Paid social media advertising is one of several ways to scale a business predictably and consistently, yet so many of us struggle with it. Our special guest today, Aric Whiteley with Lockhern Digital, is a search engine marketing and paid social media expert. We are going to talk about paid social media strategy in a way most people overlook.
Join Tim Fitzpatrick and Aric Whiteley for this week’s episode of The Rialto Marketing Podcast!
Watch This Episode
Listen To The Podcast
Subscribe To The Podcast
Read The Transcript Here
Podcast Transcription
Don’t Overlook These Paid Social Media Advertising Strategies
Tim Fitzpatrick
Paid social media advertising is one of several ways to scale a business predictably and consistently. Yet so many of us struggle with it. Our special guest today is a search engine marketing and paid social media expert. We are going to talk about paid social media strategy in a way that so many people overlook. You don't want to miss this. Hi, I am Tim Fitzpatrick with Rialto Marketing, where we believe you must remove your revenue roadblocks to accelerate growth and marketing shouldn't be difficult. Thank you so much for taking the time to tune in. Really excited to have Aric Whiteley with me from Lockhern Digital. Aric, welcome and thanks for being here, man.
Aric Whiteley
Thank you for having me.
Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, I can't wait to dig into this. Before we do so, I want to ask you a few rapid fire questions, help us get to know you. You ready to rock and roll?
Aric Whiteley
Let's do it.
Tim Fitzpatrick
Okay. When you're not working, how do you like to spend your time?
Aric Whiteley
Anywhere that my wife and dog are.
Tim Fitzpatrick
Sounds like a good spot to be, right? What's your hidden talent?
Aric Whiteley
I struggle with this one, I think. Well, in fifth grade, I had a talent show and I performed something called Devil's Ticks, which is like super early 90s weird fad to the tune of Elvis Presley's Hound Dog. If anybody listening knows what Devil's Ticks are, reach out to me because I'd love to have a conversation.
Tim Fitzpatrick
Okay. When we're done today, I'm going to go Google devil sticks.
Aric Whiteley
Yeah. Definitely.
Tim Fitzpatrick
What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given?
Aric Whiteley
Two words, zoom out.
Tim Fitzpatrick
That's a good one. What's one thing about you that surprises people?
Aric Whiteley
That I've been riding a Harley Davidson for over a decade.
Tim Fitzpatrick
I never would have guessed.
Aric Whiteley
I don't look at the type.
Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah. Do you wear leather and have tattoos?
Aric Whiteley
I do have tattoos and I do wear leather. My dad very much looks like the biker type. He's got sleeve tattoos, a lot of black, a lot of Harley Davidson shirts. I'm a little more subtle about it.
Tim Fitzpatrick
Okay, I like it. You're in Connecticut, so I'm assuming wintertime is not a great season for you. Do you have a Viking season?
Aric Whiteley
Yeah. It's usually like midspring to late summer, really.
Tim Fitzpatrick
Okay.
Aric Whiteley
Personal tolerance is if it's below 75, it's cold.
Tim Fitzpatrick
And is there space for your wife or daughter on the back or is this a solo deal?
Aric Whiteley
Actually, you'll be surprised to know my wife has never jumped on the back. It's just been me, very solo.
Tim Fitzpatrick
Cool. I love it. And are you still riding the same Harley that you bought initially or have you upgraded?
Aric Whiteley
No, it's the same one. I will caveat that my father actually bought it for me. He said, if you get your license, I'll get you a bike. He also obviously has one. I've been riding that bike for the 10 years. It's a 1997 soft tail custom and we've done a lot of work on it. It's got big giant eight hangers. It's very cool. I definitely have an alter ego when I'm riding.
Tim Fitzpatrick
Do you ride with your dad most of the time then?
Aric Whiteley
Almost exclusively. I think it's one of those just really cool father son bonding things. We just love getting out there and just being a part of the experience and jumping on the road.
Tim Fitzpatrick
That's awesome. That's something you can share with him like that. You got a lot of treasured memories there, I'm sure.
Aric Whiteley
100 %.
Tim Fitzpatrick
What does success mean to you?
Aric Whiteley
I think it's changed so much over time. I think it is a sliding scale. But at this moment in my life, I think creating a positive work environment where we feel like we're bettering ourselves and our clients.
Tim Fitzpatrick
Where's your happy place?
Aric Whiteley
Nasset Beach in Cape Cod.
Tim Fitzpatrick
Okay. I love it. My dad is from the Cape. He was born in Brewster. I have family in Orleans in Provincetown. Awesome spot, man.
Aric Whiteley
My wife's family has a place in Brewster, so we go there all the time. Nasset Beach is only about maybe a 15, 20 minute ride. And what we like about Nasset Beach is that you can drive over the sand. And if you've never done that before, I would highly, highly recommend it. It's the best type of beach experience I've ever had.
Tim Fitzpatrick
Very cool, man. Small world. What qualities do you value in the people you spend time with?
Aric Whiteley
Honesty and genuineness.
Tim Fitzpatrick
I love it. So before we dig into paid social, tell us a little bit more about what you're doing with Lockhern Digital, types of people you're helping.
Aric Whiteley
Sure. I think at the core of it, we help companies navigate digital marketing. For most businesses, having a strong and effective presence is paramount to modern day success. The reality is that every agency has access to pretty much the same tools and platforms that we have. So it really comes down to who do you want to work with? Throughout my career, I've seen good agencies and great agencies, but I think what I would define us as is an active agency that we go outside the scope to help our clients grow.
Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, I like that. It's finding the right fit, not only for the client, but for the agency and making sure that it's a right fit in both directions is so important. I think a lot of people overlook that and I think it impacts the relationship long term.
Aric Whiteley
Yeah, I agree. My co founders and I have been in the industry for 12 plus years. We've worked at small agencies, we've worked client side, we've worked at some of the largest agencies in the world in New York City. And ultimately, we spun up a new agency about three years ago, and we feel like we're giving that high level expertise experience. We've been in the room with big CEOs, CMOs, and we're delivering all of those learnings, all that strategy on a smaller scale right now because obviously we're not a super large agency. So I think that's what really differentiates us at this stage.
How to Best Leverage Each Social Platform with Paid Ads
Tim Fitzpatrick
I love it. Let's dig into it, man. So how can we best leverage each social platform with paid ads? And the biggest ones that come to mind for me, Facebook, obviously, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, some Twitter. Are there any others that were missing there?
Aric Whiteley
I think the other ones that come to mind that might be left off that list would be Reddit. I think those have a ton of sub communities that in some cases are very industry specific. I think B2B is inherently more difficult than B2C because the customer journey is not typical. B2C is very much I want something, I buy it, I get it delivered. For businesses, it's more of a longer consideration process depending on what you're selling. 100 million in drilling equipment or $100 in paper. They all require their own process. When I think about social as leveraging each social platform with paid ads, it's like putting up a billboard at a go cart track, if you think of it that way. Because what is social inherently doing? It's primarily, maybe with the exception of LinkedIn, an entertainment space. People go there to not think about business, which is with the amount of burnout and layoffs and everything going on, I think that inserting yourself into someone's outside of workflow can be very difficult to manage. However, I think it's incredibly important. I think there's really smart and effective ways to continue to be a part of that process and be a part of those people outside of potentially work hours. Firstly, I think the most important thing is I think that there's room to remarket on every single platform. So remarketing, for those who don't know, is just people who have engaged with your website and engage with you in some form or fashion, and then deliver ads on the platform. So basically targeting, say, Hey, anybody who's been on our website, I want to show them an ad. And you can get really specialized with that. But at a high level, almost all of your customers or potential customers are going to interact with some social media in the next few days. So having the opportunity to engage with them, build yourself, build your brand up, humanize your brand, is where I think the value is, at least just fundamentally. And I think that goes for all B2B businesses. I truly do believe that. Does that make sense, Tim?
Tim Fitzpatrick
So I was going to say, with B2B, they're not going on to the social platforms to buy. So we really are interrupting what they're doing. Are there specific types of offers we should be thinking about or ads we should be thinking about in the B2B space? It's different than e-commerce. Sometimes you might grab somebody's attention and get them to go buy something with e-commerce. But with B2B, what types of things should we be thinking about from an ad perspective or an offer perspective that may be more relevant?
Aric Whiteley
Sure. Yeah. So I think that talks... Let's speak a little bit more to the creative side of it.
Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah. Okay. Got it.
Aric Whiteley
Is my preference because there's two big things in social. There's the targeting and then there's the creative. When we talk about what type of offers, what type of ads to put into social, I think it can depend a lot by the channel. So I think for LinkedIn, you're going to get... That's where most people go for B2B, right? When you think about it, the first thing you think about is LinkedIn. The success that we found there is providing that business level white paper content, maybe gated content, sharing industry news, trying to engage with your customers in an effective way there because that's the expectation. I think that's important to realize, what is the expectation when you get onto LinkedIn versus TikTok versus Instagram? What are people expecting? I think when we can deliver on expectations, we can put ads in front of individuals on LinkedIn that drive to the core value. If you're selling $100 million in equipment, drilling equipment, maybe there's a case study, perhaps there's a piece of content, white paper that people can fill out that form, capture that information into your CRM, and then your sales team or your marketing efforts can help nurture that individual. That's what we see work really well on LinkedIn. Where it becomes a lot more open ended is on the more stronger entertainment mediums like TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. And I think that's what people are getting wrong. I think a lot of clients are using LinkedIn methodology. Hey, we're a business, we should be talking about business stuff across all channels. And I don't think that works. And as I was thinking about this conversation, I came up with a very simple way of putting it that might confuse people and might not. But it's stand out by fitting it. And what I mean by that is know where you're going. You don't want to go to a concert wearing all MHL Jersey stuff. Think about where you're going, think about what you're doing. And for Instagram and Facebook, what is the primary goal there? It's to entertain, it's to stand out, it's to capture engagement, keep comments and likes and shares. It's not necessarily to drive B2B sales. So I think doing something as simple as thinking a little bit out of the box, use this opportunity on Instagram or Facebook or even TikTok to let your hair down a little bit as a brand. And I know that some industries might feel a little bit uncomfortable with that, but humanize it. They're going on to Instagram to see other humans and other things doing things. So when you approach it like a robot, you approach it like a business, people are very quickly to just thumb right through. So you have to think about what's going to be a creative way to engage with my customers. And I think a very simple way to do this, I don't see a lot of people doing, but when they do it, it usually hits, is even a simple meme. Something that's industry accepted, where you balance the trendiness, the virality of something that's being shared in a different context and making it your own to your industry. I think people can resonate that because it humanizes a problem or solution in the industry and is very engaging and shareable on other medias. Does that make sense, Tim?
Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, it makes sense. Well, to me, it's about figuring out how you're going to be able to grab their attention. And have it be appropriate for that particular platform. You shared a ton of information in there. One of the things that I think a lot of people overlook that you touched on and a great way to leverage the social platforms is through remarketing. Somebody's already raised their hand and expressed interest. They've been to your website. Now you want to continue to try and build the relationship and continue to add value to those people, and we can remarket them on various platforms. And in most cases, correct me if I'm wrong, I'm more of a strategist than a tactician, remarketing tends to be more cost effective than straight up cold traffic, does it not?
Aric Whiteley
Of course it is. It's like selling to somebody that's on the lot to buy a car versus somebody that's driving 50 miles away and seeing a billboard ad for the low end of the dealer.
Tim Fitzpatrick
Got it. So that's definitely a great way for us to leverage the interest that we already have. So I love that. Anything else that we should consider from a leverage standpoint?
Aric Whiteley
Well, I know we talked a lot about creative. I think at a high level, though, I think thinking about targeting and segmenting your customers in a way that makes sense. I think we touched on a great one where we really hammer down the remarketing value. So you can have a campaign or have an ad set that targets just those individuals. And depending on what they've done, you can have creative that supports that. For instance, just a simple example would be somebody went to their website, did nothing else, and now we have an ad that targets individuals that have been to the website and it's a download or it's a white paper or it's a contact form or something. We can also talk a little bit about prospecting because marketers segment those two individuals, cold traffic versus warm. That's a very common way to think about it. Cold being somebody who's never had a touch point with your business yet. So I think social is... Although iOS 14.5 in the privacy has changed the landscape quite a bit in terms of what the social platforms can and can't see about an individual, targeting is still very important, holistically. Location, what their interests are. And you can break this down in a very formulated way to see, are there particular audiences that are working best to get people involved, engaged, and get to your website and make an action? So I think there's a couple of different ways that you can really structure, depending on where they are in the journey, right? To go out there and be your brand, right? Get in front of those individuals and capture some eyeballs.
Tim Fitzpatrick
Thank you for bringing that up, Aric. That was something that I was thinking about, and I lost the thought. And when I asked you the question, you brought it back up, so thank you. That, to me, is one of the huge benefits with social... Frankly, we should all be focusing on this with any of our marketing, targeting, and segmenting. Too many of us are trying to target broadly. I see this all the time as a marketing consultant and when we're working with clients as an outsourced chief marketing officer or VP of marketing, everything starts from a strategic standpoint. You've got to understand who your ideal clients are and have really as much data as you can about them. Because the more you have, the easier it's going to be to identify where they are. And when you're doing things like paid ads on social, targeting as much as you possibly can. Some of the targeting has changed, especially with Facebook and Instagram over the last year and a half or so. Not as robust as it used to be, but you still have a lot of opportunities. You also touched on Reddit. Man, Reddit, there are so many different subreddit groups out there. You don't want to go in and start putting ads up for a small business group when you know that you want to work with attorneys or accountants or IT consultants, go find that specific group, fish where the fish are. So thank you for bringing that up because they're going to get much, much better returns the better they can target.
Aric Whiteley
Completely agreed.
PUSH THROUGH YOUR REVENUE ROADBLOCKS!
Get the outside eyes and feedback you need to get on the right path with your marketing.
Gain clarity and understanding. You'll leave your discovery call knowing where to focus your marketing efforts right now to get the best return on your investment.
How to use Paid Social to Meet People at Different Phases of the Customer Journey
Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, awesome. You started to touch on this. How can we use paid social to meet people at different phases in the customer journey? When we talk about the customer journey, for those of you that aren't familiar with that, I just think of the customer journey as the experience that somebody has from the minute they think about working with a company like yours all the way through buying and doing repeat and referral business. That's how I think of it. Do you think of it in a slightly different way or do you think I'm on track?
Aric Whiteley
No, I think, I would add on a little. I think for us, we think about it a little just one notch earlier too, is people who have never experienced your business, so you want to make sure that our buildings?
Tim Fitzpatrick
Yes. People that have a problem that you can help them solve.
Aric Whiteley
Correct.
Tim Fitzpatrick
Are they doing when they realize they have that problem? And then working all the way through that.
Aric Whiteley
Yes. Exactly. And I think my co founder and I, we grew up in the search department, the paid search department, where our customer journey, especially as it comes to intent, is very transparent. For instance, I said somebody's searching best golf drivers today and then tomorrow paying G 430 driver, you can tell exactly where they're at in the customer journey. And I use that because the Masters is going on right now.
Tim Fitzpatrick
Yes.
Aric Whiteley
It was a topical answer.
Tim Fitzpatrick
Well, no, it's a good example because with paid search, unlike paid social, with paid search, you can target very specific keywords that identify where they are in the buying process. The first keyword, they want to buy a driver, but they're not quite sure what the heck driver they should be looking at. The second one, they've identified that the ping is one that they're really thinking about and they're trying to get more information on it. So it's one step, next step, next step. And with paid search, you can do that. With paid social, it's different.
Aric Whiteley
It's much different because you don't have... Well, currently, you don't have that level of insight into the behaviors or what people are searching. They're not searching on the platform typically. The exception of TikTok, which we can go in deeper, which is I think going to be explosive for that as long as the government keeps that an active app. But I think how do you translate, how do you take the search logic on the customer journey and apply it there? And I think it's a couple of things. One, number one is setting up your campaigns like we talked about from a prospecting or a cold or warm audience. And when you're going in front of people who have no potential or assumed understanding what your brand is or what it solves, you're putting out content there, whether it's video, you're putting out image, you're putting out anything. And what you want to do is look at the right metrics. And the right metrics, so what I mean by that is who's watching your video 50 % or more? Who has clicked on your ad? And then you're bringing them into your funnel. So now you're directionally organizing the customer journey to figure out where these individuals are in the process. And as we talked about much a lot in the remarketing is, did this person just go to the website or did they actually fill out a form? And if they fill out a form, that's incredibly more deeper into the journey than somebody who's just been to the website or just watched the % of your ad. So you really have to think about the metrics that matter and then apply a strategy that helps nurture those throughout the funnel.
Tim Fitzpatrick
So here's what I'm hearing you say. I want to make sure I get this right. Sure. We need to use the right metrics to help identify where that person is in their journey. So on the front end, we're identifying, did they watch a certain amount of a video? They've moved, they've taken the next step. So once we've identified they've taken the next step based on the metrics we're going to track, then we're going to be serving a different a different type of ad that helps them take the next step and the next step. The key is identifying the right metrics at each phase to identify where they are in the process.
Aric Whiteley
Elegantly put, that's exactly right.
Tim Fitzpatrick
Awesome.
Aric Whiteley
What I love about social is that Facebook and TikTok and Instagram will allow you to target individuals that watched up to a certain % of your video. So it becomes this very easy way to start segmenting potentially qualified from unqualified audiences. And that's another form of remarketing, right? They've engaged with you in some capacity. So when I think about the importance of remarketing, they don't even have to get to your website yet, but they can have just engaged with your ad. They could have shared it. They could have commented it. They could have watched it a certain amount of time. And those are the types of very start of the customer journey. Like, hey, we might have something here. This person engage with us in some capacity.
Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, I really like that. And I think a lot of business owners that are... Unless paid social is their thing, I think they are overlooking what you just shared big time. They're not going into that much detail to continually optimize what they're doing. And I think that is, honestly, I think that really points to why it's so important to find somebody like you that has this experience, has this knowledge, who can help guide people through that to make sure that they're maximizing the return on what they're investing. Because it's just too complicated. You start to get into it and just one of these platforms alone can get really complicated. But I love how it's, hey, we've got to identify the metrics. I talk about metrics all the time because overall with metrics, people either aren't tracking them or they're tracking the wrong ones. And if we haven't identified the right metrics to track, we can't make knowledgeable decisions about where we need to make adjustments and course corrections. And in this case, without the right metrics, you can't identify how far they are in the process.
Aric Whiteley
Completely agreed. I really lean to that sentiment as well, especially when we're looking at audits, when we're taking on a new client, I would say a high %, 70 % to 75 %, some of the questions that we ask are questions that never even thought of before, even simple things like, what are your KPIs? And if you start there and they don't know at the end, I don't know what should it be. They always like, okay, first of all, congratulations for making it this far. You did a great job. And I think that's where we... When I go back to our difference there is trying to formulate, going a little bit out of scope. And what we find, especially with small business owners that are maybe in the $5 million to $15, $20 million annual in terms of revenue, we find is that they haven't really ever thought of things like this and how to translate marketing. So it's incredibly apparent to your point, it's incredibly important to identify and educate the client on what the metrics we should be tracking and justify it. Just to clearly explain, this is why we look at that. And with a high degree, almost 100 %, we always convert clients to looking at it the way that we look at because it makes a lot of sense.
Simple Tips and Tricks to Help You with Your Paid Social Strategy
Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah. Now, just so people know, and you can use just general here, I don't need specifics about how you guys build and structure, but I know most agencies that are doing paid, whether it's paid search or paid social, tend to have initial set up fees and then either some charge fixed amounts, some charge a % of ad spend. Can you break that down a little bit so people have an idea of, hey, if they're going to reach out to somebody like you, what expectations should they have on the front end?
Aric Whiteley
Sure. Well, transparently, as new agency owners, relatively new, we're three years in. We've done fairly well. We've got a team of eight full time US employees now, so things are working fundamentally. But I will tell you that pricing has always been a test and test and learn there. And I think learning about our own margins and how we have to price things. What it's boiled down to, we've tried a number of things, what it's boiled down is very simple. We have basically a retainer minimum for the most part. But we also have a % of ad spend fee. So we take whichever is greater. So if we charge, let's say, $10,000 a month retainer, but we spend a million dollars in that month, we might take it 10 %. Obviously, we're going to charge you 100,000. That's an extreme example. We aren't charging 100,000 dollars to be 100 % fair of clear. But that's how we do. So we take whatever is greater, we essentially come up with, hey, what's going to be palatable for us from an investment standpoint, from a resource time, engagement perspective? Where are we going to be able to feel comfortable about this at a minimum? And then do we feel like we're going to be able to scale this company or this client so that they're spending more and getting more, and thus we are rewarded? So there's an incentive there for us, but we have to obviously balance out our own cost too, because we are I think a lot of businesses forget that we're a business too sometimes. So when I explain, hey, we also have overhead and payroll, sometimes that's like, oh, yeah, I guess you're right.
Tim Fitzpatrick
Well, I mean, they're paying for your expertise. So if you're not willing to pay an expert and you want to just spend money on ads, well, that's up to you. But I think you're gambling or lighting that money on fire every month without having somebody that knows what they're doing, driving it. And I think when you find the right agency, the money that you spend with them is, if you're getting the right ROI, it's not of consequence, right?
Aric Whiteley
Exactly. I think a great example that probably resonates with people is if you have a money manager, you're investing $100,000, millions of dollars, whatever it might be, they're charging a fee for that. They're fiduciary. We look ourselves as a fiduciary. If you're spending $100,000 a month, it probably makes sense to spend a % of that to have somebody manage it and manage it effectively and continually grow. And I think that's where we really add the gap, especially now in all of this consolidation of a lot of ad platforms, Facebook and Google, they're really consolidating a lot of their products, but it becomes a lot more advanced strategically. A lot of things are moving, a lot of things are changing. And I think it's very difficult for a lot of our clients that don't have an inhouse team to keep up with the rate at things are changing, whether it's from a tracking perspective, a campaign set up, a number of different things. And I think that's where we end up getting a lot of value because we're in it every single day, learning and talking to all people in the industry at every level. So it's our job to know that and communicate it and see how is this going to positively or negatively affect a particular client.
Tim Fitzpatrick
I don't see how a business owner, unless that's the only thing that they're doing for their business, how they can stay on top of the changes in paid social, especially. I think it's unrealistic for the vast majority of people. You got to find somebody like yourself to pay and do it that's doing it, like you said, day in, day out. I know we touched on this a little bit. We started to talk about creative and content for each social platform. Is there anything that we didn't touch on there that you want to highlight? Because I know we talked a little bit about stand out by fitting in. We need to understand where we're going and what the purpose is. What else did I write down here? I wrote down a note about what's the expectation for each platform. Anything else you want to add when we talk about creative and content?
Aric Whiteley
Sure. I'll add a few things. I'll just you summed it up. But for LinkedIn, the expectation is that business people looking for business content. You don't really have to go too far outside the box there. Case studies, white papers, whatever it is, that works the best. Pro tip there is if you have a decent following and you have some engagement on natural organic posts, boost those. Don't just create new ad, boost those posts because you get the social proof and the engagement that comes along with it. And I think that's a big... That isn't really that commonly known is that you can take your own organic posts and then sponsor them and all those comments and likes and everything come with it. So if you have a following, do that. Test and learn there and see what's going on. I also think that don't be afraid to try new things. I think if you look at the types of things in LinkedIn that are getting a lot of engagement comments, it's a lot of industry questions. So what's your best tech stack for someone in the financial field or something like that? And then it prompts the question, it prompts engagement. And even though you're sponsoring that and paying for people to engage with that, it's happening within the context of you and your business. And you've come up with a number of You can reach out to them, you can engage, and now you're creating very one to one industry related content. And I think that's very important. Side note, going back to targeting, I didn't want to mention this too. I think one of the most underutilized areas of LinkedIn is the contact and company list targeting. I'm not sure why a lot of people don't know this, but you can actually curate a list of companies and individuals, upload that list as an Advertise Two list, upload that and target that individually, which I think is extremely helpful. And I wish I'd gotten that earlier out because I think that's a huge piece. If you're not doing that and you're on LinkedIn, please do that. It's extremely powerful.
Tim Fitzpatrick
That's huge.
Aric Whiteley
Your customer, your total addressable market.
Tim Fitzpatrick
I didn't know you could do that. So you could take as small of a list or as large of a list as you want and target only those specific people with your ads.
Aric Whiteley
With a small caveat, I think that there is a minimum. I don't know that off the top of my head. Usually it's around 1,000. So hopefully your total address market is larger than 1,000.
Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, of course.
Aric Whiteley
But yes, you can target individuals and you can target companies, which is incredibly powerful.
Tim Fitzpatrick
That is super powerful. If you think about that from a Let's just say there's people you want to continue to build relationships with. Maybe you've had an initial conversation with them and you want to make sure that they are seeing you. That's a fantastic way to do it.
Aric Whiteley
Completely agree. Also, while we're talking about it, there's a company that we work with, I'll shout them out as a free plug here.
Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, cool.
Aric Whiteley
I'm actually blanking on the name right now, of course. It'll come.
Tim Fitzpatrick
Back to you.
Aric Whiteley
Clear something, maybe. Point is that there's software out there that allow... If you place the pixel onto your website, it'll tell you exactly what companies are looking at your business. We use it for our own. So let's say, throughout the course of the week, we see that Coca Cola and Jim shark and all these individuals went to our website and their matching rate is really good. You can essentially take that list, export that list, upload it to LinkedIn, and then you can have some be creative in your messaging. You don't have to be creepy about it. But now you know that these people are potentially actively looking for a solution in your industry. So you can really fancy with that, even that just having that transparency and those providers that can tell you who's actually been to your website.
Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, that's a big one. I love that. Outside of LinkedIn, any thoughts on...
Aric Whiteley
Yeah, sure. So I think we touched on Instagram and Facebook, and I think that's like, like it or not, do you think stand out by fitting in is the method there. You want to build content that meets expectations. I don't think just putting a case study in the middle of a feed while someone's looking at baby pictures to someone's latest Thailand visit makes a lot of sense to me. And frankly, I've never really seen it work. So again, I think leaning more into more engaging content, trying to relate at a human level, I think is important rather than just from a business perspective. Again, it goes back to that metaphor I gave you was putting up a business billboard at an indoor go cart track. It just doesn't not going to really work all that well. The other thing that I think is very important here is moving on to TikTok. And this is by far where we get the most questions, especially with new clients coming in. What are you guys seeing working on TikTok? The truth is that although people claim they have best practices and everything, the truth is that they're still being fined. And I think they vary widely depending on what your industry is and what your customer base looks like. But here's at a high level two things that we think is working. I think this will be good for your listeners. The two best avenues that we found for TikTok right now is humor and education. So if you can talk about ongoing industry issues, creating content that talks about them in short form content, 15 to 30 seconds, people are really engaging with that. And you can even use list tables as an education example. It's like three best ways to deploy an ad on Facebook, something like that. And that will naturally start to capture the attention of individuals. It's very short, it's very digestible. If you can master that craft, you're going to do very well. And the other side is humor. Humor has worked really well for us. If you can blend those two together, humor and education, you've got yourself probably a winning creative. So if you can make a funny hot start for three seconds to capture somebody's attention and then deliver them value throughout that video, you're going to have an extremely high success rate. It is a lot harder to do than I make it seem. And by the way, selfish plug here, we do do this and we also offer content services. We feel that bridging the gap between social, the buying side and the creative side are going to have to inherently merge. They've been historically church and state, so we've blended that a bit. But yet humor and education, I think, is one of the biggest takeaways there. That's where we're seeing the most engagement and the most positive sentiment coming from some of our content.
Tim Fitzpatrick
So they're using that for their regular posts, but also for ads that they're doing on TikTok.
Aric Whiteley
Exactly. 100 %.
Conclusion: Don't Overlook These Paid Social Media Advertising Strategies
Tim Fitzpatrick
Okay. Awesome. I love it. Arup, you've dropped some really awesome stuff today. I appreciate you doing that. Any last minute thoughts you want to leave us with today? I thought.
Aric Whiteley
About this too. I think it's really like four or five words. It's be kind and outwork everyone.
Tim Fitzpatrick
Those are good ones. Be kind, man. How much different would the world be if we all just were kind?
Aric Whiteley
Yeah. It's a disappearing, it's a dissolving trait, I feel like. But as I get older, I'm more conscious of my presence in all sorts of situations. I think ultimately, being kind with no expectation of return is fundamentally paramount to general happiness and societal happiness.
Tim Fitzpatrick
Couldn't agree more, man. Thank you. Where can people learn more about you?
Aric Whiteley
Very simple. Lochherndigital.com, LOCKHERNDIGITAL.com. I know this is coming out in a few weeks. We are redoing our website, so hopefully it'll be done by this so we can have our new brand there.
Tim Fitzpatrick
Cool. I love it. If you have enjoyed this conversation, go check out Lockhern Digital. Aric and his partners, his team, obviously, they know what they're talking about. They specialize, which I think in marketing today is so important. It is just far too broad to be great at all kinds of things. So find the specialist for what you need. Lockhern is a specialist at this. So, Arup, thank you for those watching, listening. I appreciate you as well and thank you for doing so. We've been talking a lot today about paid social, which I really think in terms of lead gen, lead gen is one of the nine revenue roadblocks we help clients remove so they can accelerate growth. If you want to find out which roadblocks are slowing down your growth, you can do that over at revenueroadblockscorecard.com. You can also always connect with us over at RialtoMarketing.com. Be happy to chat with you. You can always book a discovery call there. Thank you. Until next time, take care.
