In this episode, we speak with Lydia Elder, a Marketing Director and influencer who has grown her social media channels to over 100k followers.
We discuss:
- The experience of buying a house as a first-time buyer
- The keys to generating traction on social media
- Working with HouseBuilders to boost their social media engagement
- Understanding what you’re looking to achieve with your marketing
- Generating content for other mediums
- Why Lydia chose the mortgage broker they used
- Working with other professionals in the property process to generate trust
- Scheduling posts or posting manually
View on Zencastr
Transcript
The following transcript is autogenerated.
Matt Nally 00:20
On this week’s episode, we have Lydia who is a marketing director, content creator and property influencer.
Lydia Elder 00:41
Well, thanks so much for having me.
Matt Nally 00:42
I thought it’d be really interesting to get you on, because we’ve been looking at in some other podcasts as well. content creation and sort of marketing generally. But you’ve got a really interesting story with, with the sort of social media aspects you’ve got with it, particularly their Instagram account, and you know, huge, huge following that 105,000 followers or something?
Lydia Elder 01:01
Yeah, I these days, I say, over 100k. So I don’t have to keep track of it Yeah, it’s it’s a bit crazy, really how it has blown up. But
Matt Nally 01:14
how did you how did you get into this? What was your marketing before? I believe? And then what was your journey into how did you
Lydia Elder 01:21
I my background has been always been in marketing and advertising. So I’ve worked for agencies, I’ve worked client side, for a variety of industries, not property or interior related. And then we myself and my husband bought our first house back in 2018. And that’s right, that’s when I first started my Instagram account. And initially, I didn’t start it up to set out to become X, Y, and Zed, or to get free staff, or to be an influence or nothing like that. The reason I set up my account was because we were buying a new build property. And we bought off plan. So we had only seen floor plans, we hadn’t done a site visit, we hadn’t even been inside a showroom, because that hadn’t been set up yet. So I kind of turned to Instagram to see if I could find other examples of the kind of house we were buying, because we were buying from David Wilson homes, which is like a big UK house builder. And they do the same kind of houses all over the country. And I knew that there were a few accounts on Instagram, where people would kind of share what their home looked like. So I went on to try and see if I could find any for my house type. And I couldn’t really find anything. So then when we moved into our house, I set my Instagram account up and I kind of shared the process of by, you know, the whole buying process the from reservation to kind of like getting choosing your pot number and then seeing your house bill. And then you know, choosing all the specifications and things like that. And I was sharing all of that more really, to document it for ourselves. But also because I thought oh, well, it might help someone else because I couldn’t I didn’t really find what I was looking for when I went on there, and I thought there might be other people who come along, and do have the same experience. And they might want to, you know, my information might be interesting or useful for them. And then when we moved into the house, I kind of it kind of turned into a bit more of an interior account. Yeah, and that’s how it all started, really. And there’s been various different twists and turns along the way.
Matt Nally 03:40
Oh, come on to those that. Yeah, that’s really nice thing, it’s probably nice thing to get back out. And sort of yeah, see how it all started from years and years and years ago. But the it’s an interesting, it comes up a lot that that that theme of people not being not really being sure of the journey of buying a house where even if you’re someone that 60 You might have only bought two houses before it’s not something you do a lot. And I suppose the core processes are the same. But as a first time buyer, it’s a bit of a minefield, what what the bits you got stuck with in the process for that aspects that you thought were tougher to understand or?
Lydia Elder 04:12
Yeah, so I mean, we were I don’t know if we were slightly niche in a way and that we weren’t first time buyers because we had bought a flat before. And we were not only first time buyers, but we also weren’t first time new build buyers because the fact that we’d bought was also a new build. And also both times we bought we used government schemes to help us buy. So that was one of the things actually that really kind of has sparked up you know, since a lot of conversations and I’ve worked with quite a few developers and different organisations and kind of different government organisations to kind of try and talk and talk to people and educate people about all these schemes. Because it is the kind of thing that when you are a first time buyer, you don’t necessarily know what’s available. The whole concept of mortgages can be really scary and foreign especially. I mean, obviously, these days it is hard to buy. When you’re young, I think we bought our first property when we were 2023 24, which is very, very young. Our second family home we bought when I was 2728. Then, yeah, everything is very, very overwhelming. And when we bought our house, which is when I started the Instagram account, we use the Help to Buy scheme. And that I’ll be totally honest, when we first started looking, and we saw, you know, help to buy on all the new bill websites and things like that. I was like, I’ve no idea what that means. That sounds great. I need help to buy I don’t think I can actually afford to buy without help. Yeah, and it’s one of those things, in a way at the time, it was so new, that actually even the people who were supposed to know what they were talking about didn’t 100% know everything like, you know, our solicitors didn’t know all the ins and outs of how to buy Shared Equity, shared ownership, all of that stuff. Yeah, so that that was something that we, you know, we kind of learned through experience with our first purchase. And then with our second one, when we did it again, the first time we use shared ownership. Second time we use Help to Buy. And actually I got a lot of information from other people on social media who had gone through the same thing. I think it was a progression at the time when we were buying, Instagram was just starting up. And I think previously, it had been a lot of your go into chat rooms or blogs. Kind of real, like real personal information. And then it just started shifting to Instagram. And you know, people actually direct messaging people they didn’t necessarily know, but who they followed and had similar interests. And you, you know, you’d ask for information that way.
Matt Nally 07:03
So is that the type of content you started posting about? To begin with on Instagram? What was your journey with the type of content you’re putting out? And the sort of engagement you were getting with it?
Lydia Elder 07:13
Yeah, so initially, it was very much new build. But you know, home purchase information, all the things that go along with things people get very into, as you know, snagging as move into your new build home, what could go, you know, what might be wrong? What things should you look out for? What can you do beforehand, to kind of set yourself up for success to make sure that you don’t have any disasters? That kind of stuff? And, yeah, and floor plans, and you know, what’s the best plot what’s, what direction should your garden face it, and all of that kind of really logistical stuff about home buying. And then, when we were in the house, it moved into interiors. And I realised that actually, I loved putting together a design an idea for a space, I loved creating design boards and mood boards, I have no formal training whatsoever in interior design, I just really enjoyed it. And that’s where I always say, I think, with social media, and influencing two of the most important things, really, I think, our hard work, networking, and having a passion for something, because you can’t spend every single day of your life sharing about something that you’re not actually that interested in, or just for the sake of it. So yeah, I basically just realised that I loved it. And that then kind of turned into DIY, which was not something I’d ever really done before. But we bought our first family home, and we’d kind of stretched ourselves to buy the house. So we didn’t have loads of spare cash to buy lots of super fancy furniture, or to pay carpenters to come in and you know, put in a home office for us and have bespoke cabinetry and all that stuff. So we were, you know, me and my husband kind of, he’s a bit pretty handy, no formal training, but he you know, he knows how to use a drill. And so I would just come up with all these ideas and say, Can you help me out with this, and he had kind of looked at me like I was crazy. And then we would be wallpapering at midnight, because we had our two little kids and we couldn’t do it in the day. So we’d literally be staying up at night after they’ve gone to bed doing all this stuff. And I think actually, that’s when with regards to following and engagement and interest. The account really started to take off because I think I was providing something that wasn’t particularly popular at that time. I think now there’s so many interior accounts, you know, everyone’s doing it. The contents are really The high standard, but at the time, I think the content I was providing was very visually. You know, it looked well put together. It was, you know, nice nice imagery nice guy wasn’t like just like point and click Take a photo of a room, I was lining everything up composition, styling, all that stuff. And I was also providing useful information on oh, by the way, you could do this yourself also, like I’m a complete DIY amateur. And I’ve managed to do it.
Matt Nally 10:29
Because I assume Instagrams very visual, someone would just might like a picture and they just scroll on the carry on. But do you find that people do really engage with the text that’s on there? You know, they, they are interested in what you have to say around it.
Lydia Elder 10:42
I think they you I think it’s changed slightly over the last few years definitely used to be and I think what helped me out was because I always say, you know, I have no interior design training. But I studied English literature, I did a master’s, I’ve always been very good at writing. And I used to get a lot of feedback from people that I didn’t know on Instagram saying, Oh, I just love you know, I love the tone and the way that you write your captions, and it comes across very real and very friendly. But there’s also a lot of good information in that. And I’ve, I’ve always been one who has written quite long captions, because I do kind of want to give a lot of information. And I think people did really used to engage with that. And now I think with the increase of video content, it’s kind of transitioned. I don’t know how many people get all the way to the bottom of captions, to be honest. Which is why I think there’s a lot more use of text within video now. Yes, people weren’t lazy, you know, even lazier. than 10 years ago, when people would read books, and then people would read Instagram captions. And now people will literally just read a line on it, you know, on a tick tock video.
Matt Nally 12:05
Yeah, and you’ve got to make that text engaging as well. There’s lots of different styles people apply that, aren’t there that, that that engage you rather than just a standard closed caption at the bottom that comes up? You get bored with those, but so what was the what was the challenge with? And how did you go about scaling the number of people that were following you, because it’s you see loads of people that have accounts with, you know, 10s, or hundreds of people but trying to get into the 1000s? Even though 1000s is difficult? Yeah. What’s the key to that? Is it consistency and with how often you’re posting and what you’re posting?
Lydia Elder 12:40
I think there’s a few things like you hit the nail on the head i consistency, absolutely. I have a few friends and my husband included also with us who start off accounts, you know, because they want to share about something that they’re really interested in with my husband, it was weight loss, because he’d recently, you know, he’d recently lost a lot of weight. And they start really enthusiastic. And they kind of take the photos and they start posting and sometimes, you know, they’ll post five posts in one day, and then they won’t post anything for two weeks. And then they’ll do another whole load of stories and maybe post two posts a day for three days. And then they won’t post anything for a month. And with Instagram, you’re really you’re rewarded for consistent posting, I would never post more than one post a day. Because you’re sort of just wiping yourself out. You know, you’re kind of doing yourself a disservice wiping out the last thing you did. Yeah, consistency is absolutely key stories is really important. And actually, I think I was in that first wave of people who really started sharing a lot on their stories and really talking directly to their audience via stories rather than it kind of being that slight separation between your grid and who you are as a person or who you’re you know, your business values or whatever that may be to stories is a bit more of an insight behind them. That’s I think what encourages engagement really, is when people feel like, they trust you and they know you and they can ask questions. So yeah, consistency, being real. Like I said, being passionate about something, you have to it has to come through that you’re genuinely genuinely interested in it. And then there’s all like the mark, you know, there’s all the little marketing tricks of making sure that you’re posting at times of high engagement, making sure you’re using the correct hashtags, making sure you’re using hashtags that are relevant, but also that aren’t too broad.
Matt Nally 14:45
That’s an interesting one to maybe go a bit further into actually, when are in your experience the best times to post and how do you find the right hashtags? Because I know a lot of people when they’re putting hashtag on will do. I didn’t know that they’ll do something relevant to the post, but of course it might have Absolutely no followers at all. So how do you work out also what
Lydia Elder 15:05
you can make. So what’s really interesting is that has actually, it’s interesting, we’re talking about this because there’s been a definite shift, I think in the last year. And I was actually reading a few blogs about it. With regards to hashtags is still absolutely key. However it used to be, you can have 30 hashtags, so you’re an idiot if you don’t use every single one of those 30. Whereas now, because of the increase in video content, the introduction of the Explore page, which you know, wasn’t there a few years ago, and also Instagram having a bit more of a mind of its own. It hashtags are not quite as effective as I think they used to be. They’re still super, super important. But yeah, what what I do is I go for variety. So I use a combination of hashtags that have been used by less people. But that are very specific to what I’m doing. For example, if I’m putting up a post about and I hear like Ikea hack that I’ve done, I will hashtag the name of the user, how all the IKEA products. Yeah, well look, all the interesting Swedish names. And yes, do that like hashtag, never the product and hack, and that may only have 10. Other posts, however, I know that if anyone is looking to do a hack with that particular product, and they will find my post. And then we’ll make the end with broader things such as you know, hashtag Singapore interior design, or, you know, UK Home Decor. And I will keep changing, changing them up constantly. I also go, you know, there’s a lot of research involved really, with being successful on Instagram. So I will go and look and see what hashtags are trending, what kind of, you know, what other people are using? If I click through on the what are kind of like the top posts, or reels that are coming up for that hashtag? And what kind of content did those posts include?
Matt Nally 17:11
How often would you review what type of content is getting more? What new type of content is getting engagement? And therefore change what you’re putting out? Or do you? Or do you stay quite consistent with what you’re doing? And just tweak? Maybe the hashtags or something like that?
Lydia Elder 17:25
It’s kind of an ongoing process, always. I mean, because I’m, you know, I remember when I first started out, and obviously it was all pictures, no one was doing any video at all. I think I genuinely think I was one of the first definitely in the interior community, one of the first people to start using reels when it first came out on Instagram, and getting to grips with the transition. I am now I’ll be honest, I feel like I’m so far behind now. Because since tick tock took off, and then suddenly everyone got into video editing. And I think I’ve been left in the dust a little bit. But when wheels first came out, yeah, I was creating real content that I didn’t see anyone else who I was following really doing. And then obviously, everyone gets up to speed really quickly. And it’s just I think it’s constantly constantly changing the thing that’s very challenging. I think at the moment we’re being a content creator is and I think tick tock has a lot, a lot to blame for this really is a people expect very high quality, informative entertaining content, every single day. But a second they see it that’s put to the side. And they’re waiting for the next one. And obviously, that is challenging, because if you’re creating high quality content, it takes a very long time.
Matt Nally 18:55
I can imagine it’s not a quick process, because it what it turns out is a 510 second video 15/22 Video, there’s a lot of research and prep and the actual recording the editing there. Yeah, it’s not a quick process. I suppose interestingly, I know you also do work with the housing developers, you mentioned that earlier on, do you put the same type of content out for them, or I think this relates back to surveyors quite nicely because housing developers are obviously looking at looking for people that are trying to buy a property similar to surveyors. Surveyors may become a couple of months later on in the process, whether it’s just snagging survey or homebuyer report or whatever it might be. But I imagine they’ve got to put the similar type of content out to engage people. So what do you tend to do for them to switch things up and use the same type of platforms?
Lydia Elder 19:47
Yes, so when I first started working with some of the housing developers in the UK it wasn’t an easy road to be honest, because the PR companies that rent for As entered them, were really wanting them to work with influencers. But the developers themselves were very hesitant. They, they were very much in the traditional advertising mindset. And I think they were a bit scared off by the concept of social media, where people are free to comment and say whatever they want. And obviously, there is sometimes but you know, as as with any type of business, really, there’s the potential for bad press for people to say something negative, and you can’t control that narrative. So part of what I did when I was pitching was really talking them through, specifically with Instagram, but also YouTube. And also, I’ve done quite a few webinars, which of which actually, I think is a fantastic way for companies like yours or housing developers to reach people and provide really like educational content. Yeah, but when I was pitching, I was kind of explaining to them a how you can analyse and track results because of that’s a lot of that was what they’re interested in the the importance of general brand awareness, as opposed to just sales, when it comes to social media marketing, and see the fact that if you’re choosing your influencers, or your key opinion leaders carefully, the audience they are speaking to a kind of a primed, ready audience of people who are exactly your target market, and you shouldn’t have as many trolls or, or, you know, yeah, but the potential for negative feedback that it’s always going to, it’s always going to be there’s always going to be potential. However, if you choose the people you work with carefully, you’re mitigating that risk more, for example, everyone always says to me, oh, have you ever had you know, don’t you get people saying really negative horrible things to you are commenting things in your posts? Like, actually, no, I mean, I have over 100,000 followers, and I barely get a negative comment. And I think that’s because I’m not saying anything controversial. And I’m kind of telling my truth, and giving advice and information based off my experience. So there’s not really anything to Yeah, to get. Exactly, so a few a few projects that I worked on. So there was a variety for some, I actually didn’t use my channel, what I did was I would do an interview, that would be you know, that it was more PR, so I would do an interview that would then be published in the local newspaper or magazine, or wherever else, it was that the house builders were usually putting in their normal print ads. And they would be almost like a case study. And that would go that could go out in their traditional advertising medium. But it’s, it’s kind of it is a real life, a real life case study, so to speak. I would also transfer that onto social media. And I would, you know, I would take photos of say, our family at the house, and, you know, write a post about our experience. One thing that I did with David Wilson homes was, I went down and visited one of the show rooms. One of the developments that was not where our house was, it was a couple hours away. And I went and I filmed all around the different show rooms. And then I edited that into a video and I did it very much kind of like I suppose, like an estate agent house tour, but I was, you know, in the role of the person. And I would go around talking about all the different aspects of the house that me as a person who was you know, looking for a family home what I would love so I was going through and you know, if it had an open plan kitchen dining room, I was going oh, well this is fantastic. This is exactly what I want. There’s also a separate living room, which is great, because actually you want a bit of distance from the kid sometimes. Oh, and look, I’ve just noticed that, you know, they’ve got an induction hob and I think that’s an additional extra, but it was basically quite informal. But showing everyone Yeah, kind of taking everyone through. And that would be posted as a video on Instagram they put on YouTube. I posted on my socials they posted on their socials. And it’s kind of I think I had a bit of clout. You know, for my followers who were looking at it and going, Oh, well, we’ve followed her we really liked her interest taste. We think her home looks beautiful. Whoa ha home is from this developer, oh, look at all these other options that we could look at and buy. And because my audience at that time was mainly homeowners or those looking to buy, you know, my audience was the exact target audience. Yeah, they were ready to go. The amount of mass, I mean, I’ve had people directly messaged me saying, Oh, I’ve been following your account for X amount of time. And we’ve finally saved up enough of a deposit. And actually, we’re buying, we’ve decided to buy a new build home in x, y, and Zed. And thank you so much, because we were a bit nervous about like buying a new build, but after seeing your journey, it gave us the confidence to do it. And I said to my husband, oh, my goodness, I that’s like the biggest purchase you can make. Really, yeah, I got a house I was like, and I can’t believe they’ve actually looked at what we’ve gone through. And kind of, you know, felt confident enough to do it themselves. I think that’s fantastic. Because buying our house was one of the best, you know, the best things we’ve done so far, I mean, other than having children,
Matt Nally 26:05
just that they know that it must be lovely to get that feedback, because it is not, it’s not the sole reason you do it, you’re doing the account because you enjoy it. But then to then hear that the end is awesome. In terms of your severity, and you’re going out on site, you’ve got some that might be snagging somewhere. So they’re going to these new builds and trying to pick up on those potential issues you might get before you move in. And, or it might be that you’ve got a house, it’s been around for ages, and they’re just doing a building survey. Once adjusted, obviously, they’re complicated. But what type of content do you think would be useful to put out of your surveyor in that aspect? Do you go and try and tell the story of what they’ve helped avoid? Or
Lydia Elder 26:47
you talking about the the surveyors themselves their business, or if they’re looking to get other people to help promote their services?
Matt Nally 26:57
Actually, that’d be an interesting aspect to come on to thinking more so about, yeah, survey of they’re trying to sort of show what they do and tell their story of how they can help. But yeah, we’ll come on to actually connect with influencers later, that’d be?
Lydia Elder 27:09
Well, I think the key thing with social media, and building your presence as a company or a brand that’s providing a service is trust, I think trust and information. So I think key bits of content, for them would be information about the housing market in general, I think, you know, obviously, with that target market, they might, they’re looking for people who need surveyors. But those people are also likely to be people who are looking to buy a house looking to sell a house, whatever, you know, obviously, you want to get them at the right stage, but whatever stage in that journey they are, those are the people you want. And I think those are the people who are going online, looking for information about you know, the current state of the market. So I think, really good content would be video content, where you get different experts in to talk about various different topics around surveying home buying homeownership. And you’re kind of giving people a reason to come to your page. And I think it’s not necessarily just like sell, you know, it’s not really sell, sell, sell. I don’t think that would kind of help you build a following of people who would want to use your services because they trust you. I think it’s information.
Matt Nally 28:35
Yeah, I definitely agree with that. I think I think in my experience, if I’m honest, everything is a sales piece. I’m just not interested. When you just start to then see that person or company come up and you skip past I’ve got to say, anyway,
Lydia Elder 28:47
pepper in. Yeah. And I think sometimes I think it is a mindset change. I think sometimes businesses do worry, well, if I’m putting all of this out on social media, why don’t you know, people won’t necessarily need to come and speak to me because they’ll, they’ve got all the information they need kind of thing, but with something where you are also providing a service where they need an actual physical person. Also, I think all of that is just building the groundwork because I personally, very much hire people based on recommendation. You always want to you know, you want to hire someone who you know has done a good job for somebody else that you know, whether it be one or two degrees of separation from and now the way social media is you’ve kind of feel like you know, people if you’ve had enough exposure to them online, which I don’t
Matt Nally 29:47
so that was always the early days of Facebook when you went to a party and you’re like, oh, no, no, I don’t know you’re not real friends. Yeah, I look creepy now. So on that note, that is possible that surveyors can work with certain influences online that might have the type of account that you’ve got. I’m not saying you specifically, but with that work that, could people put content out that way?
Lydia Elder 30:18
Yeah. So I have seen it work really well, with regards to mortgage brokers. And I’ll tell a personal personal story I contacted and got in touch with a mortgage broker who I had seen had worked with an interior account that I follow. On Instagram, I’ve never met the person who owns the interior account, she’s got an amazing account. And she comes across as very trustworthy. She’s like, you know, a reno account kind of followed her journey. And, yeah, and I’d seen that she had used and worked with this mortgage broker multiple times over the last couple of years, sometimes it’s a really long game over the last couple of years. So when I needed to speak to someone, I contacted that person, because I don’t know why, I suppose you know, I kind of liked that they know what they’re doing. Yeah, I trusted that they knew what they’re doing, because it seemed to have all worked out really well for her. And I trusted her. So. And I think with that, that that particular mortgage broker also did have a very good online presence, they had a very well put together and informative website, they have a Instagram page and Facebook page that’s regularly updated. That’s very personable, you know, the guy who owns it puts his face on it, and the people who work that, you know, there’s a lot of fizzy videos of them being interviewed talk, you know, talking about different different bits and bobs. They’re very, very responsive, you know, direct message them, and they got back to you straight away. Yeah, so I mean, I was influenced on that. And as it turned out, they were fantastic, and really, really helpful and really useful.
Matt Nally 32:12
I suppose what they’ve done is they’ve they’ve helped tell the story before that you’ve even had to get in touch with them. So you’re more engaged to begin with. On that, note that one of the things you mentioned is, you know, hard work, and, you know, the consistency aspect. How do you keep the motivation up to keep posting? And how long do you have to wait before you start to see the, I suppose the results of having posted for 23456, however many weeks months,
Lydia Elder 32:43
is different difficult, it’s definitely to be honest, at the start, if you’re consistent, then you notice, I suppose it’s like weight loss in a way you notice the results quicker at the beginning than you do halfway towards the end. You know, and it can also come and go in waves. And I think the most important thing is you just have to keep posting content that you are proud of, and that you think will help someone or inform someone or entertain someone. And, you know, use all those techniques to try and make it successful, but don’t get too hung up. If one particular post isn’t. It is just, you know, you have to, you have to keep going. And obviously you have to be personally getting something out of it. If you were posting every single day for a year, and you have three followers, then you’d kind of need to change, you’d have to change something about what you were doing or about your content, you have to be constantly evaluating and analysing. And sometimes i i personally completely lose motivation. To just go curry be bothered with that. I think the positive thing for someone you know, for an entrepreneur or someone who owns their own business is you always have that motivation because you want your business to succeed. So, for me, it was slightly different because I wasn’t looking to build something initially. But what I was looking to do was kind of help inform. And then what I was gaining from it was a real sense of accomplishment, and also creativity, you know, I love you know, making and editing videos and taking photos that look absolutely beautiful and being able to share that and then you know, getting the feedback and the conversations I have. So some days I completely lose motivation. And then I’ll get you know, an inbox a DM from someone saying, Oh, I’ve been following your journey forever. And this that really resonated me and that’s enough to make me be like, Oh, do you know what I will post tomorrow? Yeah, yeah. Can you know QuickBooks? Yes, yeah. So QuickBooks I think as a fan tastic case study because they have, like 70k followers on their Instagram, their UK account has about 8000. And if you look at their page, all their content is, it is, you know, speaks to businesses and individual consumers, it’s providing a lot of really good background information, it’s taking, you know, they do things like they’ll take in key events like Christmas Valentine’s Day, you know, all the key times of year, and they’ll turn it into something that’s really relevant to their product and their service without it being too much of the sell. And they also have used a lot of experts and, you know, experts in various different industries, obviously, who use QuickBooks, and influences to create a lot of kind of case study videos. And I just thought that was really interesting, because on the face of it, you go, Okay, so that’s a service that’s really kind of kind of b2b. You know, it’s talking to small businesses, but they’ve created quite an engaging social presence out of it. And I know, they also do a lot of broader advertising campaigns as well.
Matt Nally 36:19
And that’s clever, because, you know, even if you’re an end consumer, you’re still in a business in some form. And actually, therefore, to be able to engage with it means you might then talk about it in the business environment later on. Exactly what they do is cover. But I’m assuming then when it comes to something like a Valentine’s Day post or Easter post, it’s not just necessarily being a Happy Easter from QuickBooks, they’re doing something a bit more engaging than that.
Lydia Elder 36:44
Yeah, they’ll you know, they’ll say, I think I saw their Valentine’s one, I can’t remember exactly. But you know, they made up their own little poems for, you know, Roses are red, violets are blue. This is why QuickBooks is brilliant for you. And then in the caption, I just totally made that up. I don’t know if that’s what it was. But if I was gonna do that, then in the caption that put, you know, the top five reasons why quit books is great for your company.
Matt Nally 37:10
Okay, cover being too generic.
Lydia Elder 37:14
Rather than just say, a generic image of a heart and saying Happy Valentine’s Day, they’ve sort of creatively turned it into a selling point.
Matt Nally 37:24
Like that. So in terms of keeping consistent G you reactive to the thing that you’re posting, do you do it day to day? Or do you use the tools that schedulers and stuff like that in order to mean, you can take a bit of headspace and time out, and it’s not something to worry about every single day?
Lydia Elder 37:44
So I have historically done both, I’ve never used scheduling for my personal Instagram account. But I have, in my capacity as a marketing director, use scheduling for companies that I work for, mainly, because for a lot of those, there’s kind of, you know, time difference. situations, you know, if I’m working for a company that’s not in my timezone, I’d rather than waking up at 3am. Yeah, I’ll schedule everything in. Also, sometimes, when you’re working for companies, you know, you have various different hierarchies up the chain of approvals that you need to get done, and you will content plan. So for, for my Instagram page, I actually have never done a formal content plan. If I’m working with brands, I will obviously have the key dates that I know that I have agreed to do certain activity on. And I’ll keep that kind of in my personal calendar. But when I’ve been working professionally, with brands and their social media accounts, I will usually do a month content plan in advance. And that means you’re then also having to handle the you know, like all aspects, you’re having to make sure you’ve got the creative, you’re having to make sure that you’ve got all the various different, say promotions, or sales or anything that’s going on within that month, you’ve got that all booked and planned in advance and you know exactly what’s going to be posted. And then you schedule it in and you use a platform such as sprout or HootSuite. There’s so many now, I mean, those are the two that I’ve used previously. But you use that schedule and I’m a little bit what’s the word? I get a little bit nervous. And I do always go and kind of do a manual check to make sure it has post it.
Matt Nally 39:46
There. We had this one Saturday, we had this thing where it posted to one account, because we just scheduled it for service. But yeah, we posted to one account, the other one would often fail. But we wouldn’t see the response email because it was to a personal email address for that thing. Twitter account rather than their business.
Lydia Elder 40:02
And I do actually I have found I don’t love the jewel, Instagram and Facebook posts, I always prefer to actually write a separate Facebook because I do sometimes think the language can sometimes be a little bit different obviously, the amount of characters you have and all of that changes the format that your images are going to be in, you know, on Facebook, you can get away with much longer landscape images, Instagrams very much the six nine ratio, and I just, I prefer to do it separately rather than have it feeding through. And I know there used to be a time when people would what used to be a time you still do it now, where I know that you can schedule your Instagram posts, your Facebook, and your Twitter and you just do one and it just pulls it all out across all three. But I do think that fundamentally social media platforms are all for very different purposes. And you do actually get different audience audiences on them. So I think that you really need to treat them as separate. Rather than kind of like cutting to save time, even though I know that it is to make your life easier.
Matt Nally 41:13
What are the subtle differences then you you’d make between say, a Facebook post or an Instagram post and a Twitter or Tik Tok or whatever it might be?
Lydia Elder 41:22
The subtle differences between Facebook and Instagram, aside from format, you know, image size and the amount of, you know, text or copy that you can have. I think Facebook is used a lot like Google, I find people will go on and ask, you know, ask questions. So they’ll they’ll go on a group, and they’ll look through for the answer. And it’s a lot more kind of like looking for in detailed text. So I think that I think in Facebook, the captions are really, really important. Because people will search for information on a page or on a group. And what they get fed as the answer will be taken straight from what your post is, you know, the content in your post. Whereas with Instagram, that there isn’t that functionality, you’re searching for the hashtag. So Instagram is a bit broader. And and I think Instagram is a lot more about the visual. And now the video content, I think, yeah, Facebook’s a lot more text and what you’re saying, and Instagram is is now a bit more grabbing attention with that image.
Matt Nally 42:49
Is that okay? And would you say? Would you therefore change the actual media itself? So you might have a video or an image on Instagram and you might have one on Facebook? But do you put different overlays over the top of it in a text overlays over the top of an image on Instagram? Because of that one factor?
Lydia Elder 43:06
Yeah, exactly that that is probably what I would do is I would I would make the whole post more focused on what’s shown in that in that video. Whereas with Facebook, I would rely a bit more on the caption, what you’re right, what the posts, what you’re writing underneath, and the image is kind of just supporting that really I find on Facebook.
Matt Nally 43:29
Interesting. Okay, I suppose my final question and this might be slightly irrelevant, but in terms of you know, this is more of an organic aspect but but do you do you ever promote stuff? And is that a good tactic or do you stick purely to organic posting,
Lydia Elder 43:46
so I have not ever personally promoted any of my posts so I’ve never done any paid or sponsored posts for my account. But I have worked with brands and I’ve worked on very specific campaigns with them where I’ve created content that I’ve shared on my page and the brand has then put spend it you know, so they they’ve it’s all changed now hasn’t it because now you’re you be like your co you know, you can co post so it used to be that you could only promote your own post on your own account and you put money into it and you know, it would get it would get the Instagram would feed it to more people. Depending on how much spend you’re putting in like Facebook advertising. And now you can bring a brand on like invite them to co post with you and your post that you put up will also come up on their pay Ah, and it will say at the top that, you know, it’s a partnership between the two of you. And they can actually put spend into that themselves if they choose to. Interesting. Yeah. So I’ve never done it to promote, like my own personal posts. But I have worked with companies who have used my posts, and then put spend into it and essentially fed them out as adverts on Facebook and Instagram.
Matt Nally 45:29
Awesome. Okay, so that’s, that’s, I suppose some potential out there surveying firm could work with an influencer to to do something that okay,
Lydia Elder 45:37
yeah, well, then you have, then you have the, you know, it’s essentially past like a part in personal review form. But you can still you can increase the potential audience beyond the influences following or and you’re following.
Matt Nally 45:54
Okay, so my very final question then, would be what, what are your top tips for creating a the right post, and be just to being successful with your social media activity?
Lydia Elder 46:10
So my top tips, I think, are research. So look into what other people are doing, and it’s not copying? That, you know, you need to know your market and you need to know your competitors. And you need to know what’s working and what’s not working. So yeah, really do do your research. Find really also delve deep. I think at the core of all of this is, who is your audience? And this is, you know, basic marketing and advertising, but it’s so important for social media. Who is it that you’re speaking to? Because if someone’s going to be invested in the content that you’re putting out, it has to be for them? You know, I mean, if I’m Scott, that’s why I find sometimes on Instagram, the they have, like suggested posts, and sometimes it’s very finely tuned, and I’m like, Oh, that’s great. I’ll follow up as sometimes I look at it, and I go, Why have they just served me out that I’m not even slightly interested in that. And you don’t want to be the account that people are going, why are they showing me this, I’m not interested, you need to really, really know your audience. So you know who you’re speaking to, and have a really strong, I think you have to have, as a company have a really strong sense of like, what are your values? What are you wanting to share with people? And also, again, I guess that’s where the passion comes in, right? Because you really believe in what it is that you’re selling, or what it is that you’re doing. With regards to social media? Yeah, sadly, as exhausting as it is you have to keep, you just have to keep the creativity up. And you have to keep up with what’s happening. You know, you have to be you have to do video content now. And you kind of you can’t get stuck in a rut. If you see something that looks great. But you go oh, I don’t know if that’s for me. Give it a try. As long as it fits in with with who you are and what you’re selling, you know, just give it a go. And don’t be kind of closed off. And yeah, and like so yeah, I think consistency, passion and know your audience. Yeah,
Matt Nally 48:38
I like those points. I think. I think there’s two important things from that is one with the video, but it’s surprising that no one actually cares in terms of how you think you’re going to come across them how people are going to judge you. I don’t think people do, generally. And actually, it’s not this, it’s not something to be that feared. But I think the aspect about research, you’re completely right. And I think people get put off by that. Because they’re they’re looking at it in the context of just within social media. And it’s can I be bothered to spend the time doing it, I’ll just check something out. But actually, that same research gets used in every other aspect, how you’re going to put your copy on your website, and how you’re going to sell your services on the phone and all that kind of stuff. So you do it once but it applies elsewhere. It’s not just, you know, an exercise for the social specifically, I suppose you’re gonna get a bit more depth in terms of
Lydia Elder 49:24
and I think you also have to think so this is one of the things that I was really talking to those housing developers about was, you know, you personally may not use this, but you know, may not use social media in general or may not use this specific, specific platform, but does your audience for example, for me, I have not been particularly active on Tik Tok because the people my core audience who is essentially 25 to 50 year old women is my core or audience, they’re not really on tick tock, and they’re not really buying products based off, you know, tick tock content, they might have a tick account and they might occasionally browse through but that’s not the platform they’re really engaged with. Whereas if, you know if I’m misguided, you know, the clues are pretty little thing. You got to be on Tik Tok, because that’s where the teenagers are. That’s where the early 20 year olds that’s where trends are being formed. Like I personally, I’m a social media person, but I don’t believe in as you said earlier, I don’t believe in just doing everything for the sake of it. You’ve got to find out what is it what what are your audience using and what do they resonate with? And focus on that?
Matt Nally 50:45
Awesome. Thank you for all of your insights. today. I’ve I’ve learned about myself because I’m not the most social media savvy person myself. If anyone wants to check out your account, just to get an idea of sort of the type of content you’ve put out and so on, what’s your Instagram handle?
Lydia Elder 51:02
So my handle is Lydia’s with an ass underscore Layton underscore life. Yeah, and you can find me that I do also have a tic tock account but you know, it’s the same thing but it’s not as interesting as my Instagram.
Matt Nally 51:20
I love myself actually after this because I’ve I’ve been on Instagram. Yeah,
Lydia Elder 51:24
well, and actually Lydia’s later in life has an interesting story because that originated from that was my original Instagram handle. When I set up my account my with our new build home, and Layton was the house type that we bought. So that’s why it was Lydia’s later in life, because it was all centering around that. Now we’ve since moved overseas are not living in that house anymore. And I always think, Oh, I feel like I should have changed my instagram handle. But at this point, you know, there’s so much SEO, you type that in, there’s articles that you know, there’s interviews I’ve done, I just think I can’t go back. And also a lot of people think Layton is my last name. So it’s just like a bit of an alias now.
Matt Nally 52:07
That’s to tell the story that fits. Exactly. I’m
Lydia Elder 52:10
just going with that. I can’t go back now. But actually, that’s a really good lesson and put a lot of thought into your your handle at the beginning. Because you can change it but obviously once you grow you probably will find that you won’t want to change it unless you’re doing a hobby unless your company you’re doing a whole new rebrand.
Matt Nally 52:33
Yeah, because otherwise people aren’t gonna be able to find you as easily because, you know, they’re not helping you in what works anymore. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thanks for thanks for coming on. And we’ll hopefully do another one. So,
Lydia Elder 52:43
Thank you so much, Matt. It was a pleasure.