going to see a lot of companies invest more time and effort into because people are now, you know, using search engines via voice. So. That’s something that I think you’ll see a lot more time and energy put into. A lot of companies are going to invest more in search engine optimization from a voice standpoint. You’re also seeing visual search become a little more popular now. And that is, you know, where basically, you know, you can take a picture of an item drop it into Google and then, you know, use that as a search.

You know, I see a new car driving by I’m like, Oh wow. You know, it looks great. You know, I may be able to snap a picture of someone’s car in a, in the parking lot and drop that into Google and use that to do my search. And so I think visual search is something that we’re going to see come a little more, become a little more popular probably in the next year or so as well

Diego: [01:05:13] skills that would be in demand.

Isaac: [01:05:16] Yeah. I would S I would honestly say, I don’t know if you would necessarily refer to them as skills, but I think there are some, some traits that are definitely useful. Number one, being flexible flexibility is, is big. And I would say you know, patience, it’s huge because things are ever changing.

And also in order to run successful digital marketing campaigns and ads, you have to be able to kind of tweak things as they go, you know, w with more traditional marketing, you’re able to put up a billboard and just hope for the best, where with the digital marketing, you know, you put an ad out there, but then you’re also ha you also have the ability to kind of tweak that ad and who is targeting you’re able to do AB testing.

And so there are some additional I guess things that you can do in order to make that ad more effective. And so. Yeah, flexibility, patience. I would say again, having a strong writing background definitely helps. And yeah. Yeah. I, I think there’s probably more emotional traits that you’ll find useful.

Jean-luc: [01:06:22] That’s interesting. Yeah.

Diego: [01:06:23] Before I hand it over to you Jean-luc because you mentioned writing there at the end, so I guess my final question to you is if you had to break down writing in a practical sense do you have a way, are simple steps for someone to become a better writer or to write a simple piece?

Isaac: [01:06:43] Yeah. As always, I would say, you know, practice makes perfect. So you know, the more that you can the more topics and things that you could find to write about definitely helps ability your strength. In the beginning you know, I would say start off, especially if you’re a digital marketer for a smaller company or a smaller organization. Again, do you want to produce content?

So one of the great ways to do that is, you know, maybe develop a blog for that company. Give maybe started advice, articles that feature some of the products and services that would be useful to the customers. So there there’s different ways like that, where you can just start to develop this content write more and, and, you know, as you do it I think the, the better you become at it.

Jean-luc: [01:07:28] That’s a great advice. So I want to know, because we spoke a lot about ads. Do you still believe in organic reach and how would you say your balance between organic versus paid how do you feel about the battle between the two.

Isaac: [01:07:46] I think that beyond is I feel like organic reaches a thing of the past. I it’s very difficult to, to create content that is going to just kind of catch fire on his, on his own outside of, you know, like those viral type of miracles, I guess you could say.

But you know, generally speaking, if you’re, if you’re putting out just kind of general brand messaging yeah, our organic reaches is little to nothing these days. And so you have to, you have to pay to play now. And so I would always suggest that even if it just putting, you know, a couple of dollars behind the posts or behind an ad is always the best to put a little bit of money behind it.

And then what that’s going to do is, is help drive people back to your page. And to your other content. And then at that point you know, that’s where you may see, you know, more of an organic reach. But it’s coming from the fact that you’re paying. So you have to pay first place. Right? And so I wouldn’t necessarily say, you know, pay for everything, but these strategic in what you’re paying for and some of your stronger, constant put money behind it, because it’s going to drive people back to your website, that’s your social channels. And then once they’re there, some of those posts that you made that were strictly meant for, you know, organic reach that’s when you’ll start to catch those eyes.

Jean-luc: [01:09:13] Yeah, that’s good advice. I think I remember Nick had Australia when they came out with like their new commercials, they would do, they would just advertise it for like the first eight hours. And I went, it went viral. They kind of pulled the ad and I think my most successful, my successful posts, my most successful post on Facebook was kind of similar that at a certain point, the post was going so viral that the ad didn’t get the opportunity to run because organically the shares were going faster than yet.

So there, there is some, but especially for corporate like you said, for corporate or for companies to go viral with organic, like on a daily basis, it’s, it’s, it’s incredibly hard. And then I come to my final question, which is worse censorship on social media, by the platform or cancel culture.

Isaac: [01:10:10] wow. That’s, that’s a, that’s a tough way. That’s a tough one. I can see arguments for both sides to be honest. I think that censorship is, is it’s touchy. It’s a touchy, it’s a touchy topic. I do think that there is somewhat of a responsibility for these platforms to you know, hold individuals accountable for the type of content that they’re putting out there.

And so if there’s content being played out that you know, can cause harm to others you know, that’s threatening violence and things of that nature. I do think that there is somewhat of a responsibility for the platform to do its best, to keep that type of content. You know, I’ll off the platform.

But then, you know, there’s also the aspect of, like you said, council culture. And I think with, with quote-unquote council culture when you’re talking about individuals, you know, social media is kind of like this, this free enterprise where, you know, you can make or break yourself basically. And so I, I don’t know. I, I think it’s tough because everyone has an audience. And if you do or say something that, you know, six people away from your audience I don’t know, you know, are you being counseled or are you canceling yourself? I guess loop question. So yeah, I, I think overall,

Jean-luc: [01:11:42] so cancel culture. You kind of can He cannot find it where a censorship.

Well, basically you can also find censorship and I been assessed in the comments. It’s a really difficult one, but maybe we can take one away. So for everybody watching do tell us in the comments, what, what do you think is worse is cancel culture worse or is censorship on social media, worse. Do let us know in the comments.

Hey Isaac, you’ve, you’ve been a fantastic guest. We’ve kept you here at 20 minutes longer than we originally planned. And that’s kind of the norm now, Diego. So we might have to reconsider our scheduling yeah, the Diego. Where can we listen to the, to the audio version? Where can we view these recordings back?

For those who are joining in for the first time.

Diego: [01:12:30] Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Again, Isaac, thank you for joining us and sharing your thoughts on some difficult conversations. We keep trying to keep it social as well, but as you guys know, this was Social Confoes. We are live every Tuesday at 9:00 PM. Surinamese time.

That’s 8:00 PM Eastern standard time and process episodes will be released on the following Saturday on the website, then all podcasting platforms. So if you’ve got friends, family who you think will get a take out of this, share that with them. They’re on confoes.com it’s we’re on Apple podcast, Spotify.

So we got Spotify and Suriname now. So that’s a great platform to listen up. And with that being said let us know what you thought in the comments. We appreciate all feedback, and we will see you next week on Social Confoes.

Isaac: [01:13:20] I appreciate it.

Jean-luc: [01:13:22] Thanks a lot for being here as well. See you guys next week.