Transcript:
Monica Evans:
This is The Marketing Hero podcast by ClearPivot turning marketers into heroes.
Welcome to The Marketing Hero podcast. I'm your host Monica Evans. Today our guest is a good friend of mine, Samantha Rupert. She is a social media expert and I'm super excited to have her on the call today. Welcome, Sam.
Samantha Rupert:
Hi, I'm Monica. I'm super stoked to be here and talk social.
Monica Evans:
Yeah. So tell the audience a little bit about yourself.
Samantha Rupert:
Yeah, I'm Samantha obviously, and I just, I come from a long background of social. For I guess over eight years now I've kind of been in the social and digital marketing realm and I started out at a small marketing agency back in New York, and doing social work for individual clients with ranges of all kinds of businesses, from retail e-commerce to legal, to all kinds of businesses. And then finally I moved over to Austin, which is a great city. I know you have been here, you used to live here-
Monica Evans:
Yeah, it was fantastic.
Samantha Rupert:
And if anybody else has ever been here it is a amazing city, lots of tech, lots of SaaS companies. And so I moved to Austin and I started working at an e-commerce platform and I worked there for about five years actually, doing social at first for their in-house agency, which worked with clients that were actually using their e-commerce platform. And then eventually for the brand and doing brand marketing through social and other avenues as well for them. And then most recently I was at Facebook for a while, and now I've transitioned to a Fortune 100 financial company, doing advertising for them.
Monica Evans:
Awesome. So in New York you were doing social media there as well, or did it really pick up when you moved to Austin?
Samantha Rupert:
It was different type of social that I was doing in New York. You know, it was mostly a lot of just really small brands that were, there were some local, there were some global, but it was mostly on like the e-commerce retail side. And then it really kind of started picking up where I got into SaaS and marketing software when I moved to Austin.
Monica Evans:
Yeah. And if anybody knows Sam, she kills it on social media. Even her own personal kind of brand, she just kills it. She makes me laugh in everything that she does.
Samantha Rupert:
Thank you.
Monica Evans:
So if anybody just follow her, she's great. She'll give it, especially during COVID you'll get a good kick out of it. So have you always had a passion for social?
Samantha Rupert:
Yeah, I think so. I mean, it started when I was in college, right? You know, I graduated college in 2010, and before that there was only Facebook and Twitter. And I think I remember really kind of getting into social when my journalism professor, I majored in journalism. My journalism professor was talking about how to really expand your reach with your stories. And we started, we had to create Twitter accounts and start using Twitter to self-promote our content. And that was kind of my first foray I guess, into social media marketing. And that was in I guess 2009. Yeah, 2010.
And it was really on the cusp of what I would call the social media boom where Facebook started coming out with more advertising and things like that. And it was just brands and companies figured out like, "Wow, this is a great way to reach audiences more personally and kind of get in into their space." And not a lot of people were doing it. So it was really unique. And so that's kind of how I got into social and it really just grew from there as new platforms started to emerge, and I really started to kind of dig into the nuances of each platform and how it really worked.
Monica Evans:
No, that sounds like a fun project actually. Were you the type of person that had a decked out MySpace account back in the day?
Samantha Rupert:
Oh yeah, oh my god yeah. That's how I learned to code.
Monica Evans:
I know, I swear. It's impressive. You learn HTML and CSS and you're just like, "Oh, I know how to do this." You can make a career out of it now.
Samantha Rupert:
Exactly. Yeah, I would change my layout pretty often. I would change the music that was on there [crosstalk 00:05:29].
Monica Evans:
You could pick your five best friends that you wanted to display on the front page.
Samantha Rupert:
Yes, exactly. Oh, those were the days.
Monica Evans:
Yeah, I know. They really were. So what type of campaigns have you done in the past and what has worked for you that you feel like in the SaaS space and then also kind of the other industries that you worked in. Do they differ at all?
Samantha Rupert:
They do. Yeah, I definitely say they would. If you're running an e-commerce campaign for let's say a clothing retailer or something like that, your paid campaigns are going to be a little bit different then if you were to market a SaaS company, right? So of course there are some differences. But I think there are still like a lot of fundamental things that you could do for both that makes sense for both. For SaaS specifically, the one thing that you have to remember is that, when somebody downloads a piece of software, it's not just like, one and done, right? You want to prevent that person from churning, and you want to keep them on your platforms. So there's a lot there that you can do between a paid campaign and an organic campaign in all areas of the funnel, not just to keep them on your platform, but to keep them interested in the content that you provide, and the content that you create. And then also, providing opportunities to upsell to them and just to gain more revenue for the company.
So in terms of campaigns that are done well on the paid side, there's definitely a lot of things you can do for SaaS. So competitive targeting is really important, especially when it comes to SaaS, because there are so many different pieces of software out there. And I'm sure if I'm talking to you and you're an owner of a SaaS company, I'm sure there's a competitor out there that does something similar. So targeting your competitors on social, specifically on Facebook is really something that has worked well for me in the past. So just taking your custom audience of customers that you have through your CRM or whatever you use to generate customer data. Creating a lookalike audience on that and then excluding your current customers. And then using interest-based targeting on top of that to target either pages or things that your competitors, like you may even be able to target some of your competitors directly and target fans of those pages.
So that's something that has worked really well in the past for me, as well as remarketing. Facebook has a really great remarketing tool that you can use in ads manager and to serve your ads to people that may come to your site and then bounce directly off. You can kind of target them with either maybe an offer or just more content to keep it top of mind. So hopefully they will kind of go back to your site and actually convert. And then on the organic side there's a lot of things you can do there. I think, I do like paid, but organic is probably my favorite aspect of social, just because you can be more creative I think. And there's a lot of things you can do, for instance live video. As a SaaS company your merchants or your clients or your customers, they're going to have a ton of questions and something that you know, when I worked at the e-commerce software company, one of the things that we did a lot was live videos with some of our merchants.
So some of the folks that were using our platform to sell, whatever it was that they were selling. And we were talking to them about their business journey and we would also talk to them about tips and tricks that they use to become successful. And we would find that week after week more folks would be joining in and we would actually get more comments from other customers that are like, "Oh, I see you've done email marketing. I can't get it to work for me. Or I'm not getting the response that I want from my email marketing. How did you do something like that?" So having those live videos on Facebook and Instagram were really helpful and just getting more people to engage with each other and really create a community around selling on e-commerce.
And through that, that really helps just expand your reach number one. And then number two, it helps you become a more reputable platform as well. So live video is still really important and just a good way to gain customers' trust, because if you're showing a merchant that's willing to even sit down and talk with you, it shows that you're invested, right? You're a SaaS company that's invested in your customers. You want to help them do better. You're not just in it to make a quick buck, so live video awesome. And then just themed content, webinars. Webinars are again great. They can be top of funnel, but they are still not only a great educational tool, but it's a good way to generate leads as well. So those I think are some really good examples of campaigns that have done well for me as a SaaS social media marketer.
Monica Evans:
And have you noticed different channels work better for different types of company? Is there a different language that you use on Twitter versus Instagram versus Facebook versus LinkedIn? And how do you kind of utilize all those channels for your company? Because do you put the same content across all channels? Do you switch it up? Do they have different kind of things that you promote? How do you handle those different channels?
Samantha Rupert:
Yeah, so one thing that I do want to make clear is that you shouldn't be everywhere all at once, right? And I think a lot of business owners and a lot of SaaS companies get caught up in that. I think they want to hit as many people as they can on each platform. And it's really not necessary. Number one, because you don't want to spread yourself too thin. And again, like you just said, you don't want to have the same content on every single platform. I think content should relate and be similar on each platform and have that unique brand consistency, but people consume content totally differently on each platform. You know for instance, if you're on Instagram, you want somebody to be visual and poppy and you want it to have a personality.
And it's not a platform that people go to to read articles, you know what I mean? So you want it to be more personal on Instagram, whereas on Twitter, yes promote your ebook of course. There's definitely different ways that each platform shows your content A and B really allows you to tap into what each platform is even specialized at. So Twitter really punchy, short content, newsworthy content. Facebook, a little bit more personal, but still in that realm of newsworthy content. Links to articles or eBooks or whatever you've got on there as well as video. And then Instagram is totally video and really highly visual content that kind of tells that back brand story. Or, if you're not a SaaS company, Instagram is very good for showcasing products and showcasing what you're selling in a very visual way.
And so, if you're a SaaS company, you may want to differentiate your content on each platform, but you may not want to be on Pinterest for instance. But if you're selling clothing, Pinterest is probably a really good platform to be on. So to answer your question, it really depends on number one your audience, you want to be where your audience interacts the most, and you also want to be on the platform where your content is going to shine. You don't want to just post on Pinterest or post on Twitter or any other channel just because you can. You want to make sure that your content is engaging and people will actually want to engage with it on those platforms because it's a good fit and your audience is there and you're interacting with it.
So yes, definitely differentiate your content on each channel. And also to do that research to find out what channels you should be on, because you probably don't need to be on all of them. So, that's really important. And to kind of keep track of all of that too. I know it can be hard, especially if you're in a startup environment, you want to make sure you have a really organized content calendar, so you can keep track of when, where, and how you're posting your content. And it also kind of visually helps you again differentiate that content. If you see that, "Oh, I'm kind of posting almost the same thing on Facebook. Let me see if I could change it a little bit," to be a little bit more engaging on that platform. So yes, content calendar very important, differentiation very important. And knowing your audience is extremely important.
Monica Evans:
Yeah. And I also think too, for Instagram specifically, since it's such a visual platform, that stay away from the stock images. Because I feel like a lot of the times, especially if you're starting your kind of social media outreach, it's easy to just take a stock image and just throw it up there. But it really needs to come from the company. The brand needs to be on point. And so just don't throw up some stock images there and call it a day.
Samantha Rupert:
Agreed. That is the worst thing you can possibly do, because consumers are smart. They can identify a stock photo from a mile away. And if you're posting stock photos, they're going to wonder like, "Is your company real? Is what you're telling me real, is it credible?" It just, not only does it take the personality away from the brand, but it also makes customers wonder. So agreed, people want to see real people at real companies doing real things. So the three reals. Cannot agree more about the stock photos and you know what? I think a lot of companies, the reason why they choose stock photos is because they think that they need a professional photographer or something, and maybe they can't afford one.
And that's not true. If you've got an iPhone and you even just download maybe Pixlr or Canva or something like that. You'll be able to create really nice photos without spending all of that money on a professional photo shoot. So there's tons of resources out there for how to do that. But don't get discouraged. Don't think you need like a professional camera or a crew or anything like that to take photos. You can use your phone, you can use your smartphone for sure.
Monica Evans:
And you talked about like a content calendar and stuff like that. What type of software do you use or tools, kind of marketing automation, to manage all your social outreach?
Samantha Rupert:
Yeah. So I'll give you a full spectrum. If you want to kind of go on the cheap end, you can really just make it out of an Excel document or even like a Google Doc and just color code it how you want it and paste the link to whatever you're posting and the post copy. And you can do it manually. I think HubSpot actually has a really good template for that, it's free. But if you know that you're turning out a lot of content and you know that you actually need some software to manage this because you have other people that want to view it and want to interact with it, or maybe you have someone actually posting for you. Like you are the content creator and then you have someone that actually coordinates and edits and post all the content.
You might want something a little bit more robust. So in the past I've used Sprout Social, which is a great tool. It is a little bit pricey, but it's really amazing. It has just a really, and not only does it have a physical calendar that you can fill out, but it automates your posting on pretty much every single platform. So you don't actually have to log on at a certain time and schedule those posts. Of course, Facebook has that natively as well, but you know, it can be hard to do that on other platforms. So Sprout Social is great. Hootsuite is also really good. It's a bit cheaper. And that's one of the original ones, I was using that back in like 20, I want to say 2014, that's a really great tool as well. So there's a lot of really helpful pieces of software out there on the various ends of the spectrum where it's free from HubSpot, or middle ground Hootsuite. And then if you want something more robust that does a lot of things, including social listening and reporting, then Sprout Social would be your end goal.
Monica Evans:
Speaking of reporting, I feel like that is such a hot topic. And especially trying to figure out ROI based on your marketing efforts and that, I know we've even talked about kind of first touch attribution versus last touch, whatever it may be. How do you measure your social success?
Samantha Rupert:
This is the [crosstalk 00:21:16].
Monica Evans:
I know, I know.
Samantha Rupert:
I know you and I have had a lot of conversations about attribution.
Monica Evans:
Because I know it depends. But with the company and what they value is. But social I feel like it's so hard because they come in through all stages, right?
Samantha Rupert:
Exactly. Exactly. And most companies, especially SaaS companies, they're all on a last touch or last click attribution model. And I think the reason for that is because it provides the most direct answer, but with social especially, it's usually almost never last click, right? It's always somewhere in the middle. And so again, I know a lot of companies may want to switch their attribution model. And I think that they should, I think in the future, in the next couple of years, we'll start seeing a lot of companies, not just SaaS, but other institutions that are switching from last click to more of a multi touch or Omni channel attribution model, which will help in this whole battle of really reporting ROI specifically from social. But in the meantime, the metrics really depend on your campaign and what channel obviously, and then also, what the objective is, right?
So like for organic of course, it's going to be those KPIs that are more heavily related to engagement. So likes, shares, comments, especially video views, things like that. Those are really important for organic. And then for paid here's where it gets a little bit more in the grain. But so of course click through rate and then cost per click. But if you have a good attribution model and you are able to tie it back directly to each sign up, and maybe it's something that you create manually. I know at the e-commerce platform that I worked at, we had a pretty detailed and a pretty accurate way of tracking account opens or signups if you will. And of course that is the beacon, the gold metric that you want to track, because that's exactly what helps bring in the money, right?
So account opens aka conversions or signups, whatever you want to call it. And then, if you don't have something that accurately tracks that, you can try for more like Facebook specifically gives out a KPI for cost per action. You know, not just when somebody looks at something, but when somebody actually interacts with your post. So cost per action is really good. And then of course cost per acquisition that goes back to your account opens, how much does it cost for you to actually get someone to sign up or make that conversion? So those are just a few of the ones that I have tracked that really helped me go back to C-suite and say, "Hey, here's what we're getting from social. Here's how valuable it is now. Here's how we can scale." So to wrap it up, yes, it depends on the type of campaign if it's paid or organic, but those are the metrics that I would recommend.
Monica Evans:
So what is your favorite social channel? Professionally and personally.
Samantha Rupert:
Okay. So it's always been Instagram since the beginning. I really love photography. And I really think, like at first I was really into Snapchat and I really liked to be able to post a story. And then Instagram obviously came out with stories and I boycotted it for a little bit. I was like, "Oh no [crosstalk 00:25:34]."
Monica Evans:
You're a copycat. Yeah.
Samantha Rupert:
But now I love it. Instagram still is my favorite social channel. But I will say during this pandemic, I have really gotten into TikTok, and I haven't really posted anything yet because there are just so many people on there that are just so much cooler than I am. So I go on there and I just always get a laugh. The content on there is always just so creative and so good that it's just one of those platforms that you can always just get a smile on. It's really entertaining. I mean, I've spent hours on it and I don't even post anything.
Monica Evans:
You just scope out what everyone else is doing.
Samantha Rupert:
Exactly. Exactly.
Monica Evans:
Cool. Well, we're at the end of our podcast, but I normally ask this question to everybody who is a guest. And the question is, if you could be a superhero, which one would you be?
Samantha Rupert:
Ooh, that's a really good question. You know, I don't know. I think, okay so I guess what I'm going to say is I don't have a specific superhero, unless there's like a female version of Aquaman, because I would love to be able to breathe underwater and have like a really cool trident or something.
Monica Evans:
Yeah, right, I know. You can be a little mermaid I guess who takes over the kingdom under the ocean.
Samantha Rupert:
Yeah. I just think it would be so cool to breathe underwater. I mean, that's like-
Monica Evans:
I mean you are a fish, you like to be in the water at all times so I can understand that.
Samantha Rupert:
Yes, very true. But if I had to pick like an actual superhero, well, I guess he is a superhero, but isn't there one that's invisible maybe?
Monica Evans:
That's the one from the Fantastic Four, right? The one that could ... Or I might, apparently I don't know my own superheroes. So this is embarrassing to say the least.
Samantha Rupert:
If somebody can be invisible, that would be me.
Monica Evans:
Yeah, I guess it's like The Incredibles one of them is invisible, so perfect.
Samantha Rupert:
Oh yeah. I do love The Incredibles.
Monica Evans:
Like if I could stretch long and far, that'd be pretty cool.
Samantha Rupert:
Ooh, that will be interesting.
Monica Evans:
Well, perfect. Thank you, Sam. I really appreciate you hopping on with me today.
Samantha Rupert:
Yeah. Thanks for inviting me. I love talking about social, so anytime or any follow-up questions just hit me up.
Monica Evans:
Yeah. Where can the audience find you on social and or your LinkedIn profile? I mean, I guess it's social, but where can people find you?
Samantha Rupert:
Yeah. If they want to reach out, they can look me up on LinkedIn. My name is Samantha Rupert. I believe my link is LinkedIn.com/in/slrupert. I think that's the direct link to my profile. If they want to follow me on Instagram, please do. It's a lot of beach content, a lot of nature, and that's just @AtlanticAloha on Instagram.
Monica Evans:
Perfect. Well, thanks Sam.
Samantha Rupert:
Thanks, Monica.
Monica Evans:
You've been listening to The Marketing Hero podcast by ClearPivot. Be sure to join us next time. For more information, visit www.clearpivot.com.
