Ian: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome back to best in the biz, the pod talking business with CNA entrepreneurs. I'm your host Ian McDonald, and today we're at the Enloe 2024 conference in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador. And I'm joined by Olivia Crane, owner and operator of Amplified Social. Thank you so much for joining us.
Olivia: Thank you for having me.
Ian: Yeah. So tell us a little bit about your business.
Olivia: Yeah. So like you said, I'm the owner and founder of Amplified Social. We're a digital marketing agency headquartered in St. John's been a business for about five years, incorporated for a little over three now. Um, so we're completely virtual digital marketing agency.[00:01:00]
We offer kind of two core services. So the first is coaching and education, and that's where, um, we help business owners learn how to manage their social medias on their own. So everything from learning how to create a strategy to creating better content in general, to utilizing the tools and platforms that are out there to monitoring their results and all that good stuff.
So we train business owners on how to do that. Um, the second side of the business is what you would see from a typical digital marketing agency. So when businesses are ready to outsource, they can come to us for social media management, packages, services, as well as email marketing and some additional add ons as
Ian: well.
Fantastic. Yeah. And I understand you did a session yesterday all around AI. And yes. And that's been a hot topic of a lot of the conversations we've had this weekend. Yeah. So how did that go?
Olivia: It went very well. It was really exciting. And just being in a room is actually my first in person workshop.
Ian: Okay.
Olivia: Yeah, because like I said, we're virtual. Um, so it was my first time, like being in a room and talking to people. And it was like, I'm usually pretty [00:02:00] energized at a presentation anyway, but like yesterday was was even better. So that was awesome. Yeah, we talked about, um, real sort of Uh, as well as AI and just like kind of content creation in general.
Ian: Awesome.
Olivia: Yep.
Ian: Awesome. Yeah, and it seems like, uh, it's been really well received. I know that was one of the, the hotter, uh, workshops yesterday.
Olivia: I'm proud of that.
Ian: Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Um, so bringing it back to small business, um, what in your experience, What kind of platforms do best with small businesses here on the island and in Labrador
Olivia: for social media channels?
Yeah
Ian: for platforms and things like that.
Olivia: Yeah, so I think it really first and foremost depends on the niche of the business So the two kind of core I guess pockets that I see is either businesses are going to do really well on facebook or instagram Okay. Um, or they're more of a business to business type of Business business, um, and they do really well on LinkedIn.
So if, um, if the niche is like corporate, you know, most likely they're going to lean LinkedIn, [00:03:00] um, and they're not really going to perform as well on Facebook or Instagram. So it really does depend on your niche. And then when you kind of. Uh, look at it even more like we have. Um, we, we may mostly focus in Facebook and Instagram.
So that's where, uh, we do a little bit of LinkedIn, um, for some clients, but certainly not an area we specialize in. So, um, for our clients in particular, um, you know, they, we even notice a difference between the audience on Facebook, the audience on Instagram, and some clients. It's kind of like 50, 50, like some clients perform astronomically better on Facebook, um, and others it's Instagram.
And it really, again, just depends on the audience, the niche, who they're targeting, where the demographic is. So I think knowing that is really important before kind of going all into a platform.
Ian: Okay. That's really interesting to know. And it's interesting to see how it, uh, differs from business to business.
Like you said, the corporate side is more LinkedIn and, uh, The general small business stuff seems to be more Facebook and Insta.
Olivia: Absolutely. That's
Ian: awesome. Um, so what are some common mistakes, [00:04:00] uh, that you see that small businesses make when they're, uh, when they're getting into the, the world of digital marketing?
Olivia: Yeah. So I think the main thing that I see is people have trouble with consistency. So, you know, being able to post on a regular basis, but also just being able to have a general content strategy. So, um, a lot of people post when they have something to post. So like, um, you know, they have an event coming up or they're at a conference like this right now.
And so there's content to be had, there's content to be posted, but they don't necessarily have like a year round strategy for their content where they're consistently getting up posts that are just all about their business. Um, so I just recommend people to, you know, talk to somebody or just really, um, have yourself a set of content pillars is what I call it.
Um, and that's just content. Topics that make up your brand. So that just ensures that you, you do always have something to post about that. You're having a well rounded strategy, um, when you're coming to social media and that there's no [00:05:00] holes in your content. So you're not just talking about one thing all the time and missing like other things that are important about your business, and that'll be really a lot easier to help plan content and be more consistent on social.
Ian: For sure. And that's, that's some great points. Um, and moving into the next one here, um, how would you gauge that success on social media? So how, how would a small business know. You know, this is actually working for us.
Olivia: Well, first of all, you have to have business goals defined, um, and then align your social media strategy with those goals.
Um, so if you don't, if you don't have a goal, you're never going to know when you're going to get there. Um, so I always say like, of course, a lot of people are like, Oh, I want more followers. It's like, okay, but why do you want more followers? Is that something that are you in a business growth mode? Are you trying to increase awareness?
So what are you trying to do within your business and then aligning your social media goals and strategy against that? Okay. Um, in terms of determining the success of those measurements that you've set out to do, um, the platforms themselves have a lot of great resources for analytics and insights. And that's actually what we use.
We [00:06:00] don't use anything external or special. We just use usually met a business suite to determine, um, You know, how many followers we've gained, how much reach are we getting? How, how are ads performing? Um, those are some of the key metrics that we look at as well as engagement, um, and views on videos and things like that.
And just making sure that over, you know, a 90 day period, we actually go by rather than doing month to month, um, that gives us a better picture. Um, That were kind of like kind of always in the green or at least, um, kind of on par with the, with the previous three months, depending on what's been going on in the business.
So just using those platform tools are going to be really good, but you have to have a benchmark to go by for what your goals are.
Ian: Yeah, that makes total sense. And like you said, there's so many great tools out there in the analytics. It's so nice to see. I run a couple of Facebook pages myself. So it's, uh, it's nice to see when a couple of posts are doing really well.
And it's really rewarding.
Olivia: It's exciting. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely
Ian: build some. Yeah, some anticipation. Um, so In terms of [00:07:00] success, uh, we always like to touch on this one. Um, has there been a moment for your business where you look back, makes you smile, uh, anything like that? And what is that moment?
Olivia: Yeah. When I think back, um, there's been, I think there's kind of like two categories of successful moments. One is like, The validating kind of external moments or even like internal when you know you get recognition or like for me when I incorporated like that was really validating for me. Um, the first time that I got funding from an organization was again very validating.
I think a lot of people. Um, especially myself, for sure, I hesitated to reach out to organizations in the beginning, just thinking that I wasn't big enough or that they weren't going to give me the time of day because like, who was I to kind of like reach out? Um, that was definitely a mistake I made early on in my business.
I wish I had reached out to an organization earlier, but when I did get funding for the first time, I think it [00:08:00] was like early 2021. And I got the, uh, digital main, Tell us your main street. I think it was loan. Um, that had a grant portion from, uh, MBO and St. John's. Um, and it was like 40, 000 and it hit my bank account.
And I was like, that was like, I I'll never forget that because it, it was really exciting for me at the time to know that there was additional support out there and that I was. Good enough, um, to be able to get that. And, and looking back now, it's, it sounds silly to say to me, because now I know like how helpful the organizations are.
And I work with so many business owners that are just getting started that, you know, I'm recommending different funding programs to them. I'm recommending different organizations to go to and low, um, the CBDCs or the province, things like that. Um, that was really validating, um, for me early on. And then, um, You know, the other side of it too is just like those moments that nobody else kind of sees, um, that are just really special.
[00:09:00] Um, like when you get off, you know, I do training for small business and when a business owner, you know, you teach them how to do something that maybe you feel like is really simple or that you don't really think twice about, and you've taught them something that really actually changes. How they do business on a day to day basis is like super rewarding.
Yeah.
Ian: That's what we usually hear is those, those reviews and testimonials that makes you really feel good.
Olivia: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Ian: Oh, that's awesome. Um, so you did touch on a bit of advice there. Uh, you know, don't be afraid to go out and ask. Uh, is there anything else you wanted to add for an aspiring entrepreneur in terms of advice?
Olivia: Yeah, I mean, yeah, definitely get involved in like any local organizations that you can Um reach out to people for help people want to help Especially as you're just getting started like i'm just going to talk about this again for a second because um I actually left a corporate job in August of 2017.
Um, I just wasn't happy. I knew that there was something else out there. I didn't know exactly what it was. I was [00:10:00] kind of had a little couple little side hustles at the time that I was just like kind of getting me through. Um, and it wasn't until almost a year later, I think it was about 10 months before I started doing social media marketing, what I'm doing today.
Um, and I was doing that as a freelancer. I didn't realize that. These organizations have programs for, um, people who want to leave a corporate world and move to an, it's called SEA. I didn't even know that that existed. So imagine how much money I missed out on, how much stress. That would have been off me like that.
It was a super stressful time in my life and like, reach out. That's like my biggest, my biggest thing. Um, yeah, the, the second thing I guess I'll say too is, and actually, um, Susie York, the keynote speaker yesterday morning, she actually touched on it. And that's like, success doesn't happen without failure.
And I always kind of say like, You don't experience, you don't get to experience the highs if you don't [00:11:00] experience the lows. And I think as an entrepreneur, it's really hard. It's really, really hard, um, to, to be in a business, to get up every day, to be responsible for your own income, to be responsible for a team's income.
If you have them, even just to, um, Put yourself out there, like depending on what stage you are in business. And I think people just need to know, like, if you're feeling like low right now, it's because you're going to feel the highs. You can't feel them without knowing what it feels like to be kind of, you know, down or, or, or seeing those failures or however you're perceiving it.
So, yeah,
Ian: no, that's, that's some great advice. Like you said, um, uh, it's not always easy being an entrepreneur, that's for sure. So, um, making sure you have those, well, not making sure, but you're going to feel the lows. But you're also going to feel the highs.
Olivia: Absolutely. Right. So
Ian: always keeping that in mind is essential.
Um, so lastly, where can our listeners find more about amplified social?
Olivia: Yeah. So Instagram is definitely the best place to find us. That's where we spend most of our time, um, [00:12:00] is on Instagram. Of course, we have a Facebook page as well, but it's just at amplified social on Instagram.
Ian: Awesome. Well, thanks again for joining us today.
Olivia: Thanks for having me.
Ian: Yeah. And, uh, it's been a pleasure and, uh, enjoy the rest of your conference.
Olivia: Thanks so much, Ian. Have a good one.
Ian: You too.
Here are the key takeaways for this episode. On social media, things move quickly. And while it can feel like you need to be everywhere at once, it's best to focus your energy where your target audience is looking for you. This means you need to know who your audience is. A lot of businesses fall into the trap of thinking their audience is everyone.
Get specific. Consider who your product or service is made for. Research who your competitors are selling to. And if you have one, analyze your current customer base. Knowing your audience will lead you to the social media [00:13:00] platform. They're most active on
number two, set goals. Trends come and go, but goal setting and consistency is so much more valuable. Olivia tells us to align social media goals with business goals. Social media platforms have their own built in analytics. Many offer free analytics training. This makes it easy to monitor your progress.
Instead of comparing your performance month to month, Olivia suggests comparing analytics over 90 day periods.
Number three, be consistent. Develop a content strategy and post consistently. Your content strategy should include content pillars that capture what your brand is and what you have to offer. In a nutshell, what topics or themes will you share on social media? With a long term content strategy, you can avoid lulls in content.
It's really easy to post when you have big news, but it's just as important to [00:14:00] post during the downtime too. So have fun with the trends that support your goals and make sense for your brand, but also don't worry about keeping up with every trend out there. Stay consistent and focused. Looking for more guidance?
CNA students, alumni, faculty, and staff can access free support through CNA's Entrepreneurship Hub at cna. nl. ca slash entrepreneurship. Women entrepreneurs in Newfoundland and Labrador can also find out more about becoming an ENLO member at enlo. org. Thanks for tuning in.