2021 Marketing Trends: How-to Involve your Audience
Ryan Alford and Radical's Josh Hill preview 2021 marketing trends: social selling, user-generated content, brand community, purpose and ad platform picks.
- Design ads and posts for interaction, not just impressions: Radical leaned into Facebook and Instagram instant experience ads, story polls and response stickers to get customers picking products and giving feedback.
- Expect social selling to explode in 2021 now that brand desire, consumer willingness and platform capability have finally converged, even though syncing Shopify catalogs to Instagram Shop is still harder than it should be.
- Invite customers to make content with your product and then promote them rather than only pushing polished content at them; collaborative content often outperforms what you'd have made yourself.
- Drop the polish requirement. Treat Instagram Live like FaceTime instead of a webinar, reply to comments with video on TikTok, and let people see you're a group of humans.
- Publish your how-to and behind-the-scenes process. Showing how the latte or the t-shirt gets made builds base-level knowledge, familiarity and appreciation without cannibalizing sales.
- Only market a purpose that's actually your purpose and that resonates with your employees; consumers will sniff out a cause you tacked on and destroy you for it on Twitter.
- Chase ad-to-engagement, not just ad-to-conversion: route people from the ad into a Facebook Messenger chatbot or a live person so they stay in the funnel while still experiencing the creative.
- Spend time in comment sections, including on other people's profiles, as a growth tactic; Ryan says commenting on bigger and comedic accounts is one of his main Instagram follower sources.
- Before running TikTok ads, consult a young person on your team and never just repurpose a 30-second TV spot, or you'll get cringy fast.
And like it's kind of it's always been content is king. But now it's like contents required. Like if you're if you're online, you have to be doing this. Otherwise, you're you're behind or you're close to being out.
purpose is really important when it's actually your purpose.
But if you can get ad to engagement, now you're talking.
It has to start somewhere. It has to start some time. What better place than here? What better time than now? You're listening to the Radcast. If it's radical, we cover it. Here's your host, Ryan Alford. Hey guys, it's Ryan Alford. Welcome to another episode of the Radcast. It is really nice to be joined by our digital media manager here, Radical Josh Hill. Josh, good to have you on the Radcast. That's like you're a part of an ongoing member. We're all team Radical here, but good to have you back on the show and dropping knowledge. So good to be back. You're never more than, you know, we record here in my office slash makes the studio. And you're never more than eight feet away. So you're really always kind of a part of it.
Oh, yeah. I'm always ready to like run in just in case just get that text message. Oh, get in the podcast. Yeah, we had it. We had a, I guess, not come on today. Josh, come in. But no, but resident, you know, digital media guru and knowledge base. So I don't think it's good. You know, we were talking pre episode. What, what is this about? But I think we just felt like there was a need to have both an early look at 2021 and kind of a state of the trends of marketing. You know, everything going on. So we won't call this our absolute final trends of 2021. We'll call it the way to early preview of 2021 and really kind of just the state of, you know,
where marketing is headed and kind of its role in the funnel of sales and everything else. And because marketing is wearing such a heavy load these days, what it's supposed to carry. I talk about this a lot on LinkedIn, you know, the expectations of marketing, you know, have grown. But no, it's good to be talking. Yeah, definitely. And so jumping the gun episode one. Exactly. We'll make this a four part series on 2021 in case we want to change our minds on anything. So yeah, because it thinks your change is so quick. I mean, we've got an election coming up in less than 10 days. It's less than two weeks. Yeah. My days run together. Is it two weeks from today or is it a week from today?
It's a week from today or one week away. Wow. So Tuesday's election day, right? Right. So anyway. So a week away from election that, you know, we talked to another thing, pre episode, you know, the macro trends don't necessarily change. The platforms aren't going to change because a different president gets elected. But it's hard not to think that there's some amount of charge and or things that can happen. Right. I had given the tenuous nature of our presidential election and just the overall aura that's carried this election cycle. Yeah. And a lot of a lot of big changes happen just because the fact there is an election period regardless of the outcome, like a lot of things change in anyways. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, and we're still dealing with COVID, unfortunately.
So you have these these outside influences that I think that are that are weighing on business leaders, businesses and brands as a whole, right? Where's the economy going? Where's consumer confidence going? Where's is there going to be a vaccine? Is there going to be, you know, a faster return to in person, in store experiences? You know, there's all those things, which I know we have perspective on that I think it's good to kind of get out there. Yeah. Is there anything like pressing, you know, before we kind of start diving into some of those, you know, macro trends? Anything that's been kind of catching your eye lightly? It's more so like an overarching trend that's kind of carried on from this past year and into the next is just the more,
the more personal marketing as a whole, like you're interacting with customers more and listening more and letting them be involved in your brand is not, I think the days of though, like, oh, we're the we're this brand and you're going to accept it or over. It's kind of like letting people make it around. Yeah. Besides that, all the other micro trends, they kind of come and go. I mean, if you're on TikTok, you know, the trend lasts for about 12 hours and then it's over. And that's what's so funny. It's like, you know, everybody wants to grab on to something and it seems like at the time you grab on, other than maybe the platforms themselves, it's just the fleeting nature of things. Right. You know, it's like, it's both wonderful because you have this real time feedback loop going on.
But it's also terrible for me that's kind of like the brand steward guy of all time, like having worked on large brands and things like that. You know, the campaigns, the brand campaigns of old don't seem to have the juicer legs I used to because our attention spans are just fleeting. Yeah. There's just too much out there. Yeah. Yeah, we're going to stick with this this tagline for all of two days. Yeah. Unless you're like a craftsman and Raleigh and I talked about this one of the new segments with, you know, show us your nudes. It lasts about a day. I was so excited to send people, send people some nudes, but I guess it's over now. I wonder if people are still sending nudes, even though they're not really, you know, like, is it working?
I don't know. Even though they canceled the campaign. If you still want to send me some macaroni and cheese, just DM me later. We'll work that out, send it my way. And just if you're listening to this and didn't hear the previous, you know, craft right a campaign. Show us your nudes and share your nudes and different things like that. They wanted people to share macaroni and cheese. And they had like it blurred out pictures of the boxes. I thought it was brilliant and in the politically correct environment that we lived in. All the soccer moms canceled it. I'm just kidding. Probably wasn't just them. All the conservatives out there. No. Anyway, did you like that campaign? It was good. It was good. I liked it. I was excited for it, but you know, exactly.
So what, you know, as we can transition, Josh, what are some of those macro things that as we're getting closer to the holidays in into 2021? Are there macro things, macro trends that you're kind of seeing that you're watching that you think might be impacting, you know, maybe even some of your decisions is working with our clients and some things that we're doing. You want to talk about a few of those? Yeah. A big thing that kind of happened over the year with quarantine and stuff. People were at home. And so you kind of had to help get people interacting with your content more. And kind of you had to kind of guide their imagination, especially if you're like a retail client. If they're not coming in and sitting on your couch, like you need to help them picture it within like their own apartments, their rooms and stuff.
So we really leaned into using a lot of more interactive formats of like Facebook Instagram ads, especially we had. We started really utilizing the instant experience ads, doing a lot more kind of like interactive stuff of like using Instagram story that had the polls, had the like responses, even just straight up post. Just inviting people to interact and kind of make it the room of like getting customer feedback, getting them involved with like what products they like more, which ones they prefer. And then helping people visualize where things are. I know people keep talking about AR and stuff like being able to have your couch floating inside of your room on your screen. Like I don't I don't think that's going to like catch on, but just seeing pictures to like have inspiration at least that's been huge.
That's even a big on take talk of people showing the things in their house that they like, like how they style things, how they hate certain styles and stuff. And what's interesting about that is like you have this and that's a big one, you know, one of my big ones for next year's social selling. That's been on trends list. You could probably find seven years of the last seven years someone's had social selling probably on there. But we're I think we're finally coming to critical mass of both a desire to social sell by brands with the capability to do it on the Facebooks and the Instagrams because if you've done any level of small business ecommerce marketing, it's been painful setting up an Instagram shop.
Yeah, linking those products. It's still not as easy as it needs to be. I mean, we can for how many brands we've worked with where firsthand we're like trying to get the page to sync with the Shopify with this and that and the other. It's not as easy as it's needed to be. Right. And I think you're meeting this this critical mass of the opportunity. The desire for brands to do it, the desires for consumers to do it and the platforms delivering on the ability to do it at scale. Right. And I think you have this really interesting so it's interesting, you know, as you plan and manage all of our digital media art, you manage our team doing that. You have this interesting point like you described where you're you're creating for our brands that we work with interactive content.
You have consumers that are doing things on their own like user generated. You have an interesting middle there where you have both sides kind of doing the same things. And I think that's going to deliver like these premium experiences next year because you have consumers doing it. You have brands trying to do that. And I think you have this perfect opportunity for I think you're going to see it, you know, whatever that percentage of social selling is for brands. I think it's going to 10 X next year. Oh, definitely. And like it's kind of it's always been content is king. But now it's like contents required. Like if you're if you're online, you have to be doing this. Otherwise, you're you're behind or you're close to being out.
You're on your way out the door. Yeah. The, I mean, the really cool thing happening is since a lot of people kind of got a lot of more free time, they kind of explored always creative things. And with iPhone, like cameras getting better, like more tools becoming readily accessible, like in cheaper and stuff. People are creating more music. They're creating their own footage camera and stuff. And then people are really liking to, especially like the older, like, Gen Z and the young millennials who are like, like, it's like 20 to 30s. Like now it's they're kind of taking kind of big brands and then making it their own. It's all very DIY. And I think if you can marry that and like bring instead of pushing out content for them to interact with, like invite them in, bring them, like, send them your stuff, let them make content based off of it, like promote them.
They'll promote you. Like if people love being involved and like collaborating on stuff, like might as well lean into it. You can get some, like, really great content. You may never have even thought of that other people make, make for you. Just kind of it's a way of like really getting expanded into like the community and kind of supporting like young creators and stuff. That is the word I wrote down. I take notes with Josh talks because he says smart things. And you know, I wrote down that was the one word you got to it at the end there. I feel like if it's the year of social selling, it's the year of brand community. Like the ones that do it well. And it's almost like this, you know, I'm going to either date myself or I'm going to say this wrong and someone's going to go, that wasn't really Web 2.0.
But like 15 or 16 years ago, you kind of got to what we called Web 2.0 with when social media came into play. And you had the opportunity for people because, you know, 20 years ago, websites were brochure sites. You didn't have interaction community going on. Then you had social media come where you have this. You have people inputting information sharing pictures, sharing footage, sharing text. I think we're getting to this mass of like, I don't know if it's Web 3.0. I'm not trying to create technology terms, but this brand community era where the ones that do it well have this two way channel of communication. And it actually bleeds into a bigger, it's a very micro trend. But social media messaging is booming and you have this integration.
You've seen it now. If anyone's been on Facebook or Instagram trying to message, they've blended the inboxes. And so you have a lot more acceptance of social media messaging across platforms. You have Facebook, Instagram, all that integrated. So you have this feedback loop. And I think the brands that can really channel all this to building their community, accepting user generated content, accepting user feedback. Again, all of this stuff has been out there for the last 10 years. But I still feel like we're hitting this magical moment of capability with desire. If that makes sense. For sure, a lot of the big interaction things have always been a thing. The messaging has always been there. Comments have always been there. And live stream responses has always been there.
But people are using it in a different way now. We're being at home and being so digitally native for the last year. People have gotten really comfortable. And a lot of really successful brands have kind of let down their guards in a way. And so it's more of like, we're just a bunch of people working together. You can send us a message. We'll reply. TikTok has the ability to reply to comments with a video. And all the top YouTubers are talking about actual comments on their videos. They're doing responses and stuff. It's hilarious all the time. And people who do live streams used to be like, you get on Instagram live, you talk, or you kind of treat it like a webinar. Now it's like, people are treating like they're face timing.
Like, I've seen companies get on and they'll show their process of making coffee or something. And they're just chatting with people in the comments. Like, you're saying messages and stuff. It's like a public interaction. Which I think is really one. It's really fun. It makes, I feel like it takes pressure off people who are like, how am I going to look professional and stuff? No, you don't have to. Just do it. Just start doing it and interacting with people. That's the biggest thing is like, we talked about this on an episode. Another big one on LinkedIn, like the democratization of content, which is what you're talking about, which is it used to be this accepted for brands and even people. Fans all thought it had to be a thousand percent polished and beautiful and lovely and all that.
Those, those guards have come down. And people were scared if their own stuff wasn't like amazing. Right. And I think TikTok has helped with this at the Instagram. All the channels have helped, but you've got this less pressure for it to be perfect. Right. And more for it to be moving. And that in that, whether it's funny, hilarious, stupid, stupid's moving, you know, I get it's own way. And I think that's a great place to be in from, again, accepting that content isn't optional, because all those expectations are removed. And it's like just being real. Yeah. I think that's a huge part. And it helps. It just makes you feel more approachable. And like, so more people are confident to get involved. And then once you like kind of show that interaction of like,
I mean, you've seen it in real life, you go to a restaurant, like maybe the owner is like, remembers your name. Yeah. That's kind of happening on social. You see, you're on your favorite live stream of your favorite company and they answer your question. You're going to, you're going to hang out longer. You're going to probably interact more like, if you're inviting people in, like they're going to make it their own. And you will have to kind of give up a little bit of that, like polished. I planned out everything, every part of this brand, like, but if you want to resonate with more people than your perspective of your brand, then you kind of have to do that. It's kind of, it brings me to another one.
We're teaming these up perfectly in the perfect order, just like we planned Josh. It's accessibility. Yeah. Like, it's, we're at this perfect crux where you just, you can reach out to celebrities, you can reach out to brands. Brands are accessible, consumers are accessible. There's this overall accessibility that never existed. In some ways, we're so non-social with everything that's happened with COVID in a way, like in a personal, like person to person in person communication, but the digital accessibility of brands, people, celebrities, and everything else has never been greater. And I think people are starting to realize the opportunity and the power of that. Yeah. I think it's like, it can be really effective and it's really easy to get to. I mean, it's hard to break your own habits of putting out super polished stuff and ultra planned,
but I think just when you're showing, you're just, I feel like my biggest examples are like, Taco Bell went from like in the 2010s, they were just kind of like sassy on Twitter, and they were like, oh, Taco Bell is a human. And everyone's like, no, you're just a bunch of people who make delicious food. We'll say, they talk about fan. Yeah, they were active on Twitter, so they had a personality. But their commercials were still Batman superhero explosions like big. And then, but now it's like, their social strategies kind of change. They will reply like that, but they're not acting like they're talking about the person. They're like, oh, it's just someone that's talking about replied to me, and then I'll come Instagram. It's like, they're sharing user-generated content.
They've got influencers. They've got the micro influencers, like actual humans. They're bringing in to help make it more collaborative. And I think that's a really powerful move. Cool. So transitioning, what's another one, a big one that you're seeing for 2021, or as we come to the end of 2020? I think practically, like, really stepping into those interactions and setting up opportunities for that beyond just your social content. I've seen a lot of people who were doing virtual classes are now offering them in-person. And they never knew classes before like you can go to a coffee shop and learn how to make stuff. I think, same with like, that's happening on TikTok a lot too, is people kind of opening the doors a little bit, letting you peek inside and see behind the scenes.
And a lot of that is kind of what we do here in this podcast, is like, we're showing, telling you how to do things. And like, I mean, if you have a coffee shop showing you, here's how to make a really great latte. The person's probably still going to go get the latte from you because they've seen you with the expertise and they're going to go to you versus try to make it at home on worse equipment or something. Or that is just convenience. They're not going to order for you any less frequently. I think it's a huge thing. You don't have to keep this mystery behind you. If you're a t-shirt company showing where the shirts are made, packaging stuff, it feels more personal of like,
look at all these people who are working, all these people involved getting this t-shirt to you or all these people involved getting this marketing content, this advertising skills working with your business. I think a big part is kind of like how to's and showing them behind the scenes. That just gives a lot of people one background insight. They feel more, too, they feel more familiar with your brand. And then three, if they learn about it, they're going to be more appreciative and then also understand how to interact with your brand a little bit more. For a lot of industries, you kind of have to have a base level knowledge before you start purchasing those products or getting those services and stuff. I think that's going to be a really big continuing trend.
I'm going to tee this up for you because it's a trend that's definitely accelerated this year. I think it's one that you and I've talked about for next year as well. But I'm going to talk out of it through the lens of someone that we both believe in it. But I think there are doubters out there. And it's this notion of purpose driven marketing. And companies explaining the purpose of why they do it, their causes and all of those things. So it's one that's been picking up. A lot of brands are doing it. So I think there are people, both small and large brands that look at that. And a lot of them are doing it. And so that either want to do it. But then I have even people that I follow that go,
you know, all that's great. But at the end of the day consumers want convenience and price. Right. And if you're the bag of chips in the counter line, it's store. They don't give two ships if you give away three bags of chips to kids in Africa. Right. Or people wherever. You know, like any kind of like, I feel like there's those two sides of it. And where do you fall on that? And do you think that that is going to change? Do you think that every brand needs to wear their purpose on their sleeve? I love to get your perspective on where that's been this year in kind of that dual thought process of, does the purpose matter? And should every brand be wearing that?
Right. I think. So if you read about it, if you read all the studies, they're going to tell you, yes, every most consumers, like 70, 80%, think every branch should have a purpose. But what they're not reporting on is like, if you're a brand and you take on a purpose or like a good cause or something just to have the good cause, they're going to sniff it out immediately. Like that is something I saw a ton this year because there's been a lot of causes this year. Like people on Twitter, I've seen big brands do it, and then get absolutely destroyed on Twitter by people who know they're doing it. Just jumping on like the co-tails of big movements. If you're not, I think it's like,
purpose is really important when it's actually your purpose. Right. I don't think there's, I guess my thing is like, if you're a chip company, I don't think there's anything wrong with you saying, we just want to make really great chips so we can make your life more enjoyable. Great people love chips. Right. Like that's okay. People are okay with that. And I think it's more about, if you're being genuine in your purpose, that's okay. If you're out here, and you can kind of tell this with a lot of even local small businesses, they'll open up a restaurant, and you can go in there as a consumer, and you can often tell when a restaurant's there because they want to make really great food and be a really cool space for people
or if they're there just to make money. After the first three months, you're going to see the ingredients are going to suck. The prices are going to go up, but the quality is going to go down. They're there to make money. I think if you have a purpose, if you want to include that, you don't have to make your own thing.
If you've got a purpose, make sure that it's resonating with your employees and with your people, because it's got to be part of the whole thing, but if it's just something you tack on, just to have it and look like you're doing it, you're just virtue signaling, and people are going to find that out really quickly. I think people are smarter than we give them credit for sometimes. Maybe not us, but brands in general. What are your thoughts? We've talked about this. This is going to be on... Whatever our definitive 2021 trends is definitely going to be online, which is that COVID hangover. The impact it's had on marketing and business, and brick and mortar, and on any commerce and all that, what do you see the carryover of a pandemic that we're still in,
as much as we're all tired of it, it's still here? What are some of those things and outliers that you see carrying over in it next year? I think being online, even if your business isn't even online is important. If you're just a brick and mortar single restaurant, you've got to be online sharing something, because word of mouth isn't going to pop back in as fast as we hope it will. I think, I mean, definitely in the content, the kind of casualness of being on social media, I think that's definitely going to continue. And I don't see that ever going away either. I think that's just going to continue building. And I think the collaborative content, sorry, I can't remember the kind of thing the word.
CC. Yeah, the clouder content, the CC, the UGC. How many acronyms do we have? That's not great another one. Yeah, the UFC. The ultimate fighting collaboration content. Yes, that's just going to continue. I think just being real with people, like being more open and sharing your brand and your purpose with the community is going to continue. Because we saw a lot of what happened with last year in these last few months. Like, a lot of these brands kind of stepped in to kind of carry the community. So we saw some local, I saw some local people who they used to be like the hangout spot at night, but their regulars couldn't come anymore. And then come in anymore once they shut down. And so they hosted like weekly date nights on like Instagram live.
They had like wine tastings online and you could get food ordered to go. And then you hang out together and you test like taste it. A lot of people were like who aren't even gamers were like twitch streaming, they're hosting like gaming parties. I think that side of like building community whether it's online or in person. And as things have started reopening, like people have been building community in like a safe way, even in their in-person stuff. So I think brands and companies continuing to kind of be those community builders is definitely going to continue. For sure. Is I feel like there's going to be this carryover, though, of even if there's a vaccine, hopefully there will be before the years over, but you'd never know.
And I don't know that all. We'll know for sure to like the elections over and like, you know, like whether some of these things are truly happening. Yeah, I mean, I love people said they're not even going to get it. I know that's the scary part is like they're not, you know, we've gotten so polarized in believing who, you know, if you're a Republican or a Democrat, it depends on whether or not the vaccines good or not. But with that said, I think you're going to have this carryover, though, or people just are not going to do live in person, shopping, events, other things. Yeah. It's going to carry through 2021, as much as I wish it wouldn't. But I don't fault people because I think it's a real pandemic.
It's a real virus and it has, you know, real implications. And so it's going to carry through next year into how people shop where they shop. All of those things that have kind of, and people work it from home. Like there's just trends and things that the pandemic's caused that are just not going to go away, even if there was a cure tomorrow. Right. I'm not expecting to go to any like crowded concerts or big packed out arena shows anytime soon. Like I think definitely those like industries that kind of relied on huge groups of people or like they're really struggling and they're not even projected to look like it'll come back in the next year or even two years. Do you think there's like virtual fatigue
like that's going to, I mean, it's, I feel like that's something that's going to have to be watched for next year. But I think so. Yeah, I mean, there already was some. Everyone got tired of like their friends and family going on like Instagram live and creating a new podcast every week. Right. Like definitely like, you got to kind of build up to it. Like, I know like it helps to start but like when, when everybody's live all at once, I remember getting notifications from Instagram. Like, oh, six people have gone live. That's kind of dialed down now. I'll see like two people go live, maybe a week. I haven't watched a live in a while. Right. I get the notifications. But yeah, I don't know.
I like it. Focus group of one. But I'll go back and watch some live. Right. Recorded content. But I don't know. That might be just the focus group of me. I watch them when it's like a brand I'm like involved with. Yeah. And it's like a, they're like, oh, we're going on in three weeks at this time for this thing. It's like, have a reason to do it. Like, you can be a casual and just do Q and A's. But like, have, at least have some kind of purpose when you're doing something. Yeah. I love it. So as we kind of start to close out this thing, what's like, talk to you from like the, you know, we're both kind of digital marketing nerds. I think I'll, I'll call you one.
I consider myself one. You might take offense to it, but I don't think you do. Yeah. You know, getting geeky. Are there things or platforms like at, you know, getting, you know, specific on like the ad platforms or optimizations or things that are exciting you, you know, for either brands we're working at or tests we're running or anything like that. Yeah. There is. I know you talked a little bit about with some of the Facebook type ads and things like that. Yeah. But what else is kind of on your radar? I've got Pinterest ads. That was like, for a while, it was like a kind of coming on really cool thing. But now like Pinterest user ship is like back really big and their ads are really cool.
I think that's what you add the ad platform sucked. Yeah. So of like 18 months ago. Yeah. You know, it's got like, you can like work with them on it. And so it's kind of like a two way. It's like half managed half. Yeah. Testing that out. We'll see how it goes. TikTok ads can be really cool. But also as anyone who's ever interacted with like young teens, you can get really cringy, really fast. Right. So it's like, so I wouldn't go on there unless you like, I would consult maybe like a young person before you go guns blazing in there unless you want to get some some nasty comments or something. Exactly. You can't just throw your 30 second TV spot on there. Right.
I think most brands have figured that out. Definitely. And then like Facebook's the instant experience stuff has been like really fun because you can make whatever you want and get creative with it. Like I'm kind of like we've been kind of testing out like using existing platforms but just kind of manipulating the content within them to kind of make it look more fun and more creative. Like I think that's kind of key is like really like learn how to use the existing things but like really dig into it. Like make it make it work for you. But they're they're testing out new like targeting new features and stuff. I really really pumped about it. I think I mean LinkedIn's getting a little bit better. They're still kind of like their ads platforms really niche.
It's also kind of lacking in their like. I mean Facebook has its plethora of bugs that they're constantly working through but like their platforms like the content and the ads like capabilities coming out are really great. And they're really souping up the messaging ads. You can do like chat bots within the Facebook messenger now which is really cool. Definitely recommend getting into that. And then. Anything that creates that feedback loop like within the ad. The biggest thing is like having a call to action. But if you can jitter if you can go straight from ad to whether it's a chatbot or live person, you know, interaction, that's the holy grail. Getting them into the funnel and keeping them in the funnel while experiencing the ad is like the holy grail.
Because you want to push them down. You know, you're pushing down. You got to wear this conversion. You know, instead of having to see 27 ads, if you can show them one, two, three, four ads, and then they're interacting within the ad. Whether that's again, chat bot or call to action at least a live person. I think you're going to see people start to really win and digital marketing that can that can not only because I think you know, ad to conversion is difficult. Yeah. But if you can get ad to engagement, now you're talking. It feels a lot more personalized. And that's kind of my approach to social advertising because the algorithm is currently, this can change any moment as we all know, the algorithm is currently changed
like based on the individual's preferences. It's not, it really doesn't matter how many interactions you get as a profile. It's more of like the person who's interacting with you. And so if you can build those interactions on certain pieces, you have to think of an individual's customer journey and not think about yourself of like, oh, here's how this brand is looking to 50 people. It's like, how am I appearing to Susie and Steve over here? I think that's kind of the key. And thinking through those tactics and using the platforms and targeting that way, and then having the follow-ups makes sense and creating those interactions where you can start a conversation either in the messengers with the bot or lead it into get the base information with the bot
and then get personal with it. Or even just get them in the comment section. That's a huge thing I think people are missing out on is they're not diving into the comments. And that's half of social media right now. Half the fun is the quote tweets, the comments, like TikTok, I spend more time in the comment section than actually watching the videos because it's hilarious. I think it's a really great opportunity for people to really jump in and personally interact one to one. That's one of my tactics for growth on Instagram. I actually use I interact a lot with other people's profiles. Most of them are pretty big, but some of the more comedic ones, some of the things like that, I make comments and stuff.
It creates an engagement. I get a lot of followers from that, from people that interact with my comments. It has nothing to do with the comment will be about whatever the content was, but not necessarily the brand that posted the content. That's the fun thing about, even like Gen Z and millennials, people know that if you comment on a post, the platform is going to show you more like that. It's like a big trend on TikTok, you'll see as people are like, oh, commenting to stay on like ocean spray, cranberry juice TikTok, or like commenting to stay on frog TikTok. It's funny that people are that are self aware of these algorithms are aware. And honestly, so, you know, algorithm add aware. It's almost like back when you're in the movie
and you're acknowledging you're in the movie. You know, like breaking the fourth wall. Exactly. I see you. But we're here. I mean, it's the perfect, they know you're targeting you. They're being targeted. Be aware of it and just be, it's all circling back to just be real. If you're not into it, if you're not supporting something, I don't know, just be real and straightforward to your customers. Creating, that's the only way you can create like an authentic community. It's all about building. You want to build a community not an audience. That way it'll resonate a lot stronger. And I think if you're listening, we didn't get specific, we might do a segment only on B2B. But I will say this, you know, thinking through everything we talked about,
B2B needs to do the same thing. Everything we talked about should be applied to B2B or B2C. It's a little business to human. And so, no matter if it's a business on the other side, you're still doing with someone, a buyer, several buyers, or if it's a consumer on the other end. I think all of these things apply equally to B2B or B2C. Yeah, and it's kind of like a, and that's not necessarily new. It's kind of like an old school thing of like, used to, before you partner with another business, you meet a few times, and you get to know who's behind it. I think it's just kind of like, we're kind of getting back to that, but just in the digital world. Exactly.
Well, cool, man, Josh, I really enjoyed it, and I know we'll be back with, you know, maybe our more, our definitive 2021 list, but I appreciate all that you do here and appreciate you coming on the official pre-trans episode. All right, guys, we appreciate everyone listening. This is all for today from the Radcast. To listen to full episodes or to contact us, visit us on the web at theradcast.com. Or follow our host, Ad Ryan offered on Instagram. Thanks for tuning in.
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