225 | 3 Tips to Make Your Social Entrepreneurship Marketing Easier
This week is our monthly solo episode with Awarepreneurs Founder, CEO and podcast host Paul Zelizer. Paul shares 3 tips to make your social entrepreneurship marketing easier and more effective.
Resources mentioned in this episode are:
3 Tips to Make Your Social Entrepreneurship Marketing Easier Episode Transcript
Transcript with Otter.ai. Though it’s not perfect, this transcript gives people who are either a) hearing impaired and/or b) not inclined to listen to podcasts a way to learn and participate.
SPEAKERS
Paul Zelizer
Paul Zelizer 00:02
Hi, this is Paul Zelizer, and welcome to another episode of the Awarepreneurs podcast. This podcast is all about the intersection of three things, conscious business, social impact, and awareness practice. Each episode I do a deep dive in with a thought leader in this intersection. Someone who has market tested experience and is already transforming minima. Before I introduce our guest and our topic today, I have one request. If you could go over to Apple podcasts or whatever app you're listening to the show on your rating and review, it helps tremendously. Thanks so much for considering. Today. It is our special monthly solo episode where I, Paul Zelizer, the founder of Awarepreneurs, am doing an episode on something that comes from our community. And our topic today is 3 Tips to Make Your Social Entrepreneurship Marketing Easier. And to start with, I'd like to tell you a story. If you've been listening to this show for a while, you know, kind of a physical guy love to exercise I love being outside, I'm a trail runner, I do stuff in the gym, etc. And one of the common questions in the exercise space that a lot of people have heard is what's the best exercise and people love to you know, share about this one, the benefits of this are that I love a rowing machine or a rowing erg. It works 86% of your body, the muscles in your body, etc. But really, when you unpack it all, what's the best exercise, it's the one you'll enjoy, and the one you'll stay with, and the one that you'll do week after week, year after year. And in many ways, this episode like boiling it all down. How do you make social entrepreneurship marketing easier is to find something that you'll stay with, to find something where you can share your passion where there's not a lot of friction. For me, podcasting is fun. I love interviewing our guests, and even the solo episodes have been, have become something that I look forward to. Because I get requests and questions and see conversations in the social entrepreneurs face. And people are saying, what do we do about this? And what do we do about that, and I love to be observance. And for me sharing stories, amplifying the work of people who are doing incredibly impactful things in the world. And being in dialogue with you, our listeners, there's a lot of joy, and it's a fairly low friction factor. And it happens that podcasting is also good marketing, if you're doing it intentionally, right. So that story is a way to kind of cue you of what's coming in this episode, I do have three very specific suggestions that have more nuance. But the top level suggestion is to look for ways that you're sharing stories and being of service and amplifying things that are really helpful to the people you want to help that you actually can stay with. And then it's less about what percentage of the muscles are you using in your body or how significant impact it is on your cardio and how much strength building sure all of that matters. And it can help you get into a more refined or certain kinds of strength, where certain kinds of cardio fitness. But if you just get started and you start working and you start getting in a certain degree of fitness, you can change it and you can move and you can shift once you've built your muscles, once you've built your cardio capacity, you can do a lot of things and have fun. Same thing with marketing. Okay, let's get into three much more specific tips I have for you. I'll tell you what they are. And then we'll dive into each one. The first tip I have for you is I want to encourage you to select what I call a featured marketing channel. And that's sort of contrary to some advice you'll hear in the marketing world to be everywhere. This is select one place where you're going to go deep, and we'll talk more about that a second. The second suggestion I have is to purchase the equipment and or the apps you need for excellence right from the start. Now I'm not talking about spending a gazillion dollars, but getting a quality experience of doing that particular channel matters. Classic example is if you're going to do Instagram, you don't want a seven year old smartphone taking pictures for a very, very visual channel like Instagram. Let's talk about how can you get in as affordable way as you know is needed at that time. A way to have better than average, in Instagram’s case much better than average photos. Otherwise, you're working against the grain of the channel you're selecting.
Paul Zelizer 04:45
And then third suggestion I have is to build your network with excellence in mind. If you're going to be a podcaster let's reach out and connect with other podcasters because people who are doing it with excellence in mind, have tips and strategies and like in the podcast space, we share gas with each other. I'm going back and forth with another podcaster today, but a great guest suggestion for me. And in turn, I had several guests suggestions for this person. So those are the three tips. Let's dig down a little deeper in each one.
Paul Zelizer 05:17
First of all, one of the reasons that I hear social entrepreneurs say, over and over again, they're really overwhelmed. And marketing isn't much fun, and it's really hard, is because people are trying to be everywhere, or at least be in a lot of places. Or in a conversation where people are saying, Oh, my gosh, LinkedIn is so awesome. And it's really important. And then go to a workshop on how YouTube is an incredible channel. And it's this world's second biggest search engine, which it is Google bought it because it's such a great search engine. So many people go and look for information on YouTube, podcasting is incredible. If you listen to this show, you know how much of a fan I like to joke. My name is Paul, and I'm podcast obsessed. But what quickly happen is you can feel like you have to be in a lot of different channels, which each require different skill sets and different norms on, you know, to succeeding in the podcast space. Compared to blogging, for instance, there's just different skills and different capacities. What it means to sound good and be really effective as a podcaster is really, really different than what it means to look at. And to be a really effective communicator, and to have people find you by search and other ways as a blogger. So when you're trying to be in a number of places, especially if you're either new, as a social entrepreneur, in the marketing space and growing your business through marketing, or you're up leveling, and you're trying to do it in a bunch of different directions all at once. That creates a lot of stress. So the idea of selecting your featured marketing channel, snow, where you're going deep, where you're going to invite people, people on this podcast, if you've been around for a while, people will even say, hey, every Tuesday, folks know this, we have a new episode set for a couple times a year, we take a holiday break. But other words, you know, probably 4950 times a year or something like that. Every Tuesday, a new podcast episode happens on the web printers podcast, people know that they're looking for it. And they'll say, Well, who's gonna be our guest this week, I'm really excited to listen and see. So people get in the habit, when they know that you're planting your flag. Here's where I go deep. Here's where I share information. Here's where I put care if you want to learn more about the topic of your social enterprise, your impact business, your place where you are making a dent in the world, make it easy for people to know where that is, and then do it regular. My suggestion be at least twice a month. Now it really depends if you're doing long form blog posts, one or two months is a lot. If Instagram is your channel, that's a place where people oftentimes will say you need to get three or four posts in a week just to get traction, right. So it depends on your channel but be regular. And at a bare minimum, I would suggest that twice a month is a pretty Minimum Viable dosage on most marketing channels. I want to encourage you to provide a lot of value be very intentional about what you're doing in your featured marketing channel and really strive to provide quality content that really helps the kind of people you want to help the most make a change in some of the places that they're stuck, a place where they're experiencing what aware printers community member Lisa Mannion, so fabulous copywriter and leads the right on creative as her website. And Lisa talks about challenge points and vision points. In other words, the things that your ideal client feel really stuck with and challenged by feel some pain around at the challenge point and or their vision point. In other words, things they really want in their life, but they're not clear how to get there. So speak to those places. And of course, to do that, you want to know who your ideal client is. We've talked a lot about that in the show. We'll talk more about it have any questions, feel free to email me get a hold of me on LinkedIn, something like that. The last thing I just want to say is like, once you plant your flag, at least for a while, hit pause, or what I call shiny object syndrome. And that's guaranteed whatever place you're planting your flag as this is my featured marketing channel, you're gonna see on social media, or colleagues gonna come it's happened to me with let's say clubhouse for instance. Paul, you're fabulous at you know, this audio space. You have a great podcast, you should come play on clubhouse now there's a new one called wisdom. So, yes, those are fabulous channels, but I planted my flag Right, those are new channels. Certainly I learned about them. And I've got enough going on, I'm getting traction with my podcast. That's my featured marketing channel. I don't want to diffuse my energy, by constantly Oh, video is like the latest hot thing, those conversations are going to happen. No matter what you choose, somebody is going to come along, making the case for another marketing channel. And that's great to take in. Certainly be curious, feel free to learn about it. But for a while, build that fitness, build that muscle, so you get in shape. How do you make getting in shape easier? Well, you go to the gym, or you run or you cross country skiing, or whatever the activity is. And after you're in shape, if you want to try something new, then it's a different animal. But until you kind of get up to a basic fitness level, changing to lots of different things is not likely to be a fun experience, not likely to be an experience full of ease. Same thing in marketing, pick something, build your muscles, stay with it for a while, try to turn down the volume on the shiny object syndrome, have clear boundaries and get good at one featured marketing channel for a while and then reassess might you want to, you know, either branch out or even make a change, it haven't always been a podcaster. Other times I blogged at other times, I had a video show. So I haven't been a podcaster forever. But it's going on almost five years now that this has been my featured marketing channel. And I've been pretty consistent and pretty clear that when people approach like with clubhouse, that's not the right place for me at this time. Second of all, once you pick your featured marketing channel, then I'm going to encourage you to purchase the equipment and or the apps that you need for excellent. So again, I'm a podcaster. Let's use podcasting. For example. Although this is not podcast specific. If you're going to be a podcaster, let's get you sounding very good. You don't have to go out and spend you know $2,500 on like the best super high end podcast mic, but please, let's not record it on your phone with like a cheap set of $15 earbuds either. If you're going to move into the podcast space, one of the things I'd suggest is get a decent microphone, let's make sure you sound at least above average, let's get you towards excellence with an awareness of where your financial situation is. So for instance, I started podcasting with a classic microphone in the Audio Technica 2100. You don't make the exact mic anymore, but the mics in its range. And it was about an 80 to $100 microphone, a simple stand, and a little bit of ingenuity of doing some sound, you know, using soft surfaces like pillows and hanging some tapestries in the space I was recording so that, you know, it sounded really quite good. Did it sound like a $2,500? Microphone and like fully soundproof studio? Absolutely not. But right from the start from that very first episode, I was sounding better than, you know, Ed to whatever percent that was up in the 75th percentile from the moment I hit record on my first episode so that in an audio only podcast, they don't do video, I sounded quite good. What are the technologies, whether that is equipment? What is that camera that if you're going to do Instagram, for instance, if you're going to write blog posts, how about some images that really are striking, right? Every blogging resource person I've ever said is that having good photos in your blog and unique ones, and ones that really help tell the story is something that helps you stand out. If you're going to the same free, you know, Pexels and Unsplash. Those are great sites where you can get free, you know, photos, you're picking from the same limited pool as everybody else who wants to blog and put content on the internet. What about buying some affordable, you know, $5 or $10 or $20 per photo type photos so that it's more unique. Everybody is going to source everybody a large number of people are going to source some of those, you know, good quality but very seen and circulated a lot photos when you dig a little deeper. And if you need to either spend some money so that you can take pictures that really help tell the story of what's going on in your blog posts. Or, like I said, buy some pictures that wouldn't be as commonly seen and would likely be because they're paid images, even affordable paid images are going to help you come across as more professional in the space than many of your peers. So think about your equipment, think about your apps, and let's really come out of the gate with excellence in your featured marketing channel.
Paul Zelizer 15:04
The last suggestion I have is to build your network with that excellence in terms of your featured marketing channel in mind. For instance, again, as a podcaster. I know other podcasters. And I've made it very significant priority to connect with other people, particularly who are using podcast for some sort of positive change business, profit space, people who, you know, thinking of Elsie Escobar in the positive impact space. Elsie is a co founder of she podcast, she works at Lipson and helps create fabulous partnerships doing all kinds of stuff at Lipson, which is a brand that is very well known in the podcasting space was one of the first podcast hosts, or maybe the first podcast hosts or printers is hosted on Lipson. So knowing LC knowing people like LC, who are in the podcast space, and are really making a difference. And an understand what's happening in that space means that there's a great guest, if there's a change in technology, there is a trend, if there's something that's moving and changing and different in the space, somebody is likely to reach out and give me a heads up. And like I really mentioned, people let each other know about great guests. And in the circles I move, people are very willing to make introductions, which helps me get fabulous gas, which our listeners say is one of the things that make this podcast unique, the quality of the stories, the experience, that our guests have not just been having a great idea about making positive impact, but what we call market tested. In other words, they've really moved the needle in their space and created something that is not only good on a conceptual level, but also has a lot of scale, or has a lot of people using it some way that we can say, Wow, this app, this, you know, service, this product is really making the world a better place because people are using it and they're loving it. And it has a very tangible effect that our listeners can learn from our my network, the podcast space knows, that's the kind of guests that I'm looking for. And oftentimes send people our way who fit those criteria. Whether you're a blogger, or a YouTuber, whether Instagram or LinkedIn, are places you're really committed to, there's nuances and there's changes, and there's constant innovations going on in all these spaces. If you're a solo operator, and you don't have a network, there's a really good chance you're going to get caught flat footed. And you're going to be surprised by some of the changes that are coming when you have developed a network. And I want to encourage you to consciously make an effort to meet people in that marketing channel, who are also passionate about it, are also skilled at it. And work to build those kind of mutual reciprocal relationships where you can share strategies stay on top of the technology, and just be more skillful than somebody who doesn't have those kinds of relationships. So those are three tips. My suggestion to you is by putting them into place, you can be more effective in your social entrepreneurship marketing with less effort. In other words, get more return on investment of your time, your energy and your money that you put into your marketing. No one of them is extremely difficult matter of fact, by doing things like selecting one featured marketing channel, as opposed to trying to do a half dozen, it brings more ease into your life, more clarity, you know, where you're investing your resources and looking for return. Then the last thing I'd say, not on the list so much, but be mindful of measuring your return. You know, track your downloads, if you're a podcaster. If you're writing blog posts, hook up Google Analytics, it's free. How many people are reading your blog through time isn't working a certain kind of blog posts or certain kind of YouTube videos? Do they get more results than others? So look for an analytics. This is kind of a bonus tip. Look for the free analytics in every space or the built in analytics I already mentioned we pay for Libsyn to host the podcast, and Lipson has a dashboard where it'll share certain key metrics, like the number of downloads, where people are listening from etc. That can really help you get a sense of how different topics are landing in terms of the usefulness for your audience. And if something is really useful We'll take note and maybe do more of that kind of content. Something is like you have a YouTube channel and you put up a YouTube video, and hardly anybody watches it compared to some of your other videos. And pay attention to that and see if you can learn and build your skillfulness of providing value by listening to people through the metrics of the platform you just so that's what I got three out. If you have a business that's about making the world a better place and you want it to grow. I wanted to let you know that I have a free ebook about four impact questions that every social entrepreneurship now. So my new website, Paul Zelizer, calm the e li Zhi er, and it's free, you can go get it, and it'll walk you through the exact process that I take my individual coaching clients through when they want to build their social entrepreneurship businesses. So go check that out at Paul zelizer.com. Download the free report. And I would love to hear your suggestions how it landed for you what was useful and what was not. Before we go, I just want to say thank you so much for listening. Please take really good care in these intense time. And thank you for all the positive impact that you're working for in our world.