Mia Fileman 0:05
Life's too short for crap marketing. The Got Marketing Podcast is for marketers, business owners and entrepreneurs who want marketing that's fun, accessible and meaningful. Join me, Mia Fileman for inspired chats with my favorite marketing insiders about marketing that works, campaigns that inspire and the fads, fakery and false prophets to avoid.
Mia Fileman 0:30
Hello friends and welcome back to the Got Marketing podcast. This is season five. I can't believe it that just went so quickly. In today's episode, I want to talk about social media strategies because there is more than one way to approach social media.
Jarrah Brailey 0:48
Before Tik Tok came out, it felt there wasn't much room for creativity and it was really hard to grow. It was just kind of talking to a brick wall at times. And then when TikTok came out, it suddenly pushed everyone to think outside the box.
Mia Fileman 1:02
that was Jarrah Brailey. Jarrah started side hustling as a social media manager as a passion project. And fast forward six years, She now runs an in demand full service digital agency Jam Packed. Welcome to the show Jarrah!
Jarrah Brailey 1:18
Hi! I'm so happy to be here.
Mia Fileman 1:19
Thank you so much for agreeing to nut this out with me. This is going to be a very popular episode. Everyone wants to learn how to do social media better.
Jarrah Brailey 1:30
Totally. It's one of those things that for me, it feels like common sense and probably for you a lot of the little things. So it's very fun when you get to unpack this stuff and help people grow their businesses,
Mia Fileman 1:42
For sure. Why don't we start with you giving us a little bit more of a backstory and specifically why you chose an agency model?
Jarrah Brailey 1:50
Yeah, that's an interesting question. So I started out as a freelancer started out charging $10 a day for social media management. And I don't regret that because it definitely helped me get my foot in the door. But what I did in the early days was I was all over social media, I was all over Instagram stories, I was on my email marketing, I was posting every day, I was showing up every single day. And my business grew quite quickly to the point where it was too big for one freelancer to deal with. So I thought you know what, I'm going to hire somebody to get a bit of support. And she was just kind of a contractor helping me out at the time. And when she started, immediately, I went from feeling constantly burnt out, constantly, like I'd wake up in a panic with my to do list to, immediately, things just felt like they were running so much smoother, I could spend time on the things that actually mattered to the growth of the business and to our clients as well. And my contractor could support me with the tedious tasks that, yeah, felt like a bit of a waste of my time.
Jarrah Brailey 2:54
So from there, I kind of just realized the potential of having a team, not only for taking things off your plate, but for hiring people who are actually better than you at certain tasks. And that is kind of how over the last six years, we've been able to evolve from a social media freelancer to, we're now a full service digital marketing agency, because I've been able to hire amazing SEO specialists and amazing paid ads specialists and amazing Instagram specialists. And now we've formed this incredible team of specialists in each of our respective areas. And we're able to provide this holistic full service really impactful retainers and packages to our clients that actually makes so much more of an impact than what I was personally doing as a freelancer getting paid $10 a day. So it just works for me, it means that we can provide a better service. It means you know, I'm not so lonely. And I've got support.
Mia Fileman 3:50
And do you still love social media? Or are you like me and you have a love hate relationship with it?
Speaker 1 3:56
I love social media. I think there's definitely phases where I maybe retreat a little bit, but I think for the most part, I grew up with social media. I think I got my first Facebook and Instagram account when I was 11. So I've always loved it. It's just part of me it's part of my DNA. I'll always love it and it'll always be part of my life.
Mia Fileman 4:18
Well that's great. You're in the right industry then, you know, I actually for a second decided that was going to call my business antisocial. I decided against that. Maybe leaning too much into my contrarian personality.
Jarrah Brailey 4:36
That would suit you though. I love it.
Mia Fileman 4:37
So how have you found the introduction of Tik Tok? You have been like, I love your Tik Tok content, but how has it been for you?
Speaker 1 4:47
It's interesting that you just asked whether I love social media and I think before Tik Tok came out I did fall out of love with it a little bit because it felt, I don't know, that there wasn't as much going on or room for creativity. And that was really hard to grow. And it felt like it was just kind of talking to a brick wall at times. And then when TikTok came out, it was like it suddenly pushed everyone to think outside the box with their content, and it suddenly pushed everybody to think about, okay, there's a massive opportunity here, if we are being creative with our content, and if we're creating video content, if we're speaking to our audience, if we're showing up as business owners, if we're showing up as teams and forming a connection with our audiences, and I think for me, it not only encouraged me to be more creative with my social media marketing, but it encouraged everybody else. So naturally, just everyone's content, not everyone's but a lot of brands that nailed it. Yeah, they really, I think that that was really inspired by Tik Tok and the rise of it.
Mia Fileman 5:50
And so what would you say are the key differences now between Instagram and TikTok because they it seems like everything that tick tock does Instagram just completely emulates. And so is it their creativity that you think is the is the differentiation? Or is there more to unpack there?
Jarrah Brailey 6:06
I think with TikTok, the one of the biggest differences between tick tock and Instagram is that the way that the algorithm works, so a lot of people who have been on Instagram for years, they've kind of built up a community, whether it's 1000 people, whether it's 200,000 people or a million, you do feel that sense of community and you feel that sense of okay, people know who I am, they've heard my story a million times, they they know everything about me. Whereas on Tik Tok, you actually, every pretty much every single time you're posting, you're having this opportunity where you need to reintroduce yourself and you need to provide as much context as possible as to who you are, what you're doing what you can offer that audience that's watching your content. So I think what TikTok does is it really pushes us to put our best foot forward, we're constantly reintroducing ourselves, we're constantly retelling our story, we're constantly adding value. Whereas I think with Instagram, it's easy once you build that community to feel like I've spoken about social media and paid ads five times already in the last month, nobody is interested, nobody cares, which isn't true. About it's easy to fall into that mindset. And I think with tick tock, we've got this unique opportunity to get in front of 1000s, Millions of people. But with that said, you know, even with some of my content, where it's gotten, say 1000 views, that's not viral, but I've still had opportunities come through that content. And I've still had people reach out to me and I've made friends and I've built my network through those. Yeah, even lower performing non-viral pieces of content on Tik Tok, because, yeah, you're you're opening yourself up to so many new people.
Jarrah Brailey 6:13
That is such a good point. I'm only just dabbling in TikTok, but I have noticed people constantly reintroducing themselves, and I wasn't sure why. And now that just actually makes a lot more sense. So yeah, no surprises. I'm not using it right. Would you say that the virality aspect of TikTok has now that ship has passed, it was definitely when it first launched. But now we're a few years in. Do you think that there's still organic reach opportunities on TikTok, compared to Instagram?
Jarrah Brailey 8:15
Absolutely. I think I think tick tock pushes, it's not that it's more likely that you're gonna go viral on Tiktok. I just think that you can go viral for such a simple thing on TikTok, and it's really about nailing your personality as a brand. And just being relatable. Being funny, I saw a video the other day where it was a I think it was a bakery, and they shared a video of them showing all the different sweets in the cabinet and they just put an audio over the top, that's really crackly, you can't hear what they're saying. And it was funny, it was just like this very boring video that would have taken them two minutes to film. And they had like a funny audio over the top and boom, it was viral. And now that accounts kind of taking off, there's been so much PR around it. So I do think it's a bit of luck when it comes to that. Yeah, that viral piece with TikTok, but I also think it's about being funny thinking outside the box, looking at being relatable to your audience and just focusing on on being unique to your brand. I think the more you focus on being viral, the less likely you're going to be viral because you end up just creating the same content that everybody else is already making.
Mia Fileman 9:24
I'm so glad that you use that example. That is such a good example because I have sort of talked myself out of Tik Tok a little bit because it's very performative and you need a lot of charisma. And just you know, there are some people on Tik Tok. I just can't stop looking at them. They just have a way of talking in a way that is just so engaging like Jess Ruhfus for example, she is just made for video content. She's absolutely incredible. I am not that good. Charismatic. I definitely know my shit. And but I have sort of found Instagram an easier platform to use because I can use carousels and I can do talking head videos where I'm not trying to entertain anyone. I'm purely trying to educate them. And yeah, I can throw some shade around. But I don't consider myself funny.
Jarrah Brailey 10:20
Totally.
Mia Fileman 10:20
So I really loved that example that you shared. Sounds like I can do that.
Jarrah Brailey 10:24
Yeah,
Mia Fileman 10:24
I don't have to be funny Mia But I can, I can definitely find funny clips and funny audio B roll. So it was a really good example.
Jarrah Brailey 10:32
Yeah, I think there's, there's a lot of content out there. And there's a lot of personal brands who they are very funny or they're loud and they're outgoing. And I remember when I first started using Tik Tok, I was very turned off by some of the social media marketers on there, where it seemed like a lot of their videos would start off with like, don't do this and you need to be doing this and blah, blah, blah, whereas that's not my style to educating. And I felt like I needed to kind of take on that voice in order to be seen. So a lot of my videos when I first started Tik Tok were very, yeah, just kind of similar tone of voice to everybody else, but wasn't unique to me and didn't feel right for me. And then once I stopped doing that, and kind of moved away from the idea that you do need to be this really funny, outgoing, loud personality to be seen on Tik Tok. I think that's when I actually started to see more success. And I think that's when most people start to see more success. You don't have to put on this performative. Yeah, try and act like the other influencers and other creators that you love following. It's just about being you. And in my mind, I'm thinking about how do I want my audience to feel when they're consuming my content? And what is it that I want them to know? What value can I provide them, and then delivering that in a way and obviously editing the content to be concise and to the point and all of that stuff, but at the core of it It's just how do you want your audience to feel? And what's what's unique about your personality that you can bring, like, for example, that I think you would be an amazing personal brand on Tik Tok with you say things how they are, you call out bullshit. You're not going to Yeah, like just jump on any bandwagon, you're actually very confident in the advice that you give. And I think that in itself, is your unique personal brand element. So everybody has their different personalities, the outgoing ones have a little bit easier because they're loud and funny, but everybody has an opportunity to push their personal brand.
Mia Fileman 12:28
Hmm. Yeah. Okay. I definitely have found that storytelling works really well. And I'm happy to tell a story. And I appreciate the longer format that TikTok affords. So you can have even more than three minutes but generally the videos are about three minutes, whereas the 90 seconds on Instagram just absolutely grinds my gears. It's just Yeah, it's not enough. It's enough for like one point, you know, that's it.
Jarrah Brailey 12:54
Yeah.
Mia Fileman 12:55
That's some really, really great advice that you've already shared.
Mia Fileman 12:59
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Mia Fileman 13:42
How do you use your social media for Jampacked and Jarrah Brailey, I really want to get into that because you run an agency, but you also have a bit of a personal brand strategy happening. So I'd be really great to unpack all of that with you.
Speaker 1 13:59
For context for people listening, I have my Jampacked agency page. And then I have my Jarrah Brailey page, which is technically a personal account, but it's not, you know, I've also got a third page where it's like my family and friends, but this is like my work personal page that I'm putting forward to clients, potential clients, my community, that kind of thing. And the reason that I started that page in the first place was because I wanted to share a lot of just day to day things that popped up. So for example, just what I get up to in a day, thoughts that I have insights that I have, it was more for the the exciting, the mundane, the random, spontaneous bits of content that I wanted to put up. And just to share my unique personal journey. The reason why I started, I wanted to do that and didn't want to do it on the jampacked page was because we've evolved into a team. It felt a little bit unfair and just a little bit like I don't want to make this the Jarrah show on Jampacked because we're a team and then I also don't want clients to be reaching out and then a bit confused why They're not working directly with me and say, for example, their account manager is one of my team members. So it was important for me to use that page to build up everybody's personal brands, not just mine, and not make myself the star of the show. I do think you do kind of need to be the main character as the business owner, especially in an agency setting, because you are the most important person in the business. But yeah, I started the second page to just honestly just as a creative outlet and to push my personal brand. And there's there's not a lot of content that I wouldn't post to both pages. So there's most of what I'm saying on Jarrah, and Jampacked is very relative and could be posted on both. But I think I'm using that Jarrah Brailey page is a bit more of a spontaneous, following the founder journey, following what I'm getting up to in a day, sharing my insights. And I've noticed that my story views for example, in my engagement on my Jarrah Brailey page is so much higher, despite having, I think, a fifth of the follower count.
Mia Fileman 16:04
Okay, very, very interesting. And is one a personal profile versus a business account?
Jarrah Brailey 16:10
No, they're both. So one's a creator, one's a business account. But they're still they're still got that business element tool where we can see the insights and everything.
Mia Fileman 16:18
So interesting. Why don't we talk about some other similar brands, and look at different ways that people are using social media. So we're just focusing on brands, so not so much influencers or creators, but it'd be really good for the listener today, to understand that there is more than one way to achieve success on social media, I guess the biggest thing not to do is don't do everything, like pick a strategy and go with that, as opposed to like, one day deciding you're going to do it this way. And then you've flipped to doing it this way. And then you change it. And then you don't have that consistency, which as marketers, as we know, is so important. Yeah, totally. So let's start with Britney Saunders and Fayt the Label
Jarrah Brailey 17:09
Yeah, she's a great example. I think she's brought up in most conversations around personal brands and business. I think Britney is a she's a bit unique in that she built her personal brand through YouTube when the platform was blowing up. So in a way she has done it a little bit differently to what probably most of your listeners would be doing it with in the way that she built her personal brand first, as a teenager, she was sharing, just relatable to everyday videos as a teenager, she built that personal brand for herself first, and then she launched her businesses, and then continued to strengthen her personal brand alongside her business over the years. And I think that's where her personal brand has seen the most success for sure, is once she started her businesses, so she's kind of done it the other way around, where her businesses have built her personal brand. And she's she's done that beforehand as well and done a lot of the groundwork before she launched. I think one thing that she does really well is just her innate ability to be her complete, authentic self unapologetically. So she's a great example that we were talking about before where she is really really funny. She has a really entertaining side to her, as well as just being an incredibly clever businesswoman. And she's she's definitely one of those examples where you would look at her and maybe feel a little bit intimidated because she is quite outgoing and funny and hilarious. And you might compare yourself as another business owner thinking oh, but my business isn't as big and my I'm not as loud. I'm not as outgoing. I'm not as funny.
Jarrah Brailey 18:43
But yeah, it's just coming back to Yeah, what you want to make your audience feel and I think what Brittany does so well is her brand Fayt and her personal brand make you feel the same way so she's all about kind of empowering people. She educates her audience exactly what she's passionate about what she stands for, what her values are, and all of that is represented really clearly across not only her personal brand but Fayt the Label her business as well. And I think that's why people are such diehard fans of her brand and of her as an individual.
Mia Fileman 19:21
That's such a good point. I've never thought of it that way that that's what she does is make people feel like they're part of the club already. Whereas there seems to be definitely a lot of personal brands and influencers on social media, where you know, they use success and wealth signaling to be like you're not part of this club yet. But you know, if you if you work with me you will be and I'm better than you and I'm more popular than you and I'm living this bigger life than you're living whereas you're right Britney is just like I might be successful but I'm just the everyday girl like if we were looking at Carl Jung's Brand archetypes Brittany would be the the girl next door, right? Like that's her brand archetype. She's not trying to be the hero or the, You know, the the sage like she's just you know, yeah. Easy, breezy, beautiful CoverGirl. Yeah,
Jarrah Brailey 20:15
yeah. And I think she's done a few interviews where she said, I'm which I'm just Brittany from Newcastle. Like, I'm still just me. And I just happen to be running, you know, these these businesses, and I've built this brand, but she still stays true. Right from when her she started in her YouTube days as a teenager, to now she has obviously evolved as a person over time, but she's never changed what she values and what she's passionate about what she represents as a person. But I think that's why people just adore her and back her content and back her business.
Mia Fileman 20:46
Okay, so that's Brittany, and I love exactly like what she said, a lot of the behind the scenes, and even the oopsy daisy's of Fayt. So being so honest about manufacturing problems, even just poking a little bit of fun at returns that are obviously have been worn before. She's just so, I wouldn't say unprofessional, I'd say unpolished, which I actually really enjoy.
Jarrah Brailey 21:20
Yeah, I think her community loves that, because they're seeing things that they're not used to seeing like this is stuff that we never see from brands and we never hear about. And another example of a brand that does this really well is another fashion brand Beginning Boutique, they've started sharing the internal meetings where they actually film, their meetings where they're discussing, say, their size range and the difficulties that they're having, with, say, getting more sizes into their range. So it feels like as your audience, you're more involved in those really transparent conversations, and you get to be a part of hearing what challenges this brand is going through. And I think Brittany nails that in terms of she shows the challenges, she shows the triumphs, she shows the funny relatable stuff, and she just injects personality into literally every piece of content.
Mia Fileman 22:07
That's so that's such a good example. My one TikTok video that did go semi viral was about Kookai. And their sizing. Oh, and I, I caught a very interesting response from TikTok exactly like you said, Jarrah, people don't know me on TikTok. So they don't know that I'm actually a really nice person. I got a little bit slammed. Because like, you can't get anything wrong on TikTok, people, I just want to be happy to correct you. Definitely. So I was taking a controversial stance that I don't think Kookai, it needs to have sizes that are you know, the whole spectrum like we we can't expect every single brand to have every single size. Right You don't go to Kathmandu and say hey, do you have anything for just like Netflixing and chilling? No you go to Kathmandu get clothes to go on a hike just like you go into right maternity, to get clothes, for when you're pregnant. Kookai, doesn't have a responsibility to have inclusive sizing. And coming from a big brand background, I was discussing about how this is often not commercial. And we're asking brands to do things that are not commercial. Like I worked at Maybelline New York. And yes, it would be great if we had all the shades of foundation. But actually our retailers wouldn't let us stock them because they were taking up shelf space. And they weren't selling
Jarrah Brailey 23:37
Yeah,
Mia Fileman 23:37
like, unfortunately, there's just not enough demand for some shades in Australia because of how we are made. And yes, I got some heat in the comments
Jarrah Brailey 23:49
I can imagine
Mia Fileman 23:49
about how I can you know, I also I said, Why doesn't Kookai I just come out and say that they are putting just say that just so we are a brand that is petite. And apparently I got the definition of petite wrong, petite means you're less than 5'4', it doesn't mean that you are less than 14. But in any case, why not stick on, you know, Kookai and put size six to size 14. And then I just know not to walk in there.
Jarrah Brailey 24:20
Totally. And I think when your other personal brand when you're sharing your unique, unpopular opinions, that's when you're getting you're going to see traction because you're going to find everybody else who has that unpopular opinion. And you're also going to yet probably attract the people that disagree with you and it's going to start some conversations, you'll probably get some pretty intense comments and things like that. But yeah, that is definitely a path that you can take your personal brand is by sharing your unpopular opinions and things that you're passionate about. Not just jumping on the bandwagon of any unpopular opinion but things that you really feel passionately about and that you truly believe. I think that's a great way to build your personal brand because you end up finding the people that you want to work with Anyway,
Jarrah Brailey 25:03
Another example of that is Abbie Chatfield. I think she does that really well. She's so outspoken. And she's not afraid to say exactly what she thinks and what she stands for. And she gets so much hate. But she also has diehard fans that absolutely adore her and adore everything she posts and everything she says. So I think when you go down that path, you're opening yourself up for deeper connections with your community, because they really, yeah, agree with everything that you say or not everything, but they they back to our and it's not just kind of this passive relationship where it's like, oh, yeah, I enjoy some of their content.
Mia Fileman 25:38
Yeah, I love Abbie. I think she's amazing. I feel like she has normalized enjoying sex as a young woman, I think, great. It's such a taboo topic. And to just, you know, talk a bit dirty like, oh, it's not polite for women to talk about that. Why? Why not? She, she. She's a sensational example. Yeah. And she's also very unfiltered,
Jarrah Brailey 26:04
completely unfiltered completely herself. She has another great example where she's just unapologetically herself. And that's why she's got such a loyal following.
Mia Fileman 26:13
So let's call that strategy, how the sausage is made, like, really did like really just like that almost radical transparency. Move on to Molly McPherson, who's quite different. So Molly, is a PR, crisis manager. And she is very polished and very professional on Tik Tok. But she's incredible. Love, love, love her content. What do you think?
Jarrah Brailey 26:43
I wasn't actually familiar with her until you showed me her the other day. So I'm not super familiar with her story and how she came about. But just a quick look at her TikTok, a quick look at the kind of content that she's putting out there, she is nailing a few things. I think one her face is in 99% of her content. So she's instantly recognizable, you're almost you can expect the kind of format that she's going to have her videos in. And she's not only consistent in having her face and all the content, but it's consistent in the style of content that she does. So she has a lot of green screen videos, she starts her videos off in a lot of the similar ways. She's also unapologetically herself. And I think a lot of these brands and personal brands that we go through, I think that's going to be a very common denominator in that they are all just very much themselves showing their personality. And I think again, with with Molly, you can feel how passionate she is about what about her trade. And I think that is contagious. And that's infectious. I'm not a big PR person. I'm not. I've seen a bit of her content recently about Taylor Swift, for example. And that's not usually stuff that I'm super interested in. But I'm watching her content. And I'm like, Oh my God, tell me more. Tell me more about this PR stunts that Travis and Taylor are doing at the moment. And it's because you can feel her passion through the screen. So yeah, she's she's very interesting to watch on on TikTok, for sure.
Mia Fileman 28:14
Yeah, so if you are not familiar with Molly McPherson. And what she does is she takes either an existing PR crisis that is playing out, and she provides this absolutely incredible expert commentary, you can tell she knows her shit. So that professionalism really comes through like she's got details that the rest of us don't have, and she can sort of, she goes through and she's like, Okay, I picked this, this was the strategy and then this person was going to do this. And then now look at this headline, playing out exactly the way that I thought it was going to play out. And this is really entertaining for the audience, because we'd love gossip, we love voyeurism like these are things that we enjoy. And so she's just like fanning the flames right? She's just like, we're already wanting to talk about the Travis Kelce Taylor Swift saga. You know, a Drew Barrymore with a SAG AFTAs, like so many so many good good ones. But instead of just making it entertaining, she's using it as an opportunity to showcase her craft, which I think is really really clever.
Mia Fileman 29:29
Actually, I feel like if I was going to use any strategies, it would be this one that makes the most sense for me and do it with like campaign unpacking, though. What I love about Molly's strategy is that she just has one account, so it's just Molly McPherson, even though she does have a brand behind it and her team and you can book you can do a course you can book a consult you can Oh, she's got like a, a membership, but instead of Maintaining two social media channels, which is just it's my no go. That's that's where this is where I'm at. Yes, she's just using her personal brand as the top of funnel I guess, to get people in, and then she's then introducing the brand behind that, which I think is a great strategy too.
Speaker 1 30:20
Yep, Isn't that so interesting because I think a lot of people look at these personal brands and think that's how you have to do it. And you know, if I want to have a personal brand, I need to make a new Instagram page, or I need to be on Tik Tok, or I need to do this. And that's not the case at all. There's so many different ways that you can go about it. And there's no right or wrong. So for example, when I was talking before about how I personally didn't want my Jampacked page to be all about me, that was that's not to say that every single business can't have their business where it's like they're the face of it. And then, you know, in front of all the content, because if it works for the business, it works for business. So yeah, it's very interesting to use her as an example because she is quite different to the others in that she's got a different strategy, and not all these different pages going on which which sounds lovely to me.
Mia Fileman 31:08
Sounds really attractive to me. All right, let's move on. We've got Logan Ury. And she is she i haven't I don't know if she's on Tik Tok, but I definitely follow her on Instagram. And she is a dating coach. But she is also very senior VP or someone very, very high up at hinge the dating app. So what's really interesting is that she's got this personal brand, where she's talking a lot about relationships and dating in general. But there is this nice connection to the brand that she works for, which is a massive company, right? And it's giving some of that humanity and some of that credibility to hinge because I was like, Oh, wow, they've got someone who is a seriously qualified relationship expert working at Hinge. Not that I'm in the dating game. I've been married for 12 years, But she's the director of relationship science at hinge. Yeah, she's written a book, How to not die alone. And she used to work at Harvard, Google and Airbnb. So like, she is a big player. And so to me, this makes me feel this has a halo effect. I guess on Hinge I'm just like, right? They're not just trying to cash in on people's dating, misery, and misfortune. They are serious about bringing people together and positive relationships if they've got someone like her in the captain's chair. Totally.
Jarrah Brailey 32:47
And isn't that exactly what showing the people behind the brands, whether it's the team, whether it's the founder, does, it makes you understand when you understand that person's values, and what they're all about, you know, that that is connected to the business that they work for. And I remember, I found her through a podcast interview. And I remember hearing how passionate she was about her trade and about dating and about behavioral science and that kind of thing. And that made me feel way better about the brand hinge because I thought, well, if they're hiring somebody like this that isn't, you know, all about driving people to the app, sales on the app that you know, getting money, it's actually about helping the people that are on the platform, achieve what they're trying to achieve, then it gave me so much more confidence in the brand. And that is what having a personal brand and having people at the center of your marketing strategy does for your brand that makes it relatable. It builds trust and it makes people like you at the end of the day.
Mia Fileman 33:46
Yeah, this is a great strategy. If you have a very big brand. Whereas small business owners we have to use our personalities and our personal brands to give our brand equity because our brand doesn't have equity yet, right? We we need to give it that and we are scrappier, we just have to work a bit harder, whereas brands like hinge have got multimillion dollar marketing budgets. They're not going to use personal branding on their public channels. You know, we went no, I would never put my face on the Maybelline Australia page, like, Gigi Haddid's goes on there. Yes, no, fine. So but we know that customers prefer to interact with individuals than they do with brands. And so having this account that is separate but linked is a really nice way of injecting some personality into a brand account.
Jarrah Brailey 34:45
Absolutely. And I also think as a personal brand Logan, She's a great comparison to someone like Britney Saunders because it shows that you definitely don't need to have that kind of day in the life content or behind the scenes content that every, a lot of other personal brands have and I think her strategy and how she's kind of built up a profile for herself has been based off, I'd say 80 to 90% value based educational based content where she's actually providing her unique insights, her experiences her advice, and her deep knowledge of a niche topic, which is dating. And that is where she's built up this loyal following and this loyal community of people that really value what she has to say, because she's constantly talking to her audiences pain points, when it comes to dating, and luckily that there's so many dating pain points that you can talk about, but because she's sharing such relatable and inspiring advice, people listening to the value and learning so much from her that they're thinking, Okay, well imagine the kind of value that I can get when I actually download hinge or when I actually buy her book or something along those lines. And I think yeah, this can actually be applied to any industry, it can be applied to digital marketing, it can be applied to a skincare brand or fashion brand. If you're constantly teaching, educating, inspiring your audience with your deep knowledge about a particular niche, what you want to be known for.
Mia Fileman 36:09
You know, that's really heartening, actually, because, like, you know, going back to what I was saying about me, say no smart can be sexy. Yeah. And so you don't have to be the performer. You don't have to be the chameleon. You can be the subject matter expert, who just really knows this shit. Yeah.
Speaker 1 36:33
You don't have to have this like day in the life behind the scenes like crying on camera, kind of personal brand, you can absolutely be just known for your deep knowledge of a certain topic and people will love you for that.
Mia Fileman 36:47
Yeah, cool. So, so good. All right. And one you suggested who I actually wasn't following until you put her forward is Kayla Houlahan from Tribe Skincare
Speaker 1 36:57
Yes. Yeah. So I think she recently sold her business. So she's not as involved as a personal brand to it now. But I really love her as an example, because I was a longtime follower of, of tribe skincare, and Kayla, because she was one of the first brands I ever came across on Instagram, that were just sharing so much of the behind the scenes. So as in she was sharing, she was a startup and we have community got to really follow her journey going from startup to an established business. And she would share successes, challenges, how and why she was making key decisions in the business. And similar to Brittany Saunders and some of the others that we've spoken about. You knew exactly what she was passionate about, and what was important to her. And that was reflected in the Tribe, Instagram page and also in the products. And she was also similar to Molly in that she had the one page she never had Kayla versus tribe, it was always just Kayla on Tribe. And I remember just getting so much joy out of watching her content as she built such a strong community in the early days especially, and a community of fans around her products where she shared her own personal skincare journey.
Jarrah Brailey 37:00
She shared her story of how she got to this point of even starting a skincare brands. I think she was a skin specialist beforehand. And she noticed that a lot of people were experiencing difficulties with sensitive skin. So she shared her journey she shared basically why she was so passionate about it. And I think she is a really great example of someone who's built her personal brand through her business page. So everybody got to know tribe, but they also got to know Kayla, and they were I think they were known for their stories originally because she would just be on there every single day showing up sharing the behind the scenes and just making it like a fun interactive community where people could go and know that they were going to see the same face every single day.
Mia Fileman 38:58
Does it strike you surprising that she only has 1800 followers on Instagram?
Jarrah Brailey 39:03
Yes. On her personal?
Mia Fileman 39:05
Yeah.
Jarrah Brailey 39:06
Yeah. Because she's never she's never pushed that page. I think it was on private for a lot. Is it still in private?
Mia Fileman 39:12
No, no, it's public now but I was like, wow, okay, that's
Jarrah Brailey 39:15
Yeah, cuz she never I remember in the early days, she had a private Kayla account and that was just I assumed just for family and friends. But when and I think eventually I tried following her because I was such a big fan. She let me follow her and it was nothing to do with tribe. It was all just kind of just like an everyday account, whereas where she'd be showing up is on the tribe page. And she'd be on her stories every single day. She'd be yet she was so well known that anytime she posted in the like minded bitches Facebook page, Facebook group, people will just love her content. People would always be interacting and engaging because everybody had seen that she built this business from the ground up and they were also inspired by her and any advice she had for that group of people was always so well respected. But yeah, I think she's a great example of someone who's just like been the biggest advocate of her own product from the get go, you can see how passionate she is about it. And that in itself is infectious. And you're like, I want to try this product. Like she's, like, so passionate about it. And you know, is really putting her all into building this business. That must be a product that's going to help me.
Mia Fileman 40:23
Yeah, maybe her account was hacked. That happened to one of our customers this week, and she just needed to start over.
Jarrah Brailey 40:30
Oh, my God, it's happened to so many people recently, I've had at least like five brands reach out to me and be like, Help me, please. And there's not really much we can do.
Mia Fileman 40:38
It's so interesting that so many TikTokers have backup accounts now because it's almost an inevitability. Yeah, if this is not a plug for email marketing, I don't know what is.
Jarrah Brailey 40:48
Exactly. Yeah, it's so easy to just lose things overnight.
Mia Fileman 40:51
Yeah, what I'd like to end on is just discussing some of the bigger and smaller differences in the different, I guess, nuances more so than differences between the social media platforms to help the listener in terms of crafting a content strategy, because even though Tik Tok and Instagram seem similar, and even LinkedIn, there is some nuance about how to use those platforms. So I would love to hear your expertise on that. And I'd love to share some of mine because we have recently transitioned to LinkedIn being our secondary social media platform. So it's Instagram and then LinkedIn. So we're using it every single day. And there is definitely some notable differences.
Jarrah Brailey 41:36
Totally. I love LinkedIn, it's definitely a big part of my strategy as well. I think it's it's just overflowing with opportunity in that
Jarrah Brailey 41:52
TikTok, but LinkedIn, there's so much more room. I think I made a post about this recently, because I read something somewhere that said that I think it was like 2% of LinkedIn users are actually posting regularly. So if you compare that to the likes of Instagram, and TikTok where it just seems like you're bombarded with content all the time, there's just such an untapped potential there that if you are creative enough on that platform, and actually showing up consistently on LinkedIn, I think you're gonna see success a lot easier. And you're going to find opportunities a lot easier than, say, TikTok or Instagram, I'm not going to say it's, you know, better than them, because I definitely think Tiktok and Instagram has its place in your strategy. But I just think that stat about LinkedIn only having 2% of its users actually consistently posting is so interesting, because it tells you that there's just so much potential there.
Mia Fileman 42:46
Yeah, LinkedIn is not what people think it is. They think it's a, you know, networking tool. It's not it's actually even bigger at personal branding than the others because company pages are just useless on LinkedIn, quite frankly, unless you are trying to recruit for staff. Yeah, company pages don't even appear in the in the feed in the newsfeed. So every brand on LinkedIn is using personal brands. It's Mia Fileman, but it's Jarrah Brailey, it's Fiona Johnston. It's not our brands. And actually the example I want to talk about in terms of how to use LinkedIn like a pro is the luggage brand July and traditionally, product based and ecommerce based brands didn't fit on LinkedIn like you would think or they've got no business there. This is a business to business platform. This is about you know, lead generation and sales manager sales manager not at all like so the the two co founders of July Athan and I've forgotten the other guy's name bad Mia. They have been documenting the July journey for years in terms of if the highs, the lows, how they lost all of their business during COVID. Just absolutely incredible. And then their general manager. She does the same. And so I fell in love with his brand through LinkedIn. I had never I wasn't even following them on Instagram because I was so invested in their journey of how they were building this brand. And then now that we're on our year abroad in Canada, and I needed new luggage, I went straight to july.com and and bought.
Jarrah Brailey 44:30
Yeah, isn't that amazing? I think LinkedIn is and that's so unique. That story I haven't actually seen them on on LinkedIn. I'm definitely going to check them out. But it's so crazy how, yeah, a different platform when there's not as much noise and it's different. It's a different format as well in that you don't there's no pressure to create videos, you can easily share your story, but I agree that Yeah, I'm definitely seeing more success on personal brands than brands on LinkedIn for sure.
Mia Fileman 45:00
Yeah. Any other final thoughts about the differences between maybe Instagram Tik Tok and LinkedIn to round us out?
Jarrah Brailey 45:07
Yeah, I think my pet peeve is when people create Instagram content and then their Tik Tok strategy is just to repurpose their Instagram content on their Tik Tok, because that is never going to perform, you might get the odd one that performs quite well. But what you need to be doing is creating, you need to have unique strategies for both there might be a bit of crossover. But I think TikTok, as I kind of said at the start of the episode, it's about introducing yourself every single time you need to provide as much context in every single video as to who you are, what you do. Whereas on Instagram, you've got the luxury of posting it to your existing community. So they know about you already. And they've already built some brand awareness there. Whereas TikTok, yeah, you're getting in front of new people. So you need to be reintroducing yourself telling your story as many times as you can. And yeah, and not just repurposing your Instagram content over to every platform.
Mia Fileman 45:59
Yeah, my advice is to just tell stories, especially career stories have been my top performing content is like what it was like to be a brand manager at Maybelline New York, what it was like to start an agency for my dining room table and scale that to three locations. My Media rants about the gurus, all of those that it's a more storytelling approach
Jarrah Brailey 46:23
definitely
Mia Fileman 46:24
is much better than I guess the promotional content that you see on Instagram, that even though it doesn't have huge engagement on Instagram, it is very good for for actually making sales.
Jarrah Brailey 46:36
Definitely, definitely.
Mia Fileman 46:38
Well, it has been an absolute pleasure chatting with you Jarrah, I'm going to put the Jampacked links in the show notes including your TikTok and Jampacked's TikTok. And yeah, if you are looking for the most epic digital marketing agency to support you on your marketing journey, definitely consider jam packed. Awesome.
Jarrah Brailey 47:00
Thank you so much for having me on. This was so much fun like to talk about this stuff, all day.
Mia Fileman 47:06
let's do it again soon!
Mia Fileman 47:10
Thank you, you listened right up until the end. So why not hit that subscribe button and keep the good marketing rolling. Podcast reviews are like warm hugs. And they're also the best way to support a small business. You can connect with me Mia Fileman on Instagram or LinkedIn and feel free to send me a message. I'm super friendly.
