Welcome to episode 47 of Lunch with Norm. Returning to the show, we have our resident social media expert, Helium 10’s Cassandra Craven! Cassandra will be a recurring monthly guest for the podcast to discuss ways to improve your business’ social media! Since Q4 and the holiday shopping season will be upon us, we are tackling tips for brands who are looking to boost Prime Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday on social media! We discuss how to plan for the influx of shoppers, the challenges businesses will be facing, and the DOs and DON’Ts for this years hectic Q4! Don’t miss Cassandra’s monthly social media tips for your Amazon and eCommerce business!
Date: October 7, 2020
Episode: 47
Title: Norman Farrar Introduces Cassandra Craven, Social media and Content Manager at Helium 10.
Subtitle: Social media preparations for Q4
Final Show Link: https://lunchwithnorm.com/episodes/episode-47-boosting-cyber-monday-hype-on-social-media-w-cassandra-craven/
In this episode of Lunch With Norm…, Norman Farrar introduces Cassandra Craven, Social media and Content Manager at Helium 10.
Cassandra is a social media maven. She discussed the tips on how to boost Prime Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday on social media and the Do’s and Don’ts for this years’ hectic Q4.
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Norman 0:02
Hey everybody, I hope we’re live and I’m not talking to myself. It’s Norman Farrar, a.k.a.The Beard Guy here and welcome to another Lunch With Norm,rise of the micro brands.
Norman 0:25
Today, we changed the format and I think we forgot that we changed the format. So anyways, there’s the first blooper of a live broadcast. So there you go. Anyways, today’s guest is a returning guest and she’s going to be talking about some social media coming up or leading up to the fourth quarter and it’s social media expert Cassandra Craven from Helium 10. So Kelsey, where are you?
Norman 0:56
That’s okay.
Norman 0:58
We’ll roll with it. We got to roll out next time.
Norman 1:02
So the first one we did, I’d be in the fetal position. But yeah, I’m wrong. I got a little bit of sweat. So we’re gonna be broadcasting live on Facebook, and YouTube as well as LinkedIn and if you are watching this on a replay, you can just skip ahead. If you’re watching this on my Facebook or my profile page on Facebook, why don’t you go over to Norman Farrar a.k.a.The Beard Guy, watch it there. There’s a ton more content, lots of video, did just the clips as well as the whole, the whole podcast. So Kelsey.
Kelsey 1:38
Yes, that’s right. So anything that goes up here on Lunch With Norm, it goes directly over to YouTube, the full episodes, we have a playlist you can go through and we have short clips that go up every day. So you can always find that going really into the social media aspects or the Amazon or entrepreneurship. We got all the playlists listed for you and yep, follow us on social media. We’ve got Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Tiktok, Pinterest, whatever your heart desires and we are an official podcast so you can find us on Apple and Spotify, too and yes, if you’re watching right now, hit that like button, please and enjoy the show. Smash it. Smash it, maybe ring the bell?
Norman 2:24
Yes. All this stuff I don’t know about I’m an old guy.
Kelsey 2:28
Alright, and Simon is joining us again.
Norman 2:30
Oh Hey, Simon. How’s it going?
Kelsey 2:34
As well as Lisa. Hello. Hello. Welcome and that’s it for me.
Norman 2:39
Okay, so if you do have any questions, just put them over in the comment section and we’ll get to them either during the podcast or right after. So it’s that time, sit back, relax, grab a cup of coffee and enjoy the show. So welcome, Cassandra.
Cassandra 2:57
Hi, Norm. How are you?
Norman 2:59
I’m doing great. How are you?
Cassandra 3:00
Good. Good. Okay, I love your new intro music that really got me like ready and hype up. Oh, yeah. I love it. I love it. I’m also happy to be part of the first blooper episode.
Norman 3:12
Well, no, there’s many blooper episodes. Matter of fact, you could do a whole Lunch With Norm blooper. I’m not a professional interviewer. I can really mess up.
Cassandra 3:25
You’re doing great. You fooled me and I look forward to the highlight reel.
Norman 3:28
Oh, yeah and there’s a few. The guys, Hayden and Kelsey have put together a few bloopers.
Kelsey 3:35
It’s currently in progress.
Norman 3:37
Yeah, I’m paying them weekly not to show it.
Cassandra 3:41
Wait until you need that. Like sweet, sweet. Wait till you need that hype. You know what I mean?
Norman 3:45
Right, exactly.
Cassandra 3:48
So good. I’m looking forward to it.
Norman 3:50
Oh, man, I had too many cigars. I won last night. Now I’m coughing up a storm. I’m gonna try the mute button every time I try to cough. But Cassandra for those of us who don’t know who you are, can you give us a little bit about your background?
Cassandra 4:06
Of course. I’m Cassandra Craven. I am the Social Media Manager for Helium 10 software. I have experience in film television advertising. I’ve worked for daytime court shows, IMAX studios, I have a ton of experience, lots of social media insight to share and I’m so excited to be here to talk with you Norm.
Norman 4:25
That is the quickest I’ve ever heard you whip through your bio.
Cassandra 4:30
Every time I always think I’m ready and then I just kind of wing it.
Norman 4:37
Perfect. Okay, so today when I reached out, we didn’t know when Prime Day was. So we were going to be talking about Black Friday and Cyber Monday. But I’d like to touch a little bit, we’re a week away from Prime Day. Is there anything that you can talk about to help us out with social media or getting exposure for Prime Day?
Cassandra 5:00
Yeah, definitely, like you said, we didn’t know when the dates were going to be solidified for Prime Day. Now we do and really it’s kicking off q4 shopping holiday season and what people really need to know is to start advertising now. If you’re not advertising already, start now everyone is shopping more online than ever before and so you really want to make sure you’re on top of your game. What I was originally going to go through in terms of Black Friday, were tips straight from Twitter, they talked about how to boost your e-commerce, Cyber Monday sales and the first tip was definitely to advertise early, which I think we all can kind of get on board with that we’re definitely looking to get ahead a jump on the game, outsmart our competitions, if you will. The next tip that I think was super valuable, was to make sure that you are showcasing the best of the best. People are shopping now, earlier than ever, they’re obviously going to wait until the 13th and 14th for Prime Day to get their shopping going. As well as Black Friday, Cyber Monday. So they’re looking now we’re at home, people are working from home, they have a lot more downtime on their lunch breaks, things like that. So make sure that you are getting your inventory and showcasing it as early as possible and highlighting the best of the best on your social media profiles.
Norman 6:22
Right and even now, you could do a pre Prime Day Sale or something like that. Yeah, just yet to jump the line.
Cassandra 6:32
Exactly, exactly. There’s just so many things, especially with something like this coming up so quickly, and having a quick turnaround time, really make sure everything is up to date. Something that happened to me actually around this time last year, not Prime Day, but more Black Friday sales. We were actually shopping while I was shopping for Helium 10s holiday party, and the theme was roaring 20s and I found a dress on Amazon and I was ready, I went to their social media profiles, I got a coupon code, I was ready to go, I thought, Man, I got a deal, I got this great dress and when I went through shopping and checked out, I actually was charged full price and I thought, Hey, wait a minute, what’s going on, I got this coupon code off your social media channels, what’s up. So I contacted the seller, and she said, Oh, that was actually from Easter. That was like a spring break sale that shouldn’t have even been on there and I kind of thought, well, not my problem, you should you need to honor this coupon code. But that’s something that I think about too, make sure you’re looking at your social media profiles like a customer, I think you can get too in your own head or in your own profiles and stuff starts to kind of you get a little jaded to it. You start to not see certain things or things don’t pop out to you like they would, if you’re a new or customer that’s coming back to your social profiles or a returning customer. So you really want to look for those things, you want to do a social media audit, if you will, make sure everything’s up to date, make sure you’re not giving out expired coupon codes or offers that should have been discontinued months ago, things like that, because you’re going to lose out in the long run. So you want to make sure you’re on top of your social media game.
Norman 8:21
So when you’re doing a code like that, you should probably put on the post valid until. The other thing, have you ever done this? Have you used Usability hub, or I’m not even sure if pickfu will do this, but split test the posts that you’re doing for any of the holidays?
Cassandra 8:44
Oh, I’ve never done that. But I know I think pickfu has the ability to do so. I got to talk with pickfu actually right before we went to quarantine, and they had just told me some things that blew my mind about how you can split tests, and especially moving up into the holidays, really seeing what people are resonating with, what they’re gravitating towards. So I think pickfu, I can’t confirm, but I would assume they could do that. But definitely split testing is always a great option. You always want to make sure that you are testing things out, seeing what people resonate more with in terms of not just the content itself, but how you’re presenting that content. So are people gravitating towards your video content more? Are they gravitating towards a carousel post with multiple images, a boomerang? Does your Instagram Stories take off better than in feed? So really look at all those other options. So it’s not really split testing. It’s a four way split test, spawned out across multiple mediums and channels.
Norman 9:46
Right. We talked about this in Amazon posts and remember, Amazon posts and Amazon live, they’re social media. They’re social media, they’re a way to build your brand on Amazon and so when you are posting or if you are getting images from influencers or if you’re doing something, as long as it’s within terms, remember that you can post on Amazon post or get your videos and not testimonials, but we’re just doing a knife and we’ve got chefs making recipes and we’re putting them on Amazon live and it’s very inexpensive to do. So this is also information or posts that you could put on to social media, or you might already have the social media to do that. But one of the things that we do with Amazon posts, and you can carry this right over to any of the social media is to like you were just talking about test and test the ratios. So an Amazon post, it’s one to 1:1, 16 by nine, and four by three, but it’s also vertical or horizontal and then you can take the different types of content that you have. Let’s say you have four or five different types. Maybe you have more, and then post it and at least in Amazon, you can see somewhat of the reporting. Yeah, yeah and I guess that’s the same with any other platform, like play around with it play around with the content. Yeah. What do you find, like right now? What do you think would work best? If you’re not going into an ad and you just want to do this organically? Let’s say that you have a product and you have a very limited budget?
Cassandra 11:25
Definitely. So another thing that came from Twitter, which I thought was genius, was doing gift guides and I think people are scrambling now for kind of what are these COVID? What are people looking for in quarantine, or if they’re in isolation, people aren’t traveling as much, or they’re not going on vacations and things like that. So maybe that traveler friend that you have isn’t going somewhere. So maybe getting this person a carrying case or things like that isn’t going to work out as well as a gift that would have worked out pre COVID. So gift guides, I think, are a genius way, and an inexpensive way to really branch out your brand and showcase all that you have to offer and increase sales. So it’s kind of saying, Hey, if you’re interested in this, maybe you’ll be interested in this. Create those customer avatars. Who are you looking for? Who do you want to shop for? Age range, demographic interest, things like that and how can your product benefit the person you’re shopping for? Really let them into the lifestyle, if you will, that’s something I’m always a big advocate of, you’re not really just pushing out a brand, you’re pushing out a lifestyle, regardless of what your product is, how does this product fit into your customer’s lifestyle or the person they’re buying for and that’s what I think is the most important thing to keep in mind when you’re curating your content, when you’re posting. Look for who’s actually buying these things and put together an entire Gift Guide. It’s like a gift basket of goodies on social media, if you will, Norm.
Norman 12:58
You are the only person I know talking about gift guides. Oh my god, they’re the most it. Like right now. It’s October. It’s getting late for gift guides. Yeah, we have them. We have 2500 gift guides that we’ve targeted, depending on the niche and get this and I’m not bragging I’m just saying this is what happened. We got onto Rachael Ray, we got in on to Wendy Williams. We got on to these tons of other media channels. There is what, we’ve applied we haven’t seen but we are Dr. Koz, Dr. Phil. There is like 20 different media outlets that we’re going to be featured on with different products that we represent. So that’s by gift guides and just reaching out. So if you’re not doing it and it’s free. No, no, I have to give them a gnome I mean yeah, it’s free.
Cassandra 14:05
Well, Norm the gnomes are always a hot commodity. So I’d get that.
Norman 14:11
Just off topic. Going to Amazon, this is not mine. This is called Norm the Gnome.
Cassandra 14:20
Genius. Yep. Genius. I know I wish it was yours though.
Norman 14:24
I wish too.
Cassandra 14:27
You have a market on that. You’ve definitely, you brought it to life. So I’m sure he’s very thankful for you being in space.
Norman 14:33
Well, yeah, the kids call me Santa Claus. Everybody compares me to the Travelocity gnome. But anyways.
Cassandra 14:41
Oh my god, that’s so perfect. I love that, you can have a Halloween costume. Then you have Halloween, Christmas. You’re ready to go. You’re already booked up.
Norman 14:49
Yeah, absolutely and I’ve got my own mask. I don’t have to worry about it. Just my glasses, all set and on that note, so with all the challenges that brands have this year, with COVID-19, are there any strategies that you would work with on social media?
Cassandra 15:10
Well, I think one thing that brands are going to have to anticipate and plan accordingly for are definitely COVID challenges, whether that is shipping, or things being out of stock, or delayed, anything could happen. I mean, it’s 2020, you can’t predict anything nowadays. So really, you want to be prepared and I think you want to be really transparent with your customers. If anything, I think that’s the biggest strategy you’re going to want to put into place. Because that’s customer advocacy, customer loyalty, people are going to trust you, it’s your brand, it’s your name on the line. So definitely just keep it real and this is where I think a lot of times people get kind of, there’s a lot going on, it’s the holiday season, working from home, we’ve been cooped up for a while. If they have their package delayed, or someone misses a birthday, or something’s delayed, you can bet they’re gonna take right to social media, and maybe not have the most positive message. So you want to make sure you get ahead of that you want to have a strategy in place. You want to have communications in place and you want to make sure that not only yourself, but your team or whoever is handling your customer service representatives. You have that phase one, phase two, phase three, what can you say? What’s the frontline defense, what’s the follow up, what’s the final resolution and how you can get this going? Because I think this is a crucial time for how people will perceive your brand during something with such heightened emotions, and just a really unique time and in the world in general. So you want to make sure that you have that loyalty in place and have a strategy in place for how you’ll be communicating any challenges that your brand may encounter, any delays, things like that, because I think the last thing you want to see on social media, with everything going on is a negative message in your comment section, trashing you for being, a delay in your shipping or something like that. So you want to make sure that you’re on top of it, you’re respectful of that, you understand that, you’re trying, you’re communicating that you’re trying to do everything that you can to deliver on time and get things going.
Norman 17:20
I think it is important that people realize that the customer experience, so you’ve got, let’s say you spend a lot of time and money on your product optimization, your listing optimization, what have this really great package, it doesn’t end there. So, you want to buy your own package, just to make sure that it looks good, and see what it looks like. But you can if you’re not on top of customer service, everything that you’ve worked for, just went down the tube. So a five star just goes down to a three star because of poor or lacking customer service.
Cassandra 17:57
I mean, how many times Norm. I feel like just as a customer myself, that’s a make or break for me. If I feel that a customer, even a brand that I love, even if I love their clothes, or their accessories, or whatever I’m purchasing, if I have bad customer service, that leaves a bad taste in my mouth and I just think this is not the time. Things are so precarious right now, again, COVID, quarantine unpredictable times, if you will. So now is not the time to leave a bad taste in anyone’s mouth with poor customer service, if you will.
Norman 18:29
Right, absolutely. So like on that note, what are some suggestions that we can give to the listeners about communicating with their customers on social media?
Cassandra 18:41
Oh, definitely, I say go live as much as you can, especially Instagram stories, just kind of highlighting what the procedures are in place, what you plan to benefit and give your product to. What you’re talking about and how you want to convey that to your customers and your listeners. So talk about the advertisements that you have coming up, any specials or discounts, things like that, go live, chat with them, talk with them. This is a great time to talk to mass amounts of people, but also one on one, if you’re doing an Instagram Live, you can bring them on the live chat. People can ask their questions directly to you, you can talk to them about all the exciting offers that you have coming up. So really just go to those live chats. I think that’s a great communication strategy. I’m always a big fan of Instagram. I love Instagram. It’s my favorite platform. Another great feature that I always see a lot of success with, is the question feature in the Instagram story as well. So you can either have a curated graphic that you post to the story, or you can just create that in app and have people ask the questions directly and what I love about that, is if there’s one person asking a question, it’s more than likely speaking volumes for many other people. So one person asking answers 100 questions which saves you time. We’re all busy people. Social media never stops. E-commerce is 24/7 and so if you can answer as many questions kind of kill two birds with one stone, it’s a great strategy to do so. So take those customer questions, go live, talk with them, especially now before things get too hectic. Prime Day is next week. So you have between now and Monday really to convey any messaging that you want and then between then and Black Friday, Cyber Monday, really talk about what you have going on, how you can talk to people one on one, if they need to know something about a discount code, or shipping or locations. Anything at all. Now’s the time to communicate with them one on one.
Norman 20:33
Great info. Kelsey,
Cassandra 20:36
You’re the best.
Norman 20:37
Thank you and you too. Okay. I can’t see. But can you tell us any of the questions that are out there?
Kelsey 20:46
Of course, yes. We have Sean, joining us as well. We have Yarrow back. He’s coming from Amsterdam. Welcome. Michelle is watching from New Jersey.
Norman 20:58
Hello, Michelle.
Kelsey 21:00
Let’s see. I just Michelle is calling you The Beard Man. Nathan, and Dr. Carson will join too.
Norman 21:10
Nice to see you all.
Kelsey 21:11
All of our regulars.
Cassandra 21:13
#Beard Man.
Kelsey 21:17
Get Started people.
Cassandra 21:18
Yeah, #beardman. I like it.
Kelsey 21:21
Alright, so Simon, Prime Day is a big deal in the US. But are European consumers as well informed about these big selling days? We have about like, three more questions. Okay.
Cassandra 21:32
So Prime Day’s a big deal in the US, are European customers as well informed? Norm, what are your thoughts on that? I’m gonna pass it to you for a minute.
Norman 21:40
I think it is the day, what’s really crazy about this year is we don’t know if it’s the Black Friday, it’s gonna be the Black Friday and my biggest concern is inventory, if you don’t have the inventory in stock, and you’re trying to ship it, depending where you’re shipping it, it could take forever to get in for Black Friday. So like Kevin King was on the other day, and he was talking inventory is king, you’ve got no pun intended. But, have your FBA FBM listings in, like with your warehouse ready to go. I’m really not sure if this Prime Day is going to be that day that just wipes out everybody and you have incredible sales and Black Friday is lower, because everybody’s done there. It’s Yeah, it’s one month away. Everybody’s talking about Prime Day is gonna be the most exciting, it just might be a shift, I don’t know, you have to be prepared.
Cassandra 22:49
You have to be prepared. That’s the number one thing. But I am interested to see how this all kind of plays out, especially with this the timelines and the quick turnaround, like you said, just getting prepared and making sure that you’re ready, and you’re on top of everything.
Norman 23:05
Yeah, and being well informed in Europe. Yeah, if you’re selling in the US market, it is the day that you should be out there, you should be promoting, Oh, and by the way, let’s say you’re not an Amazon seller, or if you’re on Amazon, but you also have your other website. So we have a website for like just one of the products that we have added value. So if people go over, they can get a product, but they can’t get it on Amazon, it’s specific to the website. So we’re driving traffic over to the website, and promoting Prime Day Special that you can’t get on Amazon, it’s Prime Day for the website alone. So people are going to go over there to check it out. Because when you have Prime Day doesn’t mean that you can’t have your own Prime Day on your website and you can also, it could be a double sale because you could get somebody to buy that special product. But then from there, give them the coupon to go over to your website and get it there. So, there’s different angles that you can use with this. But if you’re a European seller selling in the UK or in the US, this is definitely the day that you’ve got to promote. This is. Yep, yeah. The other thing about Prime Day or Black Friday. Some people we had Tim Ferris on the other day, and Francis on, and he was talking about knowing your numbers. Oh, yeah, I’ve seen it. I’ve seen the one company in the jewelry area that they sold $750,000 on Black Friday. They probably lost money. I wasn’t privy to the numbers. I was privy to that. But looking at their sales, they probably lost money. So you don’t have to give away the farm. You don’t have to give away 50% off, 30% off. People are looking for deals, as long as you’re giving a deal. That’s great and you’ve got to protect your PPC budget too. Yeah, you can’t just go out of the gates with high bids, because, matter of fact, I don’t know about you Cassandra but I like bidding higher towards the end of the day, when I’m picking up everybody when everybody else is looking for a product that’s already sold out.
Cassandra 25:21
That’s a good strategy Norm. We do have our in house, I’m going to give a little plug here, Vince Montero would know all of our PPC, insider knowledge. So I’ll have to ask him in and then get back to you. I’ll message you in the comments. Yeah, perfect.
Cassandra 25:37
Yeah, casual plug, casual plug.
Norman 25:39
There we go and what was his name again?
Cassandra 25:42
Vince Montero. Yes, you can find him on, no, but he has on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, connect with them. You should have him on Norm next time. He’s great, he’s a really fun guy to talk to.
Norman 25:52
I just saw him talking on one of the Helium 10 podcasts and that was my plan. I’ll reach out and definitely talk to him.
Cassandra 25:59
Awesome. He’d love it.
Norman 26:01
So Kelsey has other questions.
Kelsey 26:03
Yes, we have one from Yarrow.
Kelsey 26:06
How to balance my social media Insta posts with his own product photos? We don’t have any photos? How much should we use general posts, like five best ideas of something or post like that? Thanks.
Cassandra 26:21
What I would say to that is evaluate what you already have, evaluate your content, and see how it would play into what platforms you’re looking to post on. So you’ve mentioned Instagram. I don’t if it’s a kind of Shutterstock looking image, it may not perform as well, and people may tune it out when they see it in your feed. I always think lifestyle imagery does a lot better. Norm, you and I talked, you touched on this a little bit ago about influencers or content creators, anything that you can get from your customers, UGC content that would always benefit you the most and it really doesn’t cost you as much especially UGC content that’s really saying, How does your product fit into your customer’s lifestyle, please share a photo and tag us and it really just expands your inventory, your repertoire of content, if you will. So you can have your main images, and then see how you can balance it out with UGC content, influencer content, so that resonates more, especially specifically speaking to Instagram. That’s where that content really resonates with people looking for inspiration, aspirational content, things that they can use for their home decor, kitchen utensils, fashion, whatever it may be. They want to see how it fits into other people’s lifestyles, and how it’s going to fit into there. So I would definitely lean more heavier on lifestyle imagery and influencer UGC content for in feed.
Norman 27:42
Like you said, with lifestyle, that doesn’t mean going over to Shutterstock, getting somebody that looks like they’re holding something 10 times bigger than it is. You know it’s a fake.
Cassandra 27:56
People always do, they’re always gonna want, I love production value behind things, of course and I think especially I’m a perfectionist, so I’ve always liked what’s perfect, what looks great. But what I found in my career, whether it’s in television, or advertising, people actually gravitate towards lesser quality photos. I’m not advocating putting out quality, but it’s so crazy, people are Oh, I think it’s because it looks like it’s something your friends are posting. It looks like it’s something that it’s someone in your own network that you know, and they start to just tune out all these like polished perfect images. Because they think it’s just a brand. It’s an advertisement. It’s a commercial, it’s whatever. But yeah, in all everything that I’ve ever done, the most highly organic looking photos always performed the best.
Norman 28:47
Poor lighting.
Norman 28:49
The shadows are horrible, yeah, candid photos, because it looks like well, it’s real social proof and I was just gonna say just before you said that, if you take a polished image, a product shot, and you put it out, and then you put a candid image of somebody, either an open box or somebody using your product. Man, that’s gonna get so much more engagement,
Cassandra 29:15
So much more. Yeah, everything and oh, it always surprises me and I think there’s this, we’re always looking for this, like perfectionism with content creation and creative designers and things like that. But really, it’s like you said, poor lighting or maybe a little out of focus, bad symmetry, they gravitate towards it, it’ll go off the charts usually. So, not my favorite thing, but it’s real.
Norman 29:39
But remember, that’s opposite on your listing. So on your listing, you want to make sure that your listing has great product photography, the infographics are great, but you can absolutely 100% use this for your Amazon posts and you’ll get the exact same response. So like we’ll use what is it, features and benefits. So we’ll do a feature, we’ll do a benefit. We’ve done accreditation where we’ve sent out products to school and on graduation, we’ll have the graduates take pictures with the product. We’ve sent it out to peep industry specialists. You can’t do this on posts, but you can send out surveys, promos, testimonials, it’s all about different content.
Cassandra 30:30
Yep. Really experimenting, like you said, pickfu split testing. Just check it out, kind of get those insights and see what people gravitate towards more.
Norman 30:39
I can tell you another thing too. There’s different types of influencers and you know all about this, but there’s a nano influencer, and those nano influencers are between one and 10,000. Micro influencers are between 10,000 and 100,000. Your influencer that usually only shows up once you pay them big bucks and then they take a picture and they put it on there, like a Kylie. Like big time, people like it, they might like it, they might not like it. But then you have your brand ambassador, which is an influencer. \\One of the tricks that we do, we tend to go towards the nano. Because when they post something, it’s to their friends and oh, yeah, they’re using this, I got to check that, everybody else is a lot of people are going to these other much more expensive, but they’re not as effective and they feel that, oh, there’s just not that big of a reach. Well, if their friends like it, and then they’re posting, like, you could get so much and those are the people that you can turn into brand ambassadors and brand ambassadors, that’s a whole other ballgame. If you get a brand ambassador, they’re taking photos, they’re writing articles, they’re, I mean, they’re promoting the heck out of you on their blogs,
Cassandra 32:08
You can’t ask for better promotion.
Norman 32:11
Absolutely.
Cassandra 32:12
I love that you, another thing too, like with nano, micro influencers, things like that, it’s a lot less likely that they’re going to have any fake followers, so you know exactly what you’re getting into. I’m sure you remember a couple years ago, Instagram, Facebook did like a sweep of getting out fake followers, fake influencers, anyone following that was like these bot accounts or spam accounts and all the celebrities and influencers took a big hit. There was a substantial decrease in all of their followership, whereas people who were in those micro influencer networks, it was more genuine, everyone was friends, there were colleagues, they were associates, everyone knew everyone, they were genuine accounts and so that’s just going to be better for your brand. It’s the same thing as buying followers. Do you want a million followers that are fake and spam bots? Or do you want 100 real followers that are going to invest in your product and invest in your content?
Norman 33:07
Right, yeah and you know what? I was talking to Kelsey, about this, about building our own organic listing on Instagram. So it’s been, I don’t know, four or five months and it’s been growing, and it’s been growing and it’s like, Kels, can we not get 10,000 followers? Like, why do other people and he’s saying that you don’t understand there’ll be fake, and it’s a slower way. But, we’ve got great engagement with the people on our Instagram campaign or account and they’re real, it’s just something completely different than seeing, oh, I’ve got 100,000 users, and you don’t interact or engage.
Cassandra 33:46
I feel like it would hurt or to have a large following and then you only have 20 likes, cuz everyone’s like, wait, what’s going on here and then, Kelsey, I’m sure you understand this, too. My biggest fear is getting shut down. Could you imagine putting all this work into your Instagram account and then they block you and check it out.
Kelsey 34:04
Yeah and they can, like people can tell oo. Like, they’ll go to your site, and they’ll see you have 8000 followers, like and you’ve only been up for a couple months, like this doesn’t make sense and then it also messes with all of your insights too, as well.
Cassandra 34:19
Oh, 100% and then people also go through and they’ll compare like, I do that all the time. I’m like, Huh, you’ve got 100,000 on Instagram, and you have 20 on Facebook. That’s interesting. Like where, you know what I mean? People know people are, they’re always looking for the receipts. You know what I mean? They’re like, they’re all investigative journalists on social media nowadays.
Norman 34:40
So I got shut down, by the way, so he didn’t do the takeout.
Cassandra 34:44
Good. I support Kelsey for sure.
Kelsey 34:46
Team Kelsey, start the hashtag, #teamKelsey. Just to let you guys know is 35 or the 35 minute mark. We do have some questions. If we can just like rapid fire them now. Alright, first was about the gift guides. When you went on the shows, how much would increase in your sales, if you don’t mind?
Norman 35:09
We’ll put it this way, one of our clients is in a wire cutter, which is owned by the New York Times, and they picked this product on their own, it wasn’t even given to them. Okay, they voted this number one in the category. So they go out four times a year, and they promote the product, the increase in sales is 100,000 bucks during that time period. So that’s one like a really well established review site will do. If you’re going on to a Rachael Ray, or if you get into good or better housekeeping or it’s interest. Well, here’s a fact and I don’t even like talking about these numbers, but it’s an industry fact, with public relations and you go and you get a do follow link, or like, if you’re out there in an article, let’s say it’s better housekeeping or whatever it is. The industry fact is you will get 50 to 100 times ROI. Oh, when I’m talking to clients about that, I have to bring that down. I say 10 times, but over the lifetime, because it never comes down and it’s always there and you’re always getting a promotion. So when you’re working with the public relations/press release side, man, you can get some great exposure, especially if they’re in major magazines. Have you ever gone that route Cassandra?
Cassandra 36:42
I haven’t. But I think it’s a great way to do it. It’s a great strategy, a great tactic, and from what you told me, I’m just listening, and I’m so inspired and I’m like, Oh, my God, this is genius. So yeah, I think it’s great. Norm, I want you to know, I came here and I learned from you just so, I think it’s the other way around, but I’m learning from you.
Norman 37:02
Oh, no, no, I should actually shut up and just let you talk.
Cassandra 37:06
No, no, I agree with what Norm said, go with what Norm said.
Kelsey 37:11
Just quickly asking, are you getting brands that you work with on prREACH into those gift guides?
Norman 37:16
We put out a mailer and the ones that wanted to are doing them right now. Right now, we had a cut off at the end of September. But you can always check yourself like, you can go on the internet, you don’t have to go through a prREACH or public relations company, you can go on the internet and see if there’s any that are still accepting for October. But keep this in mind, any holidays that come up, there’s gift guides and this is just a whole other line item that you can use for your marketing and it costs a little bit like if you’re going to a service. But if you want to do it on yourself, it’s completely free. Except for the rebate, there’s usually no charge.
Kelsey 38:01
Okay, and Nathan, does Cassandra have any tips on getting your product on Pinterest?
Cassandra 38:07
Hi Nathan, here would be my advice for Pinterest. This is where you can definitely get your aspirational content and create again a lifestyle of what product goes with the next product? What can you kind of bundle together to create a cohesive look and aspirational product, if you will, for all of what you’re selling.So I would definitely get pinned boards going for what products go together, where they can be used in terms of if it’s for travel or kitchen or lifestyle or fashion products, whatever it may be. Definitely get those boards going and use it for aspirational content. I think that’s what a lot of people come to Pinterest for and they’re looking for how does this work into it? Oh, what can I strive for with this product? How will this product fit into my life and take me to the next level? So that’s my recommendation for Pinterest.
Kelsey 39:00
Okay, and we got three more, we’ll just quickly go through. Dr. Koz, the most challenging thing with social media is the audience, growing the audience and getting eyeballs. Can you please provide some tips on increasing social audience?
Cassandra 39:14
I would say so I’ve always been a big advocate. I mentioned it earlier. Instagram, I think Instagram is a really great connection for connecting with people instantly and especially the Instagram story. This is where I think that discoverability really comes into place and people are always flipping through. They’re looking for new ideas, new content you can get on the explorer page. Something I also talked about previously with when Instagram reels came out. So Instagram is really focusing on content creators. So really having a niche and creating cool content around your product is going to get more eyeballs on your product and your pages. Because that’s what Instagram is subtly rewarding people for now. That’s what they’re big focus is. You can’t have ads to you can’t run paid social to Instagram reels yet. So they’re really advocating for content creators.
Norman 40:08
If you wait things, right now live is probably waited the heaviest, right if you do a lot of live, you’re gonna get a lot more promotion than you would say like the reels and then the post, or yeah did the stories get more weight than posts?
Cassandra 40:30
I think stories get more weight than posts because they’re easier discoverability, people have to kind of, especially in feed, it’s more based on if you’re doing paid social to get more traction, or people just discovering you naturally. It’s a bit of a higher threshold, if you will. But Instagram stories can go into the discoverability, you can hashtag, you can use geotags, you can tag other people, you can do location stories. So if you want to get discovered in Los Angeles, New York, Canada, there’s a ton of ways to get discovered easier than within feed that gets so bombarded with posts and people have to actively be searching, whereas Instagram Stories are more in your face.
Kelsey 41:10
I think right now, I don’t know if you noticed this, but there’s been a change with Instagram’s algorithm and it’s really changed up how you view the posts. So you have to really, really scroll down the list to find certain people, yeah. Oh, yeah. That’s something that I’ve noticed in the past month, I think it really changed.
Cassandra 41:30
I noticed stuff coming in later, too. Like if I post something in the morning for even Helium 10. On my personal account, it’ll pop up later in the day and I think it’s just about that algorithm and what people in your networks and how people are gravitating towards the content.
Kelsey 41:45
Right. Okay. Nathan, when you reach out to an influencer, do you offer them a free product and a payment, any tips on getting influences to respond to business inquiries?
Cassandra 41:54
I would definitely start Oh, sorry. Norm, go ahead. Go ahead. Okay, I would definitely start with giving a free product. I think a lot of it’s all built on relationships, you definitely want to reach out, see how you guys can collaborate together. This is where the value of having a cool Instagram account comes into play. Because people want to work with you, they’re going to go back and check you out, if you will. You can definitely offer payment, and definitely getting kind of going into responding to inquiries, making a name for yourself. So people want to work with you. So reaching into those DMS, following up with their websites, their email accounts, a lot of times, I’ll draw people in their feed, I’ll comment on their photos and say, Hey, definitely love your content. Would love to collaborate, check your dm. So I think it’s a really easy threshold. But Norm, what about you? What would you say?
Norman 42:41
No, I agree 100% with what you’re saying and you just gotta make sure that your personalities fit too., Yeah, for sure. Because there’s a lot of anyone who investigates a little bit too. Kelsey, or one of us brought up the fakes. So there’s a lot of people that have fake accounts and if it’s too good to be true, then you might want to just shy away from it. But there are also other paid platforms that you can go and find influencers. So influencers are fairly easy to find on your own. But if you want to go to more of a paid platform, like Thomasson, or Intellifluence, Buzzsumo is another one where I think it’s $99 a month, but you could reach out to influencers that way. You can also reach influencers, there’s databases for influencers, and you can get that through. We use this database through scission I believe, and yeah, you can just target people that way. But it’s so easy. Oh, and you know Maayan Gordon, right?
Cassandra 43:54
Yes, yes.
Norman 43:56
So she told us a tip when we were talking with her and she said if you want to get influencers very inexpensively, work with TikTok, because the influencers that have a ton of followers don’t charge very much. It’s not like the people over on Instagram that will charge a lot more. So that might be another way and if they have an influencer or other types of social media account, you might be able to get them to post over there as well
Cassandra 44:26
Definitely. She’s a great resource.. Oh, very cool. very innovative. I love talking to her. So shout out to her for sure. Shout out to Maayan.
Kelsey 44:35
Alright, we are at the 45 minute mark. Just one last one from Waseem. He’s from Pakistan and is asking about private labeling, how can we calculate giveaways on an old listing to rank a product on Amazon page one? Do you know?
Norman 44:55
Okay, so I think I’ll reach out to you on that one. We’ll try to keep this one to social media but with some I will answer that for you once we get off, okay,
Cassandra 45:10
Definitely. That’s outside of my wheelhouse, but hit up Helium 10 Facebook groups, you can ask your questions there.
Norman 45:17
Perfect. So I have one last one because I know you got to run.
Norman 45:21
What are some do’s and don’ts?
Cassandra 45:23
Oh, well, okay. Norm, you’re always like, I know that’s such a simple question. But I think there’s so much variation depending on what you’re doing, because I don’t want to ever shy away and say, Oh, don’t do this, but it may work out really well for someone else or their audience, and even what we were just talking about, you want to have good photography. But then what really people gravitate towards is poor lighting and off symmetry. I’m really, I think I’m going to give you this answer. You have to kind of cultivate your own do’s and don’ts. There are certain things that I would do when working in entertainment, that I really wouldn’t apply to the tech industry and I think you have to look at, again, what is the best practices for your industry, for your Instagram, Facebook, YouTube accounts, Twitter, things like that, and then go from there. I’m kind of going back to a lot of these tips that were straight from Twitter, I say go to the source for best practices, I think you always want to be timely, you always want to be relevant and that’s what they really advocate for. Don’t kind of be late in the game. Don’t drop off your communications, things like that, especially now people are looking for instant gratification if they have a problem, or they want to know about a flash sale or a deal. It’s Prime Day people are, they’re quick, they’re quick and if you don’t, if you don’t respond, somebody else will and there’s a lot of competition right now. A lot of new sellers, social media bloggers, there’s a lot of people who are inundated with things. So my best tip would be to curate your own do’s and don’ts and then also be quick to respond, community management. That’s number one key to success right there, Norm.
Norman 47:02
Very good. Just one other quick thing when you are looking at let’s say you have a recurring product, on Prime Day, this is probably a good day that you could bring it up to a breakeven because they’ll get the product, they’ll experience the product, and then they’ll come back and buy more. That’s as long as you’ve got a good product. So this is one of those exceptions. If this is a one off buy, then you don’t want to lose money, of course. But I just thought I’d add that because of what I said at the beginning of the podcast and I want to make that clear because you could kill it. I sell soap. If I will sell soap or I will use my breakeven or more to get my soap into people’s hands and then they’ll come back every 30 days.
Cassandra 47:54
Especially now with COVID. You need soap in your hands for sure.
Norman 48:00
Absolutely. Fabulous.
Norman 48:04
So Cassandra,
Cassandra 48:06
That’s it? Okay.
Norman 48:08
Thank you. It was easy. I could talk for another two hours with you.
Cassandra 48:12
I can talk to you all day long.
Norman 48:14
How do people get a hold of you?
Cassandra 48:16
Well, definitely Helium 10. #Helium 10, @Helium10Software, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn. You can connect with me at cassandra _craven on Instagram, I’m on LinkedIn. I also have assandracraven.com now. I have my own website. If you want to learn more, I’m always posting social media blogs, content, things like that. So check that out. Connect with me and I look forward to hearing from everyone and I look forward to doing it again Norm. This is great.
Norman 48:42
Well, hopefully you’re a monthly guest.
Cassandra 48:44
I hope so.
Norman 48:45
The offer’s out there. Okay. Alright. Cassandra. So thank you very much for being on the podcast today and I think that’s gonna wrap it up. Kelsey, where are you?
Kelsey 48:57
I’m here, hello. Yes. If you haven’t already, please like this episode, you can share it with your friends. If you know someone who’s needed some social media tips for their business, go ahead and take them and if you enjoy listening to our podcasts, and you don’t want to look at our faces, you can find us on Apple and Spotify. Hit the subscribe button. Give us a review. Hopefully five stars and Hello, Christine, the show was awesome. Thank you. Awesome and I think that’s it for me.
Norman 49:34
Okay, so that’s it. We do have a newsletter. It doesn’t suck. I say that every day. I want to make it clear that this is not something that we just have tons of advertising. It has all the content. So go there. It’s about how to become a better online seller, how to become a better business person. So if you have any topics that you’d like us to talk about. E-com in general, just any topics at all. Let us know and we’ll try our best. Or if you’re somebody out there that wants to be on the podcast that can offer some insight to the industry, please reach out and we’d love to have you on. So I think that’s it for today’s episode and we will see you on Friday with another Canadian, Tony Sagar and he’s going to be talking about local manufacturers and importers. So until then, we’ll see you later.
