E100: Elevating Your Brand for A Modern Audience

In our first Marketing Pros episode of 2025, we sit down with Mya Shell, a 25-year-old brand marketing powerhouse. From growing up in a small Ohio town to shaping major campaigns in the tech world, Mya's journey is nothing short of inspiring. She shares how being part of the digital era shaped her strategies, dives into the importance of brand tone, and explains why pop culture is key to engagement. If you're looking to strengthen your brand identity in an omnichannel world or want to understand the rise of "comfort content," this episode is packed with insights you don't want to miss. Connect with Mya on LinkedIn (@MyaShell) for more marketing wisdom or on Instagram (@MyaShell) to meet her adorable, fluffy cat!

Chapters

• 0:00 Mya's journey
• 5:26 Defining Brand Marketing and Gen Z Influence
• 14:28 Social Media Evolution: Platforms, Pop Culture, and Comfort Content
• 29:46 Diversifying Media and Building Community
• 42:27 5. Practical Advice for Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses

Transcript

0:01

All right, let's get started. So for the first marketing pros episode of 2025, I wanted to have someone on who I genuinely consider a brand marketing powerhouse. And at only 25 years old, she's getting started in shaping the future of marketing. From a small town girl with big marketing dreams to now a big city marketer, she's found her calling by leveraging social media to build and strengthen brands that truly shine, even in congested spaces like social media tends to be. She's the creative spark behind countless campaigns and her energy is absolutely inspiring. I've seen firsthand how her skill for storytelling, her Gen Z savvy insights and her power for connecting with people online can transform a business's brand from who's that to wow, look at that. So without further ado, let's get a masterclass and geek out a little bit on all things brand marketing. I'm excited to introduce skill level 50 social media marketer. brand whisperer and soon to be one of your favorite new sources for marketing inspiration in 2025, Maya Shell. Hey, Maya. Hey, thanks for that amazing intro. Absolutely, I'm a fan. So I guess some context, I've wanted to have you on this podcast for a while. I kind of ran into your work through our partnership with Cloud Campaign. This is not a sponsored post or sponsored content. We love Cloud Campaign. It's our social media management platform of choice. And I was kind of a fly on the wall for... the work that you've done over there. But I don't want to get too far ahead, but I'm super, super excited that you agreed to be on here for our first episode in 2025. But I want people to get a sense of who you are, right? Because like with our podcast, normally we talk about awesome brands and the story behind them. And you're the brand in this case, right? It's you, it's your personal brand and it's an awesome personal brand. So... Thank you. small town girl with big marketing dreams and now you're, you know, you're doing big things in a big city, you know, introduce yourself to people, talk to them about who you are and how you got into marketing. Yeah, of course. yeah, that's basically some of what you just said, but I'll give it a bit more detail there. But yeah, so I grew up in an incredibly small town. I'm from rural Ohio, know, so not much happening there. So I obviously like kind of wanted to get out of that. So I went to college. I'm a first gen college student. So I really didn't have a lot to lead me. was basically just going off. ambition and passion and like just trying to get out there in the world and see what I could do in it. And so yeah, like I really just tried to take every opportunity, every opportunity that like came my way, which was kind of tough because when I was in college COVID happened. So like right in the middle of me being in college, like the world pandemic and my internships were canceled, I got sent home. so that, it was really interesting time to be finally getting into the world when it's just shutting down, essentially. it's, yeah, incredibly interesting. So as we kind of talked today about Gen Z, people like, think keeping that in mind is like, we've had this like catalyst, you know, it's our like 9-11, because I was only like two when 9-11 happened. So it's like our big world event. And it affected a bunch of things, obviously, as everyone knows. But anyway, so like taking that, you know, I learned a lot of lessons from that. But. Yeah, like I think one of the things that really catapulted me into my like, you know, post-grad like professional life is taking advantage of internships and we had a co-op program in my college, the University of Cincinnati. It's pretty renowned if you know about it, but anyway, so we pretty much push like getting out there into the world a lot, like not just taking classes, like actually getting a master class in real world internships and opportunities. So. That was incredible. That was definitely my biggest recommendation for anyone in college. If you're listening, take internships, try to get out there. yeah, so that's kind of literally straight catapulted me into the post-grad professional world because I was taking internships even after I graduated. I still like wanted to get my toes wet in like the industries and trying to figure out exactly what I wanted to do. So I took an internship at cloud campaign as mentioned earlier and that did turn full time. So that was my first big job and now I'm on my second job and I am in the tech world. Both my jobs have been tech. I would love to say that I like planned that and like I wanted to get into the tech world and I like, you know, made all these strategic moves. I really just fell into the tech world. but I love being here and it's a really interesting space. So yeah, I know a lot of people are always like, how do I get into tech? And I'm like, I don't know. Sometimes you just get lucky by falling into it. So that's a bit of my journey, but yeah, like onto my second job now. I'm just really trying to continue to learn and grow in my skills and in my career in general. So that leads me to sharing how grateful I am to be here today with you talking about what I've learned so far and. As you said geeking out on all of this because I do love to geek out on marketing and brand and everything so And it shows. that's, so I chose those words very wisely because, you know, like I said, I've seen your work with cloud campaign. You did a lot with cloud campaign. know, a lot of it, you were a brand ambassador on like short form videos out on social. So, you know, you were a face to the cloud campaign brand from that standpoint. And it was just like the work had. I guess the best way I could put it, like it had this Gen Z feel, but it was very wise, right? Like it attached to the brand very well. You're very savvy in that way. it showed through the whole, again, we're going to use brand a lot today, but it showed through the whole brand, right? For cloud campaign. brand marketing, for me, it's the foundation of marketing. Right? It's what every other marketing tactic will be built upon. But, you know, a lot of, you know, small medium sized businesses that are trying to get their brand out there, they're not quite understanding what brand marketing is or how to approach it. You know, define for me, in your words, like what is brand marketing? Right? Talk to us about what brand marketing is. Sure, yeah. So to me at least, I think brand marketing is about promoting the whole, like the brand as a whole and not just like the products or services. I know a lot of people say like, bring about like, how to like solve the problem, not just the problem and involving like emotions and stuff like that. So it's basically about showing off the personality and like the vibe of the company, you know, finding ways for people to connect with and relate to the company's energy. or as like Gen Zers would say, it's aura. So, yeah, I guess. my daughter's 10, my son's seven. I'm like inundated with, you know, skibbity toilets and stuff like that. no. That's the stuff that goes over my head, like, as an older Gen Z. That's the stuff I'm like, I don't understand that. I don't want to understand that. Like, they can have their own part of the Gen Z world. Yeah, the next generation of marketing is going to be interesting. It'll be very foreign. But I have to imagine for you, in kind of that, so your Gen Z, your older Gen Z went to college during COVID, crazy. I remember here, COVID for us, I just started at the agency I'm with now, it hit everyone in their own way. But to me, it shows like, the different type of perspectives that we could have. And for you, would imagine that, you you've grown up much, much more in the digital era, right? And that I would imagine has shaped your philosophy on how you approach brand marketing and brand strategy. Talk to me a little bit about that, about how like your view may... be an evolved one from mine because in my era, I started out in print media. So back in 2001, right? It was like we were lighting the office by lantern and getting to the office by horse and carriage. now, you know, now there's cars. So, you know, I've seen the evolution of brands and marketing from that perspective. But for you, your start, you started in the digital era and now your evolution is probably going to be into the AI side. So talk to me a little bit about how the digital era has influenced your philosophy. Yeah, I mean, that's, that is crazy. Like, I think print needed to me is so interesting. So I'm like, wow, what a different world like that would have been cool to like, transform go through that transformation. But like you said, like, in my lifetime, I'm going to see a whole different kind of transformation. So that it will be interesting to see how that works more. And on the side of AI, like just quickly, I am so glad that I went to at least undergrad, I'm in grad school now. So I have AI now, but I'm so glad I did undergrad with out AI because it is such a tool that's like, so easy to rely on. And so I'm glad I didn't have that then, but now like, yeah, totally different world. So, but going back, yeah, like my, you know, growing up. So yeah, like I was born in 99. So I technically am a 90s baby. I claim it. I like to claim I was a 90s kid. I'm definitely not. I understand that. It's fine. You're fine. can say you're a 90s kid. That's fine. But yeah, so like when all these social platforms were just coming about, I didn't have a MySpace. wasn't quite, actually I think I did, but I only did it like because my older brothers had it. But like I don't really remember that one really. So maybe there's an account for me out there somewhere, but I don't even know. But anyway, my first platform started when I was 10. So on Facebook, it was 2010 and I was 10 and I was on Facebook and there wasn't like, my parents didn't, my parents still don't. no social media, like they don't understand. So there wasn't any like, what are your parents? Like they let you be on there. Like they had no idea what was going on. I had no idea what was going on. You're on there. You're adding anybody who whatever. And like you're talking to people that like in the great above you at school that you kind of know like on there and stuff. So that terrifies parents nowadays. Somehow I made it through. No one creepy got to me. So yes. first that my version of that was like riding your bike with friends, like well, well beyond where you live into like town and stuff like that. Yours was like hopping on Facebook as a 10 year old, which is interesting. You'll never see a 10 year old on Facebook. Now the, the demographics have changed, but, it was a simpler time back then. Yeah, but like through that, like, I feel like I see the world through a much more digital lens. And it definitely has like shaped interactions with people, especially, know, as like Instagram came out and that kind of became like my generation's like more platform other than like Facebook. And I think I was 12 when I got an Instagram. And so like having that in literally middle school. So taking that through time, but that has also been changing a lot. I'm so interested, one of my things I'm so interested in is the future of social media. And I'll get into like some of the, I'll touch on some of those aspects because again, it like is so interesting to me, especially as having a career rooted in it, how that will change over time through like my perspective, how I've seen it already change so fast over, I don't know, like 10, 15 years now of it being around. But anyway, yeah, so through that, through growing up alongside these platforms, these platforms are changing and growing pretty much at the same pace I am in my career. They're changing. So it's interesting to see that. the platforms, how they've been important or useful to me kind of change over time, but also how they have changed themselves. like. In high school, I used to get like 600 likes on a picture and blah, blah, blah. And like now like engagement interaction on these platforms is so low and most people are lurking. And so that's kind of like some of the pace that doesn't mean like I don't have the same amount of people viewing or interacting with my stuff. Like I definitely have grown followers, but now it's slowed. you know, so I think that's like, you can look at your personal journey through the platform, at least for the space and time that I'm in with it. and it kind of mirrors the platforms as well as they're changing and trying to grow and get these different approaches as they mature into a more mature platform and as I mature into a more mature person. So it's just interesting. But yeah, think some of that does like some of it is good. Some of that is good. I think Gen Zers are much more in tune with the digital world and can make, I think we make maybe judgments off of people and things online more than let's say like my parents and older generation. I don't think they're quite as quick to make judgments off things they see online. And again, could be good or bad when it comes to people like that can be good and bad, but I think it's good when it comes to like spotting spams and spotting like if a product is actually good or not, like those are skills that I think Gen Z is sort of naturally in tune with that older generations maybe don't pick up on those little nuances. of like, what is real and what isn't. Same with like kind of fake news. Like everyone can fall to fake news for sure. But I think like, I've had to explain to my mom like some things to like processes to go to go through when you're looking at news and how to figure out if it's real or not and what extra things you need to look into to figure it out if you really want to or if you're not really invested, just don't even pay mind to it and just scroll past it. Like that is also a skill to like not let every headline catch your attention. So. Like I've had to like kind of talk to her through some of that stuff. Yeah, it's interesting. So, you know, now you were mentioning like social media is becoming more more mature. And I think we'll be talking about social media a lot today, A, because you're a powerhouse in it and B, it's one of like the cornerstone platforms that brand marketing can really engage with. And, you know, you were mentioning social media becoming more mature and Mark Zuckerberg just came out last week, week or two ago, saying that it make it making a huge move of of discontinuing third party fact checking for community notes, kind of following the model of Elon Musk, which is interesting. And, you know, he puts out this little video, like a, like a five minute video giving his, you know, two cents on the what and why. And it raised more questions than gave answers. And then he ended up going on the Joe Rogan podcast and he had three hours to talk about why. And it was very interesting of like, like you're watching for me. You know, I'm watching as I watch Meta grow, I'm watching the leader of Meta grow with it. And it was very interesting to, to hear. Just listen to Mark Zuckerberg's rationale about things and like talk about the techniques that he deploys within his algorithms and like how his algorithms work in that way. And, you know, some are going to like the move. Some are going to hate the move. I think there's good and bad. I think it's all going to come down to how he implements. I don't think X implemented it great. That's just my personal opinion. X is a bit chaotic to me. And I think Zuckerberg is more tactical in that way to deploy it out a little bit better perhaps than Musk. But it will be interesting to see. yeah, mean, it's a pay to play market, right? I remember early days of doing social campaigns. I would get a ton of engagement. And now it's like you're reaching what, like two to 5%, depending on, you know, how much traction your page gets anyway. So it's, it's, it's interesting. And I think, I think staying nimble, and understanding that, you know, these channels evolve will help mold your brand, right? for sure. mean, and talking like recent news, like the TikTok ban is huge. For some. Beast maybe buying it? I need to fact check this, but he puts out on X like, all right, I'll buy it. then he pushes something else out. like, you know what? I've had a lot of billionaires reach out to me since I've put that out. So let's see if we can make this happen. So it'll be interesting to see. I've seen that. I've seen things about like Musk being identified as a potential buyer. I haven't heard anything on his side, but who knows? It's a bunch of information, but you know, it's coming very soon now. And it's been something, especially my generation, me and my roommate, talking about this literally last night about how we've just been pretending it's not happening and probably we'll just continue to pretend it's not happening, but it's happening and there will be changes in it and you're going to have to, you know, if you're a nimble, flexible marketer in this space, you have to move around it. And so I think that's where like brand importance comes in, in general. You don't want to be stuck or tied to just certain platforms, especially ones that you don't own yourself. And so I think this is definitely going to be a year of like the pushing to the own channels, like your email or getting people to your website to join a community or something like that. Like pushing people to places that you own that you know won't be shut down on a dime, you know? own channels, I think, is gonna be huge. So especially as social media, like it's all up and down. It can change this way, that way with the introduction of community notes. Is that gonna mean, you know, your brand changes online because you've been posting all these hot takes and then now community notes are gonna say, this isn't right, this is like not true or something like. And then you have to like change your whole strategy. I think getting really savvy and really adopting a omni-channel strategy of how you move through things, how you promote things. And if you've had tons and tons of weight on social media, try to just disperse it. Yeah, distribute, disperse that energy among your other channels. And that doesn't mean like to not care about social anymore. You definitely need to be caring about it. There's still a ton of people there and it's still really important, but just making sure your other channels aren't like falling to the wayside. Yeah, yeah. No, so master class number one, ladies and gentlemen, thank you. Diversify your media mix. 2025 is the year to diversify your media mix. And yep, that doesn't mean shift energy from one to another. It means expend additional energy to be on more. And if you don't feel like you have the energy, that's where the the me's and the Maya's exists for you. so that's interesting. So I want to talk a little bit as brands, you know, as like you have like small, medium sized business owners. You know, our, our, agency is, is tied to a press association, a news media association. So we have a few different audiences within our bucket. so I want to speak kind of as overarching as we can. but I want to talk a little bit about brand tone because I think brand tone, there's such a large spectrum towards a brand tone and really how much goes into identifying what that tone is. think that was one of the things that I really appreciated. about your work with, with, with cloud campaign. It's like, you got the tone right. It was just great. Like, I just, like, I felt good after seeing like your video or your content, because it gave me beyond the content it gave me, was upbeat. was, it was classy. Um, it wasn't, it wasn't ridiculous, you know, or like crazy out there, but it had, it had an energy to it, which is hard to achieve. Um, you know, talk, talk to me a little bit about, like, I want businesses to know how they can assess their brand. to identify the best tone for them? Is it meme heavy? Is it more vanilla? How did you approach it or how would you approach it with any brand for them to assess? Yeah, this is great question. For me, it starts with the audience, as most marketing does or should. So, you know, once you figure out if you're targeting where, why, all that stuff, I think you need to move onto how, like what value can bring them and how that value can be illustrated to them. And a lot of that, I think, can come from, like you can learn that from being in the audience yourself. So, Consuming the same media that they're consuming being in the same communities that they are if they're if it seems like You know, you're targeting Gen Z and you know that this is a Gen Z Marketer in the space. Okay, cool. I'm gonna be looking at their stuff Can be looking at the things that comment on them if you're a food brand. again Let's just stick with Gen Z for this your food brand targeting Gen Z. Okay, cool. Let's look at other people doing that Let's look at their comments. Let's look at the things they post what how many likes are they get on this? You know using like it's very cost effective to just look at what other people are doing, especially on social media. Like it's out there. You don't, there's no behind the walls, like maybe for like paid, but for organic, it's all out there to see. So go look at it. And that should be like your first thing you do. Like once you've identified everything, get in there, get in the weeds and try to become in that mindset, try to look at those people and what they're saying, how they're feeling. And so then you can get really good information and good, at least starting points. to start posting or putting out there, sending emails in that tone voice. So that's like the first step I'd say is like getting in there, figuring out, see what it feels like yourself. And then you can like make content and build your own audience off of that. And then you can pull different ways if you want from that, but that should be a good starting point. That's a great starting point. So research, right? So researching what others are doing. And, and, know, that's more of a common practice than I think small medium sized businesses may realize. Influencers are, that's the world they live in with researching. They're, you know, a common tactic. It's a tactic we do at our agency is, if we're looking at, you know, what type of content really paces for a specific brand or a specific type of product. mean, we're pulling up a spreadsheet and finding you know, the top 50 videos on that specific topic and looking at things like, you know, who is it? What's the hook? What's the call to action? You know, right down to even like, you know, how many seconds in between transitions and things like that, right? It's like, you know, for videos, it's a short attention life or attention span that people have. Like you need to consistently be engaging their eyes as well. But, but I think, you know, even for like, So for me, think even for like the most vanilla brands, sometimes I think it's good to push it. Right. And, and I think there, there are some industries where probably people are cringing as I say that, pushing it. And one thing that, that you really opened my eyes up to, was like integrating pop culture into your social strategy. It's huge. And it made me look at. social content in a very different way. Talk to me a little bit about when it's the right time to bring pop culture in, to get this little blitzkrieg of reach extension. Are there any recent pop culture events that you've seen really pace well in the social space to push a brand? Yeah, so talking about pop culture, I feel like I put them in different categories. So there's more like evergreen pop culture, you know, can be posted whenever, all times of the year. And then there's more like, I can't think of like the perfect word for it, but let's just let's just say event focused pop culture. short-term real-time 15-minute pop culture. Yeah. yes, there's there's long term, and then short term, like things are popping up now. And so separating into those categories, I'd say if you're starting out get touching into pop culture for your branding or how to tie it into that. Those evergreen areas are good. So again, depending on your audience, if they're Gen Z, if they're Gen X, whatever, you're going to be using different pop culture references because that's what your audience knows. So like, if you're targeting an older generation, you probably don't wanna do like, I don't know, SpongeBob or something. But if you're targeting like Gen Z or something, you can do it. Or like, if you're doing millennial, friends, great, that works, know, stuff like that. But if you're doing younger, maybe New Girl or I don't know, what's the other stuff that's going on. But anyway. You know, that really, um, Oh man, my boys are going to be like, what? But it was awesome. I never saw the movie, but I saw all of the advertising that, that hovered around this, but the, Barbie movie. I mean, it was, yeah. I mean, before the Barbie movie came out, there was like a metric ton of money put into marketing and you saw all of these brands pick it up. I mean, for, for like a good month. It was just like, took over, like it took maybe more, right? It just like, took over this, this craze, but no, I think that's, I think that's great advice. Like looking at it from the standpoint of short-term, long-term, long-terms, like, you know, Leonardo, the meme of Leonardo DiCaprio like pointing at the TV and like pick your caption versus maybe something like a crazy, a crazy outfit worn Jared Leto dressing up as a cat, you know, at that, whatever. that the Met Gala, think. Yeah, a year or two ago. So that's a great example. like, again, those things that are time oriented or will, you know, you can post, okay, so let's say Valentine's Day and the Super Bowl are coming up, making things for that to go out around that time. Perfect. Right now, in October, why would you post something about the Super Bowl? That doesn't make sense. And your audience won't be. thinking about that at this point. So it's not gonna land as well either. you know, making sure you're timely with those things and how you're tuned into pop culture, you know, but there could be, again, like TikTok's being banned right now. That's kind of a great thing to talk about, especially in like, if your audience is marketers or cares about that, or if you're targeting younger people, a lot of younger people are on that platform. So making sure you're tuned into what's going on around you, like news stories, events that are happening, popular TV shows. I think that's a great one to go on when The Last of Us came out. Was that last year? Made it so much stuff about that. Yeah, stuff about that. Or stranger things. Like, okay, cool. When the new season comes out, I know I'm doing stuff about that. I know people are gonna be watching about that. you know, so stuff around that versus like evergreen content or evergreen memes, things that can just work all the time of year. Like if you use those together, that's how you can be really savvy when it comes to pop culture, like marketing in general. Yeah. And let's talk real quickly. Let's talk a little bit about like why that's important. Right. So pop culture gets more engagement. It typically will get more engagement. It's, people will see depending on right. It's like there's caveats, but depending on like you usually see a heightened engagement, you know, reactions or comments, maybe shares if it's really funny. think the answer is obvious, but not to everybody. Why is increased engagement and just increased, well, why is increased engagement so important for a business to take into consideration for their growth of, in this case, their social platform, but really extends beyond, but for social, like, why is it important? I think it's important. I mean, it shows you're in tune with your audience and it shows that you're being relevant. So if you're posting something and it's really connecting with people, then they're going to be commenting, engaging, sharing. I think as we move forward with social media, there's going to be a big separation between impressions and engagement. Again, like I said, the lurkers are lurking. And if you don't know, okay, I'll explain that term. I'm like, I don't know what are Gen Z terms versus not. So I will, if you ever want me to explain further. explain what's a lurker. A lurker. That'd be somebody who just scrolls social media. I feel like you could even tie it to email campaigns. They just are opening your emails, but they're not clicking anything. They're not engaging with it at all. So there's more and more people just lurking, just watching. That doesn't mean like it won't turn into a conversion one day, but that does mean you're not getting any signs that they're actively involved with your brand. So it's interesting. that that is happening more and more nowadays. as a marketer, be aware that that may not be your big metric moving forward, but it's important. It makes it even more important and shows you even more when people are engaging, commenting with their stuff. Yeah, think so. And I think. Yeah, lurkers. So for us, my generation of marketers, we chiseled on a piece of stone. Our, our, no, it's more like a casual, right? Like someone who's just a casual, maybe an enthusiast or even less. But it's like the weeds are thickening within these already congested spaces. So tried or, you know. There's more hay, know, try to find the diamond or the needle in the haystack or whatever, pick your metaphor, but you're absolutely right. And beyond that, I will also add that more engagement, it's, it exercises your algorithm, right? You want to get more engagement to strengthen your algorithms. So, in this case, let's just use meta for example, but it usually holds true with other platforms. The more a piece of content engages, the more it's going to show that platform that your brand is a favorable one. Mm-hmm. And then look to double down right if you have a piece of content that is engaging well double down with that bad boy Throw it out on other channels see where it paces Which kind of gets me into the idea of like there are so many different spaces for us to Strengthen our brand again, let's talk in the social space a because I've sold my so my soul to social, you know social But this will apply everywhere Yes. let's look at it just from the social standpoint. Like there are so many different platforms, right? There's X, formerly known as Twitter. There's Facebook, there's Instagram, there's Snapchat, there's TikTok, there's Lemonade, there's Pinterest, you know, is, I mean, there are so many different, Blue Sky, Truth Social for the, you know, the alt-right fans, you know? I mean, there's just, there's so many different spots that exist out there. How do brands identify what spots make the best sense for them? And the answer is probably going to be audience. think we already have that, like who's on it, right? Assessing the audience. But then how do you tailor your brand and your content to these specific channels beyond limitations it may set? know Twitter has, you know, character limits, things like that, but like, how do you tailor that content holistically across multiple channels? Yeah, I mean, I think one of things to keep in mind when we're talking in this space is like reality. So if you have a very small team, if you have a team of one for like social media or, you know, whatever, it's very small, you want to be realistic with your time and your expectations. Because yeah, I do think moving forward now, like we do need to be tailoring our messages to each individual platform. So your social media marketer probably shouldn't be writing your emails like that. it make sense or the website copy or something? Like, so again, that goes with platforms. You shouldn't be posting what you're on LinkedIn, on Instagram, and we've been knowing that about social media. But I think now as that becomes more and more like, and there's more and more platforms that come out every day that try to like defeat the other platform. So personally, I use threads. I'm not a Twitter person. So while it could be easy to just post whatever I'm posting on threads to Twitter, I'm not doing that right now. You're on, okay, so you're on threads. That's good. So when threads came out, I was super excited. Man, I was so excited when threads came out. I don't know why, but I like, got on there and I'm like, put this super clever post and I'm like, who else is out there? Like, yawn, you know, and like eyes opening for the first time. And like, I, I, have no friends on thread. I, I'm going to follow you on threads. Please follow me back because. Ha ha ha! starving to have a friend on threads. It's like, It's, it's, yeah, maybe I'm just, my, my ex is so much more lively from that standpoint, but, but yeah. but with those like, yeah, they're very similar. They seem very similar, but to me, it's a risk if I were to just share what I'm sharing on threads to X because I'm not familiar with that platform as much anymore. I'm out of touch with it. I'm not sure how the community moves. Community nodes, I had heard of that, but I wasn't really familiar with it. So say I would have posed something like a sarcastic joke or something and then X would be like, no, like that. Community note, this person's wrong. Don't follow his account or something like. Yeah, like so. So I don't want to take that risk for me or for any brands that I'm working with, so I wouldn't be doing that. So you need to be familiar with the platforms first off. So if you are considering adding Blue Sky, Substack, that's something I've been hearing about lately. So you need to be going into those platforms, figuring them out and then making a decision if they're right for your brand, not just like, this name is Blue Sky's big now. So let's get on there. That doesn't make sense, honestly. So you need to go in, do that research, understand if it makes sense for your brand. Again, you can see if competitors are there, not that that should be your full metric, but if they are, then you can kind of see what is going on for them. And then making that decision. So then if you make that decision, that's when you get into that strategizing of how you're gonna tailor what you're posting or what you're talking about, what you're doing on that new platform. It's kind of, I think, a process there. It is. I think one good way, one way I always encourage my clients to research is get on the platform and use it personally, even if you don't want to, you know, I I've especially if you don't want to because then you're going to see like you have some resistance and so you can see kind of like from an outside perspective if it can win you over and how it won you over. Exactly. And the how it won you over, that's what you leverage, right? Because that's how it's going to win other people over as well. Or it's going to be the most widely adopted value of that social channel by those that do like that social channel. So it's, I know I spend a lot of time on social. I spend way too much time on social, but I can do it for my job. It's your job too, but it's no, it's interesting to see. wondering, I'm really interested how these platforms will evolve here in the future. Me too. so talk to me a little bit. I want this information that you're providing is, is incredible. I mean, this is like, people pay lots and lots of money for, to hear, to hear these tips and tricks from folks like you. so thank you for giving it for free. but talk to me a little bit for, some, businesses, like if there's an entrepreneur listening, they have a startup on their, you know, and their brand's getting out there. You know, what would be one thing that they could do today that even if they have a small budget or really even no budget to help strengthen their brand identity? Yeah, so my main thing here, like I've been pushing this, is to just engage. It's free, again, it's organic, it's natural, and you've been seeing the rise of brands in your comment sections, especially on TikTok. We'll see maybe how that transfers over to Instagram moving forward. But get into those comments, start engaging. I think some brands, they're kind of just all over the place with it. They're commenting on whatever is viral. I don't know that's necessarily the strategy, if that works for you, fine. But being strategic about it and again, like being a part of the community, like our social media is changing over time. We're seeing the growth of communities and niche understanding. So being involved in that, if you are a chicken company, get into this chicken world, like get out there, get commenting on all these people's content that's around chicken or whatever, especially if there's anything viral in the world around chicken. I'm commenting. You're not responding. What's going on? No, that's a great, that's a great, it's free. And there's a psychology behind it, right? So the consumer, your consumer, when they see that even if a brand just likes a comment that you have, just even that that nod, right? It's like the bro nod, right? Like, I see you, I heard you. Yes, you're feeling seen. You're feeling seen. Xat's a great way of putting it. And bonus points, if you comment back, you're feeling heard, right? It's a huge, huge man. We should, okay, let's split. I'm gonna trademark that. I will split that with you 50-50. Engage to be seen, respond to be heard. I'm gonna make t-shirts. And I will say too, like, I think this sounds so sad and I try to be very positive, but I think my generation is more of a lonely one. We are, again, COVID pushed us inside, pushes out of our schooling, literally pushed me out of my house in college. So not that that is still happening, but like that sentiment is there. Like we were kind of pushed into our own areas. And so we kind of are a more lonely generation and we definitely do. look for community and connection online, like straight up. I kind of hope we get out of that or the next generations push out of that. But that's how it is right now. And so if you're interacting, especially with younger generations, we're doing it online. so being, again, people say authentic, and I think that's such a buzzword, but maybe genuine is a better way to go about it. Like just talking to people like people, but giving them that connection, you know, really seeing and hearing them and understanding what's going on in their world. I think that's a really good way to think about marketing moving forward. Yeah, no, I agree with that. And even for my generation, 42, right? It's like, this will probably sound terrible for me, but my birthday every year is awesome because I know I'm going to get flooded with like, happy birthday, Kevin, right? And it's just like, there's a warm feeling that people get for that. And I think doing something, so that's a great tip, engage. there are tools out there that can help you kind of roll up all of your social channels. And I'm going to, I'm pushing this out. This is not a sponsor post. They are not paying me to do this. I just really like the product. We use cloud campaign and one thing cloud campaign does or other, you know, perhaps other SMMs, just so like I'm not super fanboying out of cloud campaign, but it pulls all of the engagement up into one. all into one page for me where I can just go through and I'm engaging with everybody very, very quickly. It gives the ability to like create kind of pre responses, like, know, thanks for the kind words or whatever the case may be. So like, there are ways that you can be efficient in achieving these goals that seem like they're juggernauts. Cloud campaign aside. Do you have any other like ideas, tips, tricks on tools that could just help overall? Yeah, so one of my favorite tools I'm using currently is MiniChat. And I know people have heard that it's been bouncing around for like a year, but there's really a lot of use cases you can use it. And especially with trying to move into this omnichannel, multiple channel marketing here, owned channels, you can use MiniChat to push people that way. So with MiniChat, if you're unfamiliar, like you can set up different automations and they're not, it's not for every social media channel right now, but Instagram is the biggest one I see them used on and so you can creators will create a piece of content in the caption They can say comment this word this emoji, whatever and if people do then they get an automatic DM to them or Whatever automation you really set up but a lot of people do it for DM So again, it gets people in the DMS which Adam is already the head of Instagram says a lot of like interesting Movement is happening in DMS that Instagram is moving into DMs more and there's more conversations happening in there. So again, as a brand getting into someone's DMs organically, like they're basically asking you to get slide in their DMs. That is an incredible way to start building that connection with them super organically and strong. So anyway, a lot of people do that by like offering free resources or downloads or like I'll send you the link or whatever it is that makes sense for you. That's a great way you set up this MiniChat automation. Again, you could get two or you could get 200 and it makes it easy for you. Then you're in there with somebody and you send them the resource, they open the conversation with them, can say, let me know if you have questions. Then it feels really organic and natural. That's been an amazing tool to use and you can push people that they have an automation for email, so you can capture their email and then you push them into your own channel. Yeah, many chat, many chats great. Many chats good for the restaurant industry, right? Like you put something, you create a hook, comment coupon, right? mean, like to get a free app or free dessert or like if, perfect for like around Valentine's day, maybe your holidays, things like that. It's a great spot there. I see it a lot because you probably do, we get pushed like. marketing stuff all the time. I get pushed a lot of like, you know, comment prompt to get the top thousand prompts for AI. And I'm like, nah, I'm okay. Like I follow the framework on that. but there is, but there are a lot and it's, it's an automation workflow that creates a funnel campaign for you. And again, if you don't have the time or know how to do it, give me a call. Give Maya a call. We can help you with this stuff. It's so, so important. So many chat, I will. get an affiliate link and put that in the show notes so we can all get rich off that. Yeah, and I do like I thought something you just said was super interesting about like like comment prompt and I'll send you a thousand prompts and you were like nah man I'm good like that sounds like a lot that is something that I feel like we're seeing a lot and I've recently heard a term for it so I'll share nobody else has but it's called like it's kind of the opposite of what you said but a comfort creator so instead of like overwhelming people with all of this information or like being super like upbeat and upbeat and high pace It's the opposite, it's being calm, it's being chilled. It's giving somebody space to just empty their mind and just watch you. It's like your favorite TV show on in the background. That side of social media is growing a lot this year. So just, yeah. genius. Let's take a moment with that because that is incredible. So for me, it's like the office, because you're absolutely right. I doom scroll heavily. And I'll watch and it's like, people are so amped. And it's jarring to consumers. You have always... And I never thought about it in this way until now, but your way of doing social for, for like cloud campaign, especially when you were the face for the message for the different pieces of content, it was very chill. Like I like, wasn't jarring to me, right? It gave me great information in a way where, it doesn't rattle me, you know, and, and it works well. mean, maybe, maybe that like upbeat hype jarred. kind of content works in some areas, but I agree because there's so much and leave it to us marketers, right? We are famous for using and abusing tactics that work until we overuse it, you know, and so comfort content, right? was comfort content. You should trademark that. That would, I would totally buy a shirt with that. That's awesome. That's awesome. so that's definitely something I've seen the rise of, you know, especially like it's huge in the beauty world is like, just watching people do makeup and they'll talk about their day or something like that's very relaxed. doesn't take long. And it's like that. Just to clarify. Yeah, it's a new way to just watch and again like you're maybe it's in the lurking world but you're engaged at least mentally but it's a relax it's not it doesn't take you a lot of mental energy to be tuned into that and so yeah I definitely think if this makes sense for your brand to kind of try to lean into that side of things especially if you're trying to go for like a softer approach like this is incredible for you so like some other examples like just like trending audio, like a chill video of you doing whatever, know, typing on your computer, you could be putting on makeup, it could be taking a walk, could be, you know, something playing with your dog in the background, just something chilled every day that people can relate to, and then put your message on top of it, or tell them to go to the caption, or whatever makes sense, but I think that kind of content we're gonna see rise a lot because it just doesn't take a lot of mental energy to do. It's not gonna make people swipe away, because they're like, I can't deal with that right now, so. Yeah, I think, and I think that also brings up an excellent point of like, it's authentic, right? Like that's authentic content or it's appearing to be authentic and it's not overly produced, right? The world of these overly produced pieces of content, they do not stand out as much as, you know, content that you create with putting your iPhone on a tripod and maybe having a lav mic and, you know, doing a get ready with me or whatever. And there's a lot of strategy behind, let's just use the get ready with me. uh, social strategy, it, it, you know, it keeps people on your video for longer. Your minutes, you know, that, that brand's minutes increase, um, which, which helps build out and strengthen their algorithm to reach more people. And it's also putting a face to the brand, right? Which is huge. think, put, I think 2025, we're going to continue to see the growth of, I think almost trending upwards kind of at a bow exponentially. It's like having more faces to the brand. You mentioned Adam Maceri. If people aren't following Adam Maceri on Instagram, follow him. I didn't follow him until you threw out, you shared something on Instagram. And I'm like, crap, I should probably follow him. So, you know, it's, being attuned to that and hearing what these subject matter experts have to say, becoming a subject matter expert yourself. So others want to hear what you have to say. I mean, these are all important things to help grow your business. man, I, there are so many things I'm going to take away from today to. to optimize my brand. And hopefully everyone listening that has a brand that they want to optimize, they're taking away some things here too. Ratlike, I think this will be our longest episode. This has been so fun. I have absolutely loved this. I'm so, happy. Thank you so much for coming on. I said, mean, hopefully I think it's safe to say you are going to be one of the go-tos on marketing influence in... the Omnichannel world for 2025, and I want people to know where they can follow you. So where can people follow you and, you know, be able to hear from you about more of your subject matter expertise? Yeah, of course, of course. Thank you for all those kind of words again. Like that's, I appreciate it a lot. It's amazing. But yeah, if you want to hear more from me, can go to my LinkedIn. It's at Maya Shell. So M-Y-A-S-H-E-L-L. Yeah, but that's basically, you can hit me up on LinkedIn if you want more of like the personal side, if you want to see my really cute and really fluffy cat, you can hit me up on Instagram with the same handle. But yeah, LinkedIn is going to be where I'll talk more of this stuff. So if you want more of this, that's where to go. Boom. So find Maya on LinkedIn and learn from her and then find her on Instagram and see that she travels all over the world and does awesome things. And it's just killing it at life, both professionally and personally. I'm so happy to see your successes. I'm so thankful to be able to learn so much from you. Thank you so much for taking the time and yeah, go build your brands, ladies and gentlemen. Until next time. See ya.