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Welcome to the Digital Marketing

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Podcast, brought to you by

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targetinternet.com Hello

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and welcome back to the Digital Marketing

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Podcast. My name is Kieran Rogers. I'm

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Louise Crossley. And I'm Daniel Rowles. And

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today we are talking about the

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future of social media. So we're going

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to stop. That's it. That's the end of. I

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just wish it would. I know you do. I

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should say we're going to talk about the future of social media,

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where it's going, how it's fragmenting, changing, all those kind of things.

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Kieran had a rant, I

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think is the better word. A bit of an outburst.

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A sweary. And a meltdown is maybe a better word.

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Teddy's out of pram. Yeah, yeah. And

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let's explore that first. Let's let you get off your

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chest without swearing because the editing team don't really want

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to have to do that. You

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don't like social media. I'm just tired

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of it. It is amazing for

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a digital marketer. I know, but it just honestly,

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I look at how most

0:59

brands do social media. And I just think. And

1:01

is it the fact it's done badly then? Yeah.

1:04

I just think, why on earth would

1:06

you think I'd be interested in this dross? So

1:08

tell me the story then about you just did

1:10

the B2B we were looking at. Yeah, so like

1:12

B2B. So I said, I made the comment, which

1:15

is quite a controversial one. I love LinkedIn. People

1:18

are like, oh, it's just people trying to sell you stuff

1:20

and sales. Do you know what? My experience of it is

1:22

not that. So there are good things about LinkedIn, granted. I

1:24

spend more time on LinkedIn than on Facebook. Yeah,

1:27

I spend more time on LinkedIn than pretty

1:29

much anything else. Anything else

1:31

like Instagram or anything. I told you, Louise, we

1:33

knew it, didn't we? We knew it. Yeah.

1:36

So like there are

1:38

good things about LinkedIn, like the networking and the

1:40

catching up with actual people that you know. And

1:43

actually people that you are interested in. That's very strong. It's

1:45

an actual network. And I think that's maybe for me, like

1:47

I'm connected to a lot of people, but I have a

1:49

network of people. I genuinely like if they get a promotion,

1:52

I'm like, good for you. Well done. Yeah. And I can.

1:54

And that's good because that's real. I

1:57

suppose what I dislike is the

1:59

never ending. rotting out of three,

2:01

four posts a week because we've got to

2:03

say something. And invariably they are done awfully.

2:06

Invariably they've been written once

2:08

and not reworked. Except

2:11

there's no sense of any clear,

2:13

like if this

2:15

is for you, what's in it for you? Well, that's the

2:17

point you were making. That's missing, that resonates with me. What's

2:19

in it for me? Yeah, cut to the chase, gets why

2:22

I'm busy. Just give

2:24

me the value, like serve it up on

2:26

a platter so I can eat it in

2:28

bite-sized chunks. And no one does that. And

2:30

also, just do less but do it better.

2:33

Don't give me 15 posts

2:35

about blah, blah, blah, who gives

2:38

monkeys. Okay, well done,

2:40

well done. You

2:42

know, just do one thing and do

2:44

it well. Do it in a bit more of a

2:46

real way. You see, the whole thing was supposed to be the

2:49

whole web 2.0 revolution, which was

2:51

what, like 2010, 2012, was that, oh my gosh,

2:56

we've got these new social tools now and

2:58

we can communicate one-on-one at a

3:00

file. No

3:03

one's doing that. No one's doing

3:05

that. It's just one-size-all, massive, broadcast

3:08

vomit that just spews into

3:10

my feed day after day. Please, like, enough.

3:13

Right, I'll give you an example. This is

3:15

like a history lesson, right? I remember being

3:17

at a conference and Craig Hannah, who was

3:19

at Econsolency at the time, hi Craig, thank

3:21

you very well, was telling

3:23

us about social media. And

3:26

I think it was Twitter at the time that he was talking

3:28

about, I said, we've got Facebook, we've got Twitter. And he was

3:30

explaining what the point in it was. And

3:32

the whole, and Craig was very presented, about

3:34

10 minutes in, he was like, all

3:36

right, I'm gonna start again. Right, you're not getting it, are you? And

3:39

then he went like, what's the point? And

3:41

then he went, well, because you can do this. And he was completely

3:43

right. It's just people weren't there yet in terms of understanding it. And

3:45

then people started to get it and they started to work. And

3:48

then we said, oh, as a business, this could be good. I

3:51

can shout stuff at you and you might buy my things.

3:54

And then we started broadcasting a little bit as well. I mean, I

3:56

give you the problem is, we work out what does

3:58

work. And then someone

4:00

will go, my course is just normally $499. You

4:04

can get it tonight, $499 to find

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out the ideal LinkedIn post. And

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I was like, oh, give that a go. And it might be right,

4:11

the content. It might be like, if you do it like this, it'll work. But

4:13

the problem is it will work for a bit. Classic,

4:17

my dislike of LinkedIn. I was

4:19

completely shocked. Explosion

4:22

emoji, right? And then two lines

4:25

of line space they've left. So you've got to scroll

4:27

down to read more. Well, you've just caught my attention.

4:29

I want to read more. But this is clickbait. Right.

4:31

And it's like, oh, you did this great. That wasn't

4:33

as interesting as I. And if it's genuinely interesting, it's

4:35

not clickbait. That would be my differentiation. Like clickbait is

4:37

you think you're going to get something and you don't

4:39

get what you want. Five shocking,

4:41

celebrity moment. You won't believe them before. And there

4:43

is no number four on there anywhere that looked

4:45

like the picture that I saw that I wanted to

4:47

see. People on LinkedIn at the moment, especially, they do

4:49

love to build up this whole story arc and

4:52

it is like just being in a room with a bunch of like attention

4:57

deficit toddlers. You

4:59

know, it's like, oh, take notice

5:01

of me. Oh, for

5:03

goodness sake. And this is this is what

5:05

I hate about it. Because

5:07

it's so disingenuous and so fake. And

5:10

they're all playing this game to get

5:12

more likes so they can like ride

5:14

the algorithm and achieve success. And it's

5:16

like, well, no, wrong game entirely. We're

5:18

supposed to be great communicators for a

5:20

start. We're supposed to be marketers, right?

5:22

We're supposed to be able to communicate

5:24

effectively. And actually with the

5:26

content that's been pushed out to game, I

5:29

just feel it's been done really badly. What

5:31

do you think this is? This is the

5:33

algorithm piece, right? Like the algorithm encourages bad

5:35

behavior because the algorithm

5:38

is there to generate advertising sales.

5:40

Right. So I'm fighting. Yeah.

5:42

And everyone's kind of like, we do it. We've got

5:44

latest updates on the algorithm. This is how you game

5:46

the algorithm. Oh, we don't like people gaming the algorithm.

5:49

It's slightly hypocritical. No, I don't mind people gaming the

5:51

algorithm, but do it in an interesting novel way. I

5:54

suppose and do it in a way that doesn't

5:56

demand everybody's attention. And this is the problem.

5:58

Everything can't be interesting to. everybody at

6:00

a mass scale. There are

6:03

niches. Well what I really interested the

6:05

I went to a recent talk

6:07

about community building and they said your community needs to

6:09

be niche and they go right

6:11

so this one person who built a community for companies that

6:13

had a marketing team of one and

6:16

then and then I kind of went well yeah but that's

6:19

that obvious but what about if you did like up to

6:21

three? I mean this is the problem

6:23

you're the problem and basically the point was that

6:27

if you suddenly go well anyone that's got a marketing

6:29

team of one or maybe two or maybe three you're

6:32

not speaking to a very niche community you're speaking to

6:34

a big broad range of company because I want the

6:36

reach. So it kind

6:38

of okay that's a fair point so how

6:40

do I speak to that specific group because that's where

6:42

I've got opportunity to traction and

6:45

I think that we missed that a little bit of actually

6:49

what's in it for you but it's got to be a little bit

6:51

more specific to a particular audience even if I do a number

6:53

of posts and I'm only expecting them to appeal to a

6:56

certain segment of my audience so I can kind

6:58

of accept that the rest might ignore it. I

7:00

think there's also a problem with engagement pods which

7:02

are being used to push this rather

7:04

lackluster content a lot further and

7:07

I really wish the networks would. All right so

7:09

explain it. So an

7:11

engagement pod like if I can I could set up

7:13

a business right and I

7:16

could persuade people to join my

7:19

community of engages and

7:21

we would all agree to like and

7:24

share and promote each other's content right

7:26

on a regular basis and actually circular

7:28

link building yeah it kind of is

7:30

but within the social algorithm right so

7:32

you're trying to game the system and

7:36

actually there are some really big and some

7:38

really big ones on on on linkedin yeah

7:40

just google like linkedin engagement pods and you'll

7:42

find these these communities and you know I

7:44

think again this is you're

7:47

building you're building your fame on a on

7:49

a lie you know this is as bad

7:51

as buying you know fake instagram followers to

7:53

try and juke brands into sponsoring you and

7:55

sending you lots of freebies but then they'll be

7:57

selling courses and how to increase your you didn't get

8:00

Yeah, the best way of making money online is selling courses how to

8:02

make money online. I mean, this has been a thing for a long

8:04

time, right? And the problem

8:06

is what that algorithm is trying to do is trying

8:08

to simulate the fact that if I've got a load

8:10

of people that really are my advocates and they like

8:12

my stuff and share my stuff, that must be a

8:14

good thing. And that's the problem, isn't it? All right.

8:17

So let's get specific about some platforms. But

8:21

thanks for the run. I feel a

8:23

little bit weak and shaky now, but

8:25

we'll get you some sugar. X

8:28

or Twitter or the BBC knows it

8:30

now. X formerly known as Twitter.

8:33

I mean, they're using up a lot of words and a lot

8:35

of articles doing this. X formerly known as Twitter. Paper word though,

8:37

right? Yeah, right. And then maybe that's it.

8:39

Okay. So the reality is what's happened.

8:43

Well, I maybe have a different attitude to a lot of people. The

8:47

Elon Musk bought Twitter for

8:49

44 billion. If I get any of these

8:51

numbers wrong, then I apologize. 44 billion. And

8:54

there's just been an evaluation online and everyone

8:57

with great glee is saying, it's

8:59

more than halved in value based

9:01

on what the share options for the staff are now

9:03

worth. It's now worth 19 billion. There

9:06

are a lot of different ways of valuing a brand. First

9:09

of all, that may or may not be correct. The

9:12

change from Twitter to X was

9:14

done, in my opinion, in

9:17

the most Wild West rebrand I've ever

9:19

seen in my life. I've like this

9:21

turnaround, got someone random to do a

9:23

logo. Nothing else was rebranded

9:26

X. Everything still says Twitter everywhere. There's still bluebirds

9:28

on all the help documentation. The opposite to everything

9:30

you're taught to do. If you're doing a brand

9:32

as well. And now no one's

9:34

calling it X. They're calling it Twitter still most of the time

9:36

as well. Then I think

9:38

Elon Musk or someone else came out and just

9:40

put some weird colorization and did an effect on

9:43

the logo. And if I'm just like, what? It's

9:45

just changing it again. I

9:47

think it's reflective

9:49

of two things. You

9:51

can look at these stories. You can either say this

9:53

is petulant and childish and it's been

9:56

done in a whimsical and not thought out way or

9:58

someone is disrupting things. and

10:02

lots of people have opinions on Elon Musk and I'm not gonna get

10:04

into it from that point of view. What

10:07

I would say is that actually,

10:10

if I look at the

10:12

amount of engagement on X, as we'll

10:14

call it, the

10:17

user base has gone down, but the engagement doesn't seem

10:19

to have done. Okay, so

10:22

there are loads of people that are using Twitter in the

10:24

past that have stopped using it. I know that, look at

10:26

my own account, I've got like eight or whatever thousand followers

10:28

on there and it's

10:30

really, really declined in reach. Like I used to

10:32

post something and it would get in front of

10:34

a couple of thousand people at any given time,

10:36

the time of day had a big impact. Now

10:38

I post anything, that audience, two or 300 people

10:40

see it, okay? I can improve that

10:43

by doing certain things, but

10:45

the engagement percentages are up, like

10:49

five to 10%, I'm just getting that

10:51

easy. Right. So there's an

10:53

argument, actually, a lot of people aren't using it,

10:55

but those accounts need to go because the algorithm

10:57

is punishing things because you go, we've got 8,000

10:59

followers, only like 500 people engaging with you, therefore,

11:02

you're probably not doing a great job. Elon

11:05

Musk comes out and goes, we're gonna start charging for

11:07

accounts. Which I love, by the way. So would you

11:10

be more inclined to use it? Much more, because even

11:12

if it was like only a dollar a year, we'd

11:15

get rid of the bot accounts. A lot, I

11:18

mean, you have to make it enough that it's

11:20

not profitable to have those bot accounts. How much

11:22

are they planning to charge? Well, I don't know.

11:24

They're experimenting in New Zealand and somewhere else with

11:26

this feature. It's a Facebook thing, right? So

11:29

you had a little bit of a thing about charging for

11:31

Facebook. So reflect on that and then we can reflect back. Yeah,

11:33

so I think this is an announcement by Facebook this month

11:35

of October and they were saying

11:37

that they're gonna be launching an

11:40

ad-free subscription for Facebook users in

11:43

Europe. And they were

11:45

looking at like, I think it's around 1299. 1299

11:47

for the mobile. 12 euro, that

11:49

was in Europe. 10 for desktop, sorry, euros, you're

11:51

right. Yeah. So

11:54

I'm guessing that's navigating

11:57

the complex targeting

12:00

like restrictions maybe within Europe? Well it means it's

12:02

easier I guess, from a priority point of view,

12:04

but also what it means is what you pointed

12:06

out, that's how much... They value at least an

12:09

account. Yeah, because if they're making way more than

12:11

that from advertising for each person, they wouldn't be

12:13

able to make that work economically. Yeah, there was

12:15

a stat knocking around years ago that if you

12:18

had a Facebook account, as

12:20

a mean average, a Facebook account was worth, I think

12:22

it was like $180 a year. It

12:25

was, which, you know, short-lived people were like,

12:27

wow. But that's the power of knowing who

12:30

you're connected to and what you like, that

12:32

can then be sold to advertisers like us,

12:34

right? Yeah, I don't get the impression that's

12:36

what the Twitter thing was about. It wasn't about what was

12:38

the equivalent of it. It's about actually, you're still going to

12:40

get ads, you're going to pay for it, you're still going

12:42

to get ads, but it's about cutting out bot accounts and

12:45

so on. Which would be a brilliant thing. I

12:48

mean, we use keywords everywhere,

12:50

which gives you an account on, the

12:53

average number of searches from Google in

12:56

any given kind of month. And if

12:58

you use that tool and Google Twitter

13:02

follower, by Twitter, by Instagram followers, by

13:04

Facebook, it's hundreds of thousands a month. And

13:07

there are plenty of companies prepared to

13:09

do that. And they give it 100% real. Yeah,

13:12

no, I don't believe that for a second. They're

13:14

bot accounts. And they're a massive problem because actually,

13:16

if I've got enough of these, I

13:19

can sway political debates.

13:21

And that's happening five times a

13:23

day. There's evidence where really niche-focused

13:25

concepts are becoming mainstream media things.

13:27

Right, because apparently loads of people

13:29

are banging on about Twitter. But

13:31

are those people real? Who knows?

13:34

Or insert any other network. I'm

13:36

not particularly blaming Twitter. But people

13:39

do, and particularly politicians and decision-makers, do use

13:41

these systems as a bit of a barometer.

13:43

So if I can gain that, I

13:46

can actually sway public debate,

13:49

sway public opinion. I do all

13:51

sorts of weird, wonderful things. Great

13:53

bugbear for low-quality news production, right?

13:55

So something will happen in the world. Oh, I know.

13:58

And then they'll start quoting what people have said. on

14:00

Twitter. What the hell? I mean that's even

14:02

worse than going up to someone on the

14:04

street because you know in very early you'll

14:06

go up to someone and there'll be someone

14:08

that's pretty bonkers will tell you something completely

14:10

offensive or off the start. It's me. Yeah,

14:12

exactly right. But actually they're going somebody said

14:14

this on Twitter and somebody says like what

14:17

value is this? Okay, so anyway, lazy journalism.

14:19

Something that Elon Musk came out and said today in

14:21

the news is that X will

14:23

replace banks in 2024. It's

14:26

called statement. Yeah, this is coming

14:29

from something he's been alluding to for a while. If

14:31

you are familiar with WeChat, WeChat being the biggest social

14:33

media platform inside China, but

14:35

he's also glowing a little bit globally in various

14:37

countries as well. WeChat has payment

14:40

process, you can scan QR codes, you can

14:42

pay for things, but it's got apps within

14:44

it. So you've got this one kind

14:46

of master app where you have most of your social

14:48

stuff going on and then you can install things in

14:50

it and so on. So apps within apps, an app

14:52

store for an app. It seems to me that's the

14:54

vision for X. It's going to do lots of different

14:56

things. I mean, that was the whole meaning behind him

14:58

changing the name to X. He wanted it to

15:00

be in everything out. That's it. I think it's

15:02

a shame in a way because Twitter was the real

15:06

time app is that if you wanted real

15:08

time news, you wanted to find out real time what

15:10

was happening. That's where you went and the algorithm gradually

15:12

eroded that because you've got everything else prioritized. It's an

15:14

interesting, but I think that's the directions kind of going

15:16

in. We should then

15:19

bring in the conversation

15:21

about metas. Let's say a

15:23

version of Twitter, there's pretty much threads. The

15:26

big news with threads was everyone went

15:29

through and signed up and they were really

15:31

clever at taking their meta Instagram users and

15:33

Facebook users and going, here's

15:35

your threads account. Even the stuff

15:37

that they put this little cookie, this little kind

15:39

of Easter egg in things, so we're hidden away

15:41

where you could go to make there was a

15:43

ticket, you could get your secret ticket. It would give you out.

15:45

You showed me this. My interpretation of

15:49

what's happened in threads is that some people have really

15:51

adopted it, but the majority of people went on and

15:53

then realized it's yet another platform to

15:55

have to speak on. The conversations are all

15:57

repeats of exactly what people have been saying in X. I

16:00

think the momentum that they originally got when they launched

16:02

they've not been able to keep that up and it's just no I

16:05

mean all the user numbers were showing they've been quite honest about that

16:07

and even marks of book came out and said Yeah,

16:09

if you've got this many people starting you're not going to

16:11

maintain that yeah over any period of time as well So

16:14

I think it's kind of poodling along but it

16:16

doesn't really seem like it's got the traction It

16:18

needs to get unless it finds its particular niche

16:21

Which is people that don't like Elon Musk seems to be seems

16:23

to be its niche kind of thing at the moment um

16:27

Yeah, the other thing is Facebook is a

16:29

fascinating one for me, right? It's I go

16:31

along To any kind of training

16:33

course and you say to people do use Facebook anymore for

16:35

your business and they're like, no No one uses Facebook anymore.

16:38

That is not true at all. There

16:40

are huge demographic groups I don't you

16:43

know demographics dangerous maybe very graphic groups

16:46

There were huge groups of people that is still their major

16:48

platform that that's where

16:50

they go all day every day and that's where they spend their

16:52

time and That the

16:55

problem is that the assumption is they are

16:57

old and low-income It's

17:00

not necessarily the case in some situations some

17:02

places that's the case There are other things

17:04

like we tend to take a very UK

17:06

US centric view on a lot of this

17:09

stuff as well Whereas channels like Telegram and

17:11

stuff like that are absolutely huge Particularly

17:13

geopolitical things that are kind of going on at the moment

17:15

where people are broadcasting out kind of content as well So

17:18

I wouldn't dismiss any of these and then

17:21

LinkedIn My okay, let's get

17:23

back to my LinkedIn is a joyous place, right? it

17:25

is people sharing clever stuff that they've done

17:28

people celebrating what they've done and Sharing

17:31

information with me that I probably wouldn't I mean Twitter the

17:34

other place I would get it like I want to find

17:36

out what's going on with chat GPT and latest insights There

17:38

are a number of people that I will follow in

17:40

order to do that So maybe by the fact I've

17:42

spent a bit of time sculpting my feed sculpting my

17:44

feed and what they've been really clever I can be

17:46

connected to you, but I don't need to follow you.

17:49

Mmm. That was the big game changer for me It's

17:51

like right I can just follow the people that give me relevant stuff I

17:53

still want to be connected to those other people and

17:55

actually of all the platforms That

17:57

and Instagram are the nicest I've

18:00

seen in our post link and people want

18:02

to celebrate it Yeah, like we've won an

18:04

award or we're giving out an award or

18:06

we're whatever it is and people are

18:08

brilliant And you know those the people actually care everything's

18:11

meaningful And I feel like whereas

18:13

you get a lot of Facebook just aimless scrolling

18:15

Yeah, that's not that's not really something that you

18:17

haven't looked in. No links people are there to

18:20

Network and to learn that's

18:23

feel like this and maybe get a job and maybe

18:25

to advertise job as well But but it doesn't try

18:27

and pitch to be on the podcast Yeah,

18:29

that's why I'm okay, but that my email now

18:32

has got to a joke I reckon 30 a

18:34

day now and what's interesting is I always get

18:36

them while I'm not in the office because they're

18:38

coming a lot from The US so

18:41

I've probably at 20 or 30 a night two or

18:43

three during the day most of it is Agencies I think

18:45

a US based agencies trying to get people onto the

18:47

podcast get a lot linked in messages The

18:50

rule is basically if you send me a connection request

18:52

It's supposed to be best practice send a note say

18:54

while you're connecting When that notices

18:56

I'm connecting because I think I'd be great on

18:59

your podcast or I've got someone I might actually

19:01

consider that Where someone says I've got someone

19:03

that might be good on your podcast Ignore

19:07

them. Yes. My answer that is always great put them

19:09

in touch with me. I'll speak with directly with them

19:11

Yeah, right and I had an interesting one where

19:14

someone got in contact on behalf

19:16

of someone and I said I

19:18

work with this person all the time

19:21

if they want to be on the podcast I'm not

19:23

sure why I haven't mentioned it and a very embarrassed conversation

19:25

I thought was with this person was horrified that the agency

19:27

had done this particular thing. So I Think

19:30

that's it. What's in it for me? Keep it real

19:32

and actually Just like with

19:34

Instagram if I post a picture of me winning

19:37

something It's

19:40

only the people actually like me that

19:42

are gonna celebrate that otherwise you like to stop showing off

19:45

Just not interesting. Whereas if it's like oh cool, then

19:47

you're not saying that's nice good for him So

19:50

I think that's the thing is that you've

19:52

got to manage that network in the appropriate way There

19:54

was this great guy called the LinkedIn guy and his

19:56

argument was that you should never connect to anyone unless

19:59

they were phoned up put through to someone else

20:01

in your office. And then with Daniel, Daniel, it's

20:03

Louise Krosstie on the phone. And if you could say, oh

20:05

great, let's speak to Louise. Or if you like, right, then

20:07

you shouldn't speak to them. I'm a little bit loose in

20:10

that. I think there's different ways of managing it. But I

20:12

think it is what's in it

20:14

for them. And I just wanna highlight

20:16

something we're gonna talk about in a news episode we're doing, but

20:18

this was really important. We'll get into it in

20:20

more detail then. Marketers are using less

20:22

channels. And I was like, what? Basically,

20:26

their marketing mix includes less channels,

20:29

as the time of this kind of report went out. We'll

20:31

highlight it in the show notes. And

20:34

what was really fascinating was that we've

20:37

got fragmentation, we've got more and more social platforms.

20:40

And people are basically saying, I know what works and I'm sticking to

20:42

those platforms. I think that's good. I

20:46

would argue that maybe you're missing out

20:48

on something. But actually, if you had to say to

20:50

me now, right, you were only allowed to use one

20:53

social channel or two social channels for

20:57

target internet, I'd go, right, LinkedIn. And

21:01

then I'd go, Instagram maybe, brand building, but

21:03

beyond that, I mean, I like Twitter, but

21:05

I'm not seeing much business success from using

21:07

it particularly. What

21:10

about if you had to just to pick, you've got a real variety

21:12

of clients, right? You had

21:14

to pick two channels. All the rest have

21:16

to disappear. What are you gonna pick? Varies

21:19

from client to client. You're only allowed two. I'm

21:21

only allowed two. It's really hard. Need to

21:23

be on YouTube clients. Okay. Controversially,

21:27

I would pick direct mail. Direct

21:29

mail, or the channel? What about a social channel? That

21:32

is, it's a channel. It's a

21:34

channel, it's not a social media channel. Do

21:38

you know what? More social

21:40

than a lot of the stuff I

21:42

see happening on so-called social channels. You

21:44

have to pick two so-caded. All right,

21:46

all right. It's gonna have to be

21:48

Instagram and probably

21:51

LinkedIn. Okay. I

21:53

feel slightly sick. Okay. Must

21:56

go for a lay down. You'll be confident about setting that up. You'll be

21:58

sick in your mouth. Yeah. I'm

22:00

a doofal, Darcy. There you have it, Kieran loves

22:03

Instagramming. No, you heard it, I hear that. He

22:05

prefers it to don't remain on pause. That's what

22:07

we're gonna title that. That's like coercion. aggressive

22:10

control onto Kieran over social media.

22:13

If you had to pick two for business,

22:16

I mean, you're guessing. Yeah, I'd probably say

22:18

the same. Instagram mainly just to hit the

22:21

sort of younger audience. Yeah, I mean, we've got a

22:23

big audience that are in a students and are learning

22:25

about digital marketing. We've got our own, you know, the

22:27

people that come for our Academy and all those kinds

22:29

of things as well. We're socially with them there. However,

22:33

after what you've said today, I want

22:35

to go on a whole new exploration

22:37

of X. Yeah, I think because, because

22:39

you get it right. Well, do you

22:42

know what? I think if you've got

22:44

a network that's actually cracking down on

22:46

the fake account and actually focusing on

22:48

actual active users, which they seem to

22:50

be making a lot of moves to

22:52

do that. Like I would far rather

22:54

be in a network of 50 genuine

22:56

people who are actually engaged in a network

22:58

of like two billion people. I'm

23:01

trying to work out the solution to bots or

23:03

whatever the situation is. That for me.

23:05

And actually, yeah, I

23:07

think that's the space to watch. And

23:09

it is the thing with social media.

23:11

You constantly have to be looking at

23:13

the changing landscape because it shifts real

23:15

quick. You know, so like

23:17

right. And I always say this to people like,

23:20

OK, so you you're B2B and you love LinkedIn.

23:22

What would you how much percentage

23:24

of your business comes via LinkedIn at the

23:26

moment? And you know, anything above

23:28

30 percent, I'm like, my that's

23:30

a risk. You know, what happens if

23:32

LinkedIn goes belly up next next

23:34

month? Or suddenly everybody leaves the platform because

23:36

something or, you know, we're horrified by the

23:39

way an exact behaved or all sorts of

23:41

things can happen that can shift the landscape.

23:43

You know, we found this with our LinkedIn

23:46

user group, didn't we, for the podcast? Literally, they

23:48

changed the rules on how it works. And suddenly

23:50

we weren't able to contact people that were part

23:52

of that. Well, interesting. They've just given us something

23:54

else that we're now able to make our LinkedIn

23:56

group public, which means no one

23:58

can comment, but people can see it. with that,

24:00

that makes difference as well. I mean, that's a very good

24:02

point. It does shift and change. Right. On that note, how

24:04

much do you and your team know about all this stuff?

24:07

And I say that because we

24:10

did the skills benchmark recently, again, the digital

24:12

marketing skills benchmark, but we also, for the

24:14

first time ever, did confidence versus skills as

24:16

well. This was shocking. So we

24:19

basically said, how would you score yourself out of 10

24:21

for each of these topic areas, social media, content, analytics,

24:23

and then answer a lot of difficult questions and find

24:25

out. The disparity, the

24:27

three ones that stood out, social media,

24:29

content marketing, and analytics, we are way

24:31

more confident than we should be of

24:33

our knowledge in those areas, which explains

24:36

bad social media, bad content, not measuring it.

24:38

Okay. So targetinternet.com/benchmark,

24:40

go and benchmark yourself for free or your team

24:42

for free. It's all automated now. You can go

24:45

in, it will give you a link to share

24:47

with your team and

24:49

see what they actually know and what you actually know compared

24:51

to what we think we do.

24:53

Because I think that's the key thing is actually,

24:55

we know how to use these platforms doesn't mean

24:57

we necessarily know everything that we should know about

24:59

them. So definitely worth taking a look at. As

25:01

ever, all of the links and the references will

25:03

be in the show notes. Before we end as well,

25:06

I have an important question, which some of our

25:08

young audience might find funny or interesting, but just whilst

25:10

we're talking about social media, for each of you, which

25:13

is how often do you both think about

25:15

the Roman Empire? Oh,

25:19

me at least three times a month.

25:22

I'm a bit

25:24

obsessed with Romans. As a child, he used to run

25:26

around with a Roman helmet on my head. But

25:29

even so, you just have very little else you wouldn't expect that.

25:31

Yeah. A couple of times a month for

25:33

me, something will come up that refers me back to I

25:35

think living in Jersey as well. There's a there's a big

25:37

connection to it here. What

25:40

would be your answer? Never. Yeah, right.

25:42

Now, never. I just because basically this

25:44

was going viral on TikTok. Yeah. And

25:46

it was women

25:48

discovering how often men actually

25:50

think about the Roman Empire.

25:52

So amazing. My, my

25:54

daughter, for those that know, is like 22 years

25:56

old. And she was we were having the same

25:58

conversation, right? And she

26:01

basically said to her boyfriend, how

26:03

many times do you think? And he was like, three or

26:05

four times a day. Wow, that's

26:07

fairly Roman. He's quite into his history. He's

26:09

a bit of a, he's into his history

26:12

kind of stuff as well. So Luke, interesting,

26:14

interesting. So yeah, but

26:16

this is the thing, right? Just test me to the

26:19

ripples in time that the Romans create. It is, there

26:21

you go. There you go, what an interesting point to

26:23

finish on. I think there's also a thing here

26:25

about memes, understanding

26:27

of those, comedy language, all those kinds of things

26:29

as well, which is that

26:33

I will say to maybe one of my students in Imperial

26:35

College, have you seen this meme? And they're like, yeah, you

26:37

saw that on Reels, didn't you? Cause that was about three

26:39

months ago. Yeah. And

26:42

that's the big criticism is that anything on Reels

26:44

was on TikTok a while back as well. So

26:47

it does start to separate user base and that's

26:49

kind of thing. And actually quite often, and I

26:51

found this with Twitter at the beginning and

26:53

maybe with Instagram, people don't get it

26:55

and therefore they dismiss it, right?

26:58

And TikTok is the easiest one to do that. I see

27:00

stupid people dancing. The reality is

27:02

that actually there's a lot more to it. And

27:04

I think sometimes we need to deep dive on

27:06

your point of going back to X to look

27:09

at that, I think was a very good one.

27:11

So keep an open mind, explore, keep up to

27:13

date. Tell us what you think, targetinternet.com/newsletter, cause I

27:15

want you to subscribe to the newsletter cause we've

27:17

got some live sessions coming up about this stuff

27:19

as well. And they get exclusive access on there.

27:21

Thanks very much for listening. We'll see you again

27:23

on the Digital Marketing Podcast. For

27:27

more episodes, resources, to leave a

27:29

review or to get in contact,

27:31

go to targetinternet.com/podcast.