The Real Secret
About 8 years ago I was a sales manager for a pet product company. I hated it. We had some truly great products that were legitimately better than anything else on the market. I loved talking about our products. I loved telling people why our products were so much better than our competitors. I loved showing the products off.
But I hated my job.
I hated cold calling. I hated doing product demos. I hated being gone from my apartment and my dog for weeks at a time. And I especially hated haggling over pricing.
I was burned out. I would show up to work and stare at the computer screen, ignoring phone calls, trolling Chicago job sites, and scrolling Twitter and Facebook. The only work-related thing I did during that time was to start a Twitter and Facebook page for the company and update them regularly.
A weird thing started happening. People started commenting on our tweets and posts asking questions about the products. That started turning into people asking where they could find products. Which led to orders coming in without me picking up the phone or talking to a single person.
That was how I made the shift from sales to marketing. Doing some social media to avoid doing work I hated. Over the next 6 years, I built a marketing department that helped the company build new processes and practices that improved efficiencies, led a rebrand that positioned the company as a leader in the industry, and helped retailers turn what had previously been dusty back shelf items into profit centers. My entire career can be traced back to social media.
As an older millennial, I was young enough to embrace social media like a digital native but old enough to be able to know you need to use it strategically. Because of this I now work as a social media manager and strategist for a host of clients, helping develop strategy, execute campaigns, and drive business goals.
This magazine is where I’ll share my insights on social media marketing, giving you things to try and think about, stories of exciting social media campaigns, and what insights I have gained over the better part of a decade in social media marketing.
The first tip I’m going to give you is this: The title of this publication is a lie. There is no magic trick to successful social media marketing. The real secret, the magic, is the same secret to every successful endeavor in history. Time and effort. There is no secret piece of content that you can post that will drive a million engagements, no one type of video that will get you a million followers. It comes down to what advertising and marketing have always been about. Time, value, and consistency. You have to spend the time to make great content that will add value to your audience’s life.
My goal is to post new content here 2–3 times a week, so if you enjoy it let me know. If there’s topics you’d like me to write about reach out. And of course the clap button is there for a reason.
