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Ep. 97 Social Media Marketing For Local Business

by Torie Mathis | Smart AF Show

Social Media Marketing For Local Business

We hear all the time that social media is a waste of time or that it just doesn’t work for local small businesses, but that’s just not true. Social media is one of the best opportunities for any small business to get in front of more people than they ever could FOR FREE.

In this episode, Torie Mathis and her cohost Sean go over easy steps for YOUR business to make huge strides in your social media strategy. It isn’t hard. It doesn’t take special skills or tools. And it can work for any business.

Listen or watch the full episode below:

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION –

(transcription is auto-generated)

SAF 97

Torie: [00:00:00] They made it fun. Like it’s Walmart, how fun is Walmart? It’s not it’s Walmart, but this place made it fun.

Hey guys, what’s up? It’s Torie Mathis, your host. And I am here with the one, the only Sean Mathis, founder of Miles Through Time Automotive Museum.

Sean: [00:00:28] What’s happening?

Torie: [00:00:30] See now I see a lot of people online that are marketers or online businesses do a really great job of social media marketing for their business.

However, I think that local brick and mortar businesses have a little bit harder of a time doing it, and I don’t see as many doing it really well.

Sean: [00:00:52] It almost seems though, like they should have an easier time. They’re just less likely. To do it. It almost seems to cause what that brick and mortar business, like you, have a lot more opportunities to do stuff that, somebody like, like your business that doesn’t have that brick and mortar store like you can’t tell people to come in for any reason or do anything like that.

I think a lot of them are really totally missing the boat on it.

Torie: [00:01:17] I really think that there are two, I think that the opportunities for small businesses that are local, that like Sean said, have a place to tell people to come in. Are missing the boat. There’s so many opportunities. So I want to go over some of the things that I’ve seen that are really good, and some things that I think people could do a lot better.

And, Sean Miles Through Time Automotive Museum, founder, he has a brick and mortar business. So you definitely do a really great job. Marketing your business, but we even talked about a couple of things that maybe you could do a little bit better too. And there’s always room for people to do a little bit better.

So one of the companies that I see that does a great job but does not do it enough is the kid’s karate studio when they do post like they post really great stuff. Best thing about their posts is that they post pictures and videos of the kids. And that is one of the best ways to get people, to share your stuff.

Sean: [00:02:13] Yeah. Totally any like customer interaction type stuff, because people love to see themselves. It almost makes them feel famous, right. Whether they are or not, or whether you even have a following that anybody’s even going to see that picture, the fact that. The customer you did have, or the person, whoever the case may be was in there and you got their picture.

And it, if you’re able to tag them, that’s even better, but chances are if they follow you and see that they’re gonna, they’re totally gonna reshare that. I shared the story of going into a carwash in the car of the day. We got it with one of our cars. I have never shared anything from any carwash place, but they took pictures of my car and they were actually pretty cool.

I totally, I shared the hell out of it. And I totally would not have done that. Any other I wouldn’t, I can’t think of a scenario that I would share reshare something from a carwash that doesn’t involve myself.

Torie: [00:03:06] I think that showing, you sharing that you are using them. Is so much better than just if they were like, Hey Sean, we need you to, give us a referral or, review it.

There’s so many other things that they could have done, but by doing that and giving you your fame of the carwash it really made a really great opportunity for you to share that. And you do a great job on Miles Through Time to Sean posts when he goes up there. Mostly on the weekends.

Whenever there are cool cars in the parking lot that you’re able to get out there. Sean post the pictures of the parking lot. So not only do you get, a Miles Through Time, like update from Sean, but you also get to see some of the people that are there and some of the cool cars that they’ve driven up there.

And so it’s like a look what you missed out on, but then it also gives that person that, that little bit of fame too.

Sean: [00:03:53] Yeah. I can only take so many photos inside the museum that they start to be the same cars until I get new ones in there to change stuff up. So one of the easiest things to do to create a little bit of variety is to capture those cars that are outside.

And a lot of times people will bring cool cars. If it’s a group that’s in there, like that’s an easy one. I know there’s cool cars out there, but I might not know there’s something cool out there when I’m inside the whole time. I’m trying. I tried it. If I’m there, I try to make a point to talk to everybody.

At least the, Hey, let me know if you have any questions type thing, whether they want to talk to me or not after that. Pushy by any means, but what happens a lot of times is the person that does want to interact with something. They wind up telling me, oh yeah. I’ve got this 56 F 100 sitting in the parking lot and I’m like, holy hell.

That’s one of my favorite trucks. I take my butt outside and I snap pictures of it. I ask usually, Hey, do you mind. But I don’t think there’s been nobody. That’s Nope, don’t take a picture of my shit. That’s mine.

Torie: [00:04:53] And you said that you actually have all the time, people ask to take a picture with you. But then you never get to, to see those pictures because maybe they don’t tag you or how maybe they don’t even post it. And who knows what they’re doing with it. But yeah, I’ve never seen a picture of mine. I think every time somebody does that, you need to hand them your phone and be like, I want one too.

That way you get the picture and then you can share it because if they’re going to share you, then you might as well share them as well. And I think that’d be a really easy way for you to maybe get a couple more of those pictures. Cause I could see too, I would be a little bit, and it’s probably one of those things.

Once you do it, you get more comfortable like going up here and be like, okay, can I take your picture? But by any means, super powerful though. Just like the kids at the karate studio. So I was mentioning another business that I see, I follow them on Instagram and they are a local business that’s up by the museum and they do a fantastic job of updating their social media.

I don’t follow them on Facebook. I’m not on Facebook very often but on Instagram, fantastic job. So lots of photos, a little bit of storytelling, but nothing difficult. If you take these examples that I give you for them. Any business can do this if you have. And probably even if you don’t have a brick and mortar business, but I really thought that these were great ways for brick and mortar businesses to have tons of content to share on all of their social media.

So the company is J farms. How would you describe Sean?

Sean: [00:06:15] Physically

Torie: [00:06:16] no, just what kind of business it is.

Sean: [00:06:20] The farmer’s market really. And they’ll do the corn maze and they have the farm fields, fresh picked strawberries, and all that kind of stuff. But for the most part, it is a gigantic version of just the produce section and the grocery.

Torie: [00:06:33] And they have local foods. They’re like pies and things like that. In your area, you might have something, if not like you get the gist of kind of what they do, they are open all year round and they definitely have seasonal events that they’re going on. Like Sean said, they have the pumpkin patch type things and the corn maze, they have a little one in there.

So lots of Halloween things. I think they do some Christmas stuff. Bring veggies because they have fruits and vegetables and stuff like that. So seasonal already, like they always have something going on or something new coming up. So it gives them a lot of opportunity for them to post now, just because you don’t sell fruits and vegetables doesn’t mean that you don’t have a lot of things put to that are going on or that you have to post.

You may just have to either think of what you have going on. Or you make stuff up like the car of the week. Nobody gave that car a wash place, permission to say, Hey, have car of the week. That’s just something that they did. So that gave them an event that gave them something special every single week to post.

So no matter what your business is, you could totally do that. Do you agree?

Sean: [00:07:34] Yeah. Th that’s the biggest. Make it up. Like there, there is no rule book for it. Just make something up and it makes it easier to think of something to post. Cause if you just blank slate, what am I supposed to share?

Nobody cares. I create something out of, nothing of. Like shit, you can look up websites and be like, what is there is something of every day of the week,

Torie: [00:07:58] Right? So JMR farms does this, for example, like it’s national ice cream day. They sell ice cream. So that gives them a reason to post the ice cream that they have.

And they could actually post a couple of times for that. They could say tomorrow is ice cream day and post one type of ice cream and today’s ice cream day. You know what I mean? So they could do that. So if you go home, like one of those sites, like Sean, There’s probably something related to whatever your business is.

And sometimes you might have to get a little tiny bit creative to connect the dots. But I think that almost makes it a little bit more fun.

Sean: [00:08:28] The weirder ones, might be the more interesting ones. I mean there’s international Cinnabon day. June 14th is flag day. There’s all kinds of stuff out there that, it’s literally, there’s every day you have multiple options every day of the year to pick something.

To play off of it,

Torie: [00:08:47] But we have talked about people overposting this generic crap that is stupid stuff that okay, if you need some filler yes, you can post a little picture of a flag and say happy flag day, but no, one’s going to care. That’s not going to stop the scroll. You only have so much time to get people’s attention.

And if you’re posting the same type of generic stuff, every single day, People are gonna start to ignore everything you do. So when we say do flag day, don’t go get a stock photo of a flag and posted, or steal some photo off of Google. Like how can you relate that to your business? So if you think of Sean actually has a giant American flag on the firetruck out.

Yeah. Along with a giant Mouser time flag. So Sean could take some cool. He could take a video and make that like a YouTube short or a Instagram reel or an Instagram story, a Facebook story, use that picture of the flag blowing. And then he’s relating it to the business rather than the stock photo that everybody has.

So when you do these things, you’ve got to figure out like you got to make that connection. And whether that’s, you grab a little fake flag and put it on whatever your product or your service or your building, or, something that has to do with your meet that connection. Cause the generic posts.

They work for filler. If you really need to throw some stuff out there and maybe every once in a while, but you can do just like that little bit better, because those are the reasons that people are like Facebook doesn’t work, social media marketing is stupid. It’s a waste of time. Yeah, if you’re like happy flag day and show up at your flag and happy father’s day, and it just says happy about, if that’s all you’re posting, then you know what you’re right.

It doesn’t work. Especially if you bring the crap out of it. Hey,

Sean: [00:10:27] You got a hundred followers. 10 of them are seeing that that’s and those 10 are bitten. Like, why are you sharing this? You do enough of that and they’ll unfollow you as well. Just because there’s so many different pages and people, individuals out there, like people can only see so much. So if you’re the boring one. Bye bye.

Torie: [00:10:47] So let’s say you don’t want, okay, so you don’t have to take the flag day pitcher on flag. So let’s say that you had, I don’t know, some veteran that came into your, whatever your business is. Like we were at a Lowe’s Depot. I don’t know which one we were at Lowe’s Depot the other day.

And there was this veteran and I went up and talked to him. We had the dog with us and he had the VFW. I was looking at the hydrangeas next to him and I was like, what’s your branch of service? And he told me, and I was like, oh, I’m in the army. And so we were, chit chatting it up. So let’s say you’re the owner of the Lowe’s Depot.

So you could take a picture of this guy, which he ended up being like somebody that works there. Whatever right. You can take a picture like he’s got his veteran’s day hat on. Then you have a picture of a veteran there that you could use on Memorial day. You could use on veterans day. Like you have that as an asset now that you could use.

So somebody, does something with a flag or comes in with a flag shirt and you can take a picture of them with whatever, and then you can tuck them away and be like, okay, I might need this later and maybe make a file on your computer or on your phone so that you have that.

So if you start to think of some of these things, because they’re all going to keep coming again, flag day comes every single year, right? Veteran’s day, every year. Like you can plan a little bit and then you have those things out there to post that are more interesting than the picture stock picture before.

So I have a list of some ways that you can post some different things if you’re a local business. And this is something that, that Jaymar farms, I, took a look at the things and some of the things that they’re posting and you can totally do this for your business as well. And so the first thing we talked about events and so we talked about making up your own events.

Or having real events the ice cream day, or it could be like, it’s, your name starts with J day, whatever it is whatever it could be, you could post about those things and, try not to use stock photography, try to use something that’s a little bit more interesting because you are more interesting than stock photos.

And so the next thing would be just your products. So Jaymar farms, like we said, ice cream day, like they have so many products, they have fruits and vegetables. And so every single day, pretty much they’re posting a picture of something that they’re selling and they’re not like buy my strawberries, but it’s a picture of this girl holding strawberries or strawberries in the field.

And so it’s connecting their business and making it interesting. And whoever’s taking their picture. Doesn’t do a bad job. Like they’re decent pictures. I’m sure they’re just taken with their phone though.

Sean: [00:13:14] And if the fruit or something you think of a regular big chain grocery store, and if you saw an ad for their strawberries, it would just be that plastic container of strawberries.

And it’d be like, these strawberries are on sale. 3 99. Or you’ve got something like Jay Mars does, and you don’t see that plastic container and you see these plush, just shiny, bright, red, juicy looking strawberries, and, it’s takes up the whole photo cause they, they cropped it in on the whole mound of strawberries that they have available.

And then just we’ve got fresh strawberries. It doesn’t, they don’t have to tell you the price. They don’t say buy me. It just looks appealing that you’re like, I want to go get those strawberries and see what else they have.

Torie: [00:13:58] What makes a summer day better than sweet strawberry. So that’s it.

Sean: [00:14:01] They’re not selling it. Like the picture sells itself. It makes it interesting, you don’t have to take a picture of the package and be like, I sell this.

Torie: [00:14:09] Go and buy strawberries. And you’re talking about it in the package. It would be like a restaurant. Like you would take a picture of food after it’s been plated and looks all nice.

You wouldn’t take a picture of the menu and be like, Buy is burrito.

Sean: [00:14:22] And I have seen that where they’re like, oh yeah, there’s all kinds of pictures of menus out there.

Torie: [00:14:32] And again, like your phone takes good enough pictures. Take a picture with your phone. Possibly edit it slightly. So it’s a little bit brighter because sometimes photos on there look a tiny bit though, like super, super easy.

So your products, whatever it is, you’re selling out in the wild. Not in the package. And we talked about the events, Xcel staff photos is another really great way that you can connect people to your business. Why? Because people connect to people don’t connect to businesses, people don’t connect to your logo.

They connect to people. So if you show the people that are working at your business, J Mar farms shows the girl scoop and ice cream has the girl like with strawberries. All these different ways that you could show your employees just doing their job. There was some like page that was really famous there for a while.

It was some like random target or Walmart. I think it was a Walmart, like somewhere in the Midwest. And they had one employee that would just like, whoa, did you see that they would hold like, whatever it was. And it would be like Sharon and she’s got a little thing on and Sharon would be holding the toilet paper and Sharon would be holding the third Diaz.

And it was funny because no facial expression, like she would, but it was funny because it was just like so consistent. Every day Sharon worked or maybe Sharon, would take it, maybe they’d batch them. Maybe they would batch 50 photos of Sharon and then schedule them out. But it was just sharing.

I like, you can get put on the paper, you could get tortillas, like whatever it was. And then there were like some funny ones that there was like a bin of, I dunno, like pillows or something. And it was like Sharon all laying down in the bin, but still no facial expression, they made it fun.

Yeah, it’s Walmart. How fun is Walmart? It’s not it’s Walmart. But this place made it fun. They just took pictures of the employees with the things. And it’s more exciting then stock photography or, just posting happy father’s day.

Sean: [00:16:34] And usually if you’ve got employees, like one of them’s going to have some sort of personality that you can play off.

Torie: [00:16:39] Or maybe they have no personality and you can play off that, and we talked about, we were talking about this earlier today, about things that, Miles Through Time could do better. And really Sean takes great photos of all the cars, but there’s not a lot of people in the photos. We have great volunteers there.

Sean’s partner Truet is the what is his title? Executive director. He’s the executive director. I was going to call him a docent. He is the executive director, and there’s not a lot of photos of him either. So all of these volunteers and a lot of people that have things on display there, like you could go and again, batch them, take a bunch of pictures of each one in different places so that you’re showing the volunteers and you’re showing what they have, because you can only show the car so many times.

Sean’s got the coolest angles and all these different pictures of these little things. And that’s very interesting, but if you start to get too much, even if it’s cool, like if it’s all produce and it’s all strawberries every day, like then nobody’s going to want to see it anymore because they’ve seen strawberries.

So breaking those things up with something a little bit different, like your staff, like yourself, is a really great way because again, people connect to people.

Sean: [00:17:50] Yep. I got to get better.

Torie: [00:17:53] But I think you do a great job still. When he looked at the pay, like there might be two pictures of myself and all that. And I think that’s, sometimes you gotta step back and you gotta say what are we doing? Good. What could we improve on? And, I didn’t even really think about it until I was like coming up with this list today of things that I could share and things that I thought were really well and.

Wow. I didn’t even realize it, but there’s not a lot of people in the and so we were like going back and forth how can we put more people? What are some ways that we can do that?

Sean: [00:18:19] Which is funny. Cause I I literally was thinking, Hey, I saw somebody else posts on a similar business of and I’ve been seeing it, like they’re taking pictures of their volunteers. Certain individuals that represent particular positions within the company and their museums, automotive museums. I’m like, man, I haven’t done anything like that. That was literally today. And then you mentioned that was today.

Torie: [00:18:43] So some of that stuff that

Sean: [00:18:46] You wouldn’t have said anything now that I was going to start implementing.

Torie: [00:18:48] And now you have some ideas. And so then once you come up with those ideas and you realize, Hey, this part is missing, just do it. And don’t think that every morning you have to take that picture of your staff. Be like wear a nice shirt tomorrow because we’re taking pictures and then just take a bunch, right?

It’s you wouldn’t take a picture a day of truant, but if you went in there and took 50 pictures of true it stand over here. Then you have a huge variety. You can schedule those out, like. All of your stuff for the year done by batching some of these things you don’t, it seems hard because you’re not doing it.

It’s not hard. It can be easy if you do it smart and do things like that. So the next one I have is like taking pictures of your grounds or your store or your office or whatever it is. Sean has pictures of the firetruck outside pictures of the displays pictures of like different signs, different cars.

And so we talked about that Jay Moore farms, he looks like a little general store outside, so they’ve got some cool little things. So you get the idea of the character of the building, yes, it’s a farmer’s market, but what kind of farmer’s market let’s story it’s kind of country.

It’s laid back. It’s not like a uptight in the city. What, it, you, by sharing these types of pictures, you might say people will find that boring, but it’s not boring because they want to know what it’s like beforehand. They want to see those things that they didn’t see when they were there last time and want to go again.

So all of these different things are help telling your story, which is part of your message, which is how you get more people to want to go. And it’s how you get people to want to come back.

Sean: [00:20:19] Which is one of the biggest things. Like it’s so much easier to get somebody back, repeat customer then to try to find new ones. If you can keep selling something to them that they just become more and more loyal and a lot of times they’ll wind up spending more and more because they’ve got that trust level with you.

Torie: [00:20:38] I talked to this business owner, not that long ago about starting a podcast. And I said, what a great thing a podcast is because you could use it in so many different ways by creating like one piece of content.

And I said, what is your main reason that you want to start the podcast? And what he said, I did. I thought it was brilliant. I didn’t even think about it. He said he wanted to start a podcast and he had his percentages all worked out. It was like 30% to get new business, to attract new people and 60% to show that our current clients, why they are so happy to have us and why they should remain our customers.

And then he had 10%. I was like something else. I don’t remember what, oh, to talk about events that he was having to like, get those out in the local market. But I thought yes, that big of his percentage. So much more like the majority of it was to just show his current clients how awesome he was. And so if you think about that with your social media posts, yes.

You want to do it to attract new clients, but you also want to do it so that those people that are already like know and trust you want to come back, want to buy more, want to see that thing that they didn’t see last time.

Sean: [00:21:46] In that particular client, as far as. Talking about how he wants to let his clients know about his authority.

It’s super important because chances are. Other businesses are going to be trying to scalp his customers. If somebody else comes in and they’re like, Hey, I can do all this, the same guy that this guy can do, but I’ll do it for less. If that customer doesn’t have that sense of loyalty, like now this person that does it is that’s who I want to stay with.

I get it with the car insurance. We have USAA and the minute, any of these other. Insurance companies are like, ah, can I get you a quote? And I’m like, I got USAA. Hey, they’re like, okay. They won’t even know it’s good. And the thing is, so this particular client of talking about the podcast it happened to him from us meaning he had somebody.

Try to scalp him from us, trying to do our same services. And it was, Hey, I, we can do all these things and. W we’ll do it for less, but because we have that, authority with him and he trusts us. He came to us and was like, Hey this person is saying all this stuff, and we were able to talk about it.

And then they went down the road of, Hey, let me talk about this podcast idea with you. It went full certain, and that is a constant thing. That is no matter what your industry is, you are, there’s somebody else that does it, and you have to keep your customers clients happy and coming back to you.

Torie: [00:23:14] And so you don’t have to think of something like brand new and unique to post about because not everybody has heard everything you’ve said, not everybody has seen every picture. Not everybody has seen every post, every, everything that you’ve done. So you always have to repeat those things like Sean always has to say.

A hundred plus years of automotive history. He doesn’t say at one time, and he’s everybody heard that and never saying that again, he doesn’t shut, tell the story of his pops, 59 Cadillac and how that car brought the whole museum out. That was the whole reason that the museum started.

He’s got to keep telling that story. You got to keep saying those same things and posting those same things. And you can have some distance between when you post them, but. People aren’t going to hear it every single time you say it, and then people find you at different times. So if you said something last week, but I found you this week.

I didn’t hear that last week. So you’re going to have to say those things again. So don’t feel like you’re always having to come up with something new. You always can be saying things in a little bit different way, but you’re pretty much saying like the same things, like Jaymar farms, doesn’t, post about strawberries one time and then never post strawberries again, because they already posted strawberries.

No, through strawberry season it’s strawberries. Like it’s, that’s a lot. But there is a different picture of the strawberries. Like they’re saying something a little tiny bit different, but it’s still strawberries. And the next year when strawberry season comes, they talk about strawberries. Again, maybe in the winter, they’re talking about wish you had our strawberries during the summer.

We made strawberry jam. Come get that. So it’s the same thing again, and they’re pulling it out, but they have to say it again and they have to say it again. So that people still are hearing it so that you are still interested so that you want to come back, for Sean, the museum exhibits change.

So that gives a really good reason for Sean to post all the time. So that’s one of his things that he posts know, we talk about products and services and we talk about seasonality. Part of Sean’s seasonality and part of his like whole sequence of things is that cars come in and out. So when a car leaves, that’s a way for, Sean to post about it.

And when a car is coming in, that’s a way to, to post about it. So it keeps people in the know. And then when you post those things and you say what’s coming up, then people want it. What’s coming up because you’re always talking about what’s coming up.

Sean: [00:25:27] All right. And then when I know something’s leaving I’ll share up until the point that it’s leaving. And then when it’s gone, I say, it’s gone. And then when something comes in it’s inevitable. Every single time I get something new and I get a message or an email or a phone call from somebody going, Hey, is that in there? Now? I want to come back. I don’t mean that, that, I mean is awesome to me.

Cause that’s people are like truly following the story, which makes it pretty neat. And every business has a story. The story is different for everybody, but you do have a story of your journey from where you’ve started to where you are now and to where you want to go and you bring your customers with you.

And that’s the greatest thing, right?

Torie: [00:26:11] And part of the story is having new services or not having services anymore. And so I think people like to hear about that stuff. People want to have that connection with your business and when they do have that connection and they care a little bit, they’re more likely to buy from you.

And I think people are afraid of oh people don’t care about that, but people do care about that when people know that you have something in common, Like Sean and I were both in the military. So whenever somebody else says that they were in the military instantly, like there’s a connection there that other people will not have to them.

And instantly I like them a little more. And so whatever you’re putting out there, telling your story and giving these little type of details and things like that, that just helps you connect with people more and makes people like you a little bit more. You don’t have to like, share like overshare, like crazy stuff but starting to tell a little bit about that so that you connect a little bit more Like J Mar farms I don’t know who the owner is or anything like that.

But that would be cool if there was some story that they talk, maybe they do. And I just missed it if they talk about like, why they started and they actually have a new location, like another location that I didn’t even know about before. But why did they open that location? To me, that would be interesting.

And I don’t know if they post up like that, but that is part of that story type stuff that you can keep sharing just pops 59 Cadillac. Why the museum moved, why this car is coming or going, like all these different things are things that you can keep. And so I have customer photos and we talked about that.

I talked about people really like to share, especially if you are somebody that has like a subscription type thing, I think is a really great time to do that. Maybe you have a yoga studio or dog grooming or a fitness trainer. Karate dojo, like those types of things, where there’s always people coming and you always can have people sign up.

And the cool thing about that is once people sign up, like you can have them as clients forever. So by showing who else is already using your services? It’s so much better than even a testimonial or a review. Those are very great as well. I think showing those customer boaters are super important.

Sean: [00:28:07] So one of the golden things, if you can get your customers or visitors or clients or whatever it is to do the legwork for you, meaning have them take photos and do things and share on their page and then reshare their stuff. And then you don’t even have to do anything or think of anything because they’re doing it for you.

I stumbled across a post that I wasn’t at the museum, but they, they had some travel blog thing and they took all kinds of files, took photos of the information, the facts on the walls and all kinds of stuff and talked about how great. Ms. Brock couldn’t have done it better myself.

And this is coming from somebody not representing the museum, but I shared the hell out of that man, which works for them. Because if anybody’s Hey, I like this the stuff this person’s doing, I introduced them to my audience and they introduced me to their audience. And you do that a whole bunch of times.

It’s fantastic. And yeah. It bugs me a little bit. Cause I’ll do it to other businesses and stuff and I tag them and I try to get them involved. And then I just, I see, like they, they don’t do anything with it. And I’m like, man, that’s

Torie: [00:29:14] I wonder if they just don’t realize like, when somebody shares something of yours, return the favor, like that’s a networking thing that you can do online. And by, by doing that, like cross. Posting type thing like you, like Sean said, you’re really opening it up to so many more audiences, other people’s audiences and there’s to yours. If you use somebody else’s services like Sean has got t-shirts printed or things like that, for some of the events that we’ve had.

And you tag and show pictures of the shirts and tag that business, like giving them kudos and giving them thanks and just sharing their business with everybody. Like you can do that with whoever you’re doing any of your business with too. And then you can get that little support community of people that are like, you’re your own little streets.

Sean: [00:29:58] Absolutely. I’m adding that literally is one of the best things you can. Make your circle as large as you possibly can get all those other people working with you.

Torie: [00:30:06] Yeah. And don’t get bummed. If somebody doesn’t share back, share them again, share their stuff again, or, tag them again and keep doing it to more businesses. Even if you’re like you went out to lunch somewhere or had lunch brought in or something. Tack that business take a photo, get that networking going online because social media, like that is a great part of it. You can read. And I say this all the time, like you can reach so many more people than you ever could in other types of marketing.

And at the same time, like you can connect and network too. It’s not just like a post to customers. It’s much more than that. So my last type of posts that you could do are educational type posts. So for example, with the J Maher farms, maybe they tell a little bit about the strawberries or about their, what they’re doing in the fall with the harvest type things.

For Sean, there’s all kinds of really awesome history involved in some of the cars that he has in there. And that kind of stuff is just, it’s what do you call it? Edutainment? EDU. No, that works. However, that is a so you’re entertaining, but you’re also being educated. You’re also being educating.

You’re also educating your audience on different types of things. And I think people like that I think that you can overdo this, like every single post of yours shouldn’t be that, but answering like FAQ type questions or little cool tidbits, whatever your businesses, you have to have something like this in there.

That you could just give a little bit more information about what else you have. Sean, do you have anything that, that I missed?

Sean: [00:31:33] Nope.

Torie: [00:31:34] Yeah. So if you’re wanting to do some of these education type things, you could just always start with, did did you know, and then talk about something related to your business? That’s a really great way to get started if you’re not sure like exactly what to do in that kind of thing. And I’m sure there is some, did, type of tidbit that it’s about your business

Sean: [00:31:51] Or like I’ll take a picture, like a portion of a car or the steering wheel, the dash or something. I just ask the question, do you know what this is? And that, Hey, it works for anything. Work in a bar, take a picture of a corner of it and ask them, what did they see? I see this and this, like who cares what they actually see. You’re creating, engaging.

Torie: [00:32:15] Yep. Anything that you can do to get people to answer questions or to comment are always really great things because all the different social media platforms take that as a signal that your content is great.

And so then they want to share it to more people because Facebook wants people to stay on Facebook as long as possible. Instagram, same thing, YouTube, exactly the same. So the more you can get people to stay and to interact the more they’re going to want to show your posts to more people. That’s the name of the game.

So if you are trying to market your business locally, social media is a fantastic opportunity and too many businesses are throwing away all kinds of opportunities to get in front of more people than you ever could before. So I hope that these ideas give you some ideas of what you could do for your business.

Very easy things to do nothing here is too difficult. Nothing takes fancy equipment, nothing takes fancy training, and every time you post, you’re gonna get a little bit better and you’re going to learn what works and, learn what doesn’t. But the thing is that you just got to do it. You just got to try, you just got to put yourself out there and make it.

And so if you liked this episode, that is fantastic. We have new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday, and we would love it. If you came back to join us, we always talk about ways that you can be smarter about your marketing, smarter about growing your business and getting what you want out of life. And so we hope to see you here.

Thanks.