Social Media Marketing with Jason Yormark

george grombacher 0:00
Come on Bob Leffler. This is George G. And the time is right, welcome. Today’s guest is doing a powerful Jason your mark. Jason, are you ready to do this?

Unknown Speaker 0:18
I am. Thank you for having me

george grombacher 0:19
excited to have you on Jason is an agency owner of socialist sticks. He’s an author, a podcaster, a public speaker on all things marketing, social media and entrepreneurship. His newest book is anti agency a realistic path to a $1 million business. Jason tell us a little bit personal life some more about your work and why you do what you do.

Unknown Speaker 0:41
Yeah, thank you for having me. Um, so you know, I’ve been a marketer all my life kind of a path that I fell into, kind of juggle between jobs quite a bit. But really the took things off, when I kind of headed out to Seattle and work for Microsoft, that was really kind of the bridge to everything that I did spend a good six or seven years there. Doing search, marketing, social media. And that’s where my path really then carved out was around social back in 2006, or seven. And I got an early that social for Office for Mac, Microsoft advertising parlayed that into some agency gigs, over the next 10 years running social media teams. And but I was always, I always had that entrepreneurial spirit in me, you know, I always felt like a square peg in a round hole with the jobs just never felt right. But for me, my path to entrepreneurship took a little bit longer. You know, it wasn’t until my mid 40s, that I figured it out and launched socialist sticks, the social media agency that I own and run, and it’s been, it’s been incredible, you know, it’s, it’s been the right path. It’s just felt, right? Everything’s worked out really well, to get to your point on the book, been able to kind of grow it into a million dollar plus business. And then felt the need to tell that story. Because I did it differently. I was just, I just felt like a regular guy that, you know, figured some things out and did some things a little bit differently. And I just felt this incredible freedom that I wanted others to experience. And I knew that there’s other people out there that probably felt the same way, about not feeling like being in a nine to five type environment. felt right. But maybe we’re a little fearful of taking that leap. And that’s really what the books about is just how to kind of bridge that gap and create that freedom for yourself. So my agency have an incredible team, that pretty much runs itself. So my real passion right now is, is getting this book out there and helping others and inspiring others to find their freedom through an entrepreneurial path. I love it. Yeah.

george grombacher 2:55
When I think about the Internet and Internet marketing and social media, I think complexity, I think confusing. What do you think?

Unknown Speaker 3:07
Yeah, as it pertains to driving real results? Yeah, there’s, you know, I think part of the challenges in being a marketer is, there’s a lot of pretenders out there, it’s not difficult to achieve vanity metrics, likes followers, those sorts of things. I mean, a lot of younger, a lot of the younger generations have grown up with this, and, you know, achieve, you know, getting people to like you or follow you is not a difficult thing. So there’s a low barrier to that sort of thing. So what happens is, you get a ton of people entering the marketing realm, if you will, attracting opportunities, through this promise of, oh, we’re gonna grow your social media, we’re gonna grow it and grow it. And then perhaps they do, but then six months in or so, a customer or client will be asking themselves, Well, why does this matter? Like, how does this? Why does this matter to my business, and then that’s where the rubber meets the road, because it’s really about real results, customers, leads sales. achieving social media success that relates to those sorts of metrics isn’t easy. It takes quite a bit of experience, to be able to do that sort of thing. And a certain percentage of agencies and professionals can do that. And that’s where the complexity lies. Because it is pretty sophisticated. It’s not a very easy thing to do. There’s a lot of moving parts around telling great stories and navigating paid media campaigns and running influencer campaigns. It’s just there’s some complexity to it. So not everybody can do that. And the ones that can are the ones that are thriving.

george grombacher 4:55
Yeah, it certainly makes sense. That’s it’s interesting. I was just having to come conversation with somebody who is a virtual CFO, they were talking about how there’s a value metric of revenue. But what’s really important is the actual profit, you know, and that’s what you’re talking about, right? Yes. Like, clicks are cool follows are cool. But are you making any money? Is that actually resulting in something that’s moving the needle for you? And all too often? It’s not?

Unknown Speaker 5:23
Yeah, for sure. We just rolled out a new tagline that we feel likes don’t pay the bills. So we’re, we’re pretty big on leading with that. And, you know, we have clients that actually, you know, are looking to build a brand, sometimes you’ll get like, a beverage for like a beverage client that sells through retail. So you know, selling online is not their ultimate goal, they need to build a community, they need to build awareness. So in those cases, obviously, you know, social media metrics do play a bigger part, and how they measure success. But you know, the majority of the businesses that we work with need to be able to look at what they’re investing in social media, and be able to translate that to how’s that impacting the business financially?

george grombacher 6:04
Is it knowable? Or how many businesses that are in existence that are actively trying to succeed through social media marketing?

Unknown Speaker 6:15
Um, I mean, I don’t know that there’s, I mean, most of them are, I mean, it’s, you know, it’s interesting, because a lot of people don’t, even business owners or decision makers, I would say, more often than not have a negative opinion about social media, you know, and so to some extent, justifiably so, I think we live in a world where there’s definitely a lot of negative results that have come from the the growth of social media, and people, you know, being, making it a lot easier to, you know, share opinions, or be destructive, and those sorts of things, and just sort of, they’re gonna, you know, anytime you have an open environment like that, those things are gonna happen. But I would always tell clients is, don’t let your personal opinion of social media dictate your decisions around whether you leverage it for your business, because the truth of the matter is, billions and billions of people are using it for extended periods of time. Those are where the eyeballs are. And regardless of whether you like it or not, not having your business, leveraging those channels is a mistake, because that’s where people are spending their time. And so it doesn’t matter what you do doesn’t matter. If you sell widgets, it doesn’t matter if your service base doesn’t matter if you’re a nonprofit, whatever it is that you do, there are people out in the world that you’re trying to get in front of that are that are on these channels. And a great example I use is like sometimes we’ll have like a b2b client, they’ll be like, Well, my customers aren’t going on Facebook to look for what I do. And I’ll often say, Well, no, they’re not going there to look for you. But I can guarantee you that person that you’re trying to reach is sitting on their couch watching TV with their second screen, casually scrolling through Facebook. And if you’re doing things right, and you’re running strategic campaigns, that are retargeting people that went to your website, that person that scrolling is gonna see your content, they’re gonna come across an ad, and they were on your website, and then they’re gonna recognize you. And they’re like, Oh, that’s right. I was on that website. The other day, I was thinking about these guys. It’s another touch point, right? And it’s those, that’s the aggregate of those touch points that ultimately lead to that person, eventually doing the thing that you want them to do, which is pick up the phone or send in a form request or send an email. So it’s that casual browsing. So that that’s where the magic really happens for a lot of complicated or complex businesses that may be, you know, aren’t the sexiest brands in the world, that still can leverage those channels in a way that actually move the needle for them. That makes

george grombacher 8:41
a lot of sense. And, you know, social media is not inherently good. Nor is it bad. It just kind of is. So don’t let your preconceived notions of it. Yeah, yeah,

Unknown Speaker 8:52
it’s a tool. I mean, the good and the bad lies and the person you know, I would say socially, we haven’t social media isn’t new. We’ve always been social. We’ve always shared stories we’ve always communicated. It’s the technology and the means with which how we do it, is what changes so. So yeah, it’s it’s, you know, it’s a valuable tool, if used correctly.

george grombacher 9:14
So how should I? Or how do you coach counsel clients to set expectations or think about? Alright, great. Here’s the engagement. This is this is how we’re going to move forward. This is the results, we’re going to try and get kind of a

Unknown Speaker 9:28
thing. Yeah, I mean, ultimately, the first questions you always asked, you know, how do you define success? What success look like to you imagine if you were to hire us or anybody for that matter? Six months down the road, thinking to yourself is the best decision I’ve made, what would need to have had happened for you to feel that way. And so really, it comes from that how do you define success? Well, we want to drive X amount of leads, Oh, you want to increase our revenue by X amount, whatever that thing is, then you work backwards. Sometimes they’ll have unrealistic expectations. They’ll say I you know, I want a million of these things, but my budgets at that wasn’t last month? Well, that’s not gonna happen, right? So we say no more than we say yes. And if they have wildly unrealistic expectations, then that’s not going to end well. But in many cases, you know, we’re, we get to the right place in terms of mapping resources, to realistic expectations. And then we always say, you know, it’s better to be great at less than average at everything, you know, if you’ve got, you know, X amount of resources, you know, doesn’t make sense to try to spread that out across too many channels with too many things, let’s focus on an on one or two channels that make more sense for you, based on who you’re is that you’re trying to target, and then build off of that. And then just being very clear about who it is that they’re trying to target, you know, who’s who’s your target audience, you know, who’s who’s that low hanging fruit? You know, a lot of times business will say, well, we want to sell to everybody, well, of course, everybody would love that. But who’s the real, you know, knock it out of the park, they’re gonna love this thing, you know, we really need to zero in on who that is. Because that’s going to help us determine how we tell those stories, how we target things, and whatnot. And then, and then ultimately, another big thing, and that really has nothing to do with your marketing is, you know, is your is your product or service, you know, interesting, dynamic, different, if it’s just a me too product, then, you know, we’re not, you know, we’re not going to be able to do that much with that, you know, great marketing doesn’t fix crappy products or services, you know, you got to have a story, you’ve got to be doing something unique or different, you got to be doing something that people want or need. So we’ll walk away from opportunities, if it’s just another thing, you know, somebody just launched launches another thing that’s the same as everything else. Or if they say, oh, what makes you different? Or we have better prices? No, that’s that’s not a differentiator, oh, we have great service. Now, everybody says that, you got to have something that we can work with. So it’s usually those sorts of things that really lead to a successful campaign, I always say, if you got a great product or service, people want it or need it. You’re good people. And you have realistic expectations. Success is a matter of when not if

george grombacher 12:16
that makes sense. So as as the landscape continues to evolve, and algorithms change, and new platforms come online, how, how hard is it to stay on top of everything from from your end?

Unknown Speaker 12:34
For us, I mean, it’s I mean, it’s a challenge, but that’s the job, right? You know, is to stay in front of those sorts of things, it’s the value better a client or a customer should expect to have when working with an agency or a consultant, that that’s what they’re paying for is for them to stay ahead of the curve and to come to them with unique ideas or strategies, before they blow up. You know, you don’t see the the rise of a channel is pretty rare. That doesn’t happen too often really, where the the changes happen are within the channels themselves, you know, the technologies that they roll out, or the changes that they make a perfect example is iOS 14 update that came out about a year or so ago, that threw everything for loop, because now it made it much more difficult to target people through social media. You know, there’s arguments on both ends of the spectrum about whether that was a good or a bad thing. I come from the school of thought of I, you know, look, we’re always going to be advertised to whether you like it or not, the fact of the matter is, you don’t pay to use Facebook, you don’t pay to use Instagram. And I think people would prefer to be that way. Well, they gotta make money somehow. And that’s through advertising. Would you rather have that advertising targeted to you? Would you rather be delivered ads that speak to you and the things that you like, and are interested in? Or would you rather that all be just generic general stuff that is completely random? I’d prefer to have stuff that speaks to me and I bought things because of that I’ve been introduced to things that I didn’t know existed. So I like it. Now, some people will argue, well, you know, it’s my privacy, and I don’t like them knowing these things. And I’m like, I’m not gonna, you know, if that’s the way you feel everybody’s entitled to their opinion, I just have the mindset of, you’re going to be targeted. I mean, you’re gonna have to do a lot to not, you know, have your information out there in some capacity. I’m okay with it. Because of I’d rather be targeted things that speak to me, so. So those are the things that kind of change, and we got to stay up, I thought was a good thing, because it made agencies even have to work harder, which created more of a separation between the pretenders and the real marketers that really know what they’re doing. So it was a welcome change to us because it helped separate us even further, because we had the smarts and the experience to be able to overcome that and do things to be able to still do those things. So that’s part of the job to stay ahead of the curve and make sure that the team is always self educating.

george grombacher 14:58
How do I know if it If I’m a business owner, and I’m evaluating or interviewing companies, obviously, they should come and talk to you. What are some questions that they should be asking to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff?

Unknown Speaker 15:12
Yeah. Well, I mean, certainly, you know, who have you worked with, you have clear case studies or results that you can share about work that you’ve done, how long you’ve been doing what you’ve been doing? You know, one, you know, and you need to be able to kind of, so, you know, if you’re, so clutch is a great tool, to kind of navigate agencies across all different types of service based offerings. They actually, often, their gate for reviews is a little bit thicker, if you will, you they call and they interview. So it’s a little bit harder to game the system there. So that’s a great way to kind of manage reputation, in terms of, you know, whether an agency’s, you know, got a good history of doing great work. Part of it, too, is just, you know, it’s really about, do they walk the talk, right, I always think it’s, like, if you’re a social media agency, like, what are they doing with their own stuff? Right, you know, that’s a perfect, you know, reflection of, you know, what they can do for you, often, you know, looking for those sorts of things. Do they have really great content, like if they made a commitment to putting out great, you know, blog posts, or a podcast or video content? Like, can you kind of get more insight into them. That’s why I love podcasts, because I think you can really get some depth into what makes that agency or that professional tick, you know, anybody could kind of when you look at a website, I mean, that’s just window dressing, you know, to really get the meat on the bone. It’s like, you can listen to a podcast, or read their blog posts or watch videos. And that’s a really great way to kind of get a sense of how do these people operate? How do they think, how do they communicate? I think if you add those things up together, most people’s instincts can lead them to a good decision about who they work with.

george grombacher 17:15
Yeah, that makes sense. And it is always, it seems very reasonable to me that if I was to engage with the social media agency, I would want to look and see how that social media agency was engaging with social media.

Unknown Speaker 17:28
Sure. And you’d be shocked at how many don’t you know, I think it’s a differentiator for us. So I, you know, I think, you know, a lot of agencies just they choose, it’s not easy. It doesn’t mean when you’re really busy, the first thing to like, forget about or is your own stuff, and I’ve just really tried to foster a culture of No, we’re a client, we’re always gonna treat ourselves that way. It can not be. And it’s been, it’s been hard to get to that place. But we’re finally there. And I think it makes a huge difference for us.

george grombacher 17:57
Yeah, I like it. Well, Jason, people are ready for that difference making tip that you have.

Unknown Speaker 18:03
Yeah. Well, I’m going to just piggyback on that last question. Long story short, this, this came to me from being at a trade show a couple months ago, first one I was at since COVID. There was another agency there. And they were I knew of them. And they just they’re the kind of the really fake and they just say anything that they need to say to get a tenant. So it’s frustrating, right? And I had this epiphany, about, you know, reputation. And so long story short, if you are a if you own a business, or you’re looking to hire anybody service based, the best thing you can do to really know the true nature and culture of a business, go to Glassdoor, look up that company and Glassdoor and see what the people that have worked there. say about it. Right? Because that is going to give you a real true indication of what that company is like, you know, you’re getting insight from people that have been within those walls. And then when you because you can gain Google reviews and all these other places, you can gain that system all day every day. Glassdoor is a little bit different, right, you know, so you know, it’s really an the flip side. If you’re an agency or a business, assuming that you’ve got a great culture and you treat your people, well make sure your Glassdoor profile is locked in, it can be a tremendous tool to helping you win business. If you do that we do that I do that I naturally care about my people. I take care of them. We have an impeccable track record our Google or I’m sorry, our Glassdoor review reflects that. So use that like you want to know really know what we’re all about Google Glass Door and then you know what they’ll do, they’ll go look at our competitors and then they’re gonna see a significant difference. A tremendous way that most people either on the buying side aren’t doing or the selling side are doing. That can be a really a big game changer in assessing who you hire, and then also winning new bids. snus, so I definitely take a look at that, whether you’re on either side of the spectrum.

george grombacher 20:05
Well, I think that is great stuff that definitely gets come up. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I haven’t thought about glass door for a couple of years. But why not? Not the best way to great see inside. So Jason, thank you so much for coming on. Where can people learn more about you? How can they engage? Where can they get a copy of anti agency or realistic path to a $1 million business?

Unknown Speaker 20:27
Sure, you can find us our names easy to find, you just type that in, you’ll find us but socialist x.com I also have a personal website, Jason, your market.com where I go into a little bit more about entrepreneurship and how the path to that million dollar business books available in both places so you can find me at either one

george grombacher 20:43
of it. Well, if you enjoyed as much as I did, show Jason your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciates good ideas go to socialist sticks.com SOCIALI s t ics.com. Go to Jason your mark.com Jason j s when ye o r ma rk.com and pick up a copy of anti agency and if you’re looking for conversation or interested in social media management, check out what they have to offer. Thanks. Good, Jason. Thanks for having me. And until next time, keep fighting the good fight. We’re all in this together.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai