Episode 99: Instagram Stories, Social Media Strategy + Consistency with Emma Tessler
Lauren Tilden:
Welcome back to Making Good, the podcast for small businesses who want to make a big impact. I'm your host, Lauren Tilden. And this is episode 99. That's right, I said 99. We are almost at 100 episodes of Making Good and I cannot quite believe it. Get ready for a special 100th episode celebration next Tuesday. Today's episode is with Emma Tesslar, CEO and founder of 95 media and today we're talking about all things social media. Before we get into the episode, though, I wanted to tell you about a free resource I have that I think you will love. If you're tired or sitting down to create marketing content for your business and feeling like you have no idea where to start, I have a workbook that will help you come up with a bank of aligned targeted content ideas you can draw from whenever you need to download it head to makinggoodpodcast.com/content And it'll get sent straight over to you.
Okay, so let's dig right into today's episode. My guest as I said is Emma Tesslar, founder and CEO of 95 Media, a new age digital marketing agency. Their mission is to help female founders make more impact and income through social media marketing. 95 Media helps their clients connect with ideal clients build community and convert audience members into paying clients. This episode covers all things social media, including something that I know so many of you have struggled with, and in fact, I have struggled with too, and that is being consistent.
In this episode, we discussed Emma's four step process for creating a social media strategy, how to use Instagram Stories for sales, how to think about each component of Instagram, and what kind of content is best suited for each, the three different purposes of social media content that Emma recommends, how to be consistent, and your social media execution, what it looks like to work with a social media agency and more. Emma is super generous with her knowledge and expertise of all things social media, and I think you'll definitely find yourself taking some notes during this episode. Here's our conversation.
Well, Emma Welcome to Making Good.
Emma Tessler:
Thank you so much for having me, it's so nice to chat with you.
Lauren Tilden:
I am super excited about this conversation. So we are going to be talking all about social media, specifically Instagram and Instagram stories. And the topic that I'm kind of most excited to pick your brain about: consistency, establishing some kind of consistent routine with, you know, our social media presence. That's a challenge for a lot of us. So really, really excited about this interview. Let's start with a bit of an introduction, if you want to introduce yourself and your business, and maybe a little bit about how you came to do what you do now.
Emma Tessler:
Yeah, absolutely. So I'm Emma Tesslar, the founder of 95 Media, we work with scaling brands to help them begin to monetize their digital marketing, with a whole system and method that we've put together called the 95 media method. And we're really passionate about putting more money in the hands of small business owners, primarily women owned businesses, has always been a big passion. And I mean, it's so funny because I think the best things always happen by the weirdest ways. And this business was definitely no different.
I was actually in college, back in 2015, when I was introduced to the world of digital marketing. If anyone was on Instagram or anything back in 2015, you know that not a lot of brands were really using social media to promote their businesses. And I was working at an internship one summer and the person I was working for was starting a new branch of her business. And I was the youngest person on her team. And so naturally I was handed her phone and she basically said, can you just start this new business for me on Instagram, and see if we can build an audience. And it was at that time when I realized this is such an underutilized space for so many businesses and primarily small businesses who really don't have the reach of a bigger brand and don't have the financial means to be running a ton of ads or to, you know, have the connections or network that would help them build a brand faster when social media was sitting there kind of being like, Hey, guys, you know, I can help you do this.
So that was when I was really introduced to the field. But like I said, I was in college and I was actually going to school for interior design. And so I graduated, wanted to put my degree to work and so I worked as an interior designer in Manhattan for four years before leaving that to fully pursue 95 Media, and it was such a scary transition, anyone who's left a nine to five to do your own business, you know what I'm talking about, it's the scariest thing to leave behind a quote unquote stable job. But honestly, I think it's the best thing you can do when you find that passion for yourself, is to really go after it with everything you have, and see if you can make it work. And since I've left my nine to five, we've grown so significantly fast and large. And it's been such a fun journey, even just to this point. Because we've been able to help so many small businesses with growing their brands through digital marketing. And it's, it's truly what I love, and I'm so passionate about.
Lauren Tilden:
It totally agree with that, like when you find what lights you up, just kind of go Go for it. And I can totally hear your passion for what you do in your voice. So that's really fun to witness. I was curious, you, I just heard you mentioned the 95 Medium method. What is that?
Emma Tessler:
Yeah, so it's our four part system of just kind of breaking down our clients goals when they come to us. So understanding their long term goals, figuring out a strategy, implementing, and then doing an analysis on the results that have come in from what we've implemented. And it's the system that we put together, because so many times so often, I'm seeing people like our clients will come to us, and they'll have worked with social media managers in the past or digital marketing team. And it wasn't successful for them. And so we tried to sit and analyze, what was the reason that this didn't work for our clients in the past. And usually what it's come down to is that their team either wasn't, you know, fully integrated into their big picture vision, or they just weren't utilizing the correct strategies for their brand. And so what we like to do is, with our method, look at their long term vision, and then work backwards from that by creating a strategy with specific steps that need to be taken in order for them to hit that end goal, and then consistently look at the numbers behind the scenes to make sure that that's really working for them.
Lauren Tilden:
I love that. Yeah, and I think you're focused on the long term vision is, it just reminds me of something that comes up on this podcast all the time, which is intention. I think a lot of times with marketing in particular, it's really easy to get overwhelmed with what everyone's telling you you need to be doing and the strategies and the tactics and reels and you know, like, whatever is new, and not spend the really important time and energy that it takes to invest in what what do I want out of this? Like, what am I hoping that all of these marketing efforts I'm doing will result in so applying that intention up front, I think is so so critical. And it seems really simple. But it's it's actually something that I would say most people kind of overlook, and they just jump right in.
Emma Tessler:
Yeah, yeah. Because if you don't know your end goal, then how do you know where to begin? You know?
Lauren Tilden:
Right, right. Yeah. So let's dig into Instagram stories. This is something that when you mentioned was a talking point of yours, I was excited to hear more about because you talk specifically about using Instagram Stories for sales and generating real business results. So let's talk a little bit about stories. Why is this a good place to make sales?
Emma Tessler:
I think the foundation of stories is that this is the best place to go and connect with your audience. Because when we go to stories, we're looking for that real life view into into what is really happening behind the scenes. You know, when we look at someone's feed, we know that this is curated, we know that there's filters and there's editing, and you've written that caption and gone back and change it a few times. But when you go on to stories, you are expecting more of that raw, real and authentic version of this person that you're following. And when we think about marketing in a with a bigger lens, it is all about human to human connection, and people buy from people and so at the end of the day, when someone goes to your story, they're much more likely going to build trust and connection with you here rather than looking at your feed content. And so that is really why we turn to stories to meet sales, rather than our feed, our feed really lives is that evergreen version of our brand. But when we look at stories, it's more of let me give you a glimpse into my life and build a deeper connection with you just as a human connecting with another human
Lauren Tilden:
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And you answered my next question a little bit already, but maybe just to back up a little bit Instagram, a lot of people describe it as like many platforms. I don't know if it's five or six by now in one. So you've talked about stories is a place to make sales to really have that human to human connection, which is, I agree the basis of good marketing. How would you describe the other places on Instagram and like what their function is? So if we're thinking about stories as a place to, you know, build that connection, and then have a relationship and build some trust with our audience, and ultimately sell? How would you approach things like the feed, reels, live video, different platforms are different than other different sort of elements of Instagram?
Emma Tessler:
I think it has to go back to how are people consuming that content. So when we approach reels, we're approaching them with a very different lens than you would approach going live with. So with reels in particular, people are looking for entertainment, and entertainment has to be a pillar of all of our content in at this point in time, with the way that consumer trends are moving, because we go to social to be entertained more than anything. And the way that that converts to sales is when we have that trust as an underlying factor to our content. But if we're creating reels that would be strictly entertainment. So that's, you know, your quick short format content gets a point across, and is more so funny than anything.
When we look at our feed that is, like I said, kind of our evergreen, evergreen brand view, right. That's what we want people to go and learn about what our brand stands for the offers that we have, our unique positioning, etc. And then when we go live, that is our long form content. And typically, you're going to save your live into an IGTV, which would live on your feed. And so you want to approach your live in terms of what is longer, bigger picture that I want to dive into and provide a piece of content that is something that would be watched over time, rather than like a quick hit, as someone would watch a real and consume and in that way. Lives of course, you're also answering people, so it's more interactive.
So I think it's, it's really interesting when we look at all of the features that Instagram and again, we're looking at one app in particular here, which is so funny, because you know, there's all these different features on every app. But if you look at Instagram, specifically, they've given you so many options and ways to connect with your audience. And the app and the algorithm really want you utilizing all of them. Because they know that when a user is has the option to consume content in multiple ways, they're going to stay on the app longer. And so rather than like putting all of your energy into reels, I would definitely suggest testing out all of the different ways of creating content on each app, because they're always going to favor content, or they're always going to favor accounts, who are creating content in multiple ways and using all the features that they have available.
Lauren Tilden:
So good yes, and I want to get back to stories, but my my, my brain is spinning because I know a lot of my listeners, myself included are a little bit hesitant to do live like lives live video, like Facebook Live or Instagram Live or whatever it is, even showing their face on Instagram Stories can sometimes feel like out of their comfort zone. Much I know that we are definitely recommending people make an attempt to do that. But beyond that, like what tips do you have for people in terms of going live on Instagram? Both in terms of like, how do you create an Instagram Live video that is engaging and that gets people interested and really serves the purpose? But also, how do we, I don't know build the confidence? Or do you have any mindset tips or tricks to help people kind of get over that? Maybe nervousness or apprehension that they might have?
Emma Tessler:
For sure. I think going live is scary for everyone at first, that is definitely a common experience. Even for someone who utilizes lives all the time, it's always going to feel a bit more vulnerable than any other type of content. I would definitely suggest getting on stories a ton before you get on a live. Because just getting comfortable seeing your face on camera I think is number one obstacle for most people. So I would get on stories get comfortable seeing yourself there and then do a short live to begin. You can pick a topic and write out notes for yourself, you know, make this easy as possible. And pick something that you know you want to talk through, don't bank on people showing up and asking questions. The very first time that I went live, I shared it was my audience. And I said, Hey, do you have any questions for me to answer during this live? And I got a few questions before I went live. And that really helped kind of outline the conversation that I was going to walk through. So that I had talking points to go through, I knew that they were answering questions that would be valuable to my audience. And then I was able to answer more as they came in while I was live. But I think what people get tripped up on the most with alive is that they're expecting all of these people to show up and all these people to be super engaged and ask all these questions. And unfortunately, that doesn't always happen. And so I think as entrepreneurs, we just have to be prepared for all scenarios was included.
Lauren Tilden:
Yeah, and I think it's important to remember that you're not just talking to the people who show up live like, particularly if you repurpose it as an Instagram TV or an IGTV, or it just lives on your profile little like, I don't know how long live videos stay around. I should know that's probably but
Emma Tessler:
they stay like in your circle for 24 hours. But if you save it as an IG TV, then it's on your feed for forever.
Lauren Tilden:
Okay, right. So 24 hours, or, or more, if it's an IGFT. But yeah, so your recording, when you're talking live, most of the people who watch it are not going to be there live, but they'll gonna see it later. So, you know, show up for them to not just the people who do or don't show up to the live recording.
Emma Tessler:
Exactly. Great point.
Lauren Tilden:
Okay, let's jump back into stories. So most of my listeners, I would say, two thirds to three quarters of my listeners are product based business owners, so a lot of makers, like people who make ceramics or jewelry or stationery, who are looking to scale a product based business. So what tips would you have specifically for product based business owners to use their stories to generate sales.
Emma Tessler:
There's so many ways to go about this. And it's so interesting, because the way you approach your marketing for product based businesses is so different than service based. So I love that your audience is mainly in this one industry, I think the first thing we always have to recognize as business owners is that it might feel like your story as the founder, isn't that interesting. I think we all kind of have this imposter syndrome about our own story. But the reality is that your audience is going to connect most deeply with your story as the founder, more so than any product you will ever put out. And I can say this with confidence, because many of our clients are in the product based world. And the common that consistently performs well across all industries is that founder story, and really just the story of the company. So number one, I would highly encourage talking about your story. Again, going back to humans buy from humans, that is what's going to build really deep connection.
Number two, of course, we have to show your products. And the best way to do so is in action. And so what I mean by this is if it is something that is usable, which most products are I would show it being used. So if it's a tea, drinking the tea, making the tea, if it's ceramics, making the ceramics, putting it in the oven, painting it, etc. Show how you make it and then how it's used once it's complete. And if you have any user generated content, UGC, integrate that into your content plan and your feed, because what this does is it shows the consumer, hey, other people are buying this product, they're using it, they're loving it, that tells me that I might love it if I buy it as well. It's really powerful to see other people using a product that we're considering. It helps us subconsciously want to buy into this product as well. And even if you don't have this comp as UGC content coming in, I wouldn't make it yourself. You know, have someone on your team, show the product somewhere, I'm doing something with it, and build up your content in that way rather than just using shots or a photo shoot for something that's super, super professional. Because seeing that product being used by someone else is going to be a really big driving factor to your content performing super well.
Lauren Tilden:
I love that. Do you have any recommendations for generating? Like user generated content? Obviously, we hope that people will just do it on their own. But how can we kind of encourage people to create content about our products?
Emma Tessler:
Yeah, I think giveaways or contests are great way to encourage people to submit content like this. Where you could say, you know, take a shot, if of the of the product in the store that you see it in or show us say, it's like a bath bomb or something. That's the product, you know, show us your favorite bath bomb, like you dropping it into the water or something like that, and then submit the video for to enter the contest. People love winning things. And so whether that's a free product, or it's a discount code, I think that's a really great way to incentivize people to submit UGC.
Lauren Tilden:
Fun, fun, fun. Anything else you want to say about using stories to generate sales?
Emma Tessler:
I think the biggest thing that I see is everyone is so hesitant about coming across as salesy. And that holds back a lot of business owners from getting on stories and really promoting their offer. And it's so hard to watch, because I've been there myself. But I think the it's a really big mindset shift when you start getting on stories and really utilizing them to sell your product. Because you start talking about your product day in day out, it's feels like you're saying it a million times. But we have to remember that people are not consuming every piece of content that we create, we are the only ones consuming every single piece of content that we create. And that saying your messaging over and over again is part of that sales process. So I would just encourage anyone who hasn't gotten on stories before to sell or if you are starting to enter that process, to not be afraid to say the same thing over and over again, and to not be afraid about coming across as salesy, because at the end of the day, if someone is following your business account, they should expect to be sold to. And we assume that they're there to buy into whatever we are selling. And it's it's a significant and powerful mindset shift once we realize that.
Lauren Tilden:
Yeah, that's a really great point. Awesome, awesome. Awesome, I'm inspired. Let's move on to the next thing I wanted to chat with you about, which is you recommend three content pillars for creating connection and selling your products. Before we jump into what they are, could you first describe what a content pillar is for anyone who may be new to the podcast and hasn't heard that before? And then then let us know what your three top recommended ones are for connection and felling?
Emma Tessler:
Absolutely. So content pillars are essentially the driving factor behind each piece of content. And oftentimes, when we feel stuck around creating content, it's because we don't have a pillar behind it. It's because we're just trying to create content to create it. And so we use three content pillars behind, but you choose one of the three content pillars by every piece of content. And it truly makes content creation so easy. A very seamless process, because you always have these three pillars to fall back on. Some people recommend every brand picks different content pillars. So for my brand, which is a digital marketing agency, I might pick, you know, Instagram tips, content creation, and, you know, business development type of like entrepreneurship. However, I don't think that that's broad enough, I think you're really kind of pigeon holing yourself when you do that. So what I suggest is using the three content, pillars of education, validation and vulnerability, to guide all of your content. So what that means is, if you're posting three times a week, you essentially post one educational piece of content, one piece that's validating, and one piece that's vulnerable. And these three factors, these three pillars really come together and build a deep connection with your audience. Encourage them to buy into your offer, and build your online brand presence, because they're really kind of just hitting home for audience members, all the things that we're looking for us consumers. You know, as consumers, we're looking to be educated about a brand and a product. We're looking to be validated in our own experience. And we're looking for the vulnerability that humanize aspect of the brand to shine through as well. And so when we pick one of these brand pillars, content pillars behind each piece that we're putting out, you really can do no wrong.
Lauren Tilden:
Yeah, I love the just, I guess again, intentionality around like, what? What purpose? Is this post achieving? Is it educating? Is it validating? Or is it, you know, creating that human connection by being a little bit vulnerable? How do you come up with so I guess, let's dig into each of these a tiny bit. Education is is pretty clear to me. So you know, whatever your ideal customer needs to know about using your product or styling tips, or you know, how to how you make it, story of the brand, whatever it is, I do want to dig a little bit will correct me if I'm wrong there, and then dig a little bit more into the what are the validation and vulnerable type posts? What do those look like?
Emma Tessler :
Yeah, so you know, education, I think there's so many different ways you can go about it, there really are a lot of different angles, right? You could do education about the product itself, or education about how it's made or education on how to use it, you know, there's a lot of different angles. When it comes to validation. I think this is one of the most interesting types of content, because we don't always think to create content like this. But when we're creating validating content, it's like I said before validating the experience that our consumer is having. So say, my product is tea and a piece of validating content for a tea brand might be saying, Hey, listen, I know you love your morning coffee, it's the best thing you wake up to every day, you go to bed, excited to make your cup of coffee in the morning, I get it. It's like an amazing part of every single day of the week. But what if you tried having green tea instead of your coffee, here are some benefits about green tea that you might not know about. It has a similar amount of caffeine. So you're still going to get your morning fix. But it will help you alleviate that adrenal fatigue that you're having, because of all this coffee that you're consuming. So that is almost combining educational and validating content together. But it's mainly validating, because we're saying I understand your experience, but what if you tried this instead, and we're providing them with a solution and that solution is our product.
Now vulnerable content is kind of a different angle, where we are getting vulnerable ourselves. So this is where you would tell your brand story, this is where you are really showing up as a human, you talk about yourself building the brand, maybe some struggles that you've had along the way, how you've overcome them. Maybe vulnerability about creating your products. And that tells a bit about the story of the brand. Vulnerable content is really there to build a deep connection with our audience. More than anything, and so it's really important to kind of strip away the layers when you're creating vulnerable content. And just hit post because it's going to feel a little bit uncomfortable, especially at the beginning. But this vulnerable content I guarantee is going to perform very very well. Because people connect to other people's stories.
Lauren Tilden:
Love, yeah, so good. Um, okay, this is this is the meat for me of this of this conversation, which is all about consistency. Social media, there's so much information out there about how much we should be posting or what we should, quote unquote, should be doing that it's really easy to kind of I think bite off more than you can chew set up this like whole elaborate plan of what you're going to be committing to in terms of your social media. And then you might do it for a few days and kind of fall off the bandwagon. I know that for me in particular consistency is a big struggle. Candidly, with social media more than any other marketing platform. What would you say about this? I think um, I know that a lot of my listeners relate to this problem of just wanting to be consistent and show up frequently and reliably on social media but not always doing it. So how, how do we tackle this problem?
Emma Tessler:
Absolutely. You are definitely not alone in that whatsoever. I also struggle with that too. In terms of creating content for my own brand. It can feel really overwhelming if you're the only person creating content because there is a lot of content that's needed. You know, we were talking about like all the different features on just Instagram before, there's so many ways you could be creating content, so many platforms you could be creating content for. And I think the most important thing is to create a plan for yourself. I know you mentioned, like creating a plan, but not really sticking to it. And I think it has to be realistic for each of us. And that's going to look different for everyone too, but if you can only create three posts per week, and you know, we're like, okay, I three posts, I can do, but when you may get four, it's an absolute hard no, then just start with three, start with one or whatever you can commit to, and then just build from there.
I will say, every single client that 95 Media works with has this exact same problem, they come to us and they say, I'm just so overwhelmed. Marketing is the thing that falls off, I know this has to be happening, I know that this could be helping us so much. And so my suggestion, once you have a plan for yourself, and you're you're starting to get in the groove of things, is to consider outsourcing if you have the financial means to, because the reality is that we're not all good at content creation, you know, you didn't start a brand to create content every single day. And I truly don't believe everyone should be creating content every day. And to have the option to outsource is a wonderful investment. I think I personally have someone on our team helped me with our content, because it's just not possible for me to do everything every single day, just like every business owner out there.
So if you can't outsource, I definitely suggest doing that. But if you're doing it yourself, the best way to do it would be to batch your content. If you're creating content currently, every single day, I'm so sorry. Because I would never want to be doing that myself. And I am a content creator. So what I mean when I say batching your content is to sit down at the beginning of the month and look at the upcoming month calendar. Say, you know, if you're creating, you can commit to creating three posts a week, map out your calendar is that Monday, Wednesday, Friday is that Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, what does that look like for you, and then pop in content ideas, three posts a week for a month is 12 pieces of content. If that's all you can make them do that. But consistency really is so important, especially when it comes to the algorithm and building an audience that's super engaged. So if you can only create 12 posts per month, get them on the calendar and batch them out. I think I would definitely just suggest starting there if you're doing it all yourself.
Lauren Tilden:
Yeah, great recommendation. And I love the point, I just want to reiterate that consistency, it sounds like you're saying consistency is more important when it comes to the algorithm then like posting a flood of five posts every day in a row and then disappearing for a week. So yeah, you know, if you can only post once a week, or let's say four posts in a month, like that, hopefully would be the minimum. Do it once per week, not four days in a row and then silent for 26 days, you know, so I love the the reminder that the yeah, the consistency part is more important than the frequency part.
Emma Tessler:
Yeah, I definitely would suggest more than four posts per month. Right. That being said, if that's what you can do, then get it done, you know, however you need to. But just remember, I mean social media and your digital marketing as a whole is there to support you. And so I really would try and figure out what that looks like for you in order to become more consistent and more frequent with that content. Because it truly is how you're going to connect with the future customers of your brand. And so we want to do everything we can to give that as much of a focus as you are to your current customers as well.
Lauren Tilden:
Yeah, so let's talk about you mentioned, for some people, it might be the right move to consider outsourcing. I bet that sounds great to a lot of people, but I think it also sounds expensive. So what'd I just in terms of outsourcing social media? What does that landscape look like? Like? What does it normally mean? Are people creating all the content for you? Are they setting the strategy? Are you kind of handing them a strategy? What would the general like cost range be for people considering that? Do you just any kind of like overall, like what does it look like to outsource your social media? Maybe not with your agency in particular if you don't want to share that, but just overall, like what does that landscape look like?
Emma Tessler:
Yeah, I mean, I can only speak to you specifically to what our agency does, but I would think that what we do is fairly commonplace, we probably take it to another level, not everyone takes it too because we've been in business for six years. But generally, if you are hiring a social media manager or digital marketer to come on to your team, and just support you with your marketing efforts in a product based business, and there's kind of two options in terms of content creation, I know that that was one of your questions. So either you would provide them with photography and video that you would have from a shoot that you've done. Or you would send them your product in order to shoot the content themselves, it might be a bit of a mix, for a lot of our product companies that we work with, we do a mix of both because we are creating so much content for them specifically, short form content like reels or Tik Toks. We're making that for our clients, ourselves. But I would assume that you would share everything that you have with whoever you've hired.
Typically, when we sign someone a new client, we're asking you to send us all of your assets. And we'll just kind of go through pick the things that we know are going to perform best on each platform. From there, your social media manager should be writing your captions and sending it to you for review. Part of our onboarding process with any client is a is a brand voice questionnaire as well as a an ideal client questionnaire. Because getting this information from you, as the business owner is really, really important for anyone who's going to be creating content for you, in order to capture the essence of the brand. And oftentimes, I hear that people are scared to outsource this, because they're worried that their brand voice won't be picked up in the same way that they currently emulate it. And so it's really important to provide whoever you've hired with as much information as possible about your brand voice and about the audience that you're really trying to target in order to set them up for success as much as possible, and have them do their best work.
In terms of strategy, we create custom strategies for every single client. Because like we touched on in the beginning of the call, if if your end goal is different than someone else's, which is very likely that it will be, your strategy should be very different because you're working towards different goals. So we use the 95 Media method to really curate a custom strategy for each client, and then begin to create content based on that strategy, get it out there. And then the most important piece, in my opinion about management is the engagement. And this is something that typically falls to the wayside for every brand who's running social media themselves. And if they remember to get up the content, they do it and they're so happy. But then you forget to stay in the account and actually engage with the audience that you built. And it's so crucial to be engaging with your audience and really nurturing the people who are currently there was replying back to comments, replying to DMS, reaching out and connecting via DMS with past customers checking in with them, doing outreach to new potential audience members and customers as well. And so that engagement is included in all of our packages, because it is such an essential piece to building your brand presence and online visibility.
And the last big piece of our packages is a weekly Analytics report. And if you're just posting a post, you're probably not looking at your analytics. But it is such a crucial piece to understand how your content is actually performing. So we review and go through the analytics for our clients accounts every single week, so that they don't have to we send this report with a quick breakdown. So every clients in the know. And I would expect that from any agency that you work with that they're providing you with the numbers to just show you, hey, you know this is working. This isn't. And here's how we're adjusting for next week, because you want to make sure that whoever you're working with is not just creating content, but really on top of how is this content doing and is it working for you?
Lauren Tilden:
Amazing. It sounds amazing. Like that sounds pretty comprehensive. Do you have any rough range of like pricing what people could expect to like if they were to be doing outsourcing their social to the extent that you just described where there's the strategy, there's the engagement, there's a creating the content, like really kind of soup to nuts, everything. What kind of range, maybe I don't know if it's a monthly would people be looking at.
Emma Tessler:
So honestly, every price point is custom based on the platforms and the number of posts per week, right. So it's difficult to give like a pinpoint. But I would suggest or say that you can expect probably a four figure price point at a minimum for everything I just described. And truthfully, it depends on who you go with, you know, if you go with someone newer, it's going to be a lower price point, but you might not get the support and the results that you might ultimately be looking for when it could be a jumping off point for you. Our price points are four figure, and they range wildly based on the deliverables. And I would just suggest, you know, if you've been doing your content yourself for a while, and you're saying yourself, I am really ready to start seeing results, I would go with someone who has more experience and might be a bit of a higher price point because they're going to deliver those results for you, rather than kind of spinning your wheels at someone who might need more guidance on your end might never feel like you've fully handed it off, because that person might be a little bit newer, and you might with them, because they're just a lower price point. You know what I mean?
Lauren Tilden:
Yeah, I hear you that is helpful, though, just the general sense of pricing. Well, I think that's a great option for people who have the resources. But I think we've also talked about a lot of amazing strategy if you are still doing it yourself. One last question on outsourcing. Let's say you've outsourced it completely to an agency like 95 Media, what is your level of involvement on your social accounts? At that point? Like, are you still doing stories or like, responding to comments? Or is it usually like you just kind of completely let go?
Emma Tessler:
It really looks different for everyone and every business owner, you know, some business owners just want nothing to do with their social. And so that's why they come to us or may decide to outsource. But I would highly suggest, and I suggest this and guide our clients through this process, that you as the business owner, do still get on stories, it is so crucial to see a human face on stories. And, you know, as I said, a million times, building that human connection is everything when you're marketing. So as a business owner, definitely continue getting on stories, even when you outsource your content creation, and make as many reels as you possibly can. But turn to the person that you've outsourced to and say what should I be doing, you know, sometimes they the person you've outsourced to might say, you know, we've got it this week, we have all of our stories planned out, we've got it taken care of, and other weeks, or if you just are newly launching something, there's going to be different periods when your involvement will be more important. So I would just turn to the person that you've outsourced to, and ask for their guidance on that because they would be the best person to tell you when to pop on and when to pop off. But I would think that your involvement in your overall marketing would decrease by probably 80%.
Lauren Tilden:
Nice. Sounds great. Okay, well, I'm sure we have a lot of listeners considering outsourcing after this point, because social media is just a lot. And I agree with you that it's not probably everyone's the best use of their time and emotional energy, I think it can, it can be heavy and weigh us down and make us feel like we're not doing everything we'd like to be doing. So I love all the conversation we had here about how to use social and also getting like some tips on getting more consistent. But I think there are going to be a lot of people who outsourcing is a great option for so thank you for walking us through what that might look like. What I would love to know for you, how do you approach doing good through your small business?
Emma Tessler:
Honestly, doing good as outlined and being conscious of what we do as a small business has always been really important to us. And I think the biggest way we do this is by working with other female entrepreneurs and being so passionate about working with other female entrepreneurs in particular is helping them make more money because even with this humongous wave of entrepreneurship that we're currently writing, and so many entrepreneurs being women at this point, I think there's just never enough female entrepreneurs who are making a huge splash with your business and you have humongous companies. I think it's 2% of all female business that female owned businesses are making over a million dollars, which is wild. So I think helping more female owned brands hit that number is just like a guiding pillar for us. And thankfully, the work that we do helps them accomplish that goal.
Lauren Tilden:
What is one small business that you admire?
Emma Tessler:
So there's this one company that's actually local to me called Organic Olivia, um, she is an herbalist and I'm one of those people who when I get sick, I hate taking medicine. I will take every herb in the book akinesia, goldenseal, elderberry, all the things. And she is just such a great resource for herbal medicine. And she has products that she sells on her website and her social is just prime, I highly suggest following, it's beautiful.
Lauren Tilden:
Awesome, great. So that is new to me, I'm excited to explore what is one business book or more than one, if you have it that you would recommend?
Emma Tessler:
I was actually just reading, rereading, Crushing It by Gary Vaynerchuk. I read it a couple of years ago when I was considering building 95 Media a bit more. And it was so it was such a kick in the butt in terms of just start doing it, it has amazing tips in it for small businesses. And rereading it just like this past week has was such a great experience because it really drove home how important it is to put all you have into your brand show up every single day. And it talks a lot about content and how to build a brand. It's just a fantastic book, I highly recommend it.
Lauren Tilden:
Awesome. That has not been recommended yet. So glad to add that to our list of book recommendations. Finally, I know you have a awesome free resource if you want to mention that a little bit and then share also a little bit about where if people want to learn more about you or connect with you further, where can people kind of continue the relationship with you online?
Emma Tessler:
Yeah, definitely. So we have a free resource that is all about creating Authority building content, something we didn't talk about on today's podcast, but the whole other category in and of itself. Essentially, authority building content helps you emerge as a leader in your niche. And so this free resource provides you with six done for you ideas, done for you posts that you can make that really help drive home, the authority that you have, and the leadership that your brand has in your specific industry. So it's an awesome download, I am sure we will have a link in the show notes. But that's a great resource to turn to. We have our website ninetyfivemedia.co. It's just 95 spelt out, not the numbers, which I know can get confusing. And then our Instagram is ninety.five.media, spelled out. And that is where I'm at every single day. And I'd love to connect on that platform. Amazing.
Lauren Tilden:
Well, thank you Emma so much. You have been such a wealth of information. And I'm I'm looking forward to re listening to this as I added it and take some notes. So thank you for everything you've shared and for just being so generous, generous with your knowledge. It's really great to have you here and yeah, I'm sure the listeners are going to absolutely love this episode.
Emma Tessler:
My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me on.
Lauren Tilden:
Emma, thank you so much for all of the actionable takeaways and guidance I think this episode is going to be a huge help to so many listeners.
You can get all of the details from this episode including the link to Emma's Authority building free resource at makinggoodpodcast.com/99. I know Emma and I would both love to hear from you on Instagram. You can find Emma at ninety.five.media on Instagram. That's all spelled out. And I'm at @LaurenTilden. La u r e n t i l d e n. If you enjoyed this episode, I would so love for you to leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast player and or share it with a friend who would benefit from listening. Thank you for being here and for focusing on making a difference with your small business. Talk to you next time.