The Social Life Podcast

Did you know that your online presence is easy to manage and doesn’t have to be overwhelming? Deanna has worked on crafting a strategy for her consulting clients that helps them manage their social media and digital strategy with ease while allowing them to manage their businesses with ease. Taking time to get your social marketing strategy and time schedule nailed down makes all the difference in your regular daily social marketing routine and makes it no sweat to manage. As always it’s important to create fabulous editorial calendar and a checklist that ensures you’re making sweet social media music Read More

In recent crazy pants news, the Fyre Festival utilized influencer marketing to sell it’s target audience of millennial on a luxury festival experience that did not deliver what it promised. The creators of the now infamous Fyre Festival used video marketing and visual marketing through Instagram to set the stage for their most epic failure with influencers whose names ran the gamut of who’s who of models and millennials marketing. In this episode, Deanna and Nate straight up chatter about what the flaws were in the marketing and how real-life influencer marketing works and should be used when planning big Read More

Many businesses are using blog writing to keep their websites fresh and in the good graces of the Google Gods. In today’s podcast, Deanna and Nate are going to chat about the action items you can use to create a checklist for creating valuable content marketing that will not only assist with building your sales funnel, but also keep Google noticing and ranking your site. 60% of the Time it works every time. Your checklist should include the following: Establish and match the tone with your social marketing. Write about news when it’s fresh and your audience is looking for Read More

We know that this may not be the most popular opinion in the world but Snapchat is starting to see heavy competition from tools like Instagram that have a dedicated follower base and are much easier to use. In this The Social Life Podcast episode, Deanna and Nate talk about what Snapchat has done to diminish their returning users and how Instagram is upping their game. Is this Snapchat? The Social Life Hosts Deanna L. Miller Partner & Marketing Director

Did you know that Twitter is doing things to improve it’s viability? Yep, it’s doing things that are making advertising awesome for businesses who are looking to grab the attention of audiences all over the world. In this episode, Deanna and Nate chat about what they love about Twitter, and how to use it for your own personal and professional needs! What are you doing with your Twitter? Don’t forget if you have questions about your LinkedIn presence or need help sharpening it up, please don’t hesitate to reach out by emailing Deanna at hello@starksocial.com Read More

A personal brand is important to any business whether you’re building your brand to get the best job possible or your looking to be an entrepreneur and take the world by storm. During today’s podcast, we chat with our fabulous friend, Neil Fitzgerald about developing your personal brand for long term success and goal achievement. Neil has waylaid his personal brand through recognition of his brand identity and channeled that into professional success that we’d all love to copy! Neil Fitzgerald | National VP of JCI USA Neil’s Tips to Winning the Social Professional Game: Don’t post about boozing with Read More

Deanna and Nathan chatter a lot about getting involved in the community you work, and live in, and that’s why in this episode of The Social Life, the team invited Neil Fitzgerald to join them for a chat about getting started and how you can incorporate nonprofits in your social media. Neil has worked with nonprofit organizations across the world, held political office in the UK and most recently worked his way up to National VP of the Junior Chamber, while tirelessly maintaining and excelling in his professional life too. Being involved in your community is key to engaging with Read More

Are you using Instagram to reach your prospective clients? Are you having trouble making wicked good posts? Deanna runs us down on her favorite Instagram apps right now and most of them are FREE to download and try! Instafit – does exactly what it sounds like! Make your images fit better. Download For iPhone | Download For Android Cleaner – did you know that there is an algorithm that scores your Followers to Follow ratios? Clean up your follow list and make sure you’re following relevant content that supports your biz goals. **BTW: When Nate said cleaner he actually meant Read More

Have you downloaded the Stark Social Media app, yet? We’re on Droid and Apple so go now and get it! While you’re all hard at work, we’re putting together great show topics and today, we’re chatting about how to jump start your social media presence and get those first pesky 100 followers! Twitter can certainly be an easy build, along with Instagram while we know Facebook is a tough one to tackle since their algorithm is such a pain in the tush. Deanna encourages all of us to use the tools that each social media channel offers in order to Read More

A Call-to-Action or more fancily know as a CTA for those of us in the industry, is an extremely important part of marketing efforts in today’s action driven society to ensure that your messaging is in-tune with your desired end result. In this week’s podcast, Deanna and Nate talk about the all important CTA in a variety of uses and why it’s important to incorporate them into every form of marketing being done by yourself and/or your company! In the show they talk about some great examples from Hubspot who offers insights into why certain CTAs work and why other Read More

Top brands do not leave any aspect of their branding up to chance and neither should you. On this episode of the social life podcast Deanna and Nathan chatter and outline how to get started with your business style guide. How to Get Started Define Your Target Audience: Describe who your customers are and why they need you. Describe Your *Businesses* Personality: Make a list of 3-5 adjectives that describe your brand Determine Your Guiding Principles: Determine the guiding principles for company decisions and actions. What you should have in your Style Guide Tell Your Branding Story Logo Specs (Size, Space, Color and Don'ts) Typography (Choose Typeface and font families, Alignment and Spacing Rules.) Color Palettes (Define all the color codes RGB, CMYK and Hex, Pantone if you are fancy) Imagery (Examples of Best Practices, Don'ts and Mood boards) Voice (Examples of Best Practice, Personality and Do's and Don'ts) We hope you love the podcast and will share it with your friends and family and coworkers and anyone who has a desire to make their brand sharper. Why You Need a Style Guide Why your brand needs a style guide, and how to create one 50 Meticulous Style Guides Every Startup Should See Before Launching The Social Life Hosts

Landing pages are something that everyone needs to embrace. You really cannot run a business without dedicated landing pages that provide your customer with a place to share your goodies. Whether it’s a promotion or special deal or a download, a landing page is the place to engage with clients! What should be on my landing page... It should be simple! Don’t overdo it with reviews, awards and extra stuff that could be distracting to your potential client. Place for gathering at very least, name & email - don’t ask them for the world, they don’t want to give you all their information. Summary of your goal - what are you giving them in return? Why you're the best - give them a dose of honesty about why they need what you’re offering. Don't overdo it - do we need to say it again? Counters create a sense of urgent - limit the availability of your offer and then bring it back at a later date. You want to use them with….  Facebook ads Google AdWords Twitter ads LinkedIn The kinds of ads... Giveaways Downloads Values Free consultation If you need a landing page, we can help you out! Give us a jingle and get a deal. The Social Life Hosts

Video is a HUGE part of social media in today’s brand market, and every business should be utilizing video in some form or fashion. Whether you’re owning Facebook LIVE or telling your stories on Instagram, there are ways to create content without spending a ton of cash. Deanna and Nathan chatter today about the Top 3 Types of Video to Improve Your Social Traffic during today’s podcast. Things that they cover with diligence are the following… 1. Tell Your Story - everyone wants to know where you came from, what inspired you and why you bother doing what you do. 2. Product Information - what is your product? What are you selling me and why should I care about adding your product or service to my life? 3. Promotions Drive Traffic - people adore free goodies, discounts, contents and of course once in a lifetime opportunities! We hope you love the podcast, and will share it with your friends and family and coworkers and anyone who has a desire to make their marketing sharper. The Social Life Hosts

Nate and Deanna have a fun conversation about bringing harmony to your email and social marketing - what does that mean? Deanna covers the basics of creating an email marketing strategy, and adding it to your social marketing strategy. In this podcast, we cover the following: Ask your current social sphere to build your sales funnel Make sure you’ve got at very least your Facebook and Twitter set up Pick an email provider to send your emails (separate from your CRM) we like MailChimp Have you claimed your Google MyBusiness Yet? Go now. Do it now. Here’s the tips…but, don’t skip the podcast... Offer incentives to give your audience to connect with You Make sure your social media icons are on your email template Use Branded Hashtags just for your biz Newsletter sign-ups on website and social media Run targeted ads using Facebook retargeting Set up email automation to drip market to certain folks for certain reasons Targeted social sharing - Twitter is a great place to do that Automate Your Marketing as much as possible Look at your data and use it to create content Make everything as mobile friendly as possible! Tools we like: MailChimp Opt-in Monster You’d be surprised how much business comes from email marketing! Keeping people informed about your audience in the loop is extremely important to ensuring your potential and past clients are aware of how awesome you’re doing. The Social Life Hosts

Facebook is constantly changing its algorithm to improve the user experience. Surveys showed Facebook that users were unhappy with being inundated with content from brands that didn’t matter to them. Moreover, that is what sparked a change in algorithm again and again, and now they have adapted their formula to ensure that users are getting more of the family, friends, and brands that matter than anything else. The bottom line is that if you are a brand trying to reach someone on Facebook then you are going to need to play the game. Google’s algorithm has changed to improve its quality of use for web search to include a better selection of demographics and criteria. Deanna and Nate chat about the differences and which method of targeting audience and ad buys is truly the best option for the masses. Audience Targeting: Facebook wins this one with its incredible ability to target down to gender, age, income and more. While Google Adwords is still mostly keyword based. Delivery Method: Google is purely search based with Adwords, which means your potential client needs to be searching for your keywords to find you. While Facebook edges it out with a serious delivery network that allows a variety of placement including Instagram. Local Business Search: While Facebook is swell for connecting with businesses, I do not know many that people that ultimately search for and comparison shop business or services on Facebook. Audience Engagement: Clearly Facebook edges out Google Adwords here. You can share Facebook ads like gangbusters while Google only allows the user to link to the potential search and even that is not easy. Ad Quality and Customization: Let’s face it, Facebook keeps creating more exciting and new ways to make ads look and feel organic and enticing, whereas Google is still killing it with text ads. Ultimately, it is important to have a solid mix of both but make certain you are spending your budget wisely. Avoid companies that sling “leads” or promise to drive traffic to your site without providing you with access to you ads account so that you can see the numbers and understand exactly what’s happening with your success and failures with advertising. The Social Life Hosts

In today’s podcast, Deanna and Nate chat openly and candidly about the recent media attention caused by a social troll revolving around the hilarious and smart, Leslie Jones of the recent Ghostbuster movie and other recent incidents of people behaving badly on social media. Using social media to harass or bully someone seems childish and against the initial purpose of those tools. And, yet some use it for that exact purpose and nothing more. Check out this info graph from Adweek about Social Harassment: Click Here Social media especially the founding fathers, Facebook and Twitter started out as a place for people to connect and have fun with people we hadn’t seen in a long time or connect with like-minded people about social topics that matter to each. With the addition of social marketing to things like politics and brand campaigns, we’re seeing more and more bad behavior from people in high and low positions. To be honest, some of the bad behavior seems like nothing more than a giant troll attempt to rile up the masses and cause a social flurry over things that don’t matter. More and more people are using Twitter as a place to harass and belittle people for reasons that are outright ridiculous. The recent banning of a Social Troll seems like a step in the right direction and fair warning to those who use it for evil. Click Here When you’re on Twitter, Facebook or any channel for that matter, it’s about representing your brand and being a part of a culture that was created for social engagement. If you’re an employee, it’s important to remember that you don’t have free reign to post whatever you please, in this article we see someone who posted something political to a political Twitter that didn’t align with the messaging or purpose: Click Here The Social Life Hosts

Snapchat has become a BRAND mega champion, but it is got a tough competition now with Instagram stories! Instagram stories is not just another application that you need to download to your phone and forget about; it is one of the only things that Facebook has done that does not require multiple apps! Stories can be found right on your current Instagram app at the top of your current feed. Snapchat is a tool that big brands have been able to tap into to launch products, giveaways and promote events. Smaller brands are having a tough time breaking through the pay-to-play frustration that comes with a lot of these social channels. Moreover, that is where Instagram could potentially be their saving grace. Creating stories is easy, and right now everyone has access to it without. There are still opportunities to pay for advertising and access that increases your reach, but Deanna thinks Instagram stories has tons of potential. The Social Life Hosts

Deanna and Nate talk a lot about Facebook in The Lab and today on The Social Life Podcast; it is back! Facebook continues to grab business owners with new and improved ways to keep your potential clients engaged by finding the best ways to develop tools that make it easier to bring folks into your business on-line. One of the favorites is Facebook Live; people are using Facebook Live in ways that are engaging, fun and informative. People like Marcus Lemonis uses Facebook Live when he is updating content for his show, out at trade shows, meeting with new clients and engaging with other business owners. Brands like Under Armor are using it to show off their new gear and bringing users into the experience with demos and Q&A’s. In today’s podcast, we are chatting about all the cool new ways to use Facebook to enlighten your audience about what you have to offer! Check out the below outlines for each Facebook Marketing option, Deanna highlights and don’t forget to email her if you have questions! https://www.facebook.com/business/news/ One of the places I visit on a regular basis is Facebook Business. Visiting the News section on Facebook gives you a peek into what they are doing, what’s new and you get access to instructions on how to do everything, but if you are still confused don’t hesitate to give me a jingle. Recently Facebook shared that they have made updates for Facebook Advertising in Power Editor! There are several new advertising options added this year that business owners should be aware of with my favorite so far being “Collect Leads for Your Business” and “ Increase Brand Awareness.” Are you making the most of your Facebook & Instagram? Connect your Facebook & your Instagram accounts to take advantage of all the new advertising tools that are being rolled out on Instagram to businesses! https://www.facebook.com/business/products/ads/instagram-ads/ 500M+monthly actives 300M+daily actives 80%+outside the US 4.2Blikes daily obile is a thing of the present and with the advent of PokémonGo we see more and more traffic on our mobile posting, and Facebook reach. If you are an app builder or owner, then you are going to want to take advantage of the new, unusual ways to drive app downloads and installs! There are NEW ways to advertise on mobile with Facebook, and you likely haven’t heard about it. Dynamic Ads and Canvas have given BETA testing large brands serious success and that will be rolled out to the rest of us in waves. These are great for those of us building apps for clients or if you already have an app, and you are looking to boost downloads and in-app purchase. https://www.facebook.com/business/news/beyond-mobile-app-install Video marketing is a HUGE deal and if you are using Business Manager like I do to manage multiple pages that might fall under the same brand then you need to know about the recent release of Video Permissions. What’s that you ask? Facebook Business Manager can be used to upload and manage your videos across all pages that video is relevant by giving each page permission to post that video as needed. That saves time and energy from having to upload and post videos to each page. Brilliant! Check out this post, Deanna found: https://media.fb.com/2016/04/12/crossposted-videos-and-insights/ Deanna loves the concept of Facebook 360 and thinks it is got tons of potential uses on social media for businesses who are looking to highlight their brand and create a solid strategy around location and services! How to use on your Facebook Business Page: How do I upload a 360 photo on my Page? If you took the photo using your iPhone, one of our supported photosphere or panorama apps for Android, or a 360 camera, then the process will be the same as uploading a regular photo. Click Photo/Video at the top of your Page's Timeline Click Upload Photos/Videos Select a photo Share it

It’s always important to know who your audience is and how to reach them via marketing. If your audience spans the generations, there is a good way to bridge the Generational Gap with social marketing. Millennial, GenXers, Baby Boomers are all on social media in some form or fashion, whether they are on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter, you need to know how and when they are active and making the ‘rounds to potentially view your content. During the podcast, Deanna and Nate discuss the best ways to avoid making generation marketing mistakes with the following being the hot topics discussed. Social Marketing is not a quick fix solution to reach every type of users, let alone generations. Marketing never involves one cookie cutter solution that fits everybody. If you have got questions, we have got answers to help you navigate the entire process! Get in touch today for a free consultation with one of our Project Team. The Social Life Hosts

Webinars are everywhere lately, and there’s an excellent reason why. A lot of them do not offer much along the lines of content and information, and there is a tremendous opportunity to do them well and provide something while filling in the gaps of your sales funnel. Here at Stark Social, we partner with one of our amazing clients to deliver webinars that highlight certain aspects of social media and marketing while offering a value add. Keep on the look out for our next webinar training series. The Social Life Hosts