Structuring and Planning for Social Media: Find Your Face

Let’s talk about social media. We are going to talk about who should be the face of your social media in this episode. So let’s dive in. Welcome to Rooted in Retail, the show that’s dedicated to helping independent retailers thrive in today’s ever-evolving retail landscape. I’m your host, Crystal Vitis, and I’m thrilled to have you join me weekly as we explore topics that are vital to the success of your store from marketing to mindset.

 

Money to merchandising. Sales to leadership will cover it all. Each episode features interviews with industry experts and accomplished retailers who share their real-life insights and actionable advice. Get ready for a great conversation on how to build your dream business with rooted in retail. Now, if you have been listening to my training following along for a year or over 10 years, then you’ve heard me say a million times that you need people in your social media.

 

You need to humanize your content. This is the thing that independent retailers have an advantage over big box businesses and e-commerce stores is our people. And in episode 15, we really talked about resistance and how incredibly important it is for you to show up for your community and go out there and be on social media and show your face and take pictures and do videos, especially videos because videos are working so well when it comes to social and they’re not going away.

 

It’s a really great way to connect with your audience, and I have talked about over all these years that when we are leveraging video, we get to know the business owner, we get to know the business, and we build. The, like trust factor right to where it leads to lifelong customers. So a lot of this is marketing 1 0 1, but over the years, retailers have asked me who should be the face.

 

Because, and the ones that are asking that are the ones that don’t want to be the face. And I think it’s an important thing that we explore and talk about. And so let’s dive in. It really comes down to what the vision is for your business and the structure of your business today because you could do this a lot of different ways.

 

It could be the store owner is the face and the store owner could be talking about business personal. Or just business. However, we talk about personal, and I’ll get into some of this of like what you’re talking about, but let’s just talk about who it could be. So we could have the store owner. It could be the store owner and somebody on the team, or multiple people on the team.

 

It could be mostly the team and maybe a little bit of owner. It could be all team, no owner, it could be one person, a face that you’ve, you know, designated,  in the store, but not the owner, somebody on the team. And,  and then it could, and that’s really, that’s kind of our, well then it could be AI person.

 

You could hire an AI bot, which I’m not kidding, like the AI. People. You give them a script and they look pretty darn real. It’s so weird. I am not recommending that option. Okay? I’m just telling you, you got some options. The other thing you could do, I don’t recommend this either, is that you could just be posting photos of your products in your store and nobody is in it, and you have a faceless brand.

 

Faceless brands are going to be more expensive to market harder. Just harder to see results on social media if you’re going to be faceless. I think that there are other ways that you should participate from a marketing perspective, doing more things with loyalty programs, email marketing, text marketing, not social.

 

It’s social media. So we need to be social, we need to have that conversation and really connect,  through our human content. So, Here’s the deal. As I was saying, it kind of depends on the structure of your store and the vision of the store. I heard on a podcast the other day,  business owners say My exit strategy is death.

 

And so if your exit strategy out of your store is death, and you plan on working at your store for a very long time, and you’re running the store, and you’re involved in the store, and you are in the store, customers are coming in and they know you and you’re going to be there. Then you should be the face of your social media because they’re going to, they’re getting to know you.

 

They’re seeing you, you’re part of the community, and that’s the best way to build the relationship. I’m not going to get into the importance of showing people. I really just want to talk about who you know, who should be doing what. So if that’s the case, then that could be you. But let’s say that you are,  multi-passionate business owner.

 

We have retailers who have a retail store and then maybe other businesses too, a coffee shop, a co-working space.  they do other stuff with their spouse. Like I have heard a lot of different situations where they’ve got a lot of different businesses or a lot of different stores. And if that is the case then that can be challenging to be showing up as the face on all of these different platforms.

 

That is a lot of content that you have to create. In that case, I think it would be beneficial for you to have your team participate and you could show up some, but they could really be leading the content and I do recommend more of that team approach versus designated. One person designating one person because when it’s without as you can imagine, if you have one person and they’re the face of your social media, you are running risks of that person leaving, and then all of a sudden you have a whole new face and people are like, well, who’s this?

 

I don’t know this person yet. I don’t trust this person yet. And you’re kind of like, got to get them to know this new person and that’s going to take time. So,  there’s danger with that of having one person be that face. The thing is if you have the one person. You could have them like introduce the other person that’s going to take over for them.

 

So they’re like saying, oh, and now I’m doing this co livestream with somebody on the team to kind of pass a baton and speed up that relationship with the new person coming in. But really that’s kind of going to be your dangerous one. I really feel like it’s either the store owner or the, a little bit of owner and team.

 

It could also just be team,  the little bit of owner. So let’s talk about that. A great case study that I often refer to is a retail store called Catbird. They’re out of Brooklyn. They have a couple of locations. It’s a jewelry store. They also make custom, They have custom designs,  really great branding, unique products.

 

They’re crushing it with their social media. And in the beginning I scrolled way back, I think it was like 2010 or something on Instagram, and they post a lot. So you guys, it took me forever to scroll to find their first post. In the beginning there were a lot of posts of the owner. I think the owner’s name is Ronnie.

 

You saw Ronnie a little bit more often in these posts because she was building, it was a new thing and Instagram was also pretty new then. So she’s using Instagram and then you, but she’s still showing like members of her team and behind the scenes. And then if you look at their social media now, you fast forward 13 years later, you barely see Ronnie.

 

You are seeing,  people on their team and they’ll introduce themselves and their titles. You will also see a lot of influencers who are posting content. And so catbird made the customer the face versus the owner or the employee, and that is another strategy that I should have mentioned at the top of this whole episode as your customer becoming the face.

 

And that can be a really strong strategy. What I love about that strategy is it’s not one person. So there’s not that danger there. And we resonate when we see ourselves in other people. So if I see, like if I could shop at your store, I’m a perfect customer to shop at your store and you find somebody like me and they’re, you’re having them post on the social or create content for your social, I’m going to resonate with her.

 

Right? And you can have multiple of those types of people. That are posting. So it’s like a team effort of your customers. And this could either be their, they’re content creators, they could be influencers.  you could just find, you know, top five 10 customers and send them through training, like my training the retailers roadmap to simplified marketing.

 

 If they don’t have that social media training already, but then they could just be using their. Your products and do lifestyle stuff. Then they could also come in store and take some of those photos and be the face. So Catbird is doing more of that, but it’s a blend. So there was a video they did where they did like a three minute tour.

 

Of their facility because they have the retail store, but then they also have this whole like area where they’re making all these custom designs and the building is set up a certain way. And it’s just interesting to see the behind the scenes of a brand we love. So they did this great video. It was several employees, but Ronnie the owner, opened it, Hey, this is, I’m Ronnie, this is my business and I want to take you on a tour.

 

And that was the last you saw of her. The rest of it was her team. And so that approach helps if the owner is not wanting to be super tied to the content. It is more freeing. You know, as we, if you’re going on vacation, if you travel a lot, if you are managing multiple businesses, if you don’t like being on social media, which I know a lot of us face this.

 

If that is the case, then if you can, if you can empower employees and or customers to really connect with customers on a human level, then it can work really well. I have seen it work really well, for example, CAPD, and I’m seeing how they, and they will work with,  These are their customers, but they also have some larger followings.

 

And when I say larger, like 10,000, you know, it’s not like they’ve got a hundred thousand, 10,000 people follow them. So they’re kind of like these micro influencers. They’re good at creating content. They send them some product, they’re creating the content. You know, it makes it easier and just go to Cat Bird’s Instagram.

 

If you are not sure, like if you want to see what I’m talking about, they’ll tag the person. So they’re getting that exposure too. And some of your customers might just love getting that exposure. They’re helping build the brand. It’s sending people over their account. They might do this for a couple other brands too.

 

We’re going to see more of that, more influencers who have kind of their clients that they’re creating content for. Just ideally they’re in your town so they can pick up products from you. They can come into the store, maybe they make,  appearances at events, things like that. But as you can see, I hope you’re picking up on.

 

There’s got to be a human, you have to have a face and it really does depend on your timing, what you can commit to your social. Now, like I talked about in episode 15, it really can just take a couple of minutes. I have talked about the daily five. I think I have talked about the daily five on this show.

 

I think I did it in episode one and that can, you can post your social media in five minutes or less. You don’t have to have hours of commitment to social media every single day to create videos and photos. It’s still very possible for the store owner to show up. But if that is just not you, I have worked with store owners who are like, I absolutely refuse to be on camera.

 

And so there are alt, there are alternatives to still make social media work for you, your team, your customers a blend of that. Do you want to spend an entire day in Nashville, Tennessee with me? Learning all about social media, creating your social media plan, knowing your who, what, when, where, why, all the apps, all the ways that you should be using Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, and more.

 

If you want to do that with me in person on July 24th, then I have got great news. We are doing a social media day. In Nashville, Tennessee, and we have 40 tickets available. This is an intimate experience to really get your plan up and running. You feel super confident with your social media. You know what’s working today.

 

You know what’s coming in the future of social media as well, so you’re prepared. And for attendees, you’re also going to get a workbook with all the slides that we cover, so you can take that back. To your team. You might even want to bring somebody on your team, like your social media coordinator. You’re going to get a 12 month social media planner.

 

We’re going to feed you lunch. You’re going to get Q and A time, you’re going to get networking time and more. These are powerful events. We’ve done several in the past. People love them. So if this sounds good to you, then go to crystalmediaco.com, click on products, and then scroll down to Social Media Day. You can get more information there and secure your ticket.

 

I would love to see you in Nashville. Now, one thing I want to address also is,  I, I recommend if the owner. Is going to be the one who’s doing the social media and is the face of that. I think it’s great when we also talk about personal stuff, it doesn’t have to always be about the store and about your products.

 

When we talk about personal stuff, it resonates. It’s that relatability and that’s typically the content you’ll get more engagement on. And you start building deeper relationships. People get to know you through the personal content, and so then when they need to buy what you sell, they’re choosing you over the competitor because they don’t know the competitor.

 

We talked more personal, right? And that builds that connection. And you know this as retailers, like, you know those bonds and the connections that you build through the conversations that you have with your customers in your store. So we’re just doing that. It feels a little awkward because we’re doing it to a camera versus a real life person, but we’re doing that on social to build those connections and stay relevant.

 

I have had retailers who don’t want to talk about the personal stuff. And sometimes they just don’t think it will help. So if you’re in one of those camps, let me just address that real quick. If you don’t think talking about personal stuff would help your engagement and connection with your customer. I think you’re wrong.

 

I don’t know what, either way to put it.  I think you should try it and see what kind of results you get. And I have a feeling that after you heard what I just said of, you know, this, the conversations you have in store and that connection, like the personal stuff is some meaningful things. Like we want to connect with brands, right?

 

Like our retailers, our local retailers, we want to connect. And the way we do it more meaningful is through personal stuff. So if you don’t believe, you could try and even people will be like, but nobody cares what I’m eating. Well, you don’t, first of all, you don’t have to share what you’re eating. It can also be more of like your day or your family or your traditions or your thoughts or you know, thing how, how you’re feeling or an aha moment or funny moment or a show you watched.

 

Like it doesn’t always have to be your food for some reason. Always. People are always like, nobody cares what I eat. And I think it’s because in the beginning of Twitter, And ins. Well, no Instagram, so many people took pictures of their food in the beginning. So many. And so I think we like referenced that as being the personal post.

 

But you know what I’m going to tell you, people also do care what you’re eating. It creates conversation. A big thing at Crystal Media is should pineapple be on a pizza or not? And I mean, we’re divided. We are divided at crystal media. I think it should be on the pizza, Pauline. Thinks this is a disgrace. I’m surprised she even works for Crystal Media because I believe that pineapple belongs on pizza, but she does.

 

We, we manage. All right. It’s tough, but we manage. Now, this is a whole conversation. When people start working at Crystal Media, that’s the first question we ask them on their first company meeting. It’s just sort of became part of our culture. We talk about some food stuff and wine stuff on our Instagram that has nothing to do with social media.

 

That type of posts are the things that our retailers talk to us about. When they see us in person at shows, social media days at our conference, they’ll also comment. They’ll be like, oh, I’m one of those people. Nope. Pineapple shouldn’t be on it. Like it’s a totally different type of connection. I. Right. So it can happen with your food too.

 

But here’s the deal, I also, I’m going to be all day long in the camp that you should be talking about personal stuff. You should be connecting and ideally, the owner is the person that’s the face. If it can’t be if that’s absolutely non-negotiable. Customer team is fine.  You can get away with just doing business.

 

You don’t have to talk personal. There are so many case studies and so many brands I’m seeing, especially on TikTok that are just selling, they are for some reason I’m on the wigs feed, like the WIGS algorithm on TikTok. So I’m watching all these live selling. I can’t stop watching. I guess I am very interested in wigs.

 

Maybe I’ll get one.  maybe I’ll get multiple, but. They’re just showing wigs and they have a number. This is number 24. They name them, they brush, they put it on. Then they go, whoop. Now this is number 12. This is the thing. And people are buying right there. They’re not talking about what they ate or what they did last night or nothing personal.

 

It’s very focused on the product, their other posts on their feed. It’s just about the hair. It’s about the wigs. That’s it. And they’re selling. And it’s working. That’s working for their brand. Now my thought with that is,  how sustainable is it? It can be sustainable. And here’s where they have the human element is they are live streaming with a human.

 

And so there is a personal connection. People can ask their questions. She’s answering right away, and she, you know, she’s got some personality, a couple that I watched. Fun personality. Hey, love. Hey girl. Oh yeah, like, you know, they’re just being their authentic self and people love that. So that can be sustainable.

 

But if it’s just, you know, just pictures of product that you’re going to have a lot of competition, it’s just harder to build that long term. You’re going to find more people who are like, Could be price shopping and just not really building that connection. They’re probably not going to follow you, so you can do just business stuff.

 

I also want to point out the fact that Gary Vaynerchuk, who is a social media pioneer, he’s been in this industry longer than I have. He’s much larger than I am. He’s massive following. In fact, as I’m filming this, it’s  May 15th. And this weekend, May 19th, 20th, I will be at V Con Gary v’s. Conference and I’m able to go because I bought one of his NFTs and that NFT gives me access to three of his conferences.

 

So I’m stoked. I’m so stoked to go see him, hopefully get to meet. I have met him several times and even shared a virtual stage with Gary at the Retail Success Summit.  but anyways, there’s like. I’m going to be on epic speakers and I’m going to do recaps and share with you what I learned and my experience on this show.

 

 and really translate it from a retail perspective because there’s going to be some really big thinking of what’s coming in the metaverse and AI and marketing and social. So that was a little tangent with Gary. Gary does not talk about personal. Gary does podcasts and he does several posts on several platforms every single day, and you’ve never seen a picture of his kids.

 

You, I mean, he recently started posting a picture too, of him and his girlfriend, but you don’t know anything outside that. He loves the Jets. He’s a sports card collector. Those are personal things, but that’s about it. You. He’s not talking about his food. He’s not sharing stories that are personal. It’s very specific to business, and Gary has built a massive empire on doing that.

 

So my point is he, you can absolutely build a strong social media presence and not talk about anything personal. But you’ve gotta use video. Like you have to authentically be you. You’ve gotta create the content. You’ve gotta be in the content because people want to follow people. They want to grab onto somebody.

 

Like people love Gary, his personality, how fast he is, how he’s keeps it real. All the advice he has, like his energy. They love that. So that’s why they follow. It doesn’t matter if he’s talking about personal stuff or not, they connect because he always adds value too. He’s always adding value. So no mat, wherever you are in your retail experience, like in your store, it’s really about like, what’s the vision and here’s his deal.

 

It can always change. Maybe you are the face today and that’s going to be really dedicated for you. And then down the road, Something happens within your life and it’s just not practical for you to do that. And so you get your team involved. And again, I’d have the multiple team, but really kind of have them.

 

Do some training with them so they really understand your customers have the same hooks, have the same intros and outros, so you have some brand consistency throughout. And then the final thing I’m going to say about your teams that are represented on social media, anybody who’s creating that content. So if they’re wearing items, they’re live selling, they’re showing items, like if they’re showing items off, especially in photos, videos.

 

Ideally you’re representing all of your customers. So what I’m seeing right now is there’s a few stores that I love locally and it’s girls in their twenties and they’re modeling and they’re talking about items and it’s like, it doesn’t really relate to me because she’s young. 20, like I have, I have a different style.

 

I have, I want to see me. You know what I mean? Like, I want to see me in that post. Would I be carrying that bag? Would that, would I love that in my home? Would I be reading that book? Like what? You know, like I, we want to see ourselves in the content. So that’s where using your customers works really well. If you’ve got team members that are different ages and you could appeal to the younger generation and the boomer generation, the millennial generation.

 

So that’s going to help create more diverse content. They could all be wearing the same outfit. They could all be talking about the same product, but it will be delivered to different people’s feeds because of how they engage on social media and because of the different demographic. So really help. I know that some people are like, oh my God, now you’re telling me I have to have like five different people that are showing up on my social media.

 

My employees don’t want to do video. They don’t want to show up. I, I know we’re going to just start somewhere. Okay. So the owner is ideal to show up cause you know your customers, you can connect people love you. And then if we’re having our team involved, let’s try to have some diversity to represent our customers.

 

Let’s have some consistency on how we’re doing the videos, how we’re showing up, and just get really clear on your involvement with social, where you’re headed with it, and if you are going to talk about personal stuff or not and then, you know, that structure helps us get social media done. because that’s a big thing.

 

Is it often, does it get done? Cause we don’t have any plan. And we have this, we either have resistance, no plan or no system. That’s why it’s not getting done. 15. Episode 15, we talked all about the resistance side. My retailer’s roadmap course that’s coming out is all about the plan in the system. So if you need additional training, check that out.

 

It’ll be out in June. But make sure that you’re just clear. And I hope that if you were wondering anything on how you could position it, I think that there’s a great opportunity for a lot of our retailers to get their customers more involved. And, I think customers would be honored. You could structure this in different ways.

 

If you’re paying hourly or scope of work, you know, you’re responsible for creating 10 posts a month and we’re going to give you a hundred dollars, so it’s $10 a post, or you know, we’ll give you a hundred dollars in product. You know, like, Depending on the age group and the person that you’re talking to, they might just want to create, like be a part of the brand for some product, you know?

 

So think creatively on how you are really showing up, but make sure that it’s really connecting to your vision, to your brand and your customers. If you have any questions, DM me or email hello crystalmediaco.com. And I would love to hear from you. If you have a question for this show, chat in DM me.

 

 you can leave a comment on this post. You can email us at that same email address. I would love to know, and if you would like to be a guest on the show. Go to crystalmediaco.com/guest and apply or maybe you have somebody that you’re like, they would be such a good guest on this show. They’re super rooted in retail, they add a lot of value, or they’re a really successful retailer.

 

Send them that link or send, tell me about them and I’ll reach out to them but I would love to just get to know who you want me to interview. Maybe it’s you, and would love to answer your questions on the show too. Thank you so much for listening today. Hope that gave you some clarity on the face of your social media, and remember that I am rooting for your success, and I hope you have a great week ahead.

 

Bye. Thank you so much for being here. It means the world to me. Don’t forget to join the Rise and Shine newsletter, which is. Social media news you need to know sent via email every Monday morning. Go to crystal media co.com/rise to join and don’t miss the newest episode of Rooted in Retail, which drops every Sunday morning.