From Zero to $17 Million: How Social Media Drives Revenue and Business Growth [Endless Customers Podcast Ep. 64]

This transcript has been generated by AI and not checked for accuracy.

Robyn Nissim
0:00:00
After one year I turned organic social into a 17 million dollar a month revenue driving channel

Alex Winter
0:00:07
17 mil a month

Robyn Nissim
0:00:09
17 million dollars a month so that's the power of social media Join us for impact live

Alex Winter
0:00:14
Impact Live 2024 in Hartford, Connecticut, this October 14th through the 16th.

Alex Winter
0:00:20
Over three days, business owners, CEOs, and marketing and sales leaders will learn proven strategies to drive business growth. Attend expert-led sessions on marketing, sales, leadership, and AI, and get a chance to network with industry pros just like yourself. Discover how companies like yours are dominating their markets. Secure your spot at impactplus.com backslash impact-5. And for all of our endless customers listeners, we have an exclusive discount code that'll save you a hundred bucks. So when

Alex Winter
0:01:00
you're on the checkout page, just enter the code ECPOD100 in all caps for a hundred dollars off. We'll see you there at impact live 2024 up in Hartford, October 14th. Welcome back to Endless Customers, the show that teaches you how to earn trust and win more business in the age of AI. I'm your host, Alex Winter, and today we are joined by a really special guest. Her name is Robin Nissim, and she's a fractional VP of social media and an all-around social media and marketing expert.

Alex Winter
0:01:28
Robin, welcome to the show.

Robyn Nissim
0:01:30
Hi, thank you so much for having me, Alex. I'm stoked to be here.

Alex Winter
0:01:34
We are stoked to have you. Thank you for being on the show. I can't wait to pick your brain. We got to meet pre-show and talk about your background and you got to know a little bit about me, but for our audience here,

Alex Winter
0:01:45
Robin has an incredible story to tell, so I think a good place to start is to just let people know what you've been up to, some of the brands you've worked with, a little bit of your experience, just to paint the picture of really what you do,

Alex Winter
0:01:56
and then we'll get into more of the social media nitty gritty stuff that we want to talk about today.

Robyn Nissim
0:02:01
Yeah, that's awesome.

Robyn Nissim
0:02:03
So I think the best place to start is really that I made a career for myself out of being a millennial. When I graduated college and entered the workforce, the word millennial was trending and I kind of used that to my advantage in the sense that it allowed me the opportunity to sit in meetings that I had no business speaking in, let alone even being in.

Robyn Nissim
0:02:26
And I would have, you know, VPs of marketing and CMOs asking me, Millennial, how do we reach you? And, you know, I was very honest. I was like, listen, I think it's crazy what we're doing here. It's crazy you're spending a million dollars

Robyn Nissim
0:02:42
on that TV commercial, thinking that I would see it. Because I stream everything, I have an ad blocker, and I'm addicted to my phone. So if you want to reach me, it's on social media. And that allowed me the opportunity to essentially take brands like Michelin and Nissan online, open up their social channels and really forge the way for myself in an industry that was just getting started.

Robyn Nissim
0:03:08
And so I...

Alex Winter
0:03:09
It's amazing. I have to jump in. That's amazing. And I love that you took the millennial thing or whatever they were putting it into this box and it almost had like a negative connotation to it and you spun it into like, no, I'm gonna use this to my advantage and I totally love and respect that.

Alex Winter
0:03:24
I think it's so cool and it clearly worked out really well for you.

Robyn Nissim
0:03:28
It did work out and what's funny now is when I'm working with Gen Z staff or people, I'm like, use that to your advantage and as I'm working with clients, I'm constantly sourcing Gen Z's opinion because I realize I'm no longer that target market, right? And that's okay because I have all of this

Robyn Nissim
0:03:48
historical foundational knowledge that ultimately is never going to expire, but I just might not be the target. So I need to get that Gen Z lens. And I think it's something for any younger listeners to really lean into.

Alex Winter
0:04:03
That's a great perspective and a good perspective for people to have that are watching and listening because you may start to get in the negative headspace of like, oh, I'm Gen Z and there's this, people have preconceived ideas and it's like, no, you have the ability to use that to your advantage

Alex Winter
0:04:18
and to write your own destiny. So it's all about perspective and how you leverage it, which is a really cool piece. I also want to talk, you mentioned some pretty big brands that you said Nissan and Michelin. Tell us more about that.

Alex Winter
0:04:31
I remember too we talked about Ulta Beauty as well. You've done quite a few.

Robyn Nissim
0:04:34
You did, yeah. So working in the agency world gave me access to big global brands and something funny that I love to share as a part of my journey is in the agency world I won a Webby Award on Nissan. We had sent a tweet to Deadmau5, he saw it, it went viral, ended

Robyn Nissim
0:04:55
with the president of Nissan hand-delivering keys to a GTR to Deadmau5 for free, and then he used the car in his YouTube series, all for one car. And that was epic, and I like to joke, that's when I had my mic drop moment, and I left the agency world because I was like, I'm carrying the team on my back. We did that with zero brand dollars. And I was so quickly humbled when I left

Robyn Nissim
0:05:23
and started working with startups that didn't have global brand recognition or budget.

Alex Winter
0:05:30
Or global budgets, yeah.

Robyn Nissim
0:05:32
Yeah, so that was a very humbling experience for me. And it really taught me to be scrappy because I was out on my own, I started freelancing for the first time and I was in the mindset of like I have to prove results and so I was doing anything and everything that I could

Robyn Nissim
0:05:52
to make online marketing work in a social media capacity, right, for these clients, posting on LinkedIn, trying to find people online with followers that could talk about our product. And before I knew it, I had found myself in the influencer marketing space. And I was super lucky to be able to land an opportunity building out Ulta Beauty's entire influencer marketing arm, working in tandem with the

Robyn Nissim
0:06:19
client on strategy. And then I handled all execution as a third party partner.

Alex Winter
0:06:24
Wow.

Robyn Nissim
0:06:24
And that was my favorite role I've ever had. I did that for about three years and after working with Ulta, I decided, okay, it's time to maybe go back, maybe let's try things on the brand side, learn from other people,

Robyn Nissim
0:06:38
and I then went on to manage communities as head of social at brands like Anastasia, Beverly Hills, and Alo Yoga.

Alex Winter
0:06:46
Wow.

Robyn Nissim
0:06:47
So yeah, some big names there.

Alex Winter
0:06:49
Big names, and I know we're name dropping, but I think it's important just from the authority perspective of like, you've had real world experience, you've worked with global brands, and you've done everything in between too. So like you've really gone from the agency piece

Alex Winter
0:07:04
to being your own business and making moves and making things happen. And I think it's really cool. And the reason why I wanted to talk to you today is because at Endless Customers, whether it's social media, whether it's blogging,

Alex Winter
0:07:15
whether it's your website, it doesn't matter what it is, but the goal for us in our ecosystem is to create trust. And I think one of the best ways to create trust and build trust with your audience is with social media because that's where you can keep it real. And I love talking to you

Alex Winter
0:07:28
because I feel like you keep it real. And social media is just like an extension of your personality in my opinion. And I think that's a really cool part of something that people tend to forget with social is like It's about me and I want to show off and I want to do this and it's not it's really about engaging with your community and you have to also be responsive to that and listen to what your community wants and meet them where they are which is

Alex Winter
0:07:50
Exactly what endless customers is all about. Yeah. Yeah, and my favorite thing about social is

Robyn Nissim
0:07:55
It's not about you and that's that's one of the pieces of advice I give. It's like, yes, we're here to educate people about the brand, but we're also here to entertain them and to inspire them and engage with them. So if we get a negative comment or a positive comment, let's turn that into content.

Robyn Nissim
0:08:16
Let's take that as an opportunity to go deeper. If there's a larger business opportunity on the table that we can't figure out internally, why not source it out to social media and make a fun piece of content about it? You know, that's the beauty of social.

Robyn Nissim
0:08:33
Unlike email, unlike, you know, the web team, any other channel, there's an opportunity to have an open conversation. There's an opportunity for dialogue that just doesn't exist on other channels.

Alex Winter
0:08:46
Yeah, that's definitely a differentiator, and it's something that you can really leverage to your advantage. So I have a question here, and I'm curious, for business owners and for businesses out there, are there misconceptions,

Alex Winter
0:08:57
because social media is shifting, and AI is coming out, and all this stuff is happening, and it's always a constant, like almost an arms race of technology, right? But are there misconceptions about social media that businesses need to be thinking about

Alex Winter
0:09:08
in today's marketplace?

Robyn Nissim
0:09:11
So yes, I definitely think that there are several misconceptions, but I think that the two biggest ones, number one is that my target is not on social media. That's just not true. I just looked up the stats earlier this week. About 64% of the population that is over 18

Robyn Nissim
0:09:33
is on social media. Wow. So 64%, there's a good chance someone in your target is there, that's a misconception, right? That they're not there, they are there, you probably just don't know how to reach them.

Robyn Nissim
0:09:47
And I think the second biggest, most harmful misconception about social is truly that anyone can do it. You know, back in the day when social wasn't monetized and wasn't this massive thing that had 64% of the world's population using, anyone could do it because that was the Wild West and we were just figuring it out. But now we're at a point where social media actually is a revenue driving channel.

Robyn Nissim
0:10:17
When I started working at Alo Yoga, there was no such thing as Alo. There was no such thing as Alo Wellness. There was no such thing as Aloe Men, Aloe Beauty, none of that existed. It was just Aloe Yoga, and they were making zero dollars off social media.

Robyn Nissim
0:10:34
After one year, opening up Aloe, Aloe Wellness, Aloe Men, taking over Aloe Moves, I turned Organic Social into a $17 million a month revenue driving channel.

Alex Winter
0:10:47
17 mil a month.

Robyn Nissim
0:10:49
17 million dollars a month. I was making 50% of business revenue. So that's the power of social media. And look, Allo is definitely an outlier in the sense that we were working under very, very, very big budgets.

Alex Winter
0:11:06
Understood. The resources were there, which makes your job easier when you have those resources.

Alex Winter
0:11:11
For sure.

Robyn Nissim
0:11:12
Yeah.

Alex Winter
0:11:13
Right.

Robyn Nissim
0:11:14
Right, but all of this is to say, you don't just create that stream of revenue with luck, right? It's not just personality. There's strategy, there's marketing involved. And so coming back, sorry, this is a bit of a tangent that I love it. Coming back to the misconception, not just anyone can do social media because social

Robyn Nissim
0:11:38
Social media done well is a hybrid of brand marketing, of digital marketing, tracking, making sure you understand your user's journey, and then pairing that with creative. Whether it's lo-fi or hi-fi, the best social media is a blend of all of those things. So if you're outsourcing social media to someone who's never worked in business marketing, doesn't know how to track digitally, and maybe is only good at creative, you're missing two-thirds of what it takes to be successful.

Alex Winter
0:12:07
Gotcha. Yeah, I know. That's a really good point. So I have to go back into what you were saying. I'm going to go a little off script here. We were talking about Palo.

Alex Winter
0:12:14
No, this is just fascinating to me because, listen, $17 million a month, that's a lot of money. A lot. And to go from zero to that is-

Robyn Nissim
0:12:21
Yeah, in a year.

Alex Winter
0:12:22
Yeah, is enormous. One year. And that's a short time span to make something like that really happen and have that kind of traction and success, right? How was it coming into? Alo when it was just aloe yoga and you're talking about social like to get the buy-in and to get them to commit to wanting To do something like that and actually getting that ROI like what was that journey like?

Robyn Nissim
0:12:41
So I was super fortunate in the sense that I was I was poached from Anastasia Beverly Hills when I was at Aloe and they brought me in saying, we want to be sensational. Your only job is to blow this up and we will give you every resource you need.

Robyn Nissim
0:12:59
You will be getting rid of the team here. You can bring on your own team. You just say what you need and go get to work. Amazing, who doesn't want to hear that, right? So they were already bought in, they saw the value. They were bought in and it was still really hard

Robyn Nissim
0:13:17
because what people don't know or maybe talk about in social media, you're doing your role and you're doing all these things, but the unspoken part of the job description is advocating for your channel across the entire organization.

Robyn Nissim
0:13:37
So connecting with stakeholders in product, in digital, in customer service, in store, at retail, right? You need to be so plugged into what every single department is doing so that you can be successful on social and that you don't run out of things to talk about. And it doesn't get stale or boring to your consumers, right? Yeah. And so there's a lot of advocating that happens behind the scene to get buy-in from all of your different stakeholders

Robyn Nissim
0:14:07
And so that was the challenge But what was really beautiful about aloe was number one No budget is like the best space to play in and I've never been able to find anything like it since I left Yeah, yeah

Alex Winter
0:14:22
Whatever you want. It's like a la carte, just go for it.

Robyn Nissim
0:14:27
That was a dream and I realized that's what it was. It was a dream. That's the exception, not the rule. And so I find myself having to pair a lot of things back now as I'm working with different brands. But we had a killer setup in the sense that

Robyn Nissim
0:14:44
we had PR, community activations, events, influencer, and social, working as like a four-headed dragon. And that was my biggest takeaway from being successful. Like, social media is never just gonna be successful if you leave it up to one person. But if you give them the ability to mobilize

Robyn Nissim
0:15:07
and leverage every single one of their marketing functions as well as core functions throughout the org, it's gonna be unstoppable, honestly.

Alex Winter
0:15:17
Yeah, no, that's a really good point, too. And I think that's something that is important for people to think about, where you said user journeys, or like the paths you want people to come down, and you design those. And social media is a big part of that,

Alex Winter
0:15:28
because that's usually the top of the funnel where the awareness engine starts, the curiosity starts, and you start to pull them in. So it all plays into exactly what you're saying. And it's not just that one person in social. You gotta get the buy-in from everybody.

Alex Winter
0:15:40
I love that. And we're very much about buy-in here. Because we also, well what we teach and what we coach on here at Impact is very similar in the sense that if you don't have buy-in from the top down

Alex Winter
0:15:51
and the organization isn't really feeling it and wanting to work the plan, it's not gonna work. You have to have that buy-in. And that's the baseline.

Robyn Nissim
0:15:59
A hundred percent. Without the buy-in you will have a burnt out social media marketer because this person is facing, you know, I'm just gonna call it what it is, trolls online all day and then they're banging their head against the wall internally too.

Robyn Nissim
0:16:14
Like, that's what makes the job really hard and what I don't think that the industry or people who haven't worked in social understand about this role.

Alex Winter
0:16:22
Yeah, well said. So we work with a lot of businesses that maybe don't have the same target audience that aren't like necessarily Gen Z or the younger generation So is there like a stereotypical social media user? Like demographically that business that like can still make business decisions And how do you like target those people that maybe aren't the 64% of kids that are on their phones all the time? But you still have business people that are our age or older that are using social media as well.

Alex Winter
0:16:50
So like, what would you recommend for business owners out there that maybe are looking for different target audiences?

Robyn Nissim
0:16:57
I think it's important to know where your audience is. So when you say business, I think of LinkedIn, right? LinkedIn is a booming social network, has over a billion users, it's projected to expand beyond that rapidly. I've built an entire business for myself

Robyn Nissim
0:17:18
just straight off of LinkedIn, relying on the traffic that I get from LinkedIn, driving it to my site, and now I'm at a point where I'm like, okay, I actually need to not only rely on LinkedIn, and I need to find a way to start owning my audience

Robyn Nissim
0:17:32
because if the site shuts down, so does my business, right? That's how I get all of my traffic. And so I think LinkedIn is the answer and knowing exactly where your target demographic exists, right? Just because they're not young doesn't mean they're not online. They might be on Facebook, they might be on Reddit, they might be, you know, I doubt they're on YouTube, but they might be. You just, yeah, you really need to do that,

Robyn Nissim
0:18:02
the exploration of like your user profile, right? And figure out where that persona exists and I'm sure they're there.

Alex Winter
0:18:10
That's a really great point

Alex Winter
0:18:11
and that's something I was gonna ask you is, part of I think what we hear a lot here is, what platform should I be on? Is it Facebook, is it TikTok, is it Instagram? And there's a lot of different platforms out there and I think it goes back to what you just said you really need to know who your target audience is and that's really going

Alex Winter
0:18:28
to dictate Where they what sandboxes they play in? Totally yeah, wow so for businesses that aren't very visual you know like for us We work with roofers and people in the banking industry and in insurance and things like that which are great businesses But maybe aren't as fun to sell as like Ulta Beauty or a really cool Nissan GTR that are ripping down the street or something like that, but what can they do

Alex Winter
0:18:51
to create interesting content and stuff that's visually stimulating and cool on social media?

Robyn Nissim
0:18:58
Yeah, that's a great question, and I'll say some marketers have it easier than others, right? Because when you do have a shiny object like that, it's so much easier to pull in attraction, but at the same time, I wouldn't want anyone to ever let that stifle their creativity.

Robyn Nissim
0:19:15
Like if you just think about the internet for a second, we are truly living in the most creative time, even outside of the internet. You know, people are so expressive in how they show up in the world every day from what they wear to what they're putting online.

Robyn Nissim
0:19:31
And so I think there's an opportunity to really, you know, exploit that. And exploit was maybe not the right word to use, but to lean into that, you know, like, so example with insurance or with legal, like leaning into that problem and making a really creative way to tell that story. There's, um,

Robyn Nissim
0:19:51
I keep getting served these Tik Toks of like, say I don't ever want to speak to you again in legalese or, you know, like, tell this person that I'm not interested in going on another date in legal terms. And you hear like a younger person asking a lawyer and the lawyer will then sit there

Robyn Nissim
0:20:15
and give their very professional, corporate, buttoned up answer. And it's so funny, right? And that is awareness content, right? If you go back to the the funnel that's top of the funnel But that's how you're gonna start in aging people

Robyn Nissim
0:20:33
And so I think it's important to number one lean into those problems in creative ways and then number two know that You can leverage content to create awareness or you can then have more Serious specific tailored content to drive that conversion, right?

Alex Winter
0:20:52
Yeah, no, that makes so much sense. And you've got my wheels spinning, I'm thinking as you're talking here. So, if you wanna create content that's creative and that's engaging, you have to think a little outside the box.

Alex Winter
0:21:03
And sometimes you have to step away from maybe the bubble that you're in, right? How do you do that if you're a business owner or if you're a marketer, right, and you're in this business, how do you get people to step out of the bubble and try to get creative

Alex Winter
0:21:15
and then come up with a strategy, right? And then what does that strategy look like? Do you do quarterly, is it annual? Can you paint that picture for us as far as strategically what works best?

Robyn Nissim
0:21:26
Yeah, so when I'm working with a client, I always will craft a strategy that supports the business. And so when we think about a business, there's generally your brand, right, or the business, or let's say it's a law firm, something that's not flashy. So it's like, you have your law firm.

Robyn Nissim
0:21:44
What are the law firm's values, right? What was it founded upon? Is it a family firm? Is there a story that's deeper that we can lean into that can tell us that you guys have been around for 20 years and it was passed down from grandfather now to grandson

Robyn Nissim
0:22:02
and there are generations, right? It's like, we want to go deep. Who cares about your service? Let's get people to know, like pull on their heartstrings a little bit before we start talking business, like show them the family dog. And then of course there is like supporting the business.

Robyn Nissim
0:22:17
So what are your services, right? Why do people need those services? When do those services come in handy? What, as a lawyer, do you know about those services that the average everyday person doesn't know? And how can we share that in a way that's digestible? So like, that's kind of what I'll go through in the very beginning phases of working with a client talking about, again, the business, your offerings, other relevant things. Maybe you host webinars, maybe you host coffee chats, maybe you guys are involved in community initiatives

Robyn Nissim
0:22:59
that you want to talk about and that are a big part of your culture, right? We'll uncover all of those things and I'll create a strategy that, like I said, is aimed to be all-encompassing of supporting the business and as a marketer, I will go deeper

Robyn Nissim
0:23:15
to pull out those layers, right? Peel back the onion and find something to talk about that people who aren't in the law space can connect with. And generally, oh yeah.

Alex Winter
0:23:29
Well, because you want variety

Alex Winter
0:23:30
and I think that's something too that when you create content, you can start to get into the cycle of like creating the same type of content. And even though it might be shot well, it might be fun, it might be creative, whatever it is, but it might end up becoming like when someone lands

Alex Winter
0:23:45
on your channel or your page, it's a lot of the same stuff. So how do you create some variety and mix it up a bit where it continues to be engaging and keeps people entertained?

Robyn Nissim
0:23:55
Well, I have a secret weapon, which I like to call my content matrix.

Alex Winter
0:24:00
Ooh, I like secret weapons.

Robyn Nissim
0:24:03
Do tell. Yeah, and I teach it in my group training program, which is called Running Social for Brands where I'm essentially striving to help make social media marketers better because at my level I'm running into so much pushback from CEOs that are saying, our target's not on social. And it's exactly like what we talked about earlier.

Robyn Nissim
0:24:24
I'm like, they are on social. You just don't have a good social marketer. So my solve for that is this group training program. And in that I have my content matrix which allows you to stay on strategy with your theme of content,

Robyn Nissim
0:24:42
but you're constantly diversifying to make it different so that your audience doesn't get fatigued with content.

Alex Winter
0:24:49
That's the goal. I think that's definitely the goal. So can we talk a little bit too about these CEOs, because we hear this too, you know, like our audience isn't on social media, we're not making any money with social media,

Alex Winter
0:25:00
we're not getting leads from social media, and I think what you just said is true. It's like, it's not social media's fault. It's more of like you have to reassess what your strategy is and what you're doing on social media. And I guess my question for you,

Alex Winter
0:25:13
this happens a lot where we start to implement an idea or a strategy and it may not work or it may not be getting the traction that you think. So where would you as an expert draw the line on like we're gonna experiment and try some of this and then if it doesn't we got a shift and like what does that look like as you navigate through some of those

Robyn Nissim
0:25:29
situations? I love this because this helps me answer the last question. So yeah, no, because what you create your strategy and that's a framework, right? And you test it. And the goal is, the way that I like to approach strategy is I talk about the same thing every single day of the week, Sunday to Sunday, I have a theme of what I'm talking about.

Robyn Nissim
0:25:53
And I just say it in a different way, week over week over week. So after about six weeks, you can see, okay, I've now tried the same piece of, you know, content pillar, bucket, theme, whatever you want to call it, multiple different ways. Is this working?

Robyn Nissim
0:26:11
Is it not working? I think you start to get a sense at the six week mark, but you really don't know before three months. Three months really allows you to exhaust the number of different ways that you try to tell the same story.

Robyn Nissim
0:26:25
And like, you just are never going to know. You have to keep iterating. And that's the beauty and possibly one of the biggest pain points of social media is finding the right way to deliver that message. You're not always gonna deliver your message

Robyn Nissim
0:26:41
the right way the first time. And that's hard, but it's a reality. And so sometimes it does take three months to be like, oh, okay, this is how people are resonating. And that's why you kind of have to stick with it through the long haul.

Robyn Nissim
0:26:55
So to answer your question, I would say, you know, don't get so caught up in week over week reporting. Give it six weeks, give it nine weeks, give it 12 weeks. Like test out something for, you know, six months. Like, but if you start to see, okay,

Robyn Nissim
0:27:13
we tried this one content pillar for 13 weeks at a time and it never once did anything. Can it? Move on, get rid of it, right? But if you're seeing, okay, this way worked, this way didn't, this way worked, this way didn't,

Robyn Nissim
0:27:28
there's a little bit of proof of concept that it's not a bad idea, it's just the execution, right? That's where the flaw is.

Alex Winter
0:27:34
Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. And I think the other thing too, and this is something that I learned, and I learned from experience, because I think I came into the workforce around the same time as you.

Alex Winter
0:27:42
It was after the economic crash of 08, and it was like social media was this new thing that people were starting to leverage, right? But I learned that you may have an idea of what you think you should be saying, and how you want to position your brand or your company,

Alex Winter
0:27:55
but the reality is you need to listen to your audience, and you said resonate. It's what resonates with your audience, and a lot of times they tell you what they want, and it's your job to listen to them. It's not what you want, it's about them

Alex Winter
0:28:05
and really, if you want to build trust and have that relationship with them, you have to give the people what they want.

Robyn Nissim
0:28:11
Exactly, that's exactly it. And another thing that I like to say is, you don't get to choose your audience. Your audience chooses you, at least in organic social. Yes, well said. So that's something that's gonna help you determine,

Robyn Nissim
0:28:26
like, okay, for example, with MeUndies,

Robyn Nissim
0:28:29
they're my client right now,

Robyn Nissim
0:28:30
our audience is obsessed with print underwear, hedgehogs on your butt, Beetlejuice sold out in 30 seconds, and we also have this entire suite of amazing, beautiful, neutral, daily core products, but our audience doesn't know about that. And they don't really care about that. But that's something that's a challenge right now that I'm facing is like, okay,

Robyn Nissim
0:29:00
well, our audience doesn't care, but this is a business driver and it's a KPI for me. And so I'm going to have to kind of find a way to make it resonate with them. And it's going to take time. It's not going to happen overnight.

Alex Winter
0:29:14
Right.

Robyn Nissim
0:29:14
Right.

Alex Winter
0:29:14
That's a great example. If there's a business that either hasn't started with social media or really hasn't had a serious strategy around social media, what do they need to do today, right now, after watching this episode, they hear this conversation, what should they go do

Alex Winter
0:29:29
to try to start their journey off on the right foot?

Robyn Nissim
0:29:33
Oh, I love this question because there's a place on social media for everyone and I want all the brands to be there and I want everyone to be successful doing it because the reality is it's just not going anywhere. And so I think, number one is go look at your competitors.

Robyn Nissim
0:29:54
What are they doing on social media? That's gonna be a really good place for you to either make the case that you need to be there or help you get into the right head space of how you should be thinking about it. Or potentially, you look at their content

Robyn Nissim
0:30:08
and you're like, they're not doing great, and so that shows you, oh, now I have all these ideas of how I could do it better. I think you also wanna think about, like I said earlier, all of the different things about your company and your services or your products and offerings

Robyn Nissim
0:30:25
that make you unique and how you can go deeper beyond just like, give us money and we'll give you something, right? Like, tell that story. And then also, think about resourcing because this is not a one-person job. It could start out as a one-person job, but this one person is going to need marketing direction.

Robyn Nissim
0:30:47
Like I said, they're going to need support from digital in terms of making sure that link tracking is appropriate so that their channel will get appropriate credit for what they're driving. You're going to need creative resources. It's not something that just one person can do on their own really well. And I want to preface too that you need to start slow in the sense that you're not just going to get to $17 million a month right away.

Robyn Nissim
0:31:19
Like, yeah, you're gonna be link tracking, but you'll be lucky if you send like one person somewhere in your first month, because if you're starting from zero, I just want to level set with you, you have, you've got a big hill to climb, and if you don't have paid resources to help amplify that,

Robyn Nissim
0:31:39
it's just gonna take even longer. So that just sounded really negative, I'm sorry. It wasn't the intent.

Alex Winter
0:31:46
But you keep it real and we gotta keep it real

Alex Winter
0:31:48
and I think it's important to set the expectation that there are ways to do things and there are right ways and there are not so right ways. And if you really wanna have the traction and success that I think everybody does want, then you gotta listen to Robin over here

Alex Winter
0:32:01
and do the things correctly.

Robyn Nissim
0:32:04
Social just needs resources. That is it. That's the plug.

Alex Winter
0:32:09
You said you had mentioned paid. In my head, I'm like, so when you do the paid pushes and you do promotions on posts and things like that, how much does that help? How much do you need to push towards a paid promotion? Should people that are just starting out be paying to boost their posts and things like that. Like how does that work? I know there's a science to it.

Alex Winter
0:32:28
So you can keep it general, keep it high level because I know there's a million different ways this could go.

Robyn Nissim
0:32:33
High level rule of thumb is if something is performing well, so let's say that you're posting and you notice that something gets a lot of likes really fast and it's surpassing what typical performance is, that's the kind of post that you would want to put spend behind, right?

Robyn Nissim
0:32:54
Because you're seeing people already like it, so if your audience already likes it, then you want to double down on it and amplify it so that more people can see it. I am a brand marketer through and through, so I come from the school of thought,

Robyn Nissim
0:33:11
which is controversial in the marketing industry that brand supersedes everything. You have performance marketers who can have conversations that, you know, dollars in versus dollars out in a specific amount of time. And brand marketing doesn't work like that.

Robyn Nissim
0:33:29
Brand marketing is really hard to draw attribution from. Like brand is about feels. And so for me, I think it's borderline dangerous to build a business on paid ads because that tells me you're buying your audience, you're renting your audience, you don't even own them,

Robyn Nissim
0:33:48
and you don't even know if there's a true product fit, but with organic social, which I specialize in, you're earning them and you're drawing people in and they just like you for who you are, not because you paid for them to be there. And so that's one thing, that's my just personal opinion

Robyn Nissim
0:34:06
about something to be careful with with paid media. If you're just starting out, I would recommend amplifying stuff that's already performing on its own and then scaling from there.

Alex Winter
0:34:18
Yeah, you said double down and I like that. It's like when you see that, that you're getting traction organically and people are liking something, then you can put a paid push behind it to amplify it, but you shouldn't be just throwing money at something and buying an audience that really isn't that bought in

Alex Winter
0:34:31
to your brand and to what you really are about as a company or an organization. That's a really good point, wow. So this has been a great talk. I feel like we've covered a lot of ground. Is there anything else we haven't touched on

Alex Winter
0:34:42
or any closing thoughts before we wrap up here, Robin? Wow, we have covered a lot of ground. I flew by, I'm like, how are we already done? I could talk to you for like another hour, easy.

Robyn Nissim
0:34:53
I know, thank you so much, it has been really fun. I think people should just know, like, don't be afraid of social media. Lean into it, it's not going anywhere. Make it fun, it's not heart surgery, it's not like any other channel, right?

Robyn Nissim
0:35:14
Like there is such a beautiful opportunity to connect with people. If we think about the source of why social media channels were ever created, it's rooted in connection. And so don't lose sight of that.

Robyn Nissim
0:35:29
Yes, they've been monetized and the platforms have changed well beyond, honestly, anything I could have ever anticipated for this industry, but the core of what draws people in remains the same, right, it's finding like-minded people, it's digital community, it's being inspired

Robyn Nissim
0:35:49
by the things that you're seeing that are helping you achieve that best version of yourself, or showing you that there's another way possible, or educating you on how to have a better future by investing in your family, or setting up your life in a specific way.

Robyn Nissim
0:36:05
So when you think about social media, come back to those core truths and don't get so caught up in transactional style content is what I would say.

Alex Winter
0:36:16
I absolutely love that. Because at the end of the day, we're communicating. That's what we're doing. It's like basic human one-on-one stuff, right? And you can't forget that. It's easy to get wrapped up in the platforms and the ads

Alex Winter
0:36:26
and all the other things, but at the end of the day, we're just trying to connect with other humans, and that's what it's all about.

Alex Winter
0:36:31
Well said.

Alex Winter
0:36:31
Well said.

Alex Winter
0:36:32
So what's going on in your world? I want to give you a chance to, if you got any, anything's coming up, or let our audience know what's going on for you, just so that if they want to follow you or catch up with you, they can.

Robyn Nissim
0:36:44
Yeah, definitely, thank you so much. So I'm active on LinkedIn every day, Monday through Friday. So if you want to follow me, we'll put my information here, but it's just Robin Nissam. And I talk about social media and influencer marketing, and I'm sharing insights every day about what works

Robyn Nissim
0:37:03
and what doesn't work and common pitfalls. Like I mentioned, I also run group training programs. Right now I'm pushing running social for brands and my fall cohort kicks off the first week of October. So if you guys want any information on that, you can just head to my bio on LinkedIn

Robyn Nissim
0:37:22
and you can go to my website, it's all laid out there. I will be hosting a master class also at the end of this month, which is the foundations of running Social for Brands. So it's like a little teaser, it's $100 just to get a feel of what joining that larger six week program could look like.

Robyn Nissim
0:37:42
So if you're interested, but maybe you're not 100% bought in sign up for my masterclass. I actually haven't announced it yet, but hopefully by the time this goes live, it will be live. Sounds good. That sounds really cool.

Alex Winter
0:37:55
No, everyone's gonna have to check it out for sure. And Robin, seriously, thank you for your time and all your insights. It's been great talking to you. This is the first of many. You're definitely gonna have to come back on the show

Alex Winter
0:38:10
in the future here.

Robyn Nissim
0:38:12
I would love to. Thank you so much for having me. I've had so much fun. It's been great.

Alex Winter
0:38:17
Excellent, us too. And for everybody out there watching and listening, this is Endless Customers. I'm your host, Alex. I'm your host, Alex.

Alex Winter
0:38:22
We'll see you on the next, video!!