I love that question because I come from a theater and a film background too, and my husband is still in film. He's actually recording a movie which is only going to be shown on an app. And I believe they're filming it horizontally, but it's going to be shown vertically too. And if we think back to I think it was the Emmys, Netflix aired live the Emmys, and that wasn't the only thing that they've been airing live, but the only thing that I really noticed and picked up on.
And we're seeing other streaming platforms do that now. So in some ways I feel like we're going back to television with the ads too. And maybe, maybe not as obnoxious or annoying, but I feel like we're going back to that. It's just a different channel and I think that's good. And welcome to a new episode of A Digital Coffee Marketing Brew and I'm your host, Brett Dyser. And as always, if you could subscribe to this podcast and leave a five star review, it really does help with the rankings.
Let me know how I am doing. But this week we're going to be talking about digital marketing. Yes, the all encompassing thing that we all try to do our best jobs at. But it's always changing. We just recently heard about Google's new AI and ChatGPT's new model as well, so should be interesting. But I have Rebecca with me and she is a dynamic professional with experience in both digital marketing and operations.
As a VP of Operations at FMO Media, she thrives on coaching her team, cultivating client relationships, devising successful strategies and developing effective systems. Firm believer in empowering others and her goal is to foster stronger leaders, cohesive teams and well rounded individuals. But welcome to the show, Rebecca. Thank you so much Brett. I'm so happy to be here and it's my pleasure. And the first question is all my guest is, are you a coffee or tea drinker? All right, so I'm prepped.
I'm actually a coffee drinker but I have my tea with me today because it's after 3:00 and I'm really trying to cut down on the caffeine. I actually tried to go cold turkey this week and it was not a good idea. So I'm actually drinking a little bit more caffeine than I probably should, but coffee is my go to. But I do love a nice cup of tea. Yeah, I did that once way before I was into coffee. There's more soda and I did that once and I got headaches for a week. It was pretty bad.
Yeah, it's not a good idea to cut that cold turkey at all. I had the same sort of experience. But you know what? It's not really bad for me. It's just keeping me up later at night and I'm a night owl anyway. So let's maybe find an easier way into a healthier, caffeinated lifestyle. Yes, I would probably recommend like cutting it one cup each day. That would probably ease you off more than just completely just done. Yeah. And I really can't give it up completely because I love it so much.
I think I got that from my grandmother. She was actually crazy. She would drink a whole pot of coffee a day, if not two. I do not recommend that to anyone. Yeah, that's quite a bit even my height was like six cups and that probably was a pot, but I was done at 6. Yeah, it's a lot for sure. Anyways, I gave a brief summary of your expertise. Can you give our listeners a little bit more about what you do?
Yeah. So I am the VP of Operations at FMO and three of my main responsibilities, even though I wear very many hats, is one, developing and managing our operations for primarily the marketing production team. So it still aligns with my background. And then two, it comes down to how are we supporting the team as a whole with leadership and development coaching.
And then three, I still am involved in marketing strategies for some of our premium clients and helping to structure those and put those together. So I get to encompass all of my passions and the joy I have in both marketing, keeping things organized and then also helping develop the individuals and our teams as a whole. Got you. What is the biggest trends going on right now in digital marketing?
Is it the all encompassing AI or the AI apocalypse or however else someone would actually phrase it in their hyperbolic terms? Definitely AI. And I've been listening to a couple of your episodes over the last couple of days and it does seem to be on everybody's mind from an overall operations point of view. From my perspective to web content creation, it's certainly been on our minds really ever since ChatGPT. Not that we weren't using it to some degree, but it's not been at this level before.
We would consider Grammarly, for example, a light AI program that we had been using, but the understanding and idea of using generative AI in our systems, our processes, our procedures and to help inspire our content is really big for us. And I always like to talk about it from the understanding that we should trust but verify what we're getting from AI and that it really. You can't rely on it to be creative and to be the decision maker.
You input something to get an output, and your input has to be as good as the output that you expect. So for our team, it was a lot of training on how can we use AI in the best way possible for us, because for everybody's going to be a little bit different.
How do we make sure that we still stay creative and use our human minds to generate what we want to get out of the program and use it to be a little bit more efficient in some of the work that might be tedious or robotic to us and doesn't take away from our critical thinking or our creativity. So we're really intentional with how we use it and we like to try new things.
We want to make sure that there's a purpose and a reason why we're trying a new program, something like midjourney, to develop some images and illustrations for maybe our creative team. When it comes to voiceovers and creating some AI voice work, we'll look at 11 labs. We like to be really intentional with how we use it, and we certainly don't want to trust it fully. We want to make sure we're verifying the information we get out of it too.
So that's been our general approach to AI, but it's definitely on everybody's minds. And I know some of our clients have expressed some very understandable concerns in using AI too, because we want to be mindful of the data that we're giving and any personal data. So we're very cautious of what we're putting into chat. For example, I was actually testing out the new model the other day and I haven't noticed a huge difference.
I don't know if you have Brett and the output that you're getting from it, but I have noticed that a lot of what we are putting into chat, it still needs the human touch, the editing, the management of that content. So I'm curious to see where it goes from here, but something we're certainly thinking about from an innovative point of view, but also an ethical point of view. And how do we maintain a standard of systems using AI? The other thing is on everybody's minds is TikTok, right?
What's going to happen with TikTok? I just heard one of our team members who does a lot of our social media research was sharing with us that TikTok came out with TikTok notes as backup in case they are forced out of the United States, I don't really foresee, and this is just my best guess. I don't foresee TikTok going away, especially if they do have a backup plan.
But I think it's a good indicator of why we should be found online, everywhere, or at least on the platforms that you're able to manage, right, so that you're giving your audience a chance to find you on the platforms that they're using. Because I think sometimes we forget that it's not. And if you build it, they will come. You really have to do the work to reach your audience. So having multiple spaces and a presence across multiple social media channels is going to be key.
So I would say anyone who's looking at TikTok as a maybe a temporary thing, don't write it off fully just yet. I think we all thought that might happen with Twitter X whatever we're calling it now. But I would remind everybody, caution everybody, that it's good to have a wider presence, especially if you're generating that awareness.
And then the other thing, at least on my mind and our team's mind at fmo, we're all thinking about Instagram and what the changes that are going into the algorithms right now are going to have as an effect for our clients who are primarily professional services, smaller businesses to mid size. How is that going to affect them if they're newer on the platform, if they're a little bit more seasoned? So those are our three big topics.
And then I would say overall, from an operations point of view and from an agency operations point of view, we're always considering how do we scale. How you scale a service where you have people promoting and working and following through on deliverables that do take that human element. And we certainly don't want to remove humans altogether.
But how are we able to scale using the great technology like AI, finding smart and efficient ways of using TikTok, Instagram, all the platforms to really help our clients go further, with a really strong team at the core. Gotcha. I haven't tested out ChatGPT for what was it? O I guess that what whatever the newest model is actually called. It's like camera names that digital DSLRs give the companies give their camera names. They're just weird names that never really make any sense.
I haven't tested out yet, but Cast Magic, the one I use for all my written stuff for podcasting, has given me or is going. Is upgraded me to the newest one. So I'll probably check it out this week and see it. But I've done four. Four. Just not the new one. That's really clever. I would be interested to hear how that goes.
I haven't used it enough to see a huge noticeable difference, but I'm also the kind of person that I I love using chat to help organize thoughts and to extrapolate bullet points from longer paragraphs. It's really good for some of the formulas that you need for an Excel spreadsheet, but I don't like to rely on it too much for my own writing because I believe, and I know I'm not the only one to say this, that you learn how to think best through writing.
And so when you remove that as an experience for yourself and as a task for yourself, I think you almost aren't setting yourself up for a successful thought process in the work that you're doing. And so that's why I'm maybe a little bit more cautious in how I use it too. And that might be why I haven't seen a huge difference yet. But time will tell. It could be different because I'm a one man shop.
Writing a whole slew of different things isn't the most best time spent for me because I have to also edit video, edit audio, make sure I get all the correct aspect ratios for the video, making sure that the audio is the best quality I can make it, and then moving on and trying to figure out how do I sit down and write all those different types of collateral which makes it not very good. Like I will go through it, but I do have to rely on it. And that's my next question.
What about the one man marketing shows? Because they got a whole bunch of stuff to do. So I get that we shouldn't really rely on AI, but it's hard not to when you're so busy with 50 other things that you got to do. I agree. And that's where I think it comes down to the input there for yourself too. And if you are a one man, one woman show, you know yourself very well, I would hope, right?
So you're able to spend that time crafting the prompts and you know, when the output doesn't align with who you are, what you do, what you're trying to say about yourself too. So I think it's very beneficial in that sense. Absolutely. The pitfall I think I see from a company or an agency point of view is that you put in information about an industry or generalization about your clients and you're going to get out generalization.
And because you're a person removed from that person that you're representing from a marketing point of view, then it can make it a little bit more difficult. So I absolutely agree with you on that point of if it's you and your work, you have more control and how you're manipulating the outcome. But being really careful and cautious that you're not allowing the program to think for you for another person is primarily how I like to think about it. Agreed. I put like basic things.
I'll write a description about the podcast. It's nothing that nobody can't like figure out on their own. Like, I get it, like proprietary things probably shouldn't put on AI. Like things that are supposed to be secret probably shouldn't be putting on AI because it's again, like search, it's open to everybody and anybody can steal anything. No, it's not even stealing if you're putting it out there for free. That's fair.
Yeah, I know we've all heard about the data breaches and I think you, I think it's a good cautionary tale to remember that anything you do put out on the Internet is going to be found. So you have to be cautious either way. And that's always been a little bit of my rule of thumb with social media is if you pause before you're posting or have any kind of doubt about should I say this? Probably you shouldn't post it. So I think the same thing goes for AI too.
You're unsure if you should really put it into an open source system. Probably shouldn't do that then. Agreed. And so what is the state for like media in digital marketing? Because like you said, we have TikTok that may or may not, may or may not be here. We have X slash Twitter, I think a few weeks ago announced that they're going to be doing their own smart TV app for video. And if you're a premium user on X, you can upload full length videos. Not just snippets, but full length.
So where is this all going? And then we also have blog posts or articles on X now too, through the premium thing. I have premium, so I know all this stuff. We also have job postings through X. So X is trying to do more things. It's almost bridging the gap between Facebook and LinkedIn, but using Twitter as its backbone in a little bit of a ways. So where is this all going?
Should businesses somewhat focus on X but understand that it's X at the same time, should they cautiously do stuff on TikTok knowing it may or may not be here? For the foreseeable future. Like, where is all the media going and how can marketers, like, figure out the best way forward? That's a great question. I think there are a couple of different ways to approach it too. First, where do I think it's going?
Well, I love that question because I come from a theater and a film background too, and my husband is still in film. He's actually recording a movie which is only going to be shown on an app. And I believe they're filming it horizontally, but it's going to be shown vertically too. And if we think back to, I think it was the Emmys, Netflix aired live the Emmys. And that wasn't the only thing that they've been airing live, but the only thing that I really noticed and picked up on.
And we're seeing other streaming platforms do that now. Right. So in some ways I feel like we're going back to television with the ads too. And maybe not as obnoxious or annoying, but I feel like we're going back to that. It's just a different channel and a different mode of receiving it. And that's how I see it overall. I would also say from a content perspective, this is one of the things that my team and I were talking about.
I want to say six months ago we were prepping our predictions for 2024 and we were already seeing that people are consuming the content, the video that they're watching, like television. I've been saying this to clients for a long time now. I don't scroll on TV anymore. I intentionally choose what I'm going to stream. But I do scroll on my phone. We all probably do.
Maybe some of us are less addicted than others, but it's intended to be addicting because it's intended to keep us on each of those platforms. And we all have our preferences for those platforms too. So we're consuming episodic, bite sized content and we're consuming a lot of it.
And so I also think that aligns with the understanding that our attention span hasn't really shortened, but I think our patience for long form, even though I see some of it coming back, has shortened and we're more used to spending longer hours consuming shorter form content now because of what social media has given us. So that's the overall trend. And then how does that apply for a business owner or any sort of individual solopreneur? I would say a couple of things there.
I'm still of the mindset and I've felt this way for a long time. You really shouldn't be on more platforms that you can handle and manage consistently. Because I've seen more people fail, including myself, at posting content consistently across all the platforms that we're on. And I would love to be able to say that I'm the best marketer of myself, but I'm not because I don't have the patience for it after the end of the day is done.
And so I think about other business owners who maybe they don't have the team, the talent, the additional resources to have an agency or have someone in house posting for them. So if you're just starting off, you're doing that for yourself, then pick two, three platforms at most, and pick the platforms where you think and can do a little bit of research on where your audience is.
Because that goes back to the understanding that if you build it, it doesn't mean that they're going to flock to you automatically. Right. So you want to set yourself up for success and be on those platforms where people can search and find you easily. And so with that in mind, TikTok might be a valuable platform for you if your audience is there.
But you have to do a little bit of that legwork as a business, as a entrepreneur, as a solopreneur to make sure that it aligns with your overarching marketing strategy and your objectives. So there's a little bit of that thought, the strategic thinking first, and that's why it does depend.
But knowing that and knowing that you can also post your content across all of those platforms, I don't think that if you're in a time crunch, you necessarily have to change every single post for each additional platform. I think it's a great practice and certainly important to keep in mind that people are consuming content on platforms differently. But if you have a great video, you can post it to TikTok, you can post it to Instagram, it can auto post to your Facebook and stories.
And so there's a lot of different ways you can streamline the distribution of your content. But if you feel like you're in a time crunch and you're really not sure which platforms you should be on, pick those two to three that your audience primarily are consuming content on those people you're trying to reach. And then figure out how much content can I actually create? And this is where I love to refer back to Gary Vee and his understanding of document don't create. Right.
And I think we all have an understanding of that. We're all semi practiced in it. If we've been on social Media for ourselves. It's just as easy for your business and it doesn't have to be more complicated than that. But we can get into a little bit of a perfectionist mindset. Think about it as progress and practice making progress with your content. Choose those two to three platforms.
Know what your pain point, your audience's pain point is that you're you have a solution for and focus your content around the audience and serving the audience that you're trying to reach, not yourself. That's something I always like to remember. The team too. I like to tell them we're creating content for our clients audience, not necessarily our clients. So if you're a business owner, solopreneur, entrepreneur, who are you trying to reach? Make the content for them and also.
Know that you're not actually going to be good at it in the beginning, you're actually probably going to be pretty terrible. Yeah, it might suck, might suck for a bit too. But you know what, I think there's production quality. Production quality is great. I think there's also value, which is quality too, right.
And so if you think of it from an understanding of you might not have the greatest equipment, if you practice with the lesser equipment, you'll get that experience, then you'll understand the best equipment that you actually do need. So you're not going out buying a whole bunch of expensive stuff. You'll also start to get more data. The more you post, the more content you put out there, the more data you're going to get. That tells you does this resonate with my audience or not?
And sometimes we have to have those failures to know where we can align ourselves for success and also to know. People will forgive lesser quality video but they will never forgive terrible audio. That is true too. And actually that makes me think about my film days because I spent, oh, I don't know how many months we spent preparing, but there was a lot of time preparing and my husband and I produced, I directed, he acted in a short film and it was shot beautifully.
I love the story, the acting was great and I know I'm biased, but the acting was great. And we got the final version and the audio was just not good good. And we had to do a lot of work to repair it. And that's a sort of non marketing related story there. But it does apply in anything that you're putting out for yourself is if the audio is crummy, then people are going to just disengage like that because they're not going to give you the second chance.
And There's a lot of great different equipment out there, a lot of good best practices, but something to keep in mind, I think audio and you can always adjust your lighting too so that people can see you and you have a nice, even clear picture of yourself. Because I have seen a lot of bad lighting and very dark images. So I think lighting would be second on my list there too. True. If we're just talking about just. And this is good for small businesses because they will never know this.
But yeah, it is sound quality, it also is room acoustics and it also is lighting. Those are the three I would say most important things because you can actually mimic a poor quality video to make it look good. But to fix audio is so much harder. It's getting a little easier, but it's hard to make your video look brighter and your face look brighter. Looks inauthentic even with color grading on DaVinci Resolve. I know I can only go so far pushing that light on.
So for those out there, yes, do your best to figure out the lighting, the audio first and then everything else will be a lot easier and smoother in the process. Yeah, it'll definitely fall into place. One of the things too. At fmo we film primarily on iPhones. We get the latest iPhone. It's just designated for filming for our videographers who have additional equipment and they'll certainly bring it if they need it to film. But iPhones are amazing. Just the quality you can get 4k if you need it.
Most of the time you don't really need it for social media, but it's an option and we found it to be tremendously helpful in being mobile and versatile and dynamic with our clients because you can incorporate that movement, which can be a little bit more challenging with heavier, bulkier equipment too. I like to recommend people not overthink it. Don't, don't overthink your content document as Gary V says, and have fun with it too.
Because I think sometimes we forget social media is meant to be social. And you can have fun and experiment and there's always post production too. So even though editing can be a journey, I've been there myself. You can still have fun with it and fix anything in post. Pretty much anything in post. Almost anything in post.
And I would recommend there are a lot of good Android phones, the Samsungs and the Google Pixels you can use for the Android side of shooting as well because they usually rank above if they release later than the newest iPhones or just about the same as the iPhone. That's true I don't want to discount them. I'm more of an Apple gal. But that is a great point. We've got a lot of great technology out there. It's so easy to make content.
And I think, Brett, I think sometimes that's what can be a roadblock for folks is the understanding that we have so many resources and tools that we never had before. And it can feel really overwhelming not knowing where to turn. Which is why I think your podcast is a great opportunity for people to hear what is important. What are people focusing on right now?
Because I can certainly see in our clients who are business owners, they don't have the time to do the research that we're doing or experience best practices or the tools and tech that we have. Yes, I have a lot of expensive tech, but that's because I figured out everything don't go my route because my route is expensive. Go. If you want to find a really good wireless lavalier mic, there's a ton of them out there right now. They've really come out.
DJI Road and Hollyland are the top three ones that I would look at. If you're looking just for a decent mic on the go shooting. But we're getting way too in the weeds with tech and gear. Do you see, like, for example, like, there's inflation right now and everybody's feeling the squeeze on everything. So how does a business like keep. Keep their clients happy, even marketing wise?
Like, how do you keep clients happy and not like totally go over the budget or even totally go over what they can afford too? Because a lot of times right now, like, you may not think it's that expensive. Or for example, I'm in California and it's super duper expensive to live here. So I have to always up prices quite a bit. Not because I want to, just because I have to. How do you balance that? I got to get paid and I got to get paid a reasonable rate and not like super duper expensive.
So how do you deal with that with like clients going, I don't know, we're lean on our like budget right here. Can you help us out? Like, how do you express that or market yourself maybe with FMO or anything like that? How do you market yourself when everybody's feeling the pinch? Yeah, we all are. And our, our clients are feeling that pinch just as much as we can see it and can experience it too. Couple things there as well.
So whenever there is some sort of economic downturn, people usually cut their marketing budget. Right? That's usually the first thing to go, I might have a preference, but I think it's the last thing that should go because you still need to be top of mind to build awareness. You still need to remind people why you exist and the value that you can offer as a business. So that's been key for us at FMOs. How can we help businesses drive their value?
And the value we offer is that it is very efficient, whether it's a budget or time point of view. You might not have the budget for an in house marketing strategist, but if you work with an agency, you get the full benefit of a team. You get the benefit of quality content, someone managing your social media for you.
When you don't have the budget to hire anyone in house, you don't have the time because you have to go out, pound the pavement and work 10 times harder to generate those sales or keep your clients happy. So I think there's a huge benefit there still in the value of saving time, saving money and the stress of trying to keep up. Like we were just saying, with tools, tech, best practices, we can do that for you.
And while I would love all of our clients to collaborate on the daily with us, you can also feel relieved because your marketing will continue whether you check in with us every day or not. So that's how we communicate that value to our clients. I would also add number two, that it really comes down to what the client's needs are.
And I think that's important for everyone who's in some kind of sales or marketing to understand is that it's really not about you, it's about the value and the solution you provide for your prospect or client's pain point. What are their challenges, what do they need and how can you help relieve that and keep it simple for them too? What are the 1, 2, 3 steps that you take as a company to help guide someone from a challenging point to a solution? So that's how we see it.
That's how I see it, certainly from that marketing point of view. And then for our clients, one of the things that I would always recommend is consider the experience. We think about that from an agency perspective as well. But shifting to what are our clients feeling? They're in the service industry as well.
How are you creating an experience for your customers, your clients, so that they want to come back to you, that they feel that value, those quick wins in the beginning of their experience working with you? Because I think, Brett, the service industry is one of the hardest industries to market because people cannot necessarily see a tangible product and they want to know that they're going to get quality from your service.
And it can be really challenging to market that and to have a robot to market that and to not only generates awareness, but help journey to a conversion all the way at the end of that marketing funnel. That takes time and it takes a lot of effort.
But if you give yourself that framework and that structure and you understand it and you understand the experience from the time someone hears about you to working with you, and then further to becoming a loyal referee to other clients, that's a whole life cycle for that client. So keeping that in mind, I think is incredibly important too.
And then like we discussed the new models for AI, Google has announced Gemini 1.5, which now has a new one called AI Dub, which dubs a lot of your stuff through their search and brings down a lot of the actual ranking of the links. So are we going to see a huge pivot with that within search? Because I have a feeling that Google's going to try their best now to have all their AI stuff keep you on Google search as long as they can, because ads matter and that and all that stuff.
So are we going to see, are we going to see a sh. A huge shift in pivot all because of AI, all because Google's trying to chase Chat GPT, because ChatGPT just released or announced their search for Google as well. Are we going to see a pivot in SEO to be more AI based? And what tools are we going to use? Because I don't even know what tools we're going to use for that now. I was talking with an SEO expert not too long ago about AI and just how everything works.
And they were being extremely cautious because there are so many nuances. And I think the biggest takeaway I got from that conversation that I absolutely agree with is that it's always ever evolving and changing. But their point of view, and I can certainly see it, and I defer to the specialists when it comes to SEO because it is so complex, but their sort of understanding of it was SEO is not really going away, it's just changing.
And I've seen that in how we use hashtags, for example, because hashtags used to be that mode of for us to discover and find. And my sort of theory is that they were really a way to train and to track how we categorize content. And then now they're still important to a degree, but they don't have the same kind of draw and connection to that searchability. And they don't need to, because our content can be searched far more complexly and detailed, if you will, than it ever has before.
What is going to happen with Google? I think any platform is going to try and keep us on the platform for as long as possible. And I'm seeing Facebook, for example, Meta. They're rolling out a new plan for businesses to be able to pay a monthly subscription. And Instagram actually came out a couple months ago and said, oh, you should be boosting your content, boosting your best content on our platform.
So I think a lot of these platforms, as they evolve, are going to do everything they can to keep us right there with them, and that's where you're going to get the reward. If you stay with them, then hopefully, ideally they would reward us for it. And I think that's where we're seeing some of the backlash and the frustration, especially with Instagram.
If you go on threads and you check out Adam Mosseri, you see a lot of content creators pushing back on some of the decisions and having very interesting conversations with each other, rightfully, probably. I think there's a lot of frustration with how AI and algorithms have evolved to where we are now.
But the other thing to keep in mind is a lot of the platforms are saturated and so we're all vying for that attention and we're vying for attention on a place where the platform wants everybody to be at the same time too. So definitely more challenging. I do think we are headed into some interesting changes with SEO. I recently have been looking at our backlinks important on websites.
I'm not a web SEO expert, but when you're working in digital marketing and you are that sort of generalist and you work with other specialists, I do think it's important. This is where I coach my mentees too. I think it's important to have a good understanding of what the function is, what it does, and how it can affect other parts of your strategy as well too.
So you don't have to know all the cogwheels and all the internal mechanics, but you should have a good broad understanding and then understand how everything integrates together. Because when one thing changes, it can shift and pivot something else in your strategy. Yeah, I talked to an SEO expert several weeks ago. Or actually the newest episode that I just did is about Scione. Did actually say that backlinks are still important for now.
Obviously it's always changing and backlinks can be really important right now and then in a few years it's not going to be so Important. But for now they are still pretty important. We have the official word. That's good to hear because I've been, we've been backlinking, so that's good to know. Yeah, you're doing it right.
Even moving on to another old school like email marketing or newsletters, should businesses focus on their own or should they be using LinkedIn's as well and maybe like merging the two? Because LinkedIn, as long as you have, I think it's like eight followers or subscribers or whatever monkey or that they're using right now. You can do the newsletter. Should you be using that maybe to like eventually move traffic to your actual personal newsletter or your business newsletter.
Because newsletters, email newsletters are still very important. They're still big business. Yeah, be. Yeah. Email marketing is one of the things that I really started with that and graphic design early on and that was when we were coding emails still there was still constant contact. Drag and drop was becoming a newer thing. But I definitely think email marketing is still important.
I see that it still works and the fact that you get to keep your contacts that's owned and I think that's incredibly important because if TikTok were to shut down, you don't get to keep those followers. Right. And so you do want a website. You want an email list that you can reach people directly and nobody can take that away from you. That said LinkedIn the same vein, right. You can't keep those subscribers. You hope that they would come back to you hope that they would visit your website.
I think it's still 150 subscribers that you or page followers that you have to have before you can actually send out a newsletter. But I'm glad you asked about that because for our clients who are in the professional services, having LinkedIn pages doesn't always move the needle forward for them unless they're active on it as well. Because I still see, I spend a lot of my time More so on LinkedIn than other platforms.
I see a lot of content creators, entrepreneurs, businesses communicating through their key executives, through, through their marketing managers and coordinators, through their. Anyone who they themselves are asking to be a voice or anyone who wants to personally brand themselves too. So I know that's not the extent of it, but that said, people are looking to connect with people, right?
And so in a space like LinkedIn, I think it's important that you're engaging with your LinkedIn and knowing that in the service industry as well, we actually started a lot of our clients who had email and wanted to do more with their email, but didn't actually have their own email list. First start LinkedIn articles to help drive more traffic to their website, to help generate broader awareness.
Because I think you get a little bit of a double opportunity to build that awareness through the articles, and then you can still reach people directly in their inbox. Just remember that those contacts aren't actually your contacts. So you do need to generate that email list. You do need to make sure that it's organized in the CRM. You'd be surprised how many clients do not have any kind of CRM or keeping their list organized.
I've worked with probably at least like 5 CRMs over the past decade, and I know firsthand that it is a chore to keep your data clean. But I strongly encourage everybody to have some sort of system. Even if you're just starting in Google sheets, have some system for organizing your contacts because that's gold and you don't want to lose those. Should they be doing like spring cleaning every once in a while too? Because maybe one doesn't open anymore. Maybe the email is dead.
There are things that happen. Yeah. So there are a couple of tools out there. We have used a couple like Neverbounce for our email list. We had an email list, for example, I think it was three years old. It was definitely time to go through it and make sure that we were cleaning it up because we were pulling it from another email platform. So we wanted to make sure before we archived anyone or emailed anyone we didn't ruin our sender reputation. So clean your list.
There are plenty of other platforms out there that will help you do that too. But I've personally used Neverbounce and I think it's pretty easy. I'm not an affiliate or anything like that, but do a little bit of Googling and you can find a platform that'll do the cleanup as easily as possible for yourself. I will say the sooner you start with your data cleaning, the easier it is. I had a really bad experience once we were moving.
This was a long time ago, but we were a theater company moving 20,000 contacts from one database to another. And that was a chore I never want to relive again. So keep your data clean from the beginning, but if you haven't, start now and start using some of those tools that'll help trick your email contacts for sure. And what are you foreseeing the rest of 2024 into 2025 for digital marketing? Are you seeing a more push into just more video and creating that type of content?
Do you still see blogging being somewhat important even though it's highly saturated? Like what is coming down the pipeline that you see? So logging specifically, I think it's still a great opportunity to generate content from long form. And so any type of podcast vlog, any keynote address, literally, take garyvee's model, his upside down pyramid of your long form content can become your short bite sized pieces of content can become your static quote content.
And he's given away that knowledge for free. I've seen plenty of other people talk about repurposing content in other ways too. I don't think static content is dead. I think it needs to be purposeful and you need to consider, why am I posting this? Because I think sometimes maybe it's easy to fall into the robotic rut of just posting for posting sake.
And yes, you need volume, but I think we still need to put some thought and intentionality into the static as well as the video content that we're posting. Because you can post video content that also does poorly because there wasn't any intention or value behind it. So think about the intention. I, I think we're going to still see a lot of trend towards personalization in content too.
Yes, AI is great for creating content, but platforms are putting restrictions on AI content or at least asking you to note which elements of AI are manipulating an image. So I think we should certainly use the cool technology and AI tools that we've got out there. But remember, again, it's social media, people want to connect with other people.
And so while there's a time and a place, maybe for some of the faceless marketing as it's called, maybe it's great variety and filler content on your feed. I know that it can be hard, especially for business owners to put their face out there sometimes, but especially if you're in the service industry, don't be afraid and be shy of the camera because people are looking to connect with you. I think we're also still going to see more of that episodic content. I really do.
I think we're already in it, but people are using their phones, they're using technology and platforms for streaming bite size episodic entertainment. And I think we're just going to see more of that. And it's exciting because we have the ability not just as consumers to enjoy more content, but as creators. We've got an opportunity to put content out there in the world, which is usually a gatekeep industry if you think about it.
And that's not even me saying It Ryan Holiday, I think said this on a podcast once, if any industry has a gatekeeper, then it's not a meritocracy. And there are some wonderful, talented individuals who might be kept out of the entertainment industry because they haven't been discovered or didn't know the right people. Now we have our phones, we have our streaming platforms where you can create and have fun and tell stories and connect with people just by hitting record.
So that's where I see our trends continuing. And so people are listening to this podcast, they're wondering, where can they find you to learn more? I am working on a new website, so until then, I love connecting with people on LinkedIn and making that direct connection. So feel free to send me a message if you want to chat. Marketing, operations, leadership, I'm all about that. I love to chat about other things too, even coffee.
If you want to hit me up on LinkedIn, you can search for Rebecca Vickers. If you're interested in working as a client or you even want to join our team at FMO, you can find us@fmomedia.com stands for find Me Online Media. So you can find us online. But I look forward to chatting and connecting with others. All right, any final thoughts for listeners? Last thoughts? Mother said to me a long time ago and I love this thought, but you can't create in chaos.
So if you're feeling overwhelmed and you're not sure where to begin, organize yourself, clear your mind, breathe, take a walk, write everything down that you think you can create or you love and want to share with other people and then set a very simple plan for yourself to make bite sized pieces of content. Yes, you can batch it. Yes, you can do a lot all at once for yourself to streamline it. But start small and set up a plan first because you'll have more success that way.
All right, thank you Rebecca for joining Digital Coffee Marketing Brew and sharing your knowledge on digital marketing. Thank you so much Brett for having me. My pleasure and thank you as always. Please subscribe to our podcast on all your favorite podcasting apps with a five star review. It really does help with the rankings and let us know how I am doing. But join me next week as I talk to another great thought leader in the PR and marketing industry.
All right guys, stay safe, get to understanding your digital marketing efforts, figure out what you need to learn or what you need to focus on and see you next week later.