TRANSCRIPT
This transcript was completed by an automated system, please forgive any grammatical errors
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
social media, brand, influencer, product, people, post, website, content, focused, question, trending, marketing, team, absolutely, ugc, thinking, honestly, happening, connection, strategy
SPEAKERS
Mariah Parsons, Megan Christian
Mariah Parsons 00:04
Hi there, I'm Mariah Parsons, your host of retention Chronicles, ecommerce brands are starting to shift their strategy to focus on retention in the customer experience. And so we've decided to reach out to top DC brands and dive deeper into their tactics and challenges. But here's the thing, we love going on tangents. And so with our guests, you'll often find us talking about the latest trends, as well as any and all things in the Shopify ecosystem. So go ahead and start that workout or go on that walk and tune in as we chat with the leading minds in the space retention Chronicles is sponsored by Malomo, a shipment in order tracking platform, improving the post purchase experience, be sure to subscribe and check out all of our other episodes at go malomo.com. So hello, everyone, and welcome to retention Chronicles. Super, super excited to have our guests today. Megan, thank you so much for making the time. Thank you for joining us. I'm so excited to learn all about Yes, yes. COMM USA, all about your social media strategy. It's going to be an amazing time.
Megan Christian 01:17
Awesome. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited.
Mariah Parsons 01:20
I already love your energy. So let's get started. Can you give us background of career up to this point would be amazing.
Megan Christian 01:27
Yeah, absolutely. So I like everyone else in my generation. I'm fairly young. I'm turning 25 this weekend.
Mariah Parsons 01:37
Oh, my gosh, the early birthday. Thank
Megan Christian 01:39
you so much. So I you know, with my generation immediately was obsessed with social media, as soon as it was handed to me, you know, what 12 or whatever, Mom, let us have Facebook or whatever. And, you know, as I grew up, I just kind of found that it was like we were talking about before the recording a marketable skill. And kind of seeing the potential in recognizing brands that I liked. And having some family members in industries that were utilizing social media marketing early on, I really saw that and was like, oh, there's something here. This is a job to do something that I'm already interested in, that I'm already passionate about. So after school, I found an opportunity to work as a community manager for a gal named Kelsey Nixon. She's a TV chef and an influencer. And I just helped her manage her social media. And honestly, through that experience, I was like, I have no idea how anyone over 10,000 followers or even 1000 followers on social media, and if that's going to be any sort of source of income for you, creating a team or some sort of community manager is a game changer. And when it comes to brands, specifically, you know, that just continues to like exponentially grow the need for someone else to like, have that just be what they have their hands on. Social media is just like this huge monster. And if you don't have someone holding the reins, then you're missing out on so much potential. So I, through my experience working with Kelsey fell even more in love with social media marketing and just with this idea of humanizing a brand and becoming kind of customer facing in that way. And then just recognizing that that generates not only obviously hopefully revenue Yeah, but also like a conversation and and a relatability. And honestly, that is kind of what led me to Yes, calm. I kind of found out about them offhandedly realized that I had bought something from them on Amazon at some point in the past, you know, and so I was like, oh, yeah, these guys, let's do this. And just kind of fell into this job a little over a year ago now. And now I'm here and we're running this social media, and it is so fun. Yeah, I hope that answered your question. Oh, it did.
Mariah Parsons 04:01
That was perfect. Yes, I have so many things I want to go into. So like social media from a young age, this is one thing. So I also relate to this being just like Gen Z. And I also manage our social media here in the lobby. And so what what about it, like really enticed you? If you had to, like pinpoint it? Yeah, articulate that, you know,
Megan Christian 04:23
I've tried to think about this before, let me think if I if I could give you a good answer. Um, you know, not to get too philosophical. But I think that human connection really is kind of the purpose of, I would say life, but I feel like that's a little grand. So at least my life, it's all about human connection. In when I think of like my personal values and things that are most important to me, the ability to be connected is really close to the top of the list, whether it's friends, family, even like strangers and just being like socially aware and being a part of the human conversation. Um, and honestly, I don't think there's ever been a better asset to that than social media. So just as far as like it being aligned with my values. And, you know, we can also talk about all of the like, the hard things, the evils, the like, whatever about social media, but at the end of the day, I think its greatest use is its ability to connect humans, which just lines up with my values.
Mariah Parsons 05:23
Yeah, yeah, I love that. I feel like my response to the same question that I posed to you would be something similar and like, the connection and also the discoverability factor of social totally so intriguing. Yeah. Which, of course, goes into human connection, but like, just the amount I mean, I'm a big tick tock user talking. Yeah, um, but like, the amount of things I feel like I've learned from social media, and being on that side of things, in addition to staying in touch and having that, having that accountability, they're totally so fascinating to me. I'm like, there's so many things I wouldn't learn.
Megan Christian 06:02
Yeah, well, and it's wild to think about connection on the level of like, not just person to person like you and I can be friends on Facebook, follow each other, and Instagram will better be writing down your contact info. But being friends with each other on tick tock gives you access to someone else's for you page, which shows you deeper things about them that you wouldn't have learned just on Facebook, which shows you different things that you would have learned on LinkedIn. But then beyond that level, you know, if it's like a pyramid or whatever, here, I'm doing a lot with my hands, which is great for podcasting. No one will ever see you describe it, I'm drawing a pyramid with my hands. But at the next level, you think about connection to personalities of celebrities, but also brands and just being able to be connected like that with these kinds of entities is a really interesting aspect. Because before, you know, I think about like 50 years ago, for example, before my time before your time, nobody knew what was going on behind closed doors at Apple. But now not that we necessarily have like a perfect glass window into what's happening behind the scenes. But there is more humanity that's just been created by social media. So that's also a level of the connection that I think is so fascinating.
Mariah Parsons 07:11
Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. I love that you brought up that point as well. And would you say like you saw a lot of that, working with the influencer? Was it Kelsey Nixon? Yeah. Kelsey
Megan Christian 07:20
Nixon is her name. She's wonderful. Everyone should follow her. I'm still advocating for her even though I really love working for her. She's just phenomenal. Love her content. But yeah, absolutely. I think that like, working with her really closely, you know, most days I was actually in her home. Because she is a chef and she's a home chef. And so we did a lot of talk about being honest and being vulnerable. And I think that that was a really interesting perspective to take coming into Yes, calm. Because when you're so product focused with like an E commerce brand, like yes, calm, it can be hard to remember, like how much you want to let the customers in? How vulnerable are we going to be like, what is the, you know, kind of like cost benefit that you're looking at with, with how you want to be presented on social media. So yeah, definitely something that was super interesting and super. It was like it was a good lesson to learn through working with Kelsey is like how to represent a person that is also a brand. So now that I'm just representing a brand and not necessarily a person trying to translate those, those experiences.
Mariah Parsons 08:27
That's really interesting. I've never thought about like the differences that would lie within how you're trying to adjust your strategy to like what you want the brand to be, depending on if it's a persona or if it's a brand or if it's both Right, right. Because most of the time I'm just talking to brands and not influencers or personalities in the public eye. And so I would love to dive into that deeper but before we do, can you give like a boilerplate? Just like a brief summary of yes calm so that people listening under Yeah, absolutely.
Megan Christian 09:03
If you're not familiar, please come get familiar follow us on everything. But we are yes, comm USA. We are a brand specifically focused on providing products to our customers that will fulfill your passion. And that is a super broad topic, which is great because we have a super broad what's the word I want to use repertoire? catalog of products so we sell everything from Makeup cases and accessories to camping gear to treadmills and exercise bikes, you know anything that is going to enhance your life and allow you to really, you know, fuel what makes you happy and what provides like that hobby escape in your life. Yes, calm just had our 20th birthday last year. We're all grown up. We're a 20 year old company. We were started by our CEO. His name is Andy Lee. He's wonderful. He's across the hall for me here across the building. Actually, and it started as a cellphone accessory company actually 20 years ago, and I think even out of his garage here in Southern California, and then it just kind of continued to scale over the years. And with Andy being really brave to kind of dive into E commerce early on, we were able to scale and we now sell our products, mostly, honestly, through Amazon and through our website. But we do also have products in stores like Walmart, things like that as well. So yeah, that's kind of who we are an E commerce brand. Lots of products, focusing on fulfilling
Mariah Parsons 10:37
passions. Yes. Love it. And if I'm not mistaken, your website is hosted through Shopify, correct? That's right. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Wonderful. Just wanted to make sure because all the cool kids are hosted through Shopify. Thank you for saying it. I didn't have to. I love it. Well, you'll have to say hi to Andy down the hall across the building, wherever you have. Absolutely. Do you happen to know what the like second product in the catalog was like after? Oh,
Megan Christian 11:03
good question. Let me think just curious. Honestly, I don't know, I just know that it's scaled super huge, from like zero to 100. Really quick. And now we sell all of the good things. So yeah, yeah, that's wonderful. How big is your team fairly small. We have about, I think, 30 to 40 employees here in our LA office. And that includes a huge warehouse team. So the office that I'm currently speaking to you from is the top floor of an office building connected to our warehouse. We also have a warehouse team in Atlanta, Georgia, that I think is about 2025 people. And then a lot of our higher level folks here on the team are actually over in mainland China, in Guangzhou, I believe, but that could be horrible pronunciation. So don't quote me on that. But we call them our GZ team. And they're wonderful. We love working with them, even though it can. I mean, time differences are so rough, but they add a lot of really great perspective and like really great, kind of, yeah, global perspective, for sure. But then also just we're really lucky to have some really smart, really talented people on the team over in Jeezy. So
Mariah Parsons 12:14
yeah, I love that little insider scoop and nickname I know for real. Yeah. Well, thank you for walking us through the background. Of Yes, calm. And I want to now go back into what we were talking about now that our audience has context. Yep. So like, when you're you, we were talking about like when your product focus, it can be hard to know in terms of the branding, like where the line where you want to draw the line in the sand in terms of like being transparent. You want to be more vulnerable with their with a persona have a persona for the brand. So I wanted to ask you now that you've kind of had experience in both of those worlds, where do you think that like line is drawn? Or like how do you kind of distinguish? Which messages what branding you want to share with consumers?
Megan Christian 13:03
Yeah, that's a great question. You know, I think for me, something that's so interesting about working in marketing, but specifically in social media, is you can kind of see a very personal touch in every strategy. And every campaign that a social media specialist or social media marketer provides. It's crazy to look back and be like, Oh, so this is all Yes, calm, but I can see where past employees current employees, like there's definitely like a thing of your touch or of my touch that you can see going back. So I think, for me when I'm creating content, and when I'm planning a strategy, one of my main thoughts is thinking of not necessarily a customer, but as a scroller, someone on social media, if you're going to see this, and this is going to be your first peek, first thing to come up on your free page on the Explore element in Instagram, whatever. What are you going to learn about my brand, when you're creating a campaign, sometimes it's really hard because you want to think like, and they're going to see parts A, B, and C, and you're going to see them in that order, and follow my thought process and understand. But what I have learned is that so often, you're getting one interaction on one post and a completely different interaction on another. So you have to be thinking not necessarily as what is this campaign? What is the overall vibe, what is the overall message, but it's, it's just as important to have this post has this message and this purpose. And then the next day, maybe it's the same in the next day, maybe your post is different and so long story longer. What I found is really focusing on some diversity and trying different flavors of motivations behind each post, and even if they're all going to be encompassed in the same strategy or in the same campaign, you know, for example, leading up to Valentine's Day, we focused on our products that are health and beauty and fashion kind of theme. So we were looking at makeup cases, we were looking at massage chairs, things like that, that were like, you know, it sounds amazing. Delightful. Absolutely, we'll hook you up. But looking specifically at, you know, the theme of the campaign, Valentine's Day gifts, you know, and Valentine's Day gifts, because that's my favorite holiday. Right? That too. But each post can't be like a sequential part of one huge painting, because there's a really good chance because of the nature of social media that someone's just going to see parts two and parts F or whatever, they're going to have to be able to pull a story or pull an idea of your brand, from just that one interaction. So yeah, it's so tricky to kind of balance all of these different aspects of who you want to be and how you want to be perceived by these potential customers. So I don't even know if that's a great answer. But I guess the what that is, it's complicated. And you have to be thinking about overall strategy, of course, but then also, every individual piece of content counts.
Mariah Parsons 16:15
Yeah, no, I love that was a great answer. I love that you painted like, the difference between wanting it to be sequential. And saying like a through z, this is what you want someone's experience to be like, That's ideally, right. Like that makes it that simplifies it. Right? For you and for your team. Totally. But the reality is so chaotic, right. And yeah, that's what's something that's so fascinating about social media, and I think why it probably intrigues many is like, there's a little bit of chaos, where it's, or maybe a lot of a lot of games, where you get to like, experiment with it. But it can also be like, this rabbit hole or this like black box of like, solutions where you're like, Okay, we could do this, this, this this? Which one do we actually do, right? But I love I love that you. I've like we haven't had someone come on the podcast and speak to that yet in terms of thinking through, like, if someone lands on a post that was like meant to be and I'm using air quotes, right meant to be one of your like, last in the series, ads or posts. And they're seeing that as a first one, like, what pieces if any, are they going to miss if that's how you're thinking about your social media strategy? So are you this is more of like a tactical question. When you're trying to think about like, Okay, if someone lands on the third post in a series, are you trying to get at like the same CTA the same copy and like changing? I don't know, like, the creative or something like that, so that they're still getting the necessary information? Yeah. Like, are you just kind of being like, you know, if they land on that third one, then they land on that third one? Hopefully, it's like, good enough.
Megan Christian 18:00
Yeah. No, that's a great question. I honestly, it's a little bit of both. Some days, you know, I'm feeling like, No, I think this message this copy this CTA is going to be so successful, that I am going to throw it on three different versions, you know, we'll have it on a carousel, we'll have it on stories, we'll have it on a reel, because I believe in it, but then, you know, even with the best intentions and the greatest of my strategical abilities, is strategical word, we're gonna make it like it wasn't word until my mouth. Sometimes they flop and that is so hard. Also, you know, I think that there's a good amount also have just been willing to try something different. And to say, I wanted this to work, all the evidence points to this should work. I know my TA. And ideally, it would have worked this way. But it's just not until we take a hard left turn and try something different. Try something. You know, I go speak to my team and say I've done everything in my wheelhouse please someone else, let me borrow your wheelhouse. And we'll create a post that way and see if that if that resonates. And I think the other thing for me is to answer your question a little more specifically. No, I don't want to drive people to go back and discover the entire series of posts necessarily, because that is going to be less of a marker of success for me than if they just interact with the one post and then follow the call to action the one time and so you're kind of weighing the pros and cons do I want this to turn into they follow me so that the next call to action kind of works and convinces them to do that? Or is it okay if they just have this one interaction? And this is their only touch point. Um, and you know, because of the size of our following i We just surpassed 3000 followers when I joined the team, thank you so much. When I joined the team we were at just over I think 1100 So dust off the shoulders. Yes are working hard applause to you. Thank you, thank you. But you know, we are still you know, fairly micro in the world of art. I mean, if you were looking at the scale of things very micro, but at the size that we are so many of the motivations behind my posts are just get the name out there be customer facing become a more recognizable name. And so even if the call to action doesn't hit isn't discovered, the reels aren't the funniest that you've ever seen whatever it is, if they come away with even a tiny bit more of an understanding or a recognition of YES, COME USA, then I will consider it a success. Yeah, as you should first of all, well, you kind of have to let let go of the pride of it too. Because you know, like, ideally, I'd be coming into work every day, like, viral viral, viral, bam, bam, bam, and like perfect campaigns and a billion billion sales, but and it can feel so personal just because of the nature of social media. But yeah, at the end of the day, so many of the wins that come from social media marketing are just a tiny bit more recognition, a tiny bit more brand awareness.
Mariah Parsons 21:08
Yeah, there's so many things so much less quantifiable. But yes, yeah. Like, the attribution is crazy, which I want to ask you about to like, yeah, even just trying to like, track that insane. Um, but I wanted to also acknowledge, because you grew social media to 3k, which huge, huge success. Thank you. Um, and I do want to recognize to like, Yes, God was a huge brand in social media, just because like you said, it was like, 2020 years. Yeah. anniversary last year, right. So it's like, it's very, it's a very established ecommerce store and brand. And now, like social media, your social media profiles are starting to reflect that, which is huge. Like, I want to give you that acknowledgement, as well, so much, of course. And with that, I want to ask too, so there's so many things I want to ask about. So they might be out of order, but I know you're fine. Asked me. I'm ready. Okay. Okay. So let's go to attribution first, because I think that's the most natural segue, how are you like, because it's so tough to tell. Just in marketing, right of like, unless you have really good system setup. Or like a very, you know, you have like different people specializing like very big team. It's hard to like, know exactly where branding is paying off, right? Like someone could see an ad. Some like, in the beginning of the month, end of the month, they see another ad. And then like two months later, they get a friend who tells them, oh, I have this thing, you should buy it. And then they buy, right. So like, it's hard, because that might just look like it was a referral, or maybe it was just like inbound months later. But it could have been because of a paid ad from months
Megan Christian 22:50
prior. Who knows where the seeds were planted? And when and how many and who watered. Exactly,
Mariah Parsons 22:55
yes. Yes. I love that metaphor. That's a great one, I need to use more. So how, like, how are you all trying to track attribution? Do you care with like social media trying to look at who's coming on your website? Who's purchasing all of that?
Megan Christian 23:07
Yeah, that is a great question. I think for me, and again, this kind of goes back to just the size that we are social media wise, and the the main goal. Another important side note, we just rebranded in, I think four years, it was in 2021, I believe that we just rebranded and kind of really honed into this fulfill your passion and kind of redesigned the website and all of those things that go into a really nice big rebrand. And with that, I think just kind of the higher ups and everyone's attention on marketing shifted to, we just need that brand awareness, we just need people to we just need to drive that traffic. And so when I came on the team, all of the feedback that I was getting is if you can just push them to our website, we will take care of the rest. So for social media, we are not even necessarily super sales focused we are let's get these people on my website. Okay, so I took a look at my experience and how I can get people onto a website and decided that overall, what I'm going to focus on, on tracking and on reporting is our rate of engagement and our growth rate percentage as far as followers go, and that those were the two things that I was going to you know, tattoo on my brain and just be completely committed to getting that our growth rate up and getting our rate of engagement and I mean, so far so good. I think that we have I wish I had pulled my stats recently and could have some great numbers of your quiz
Mariah Parsons 24:52
but on the spot I know for real but you know those
Megan Christian 24:58
we set some goals when I first joined the company, you know, I kind of proposed this social media improvement plan and was like, you can't just post and then people will magically appear on the website, like, there needs to be a little bit more intention. And a lot of what I was hoping to establish and that we have established in the last year is consistency and consistently posting and consistently being a presence on the feed and consistently communicating with our community. Because I strongly believe that it's that human connection, kind of going back to the values that I mentioned earlier, giving humanity to the brand, being branding focused, and then continuing to foster those relationships and foster that engagement is what leads to the results that you're looking for. And that is honestly, like, started as a personal belief. And I'm really lucky that it has panned out and is now kind of reflected in the company's successes. So
Mariah Parsons 25:50
yeah, that's, that's really interesting of like, and I love that you gave the metrics that you're dialing in to, because like, I know, for myself, too, when I'm putting on my social media, manager hat, it's like, do we look at the amount of engagement? Do we look at them questions? Do we look at the followers? Do we
Megan Christian 26:09
look at a million things, we look at everything, and we never get anything done? Because we're just reporting back on these numbers?
Mariah Parsons 26:14
Yeah, yeah, it can, it can, again, like it can feel like you're in this like, tunnel of trying to predict things when sometimes you might not be able to right, like a lot of a lot of I think like across industries, like a lot of people will feel you can't predict. They're like you can't, you can predict things, but you can never ensure that they're going to happen, or you can ever be assured. So with that, with driving people to the website, then so like, you've done your job, wonderfully, you've gotten people to the website is the hope that like people, whether or not they're landing on the blog, or whether or not they're landing on a product page is like the experience there, because you've had it up and running. And like evolved for 20 years that like once someone's on your website, then the customer experiences. I don't want to say like flowers are seamless. But you get the idea like,
Megan Christian 27:11
yeah, that has been not a struggle. But it's been something that's been a conversation recently with the marketing department. Because here in Los Angeles, in my office, there's a smaller part of the team, we have our local photographer who I worked really close with, obviously, to create some great content, here in office, and then also on like outdoor shoots and whatnot. We also have our content writer, Eric, who does a lot of our blogs, who's here in office, and then it's just me for social media. And so a lot of the rest of our conversations, you know, as far as like email marketing, and how the website appears, is all still in my marketing team. But it is being operated out of GZ. And so we're waiting, what is it like a 15 hour time difference. And so sometimes it can be what's the right word, I've found it to occasionally be kind of clunky, to try and align, you know, not only the cultural differences and the time differences, but making sure that we align those experiences so that it is a streamlined, like you said flawless, seamless, continuous process from how I sell them on social media to get to our website, to then be on our website and get whatever results there, whether it's Add to Cart sales, whatever. So it's hard. Luckily, we have a really good team who's really talented. And really I feel like one of the strengths of our marketing team is we're really eager to learn on both sides. Honestly, I think it's just growing pains. And as we've like, added more time and money and effort into social media, kind of learning how to adjust. Not so that the website is different, but so that it's a streamlined process can be hard. But it's good. I mean, it's it's a good struggle to have to Yeah, like we're driving so much traffic. What are we going to do with this to make sure that it continues? Like, it works too? Well? Yeah, so that can be hard, but it's, but yeah, it's important.
Mariah Parsons 29:10
Yeah, for sure. And I noticed too, like, this is one of the things that I wanted to chat with you about was like, the website experience. I feel like a lot of typical like E commerce DC brands, at least the ones that we work with are usually like they're very rant heavy, right? Like in terms of like, okay, this is our message. This is our mission. This is like what we want you to see. And they're like very like a lot of, you know, most of the time, a lot of bright colors and a lot of like cute graphics or like very creative. It has a very creative approach. And one of the things that he noticed with your website is that it is I want to say like class like classic look where it's like less of the more like minimalistic cartoon Poppy. Yep, it is typical DTC experience. And with that, though, with it being like more product focused on like your catalog, because there's just so many things that you offer you kind of like out to be that like your blog as well. It, your blog almost focuses more on like, the higher level things that you would get from a brand maybe, because it's more about like, oh, tips and tricks, like, how to, I don't know, like, I saw a lot of seasonality, like, okay, like Valentine's Day you spoke to and Valentine's Day, of course, love is like, what are what is like something creative to do. And then you know, it's like a natural way to, for you to talk about your products and like, different creative ways to use them. But as opposed to like other brands, where it's like, okay, this is how you use this product as a blog post. So I think it's like a really interesting, dynamic where the, like, social media, it's like, okay, we, we have this, we have this foundation with the brand, and our history of 20 years, like, how do we show that and then, on the website, it's like, here's your product catalog. And then you have the blog with like, all the informational, educational?
Megan Christian 31:23
Yeah, well, and I think you hit the nail on the head when you said it, just by virtue of how many products we have. It's kind of necessitated like the look of our website, because there's just so much to offer, I mean, it would be nearly impossible to have at, believe me, I've tried a wonderful succinct, like, single headline, this is who we are, this is the graphics and the colors and the music, and then whatever. We've found that instead, if we're driving all of this social media effort to the website, then the website can just be a place to show you the products. And I think one of our one of the examples that we're trying to emulate is when you go to like Amazon homepage, and you see a product product product, and it's what's for sale, and what's the deal, and why do I need it? And what is this again? And you know, it's it's product focused. And I think because of the variety that we offer, we have found ourselves kind of emulating the same. And I think we're continuing to learn how to kind of integrate some of the new, like more modern looking DTC websites. And so I think that I have seen in my time with yescom, a small transition into a little bit more of that look. And I think you're totally right, great observation, the blogs have been doing that as well. And I'm a big fan of those, because I think it offers a lot of humanity to the brand, which as you know, is huge for me. But another area that I have found to kind of bridge that gap is a lot of user generated content. And offering kind of that aspect on our social media, obviously has increased a lot of human connection and a lot of conversations that I'm able to have just as our social media manager kind of engaging with these influencers. And I think that was one of my main selling points to Yes, calm when I was first hired is that was my bread and butter. Yeah, looking with Kelsey, it was a lot of obviously with her being an influencer. The brands that were approaching me I kind of had like the the Flipped perspective on like, how I like to be approached by a brand as an influencer. And I think that that has really improved our collaboration game.
Mariah Parsons 33:35
Yeah.
Megan Christian 33:38
But yeah, kind of using that to bridge the gap of like, the modern look, the being user focused and having like, a variety of this is what it really looks like for someone to use a yes, com product. So
Mariah Parsons 33:51
yeah, that's awesome. I also love that you brought up UGC, because I also made that made that note where I was like, I'm seeing a lot of it. So it made sense. And I want to ask if you're willing to share just like some more information around how like those learnings that you talked about, like how you like a brand to approach when they're like wanting to, you know, sponsor an influencer or have a partnership.
Megan Christian 34:18
Totally. Oh, I could talk about this for days and days and days. Let's do it. Okay, great. This is our new 24 hour podcast. Yep, it's CNN but for EDC, influencer Congress,
Mariah Parsons 34:30
I love it. That's actually like, that's fun.
Megan Christian 34:32
I was like, what I log in? Absolutely. I would listen to that forever at my desk. Um, no, I think for me, there's so many things you know, always keeping in mind that the lens that I'm seeing this all through is my system of value. So obviously, this human connection is going to be high up which leads to the conclusion. When you are copy and pasting the same message to 30 different influencers. Every single one of those influencers knows that they are receiving a copy paste message And they're going to respond to you accordingly. So, you know, it can be a pain to not do that. I understand. But it's powerful to genuinely establish a relationship and some communication. So that is mega and super tip number one is just love it don't be a copy paste monster, because people can tell, and they'll they'll know right away that you're just trying to, you know, reach the quota of 10 influencers engaged, done. I think. And obviously, that's something that I saw and kind of learned on the other side, in previous experiences is just like, Thank you brand 123 for reaching out with the refigure that everyone has always done. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, something that's tricky when when trying to establish some collaborations and partnerships. For us here. Yes, come is because of the quantity of products, we want to make sure that we're giving kind of like, equal, I guess, screen time is not the right word, but I guess equal equal spotlight to each of our different kinds of categories of products. And so it can be tricky when we, you know, are really lucky to score. I'm using air quotes but like to score a great collaboration with someone for example. Oh, let me think of one cute girl Her name is Laura light shares on Instagram. She and her mom are on the page. And it's a lot of like, young kid like tween lifestyle things. So we've sent her like fun, a nail art table and makeup. Like Kayla on things. I'm like, yes, absolutely bring it on. But we had a great collaboration with her. She made us some really great content, the cutest real, send us some raw footage that we were able to create some great reels that performed really well. Super happy with it. You know, the next week I come into work, and I've got 30 dm saying, can we collaborate with the makeup case? Oh, my God, no way. Oh, awesome. But pump the brakes. Because if we were only selling a makeup case, absolutely. Like that would be easy. And let's just keep getting this UGC of this one product. Something that's been tricky is figuring out when you have a variety of products, like how do you choose what to promote, and when and in what ways and with what collaborators and so kind of the solution that I have established to make sure that we're getting like equal spotlight for each of our different products, is we plan way ahead of time, what what SKU is we're going to be promoting when like which of our products are getting the highlights when and then we let our tried and true collaborators know ahead of time. Hey, in March, we're going to be highlighting products ABCD and E. If you want any of those, let me know and we will send you that product. That way we're guaranteed the right content at the right time for the right product.
Mariah Parsons 38:01
I love that. Yeah,
Megan Christian 38:02
once I thought of it, I was like, I'm a genius. I've solved social media, we'll have it problems again. It was such a such a dumb, simple fix to such a hard problem before where I'm like if I get one more DM of someone asking for a free treadmill, when I've already given out five this week, like I can't it's not sustainable for us to continue to get UGC of the same one product, when we want to be selling and promoting all these other wonderful things that we have to offer. So that was one of our biggest like,
Mariah Parsons 38:37
and you'd have moments where it's just like, oh,
Megan Christian 38:39
this is a problem. We didn't anticipate until it was happening. Thank goodness, we have a solution. So I would say like if anyone is listening to this, and is in a similar position of like, we have so much to offer, there is huge interest in one product Absolutely. Like weigh the the the pros and cons of like, Let's go all in and we're just going to promote this one thing. But if you're a brand, like YES, COME USA where you have so much to offer. This is me giving you permission to be selective. And I think another thing that has really worked in our favor is just figuring out who we like to collaborate with. And it can be tricky because there's some people that make really wonderful content and there are so many talented creators on social media. But some people are hard to work with and don't meet the deadlines and don't you know, whatever. And so, you know, really just doing the work to give yourself permission to be picky and selective when it comes to UGC can be really tough but it's I strongly believe that it is ultimately worth it. So yeah, there's so I love that you like walked through all of that so thank you.
Mariah Parsons 39:51
I know I put you on the spot with no
Megan Christian 39:53
you're good I'm I'm happy to talk about I genuinely this is like
Mariah Parsons 39:59
yeah I love it. And I think it could be so easy like I'm thinking about, like, if I were to get like 30 DMS on Instagram be like, Oh my God, we want to work with your product. Like, we want to be affiliate, whatever, I would be like through the roof, right? Like, oh my god, yeah, send them all in. But then Right, like, it's easy to get, you know, grab happier, like super excited at the new and shiny thing. But it's like, when we when I think of like higher level or like, zoom this out a bit. It's like, same thing with like retention, where it's like, you want to make sure that the people that are already your people, stay your people. So you don't want to like same thing with influencers. Same thing with your audience on social media and like you don't want to completely just like turn left and then have leave everyone else wondering like, Oh, I thought we were like a really strong partner or I thought, you know, this was your brand and you absolutely pivoted. So I love that. You brought that to light. And I also love that you gave the example of like the treadmills Right? Like, there's such a hot trend right now. Yeah. Oh my gosh, yeah. Working from home, like even myself. I was like, you don't want my friend I was on her story. I was like, I think I need to get one of those. Yeah. But like, so my question here is because how you're, you're looking at your process of like, okay, we know, this is what we're going to be promoting at this time of the year. Like you we want to make sure that we have content to match that. So a question for you is like, if something is trending, like the treadmills Do you? Is there like leniency towards like, okay, maybe if it's trending right now we'll hop on this trend and like, call an audible and pursue it because it's trending? Or is it like, Okay, now we need to stick to our strategy of predicting, or like saying when our products are going to be going on? Like, are these queues are going to be what we're focusing on? Yeah.
Megan Christian 41:52
Honestly, the answer is both with an emphasis on flexibility, like, I think that anyone who comes into social media with like a hard and fast plan, and they've got content planned out for three months on Planoly, later.com, whatever, and it's just going to autopost you're losing, you're gonna lose social media. I'm sorry, that I just called people losers, but it is what it is. It's this place. Oh, absolutely. I'm a disrupter. No, but I think that, like the adaptability. And the flexibility is such a necessary aspect of marketing at large, obviously, when it comes to following and copying or buying into trends, but specifically on social media, you know, if you, there's so many, like blinking, you miss it kind of things, like we talked about, tick tock earlier in, in the in this conversation. And I think that like, yeah, it's just, it's impossible to keep up, if you are going to be strict about some sort of scheduling. So it's a combination, though, because if you don't schedule anything, then the posts aren't going to create themselves, you know, and like the content of just show up. So it's this combination of like, planning in advance having content plan, because that consistency really is huge. And we have found, like, huge benefit to just being a consistent presence on timelines. So like, we will post twice a day no matter what. But what we post twice a day is going to change based on trends and new products, and you know, all of these unpredictable factors. So, yeah, just again, for me, like we have a marketing calendar, we have a strong like strategy focused plan of what is going to roll out when. But if I come in tomorrow, and the entire world is interested in buying a new bathroom sink, then I'm going to drop everything. And we're going to plug and play a little bit with what content we've already created, and what I can make and reach out to so and so who lives close by you can promote this for us. And then we'll plug it all in and then continue to follow the strategy. So hopefully that kind of answers your question. It does. The answer is both. You have to be flexible. But you also you have to have the content plan, and you have to be consistent and be posting.
Mariah Parsons 44:14
Yes, I love it. So quick question for you. Yeah, in terms of like how you find out like what's trending, like, is it just you going on social platforms? Or like, are you looking at newsletters, like, how are you, delineating between like, oh, the whole world is caring about a sink right now, like, change this plan? It's such a good question. I
Megan Christian 44:38
think some of it is motivated by our marketing team and Jeezy. And they will come and be like, hello, according to our methods, our research and what's happening on this side of the globe. Here are the things that we've decided are the focus and I think like those skews that they pull in that they are like research based Do I not trust blindly but I just trust my team blindly, you know, to provide some lip line. But yeah, like with one eye closed, I'm waiting. And so I think that's a motivating factor, I think there is like benefit to even if it's just like dead scrolling constantly, you know, like, I'll, I'll count that as a little bit of, you know, not even a little, a decent amount of market research will just come from this work as an on social media totally. And so there is that piece as well. I'm trying to think what else we do. We do meet as a marketing team fairly frequently here in LA, so just my local team, and just make sure that we're constantly having that conversation of okay, what are you seeing what's on your for you page? What are the important things, let's make sure we're all on the same on the same page. And so even like, and it's something that's fun about working in marketing is you'll have a conversation about Brianna's halftime show. And it's like, this is relevant, this is work this is. Again, I just keep going back to that value system. But like, when we talk about these human connections, like being really socially aware, and really like interpersonally aware of what's happening, is going to be the biggest benefit. I just honestly believe that.
Mariah Parsons 46:20
Yeah, no, I love that. And I think that's something that anyone hopefully who works in social media relates to you and everyone, anyone who's like looking to get in the industry or, you know, worked with people I'm sure also relates or just has like social media, you know, obviously,
Megan Christian 46:36
it can be so hard to with a lot of teams now working from home, or working remotely or like inconsistent, you know, work schedules or whatever, it can get really hard. And so just, you know, I would, if anyone were looking for my advice, I would say, prioritize some time to be together and get FaceTime with people have like different backgrounds and different interests. Because then you're going to be able to see a wider web of what's happening in the world. That was a lot of the letter W but I love it. I love it and alliteration for you. Yes, thank
Mariah Parsons 47:11
you. And people do want to hear your advice about it. Great. Just social media, everything. That's actually my like, last question that we always round out the episode with. So you kind of already beat me to it. But is there anything else? Yeah. Good. Is there anything else you would add to that in terms of like, advice for someone listening as we round out this episode? Um, you're already given so much. Well, gosh,
Megan Christian 47:36
yeah. I mean, unintentionally, you now have my entire social media brain. So
Mariah Parsons 47:43
that's only the service. I know. For real. I'm like, we could dive but I have like 1000 More questions to ask you, but I'm cutting.
Megan Christian 47:51
You have my email. So we're stuck being friends. Now. I think the only other thing that would come to mind is and it's been said a million times. And so I'm almost like hesitant to give the same advice again, but it's just so helpful to me is create the content that you want to see. And create the content that you like, and it can be hard when you are representing a brand or maybe a person that isn't you it can be tough, but really, at the end of the day, just look back at like, What do I like about this? Like, why? Why do I care about this product? In what situation in my life? Would I want to be? Would I be motivated to buy this and then just create that kind of content? And I think when you look at when you boil down strategy, and you boil down UGC, and content, creation, all of those things, it comes down to like, what's likable? What, what sells? And I know that that's really like, the basics of marketing, but like, yeah, just just consistently asking yourself that question can be really, it can be a game changer when you feel like you're stuck. And I think that, honestly, for me, like every once in a while, I'll be, you know, in the rut of like, and now we create another reel, and we're doing this again, and we're looking for those trending sounds, whatever, you know, just make something that makes you smile, and love that something that aligns with your personal values. You know, again, I've said that word a million times this episode,
Mariah Parsons 49:14
but I love it. We every everyone needs a reminder,
Megan Christian 49:18
honestly, and take the time to identify what those are for you see where it aligns with your brand and then run with that because I think that that's what's going to help you prevent burnout, be motivated and excited to come to work and create content that works. So that would be my advice.
Mariah Parsons 49:32
Yeah, wonderful advice that and this whole episode. So thank you for taking the time. Megan. This has been absolutely amazing to chat with you. I know it's just so much fun.