Fly Flamingo Fly

The Social + SEO Equation: Unlocking Small Business Growth With Tianna Mamalick

• Megan Shallow • Season 3 • Episode 8

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Want to rank for “near me,” earn reviews that actually move the needle, and turn social content into search visibility without lighting your budget on fire? Megan sits down with SEO strategist Tiana Mamalick of SMB Marketing School to unpack a clear, human-first playbook for small businesses that want sustainable growth.

We start where most wins begin: Google Business Profile. Tiana explains how the Map Pack works, what categories and service areas to pick, and why precise, location-rich reviews beat clever branding every time. From there, we bridge into social media as a search engine: how bios, captions, and on-screen text now surface on Google, why short videos on your key pages lift trust and time on site, and how local businesses and e‑commerce brands should structure pages differently to capture intent.

AI shows up as a powerful helper, not a crutch. You’ll hear how to use ChatGPT or Claude for outlines, keywords, and meta details then edit ruthlessly to add case studies, specific examples, and your voice. We talk image alt text, neighborhood service pages, and the magic of pairing a two-minute summary video with each important article. 

Then we get practical about paid media: the real ROAS ranges to expect today, how to avoid paying for empty clicks, and why tracking conversions, logging leads, and responding fast can save thousands. Tiana shares red flags to watch for when hiring an ads partner and a simple spreadsheet system that reveals long sales cycles you might miss.

Finally, we look ahead: generative engine optimization, voice search, flatter service pages that AI tools can go through, and the enduring power of referrals and community to boost everything online. If you’re ready to be findable, trustworthy, and consistent and let ads amplify what already works then this conversation hands you the steps.

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Follow, share the link to this episode with a friend who runs a small business, and leave a quick review to help others find the show. Your feedback shapes future episodes and topics you want us to unpack next.

For more social media and business conversations from yours truly (Megan Shallow) you can find me over on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and LinkedIn. 🦩

And of course if you ever need support with your social media presence you can find all the things at BNL Media Consulting. 🦄

SPEAKER_01:

Do you have this strong intuitive feeling that you are just destined to build a business and a life that stands out amongst the rest, but you just don't know how to get there? I feel you, I've been there, and I can see that you are another fellow flamingo just waiting to take flight. My name is Megan Shallow, social media guru and founder of BL Media Consulting, and this is exactly what I have done through building my own beautiful empire that has become a unicorn in the social media management world, as well as a safe space for entrepreneurs to feel empowered with their digital marketing. All of this was founded on the basis of three magical words breathe, nourish, and love. Are you ready to learn how to be that entrepreneur who shows up online and offline with confidence, has a business that makes an impact in this world, and lives a life full of connection, love, prosperity, and joy? If the answer is yes, then let's go. Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of Fly Flamingo Fly, where really I just love talking about all things social media and how to support small businesses in getting into the online space while continuing to keep community at the forefront. And today I have a guest with me who is an SEO expert to like the nth degree in the next level. Um, I just love how she weaves in social media and SEO so perfectly because I intuitively know what it's all about, but I never know how to explain it. And uh Tiana is able to put it all into beautiful words. So today I have Tiana Mamalek with me, owner of SMB Marketing School and SEO. I'm gonna I'm gonna term genius um for you, Tiana. So welcome, welcome to the podcast. And uh tell everyone who you are.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh yes, hi, my name is Tiana. I have been in SEO and digital marketing for we're coming on 12 years now, actually. Um, I got into it, I started in finance and I hated it. It was awful. Um, so while I was in school, I flipped over to marketing and I never left. So it's my only big girl job, and I have worked in everything from lead gen uh for software companies to nonprofits, and I've also worked in many, many different agencies. So a lot of real world experience in many different industries and business sizes.

SPEAKER_01:

Amazing. And now, SMB Marketing School, you have how long have you had that?

SPEAKER_00:

It's been uh just over two years now. Um one year full time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh man. Yeah. Entrepreneurs these days, I swear, you guys just you can build things so fast.

SPEAKER_00:

I love it. It's well, I think part of it too is that I I like really love what I do, so it makes it really easy to work real hard.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and you've got you've got a whole bunch of different clients. You help do lead gen through SEO and Kades, correct? Yes. Okay. And what does so like those that are listening, you probably know. Um, the SEO world has changed. I mean, a blog's still good, things are still good on the website. SEO, like foundations will never, well, I'll never say never, never go away, but um they will predict. Yeah. Um, but I know, especially for local businesses, the SEO game has changed drastically. And like in a good way, I think, because there's an opportunity for small businesses to level up in SEO and be found by not playing like just the old school game. So, Deanna, I'm just gonna kind of let you run with it. What when small business owners come to you and they want traffic, where do you start?

SPEAKER_00:

When it comes to SEO, if you're talking about for Google, if you're a small business, the best place to start is called the Google Business Profile. Um, it used to be called Google My Business. Um, you've probably heard of it. If you just search on Google, you should always have um an account for that. And technically you should have an account for each each location. So if you have different locations, I would have an account for each location, call it exactly what it is. Don't get fancy. When it comes to Google Business Profile, it's really about being very clear and specific, not trying to weave your branding in there. Um, so this is what'll help you show up in the map pack on Google. So that is the map at the top of the page that usually shows you like the three locations, and then you also have like the little dots of where other other things are. So the map pack pulls directly from Google Business Profile and Chat GBT is actually starting to pull those maps in as well. This is where people also leave you reviews. So those reviews are really important, and I personally think everybody should be working on reviews. If you are gonna do one place to hold all your reviews, Google has consistently been at the forefront and the most important. So while all the other review sites are great, uh, some of them die, some of them move on, some of them don't become as important. Google has consistently been important. So if you're gonna put your reviews somewhere, that is where I recommend putting them.

SPEAKER_01:

Amazing. There are like two things that I clocked right away. Map pack. I have never heard that term before, which I love. And then also that Google Business profile is now called Google Business Profile instead of GMB. I'm like, when did that switch happen? Because obviously in my head, it's been so long. I'm just like, Google my business, remember?

SPEAKER_00:

I find it so frustrating because I'll still talk to people and I'm like, Google my business. Wait, whoa, wait, Google Business Profile. If you look them both up, they both it it comes up both ways, but they did change the name. I'm not really sure why. I love GMB. I feel like that was so like safe and secure. So such a weird choice.

SPEAKER_01:

There'll be a meme for that later on in like five years. Remember? And so, okay, the mat pack. So one thing, what is it about that? Like, how do people rank higher on that when, like, as I I mean, I have so many clients, again, not the expert, so I just like you know, tell them to go find someone who is, but they do want to climb that. And what is your recommendation when people do want to move up in that ranking?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, so the map pack has changed quite a lot, but there's some kind of consistency. So there's a few things you can do to get your ranking higher up on Map Pack. Originally, it used to be your Google business profile, Google My Business, um, would have multiple different locations and you would talk a lot about your locations, and all of your reviews would have your location in it, and Google would say, okay, I know exactly where you are and what you do. I'll make you, you know, show up higher for these keywords. We've kind of moved into this place where we want to be hyper specific. So there is a service and location section, and this is something I think a lot of people sleep on is if you are a service-based business, if you do not have a brick and mortar store, you should still be on Google My Business. Um, because people are still looking for your services. And what a lot of people think is that I am global. I can help anybody everywhere. The problem with that thinking when it comes to search is that search audiences are cold audiences. So they need some reason to feel connected to you in a certain way. It is easier to get local traffic than it is to get global traffic. So I always kind of use the analogy of like big fish, little little pond, little fish, big pond. You want to be a big fish in a little pond, get your search traffic up and then start growing global. So if you are, say, a social media agency, you still want to start with your location and be very, very specific and clear on your website and on your Google business profile that you are in that location and you will you are more likely to show up in the Map Pack. One of the number one keywords in the world in every language is near me. So if you're thinking, like, how do I rank for near me? You just make sure Google is super clear on where you're located.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. Location, location, location. It's important here too, people. Now, okay, so location SEO. When people are writing on social media and doing things on social media, does that play a role? Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

So much so. There's actually it's interesting because there's two different search functions in social. So there's the in-platform search, and then now all of the platforms are also pulling onto Google. So if you have your location in your posts and you state your location, maybe you have it in your bio because they're pulling from different places depending on where people are searching. You can show up in Google underneath your Map Pack. And what we're trying to do when it comes to search, especially for either very specific location keywords or your branded keywords, you want to take up as much of that first page of Google as you possibly can. So if you have a Google My Business, if you have social media, if you have your website, now you are the entire first half of that page if you do it really well. That's truly what you want. So when you're thinking of like your social and where you'd put location for that, Google does pull now from your bio your captions, and it will sometimes pull from the um videos as well if it can read them. So that one's still a little bit kind of sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. So you want to make sure that they're also another. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And so, because that's I mean, I've always believed this, but I know like this is like changed exponentially. You said all social media platforms. Like I know they announced Meta as being like one that's gonna be pulling. Are all social media platforms helping? I know Reddit is like the secret sauce of SEO. It's a wild one, but it's definitely on the rise of conbos with even my clients.

SPEAKER_00:

So I think everybody does it now. I'm not sure about X slash Twitter and Truth Social. Let's be, I don't actually know about those ones. Um, TikTok has always pulled. It actually pulled pre-Meta. So Meta was actually the late comer when it comes to like pulling onto Google um or pulling into any of the um the AI systems. So um as like Pinterest has almost always been number one. Reddit was number two. I think they've sort of switched, but it depends on the industry you're in. Um, and then TikTok and all of Meta um platforms, so threads, Instagram, and Facebook all pull in. Uh so when you're thinking of your social platforms, I would just almost always think of them as potential search. And part of the reason I also tell people to start thinking that way is the internet is changing real fast. Um, and we have to be prepared, but not scared. So, to do that, anything you're doing on your website, slightly start copying that in other places too. So if you're very focused on your location, say you're a plumber, you're a counselor, like your location matters a lot. If you are very, very clear on your website, but your social media is like, I have no idea where you are. Um, that's not gonna help you because people can also search in Instagram. And we're seeing especially younger audiences go into Instagram and be like, I need a plumber in Surrey. Like they don't go to Google first. This is not as common, but it is shifting. So you want to make sure that all of the platforms know exactly where you are. So when this does start shifting more, you are prepared.

SPEAKER_01:

Love this conversation. So for me, like I got into social media because I loved the idea of creating like things online that would drive offline traffic. Like, that's my like all of my like teammates have like different expertise, and mine is brick and mortar because I'm like, I feel like the puppeteer being like, all right, guys, new cool place, let's go over here, and like I can just like build a community within a community, and it's so much fun. Um and so that's my favorite. But what I do know is like we have e-commerce brands that come through as well. And so, what is the difference? Like, what do what's the difference between what local businesses need to pay attention to when it comes to SEO and what e-commerce needs to pay attention to? Because I feel like it's slightly different games, obviously, because you're dealing with a global network with e-commerce in a different way. So I'm curious what your thoughts are on that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so if you are a small business and you have a brick and mortar location, is absolutely like the main thing you should be focusing on. Honestly, you should have pages for neighborhoods at this point in your location. Say you're a plumber, um, I live in Surrey, you'd want like a Clayton like specific page. You would want um Cloverdale specific pages, like you want all of those. And they don't, these pages don't have to link in your main navigation menu. So that top hamburger menu that you have, not every page on your site needs to be up there. You can have what's called floating pages. Um, in SEO, we're calling them AI scan pages. They used to be um service like location-specific service pages. So whatever you call them, those should be there. Location should be number one. And then the main services you do, which I a lot of the time small businesses I see um get creative with how they name their services. And when it comes to those types of industries, we don't want to do that. So it's great to be branded and it's great to be very, you know, like you have this beautiful, wonderful brand and all these cool words that you use. But when it comes to your services, they should be super clear and super distinct. We don't want to get creative there. Um, you can get creative in the headings after that. It just should be very like if you are a plumber and you are fixing toilets, it should be like plumber that fixes toilets in Cloverdale. Like it should be that specific. That's what people are searching for. Um, if you are an e-commerce brand, location is a little bit different. So, what I would say is that you need to have the location triggers on your site, unless you truly don't want to be found in your location. So, I do know there are some e-commerce brands I work with that are technically in Canada but sell in the US, they don't want to trigger their location. That is a different strategy. But if you are an e-commerce and you're selling products and you're selling in Canada, the US, and you're located in Surrey or Vancouver, Vancouver's a really good example. Um, I would still have Vancouver as your main location on your contact page, in your footer, in all of the important places, but you don't need special floating pages because you are really going to be pushing more the type of products that you sell. So your product pages, collection pages that sell products, those will be a bit more important because your strategy is more towards the products that you sell instead of the location specific. However, I do still always genuinely say that location matters because if people are local to you, they are more likely to purchase. So the only time you wouldn't put location in as like a main strategy piece is if you truly are like, I do not want people to know I'm from Canada. We want them to think we're from the US. And then even then, I would probably buy a P.O. box and still put your location. That's my personal opinion. Um, but it's your company, your choice on that one.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. So location really does matter for everyone. And e-commerce can have a Google business profile as well. And it's just run, it doesn't have a location.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh yes. So you can actually just say, like, turn off my location and instead they give you a service area. So you'd specifically put like the service area. If you are doing that, and this is my my advice from many years of of um testing, don't just put a country because it's not, it's it's pointless. You might as well not do it. Still put a city. So don't put like Canada, put Vancouver or wherever your home base is. It doesn't need to be specific, but they still want the city that you are servicing. So if someone could potentially go and drive to you and pick something up, that's what they want in the Google business profile.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. All right. So many good things. Now I know with the rise of AI, two things are coming into play. One, people are trying to use AI to do SEO. And two, AI is becoming a search engine optimization tool. Or like a search tool. Sorry. So it's becoming a tool to help people market. Market. I feel like there's probably gaps, which I can't wait for you to tell us what that is. Because you just be like, Chat GPT, make this SEO friendly. Is it? And then also how people are starting to rank on GPT. So where do you want to start?

SPEAKER_00:

I'll start with using Chat GPT because small businesses, I always want like it's important, you don't have the budget yet to do these big things. So you want to use these tools. Um, how do you use them effectively? We have been testing, we went straight in head first. We're gonna use AI to write all of our content. This is great. This is when AI first came out. Everyone else was doing it. And what we found is AI has a system for how they write articles. And it is the same for everybody. They kind of have a little template. And even when you put your own templates in, you create your own GPTs, which you can do on especially like Chat GPT. Claude tends to write better and it has a little bit um different ways of doing that. But essentially, they all have these like GPTs that you can create. It still has this formula for creating blogs. And the problem is um, I heard some someone in the SEO industry uh who talked about like the snake eating its own tail, um, where we're all creating the same content and the content sucks to read. And I'll admit that for some of my clients, when um AI first came out, we started writing bad content. Um, because no one, once small businesses realize that they can write their own articles, they think, oh, now why am I paying you to write an article if I can get GPT to do it and it's$30 a month and you're, you know, way, way more. The problem is what we started seeing is that the more of these AI blogs that you write and post on your website, the more you sound like everybody else, the more people hate reading your website, and the less traffic you're actually getting. So for some industries, it is working. Like I work with a lot of law firms. Um, and in law, it's hard to make those articles fun. It is. We kind of want cut and dry. This is what the rule in law is, and this is what you're gonna see. Now, even in those industries, we're starting to see a disconnect in the articles because ChatGPT is gonna write you an article on like, this is section seven, and this is why you can't, you know, have fine or like you have to share your finances for this. What it's not doing is nuance in the article. And this is something we used to do and we're actually bringing back in. So examples of families who could use this or need to use this, uh, case studies on how this has been done, those types of pieces are being removed. And then if you've read a ChatGPT article recently, you'll find that they introduce and they exit a paragraph almost the same every single time. And it just sucks. So we have to start removing those. So even if you're writing and using AI for your articles, you need to go back and edit it. There's a lot of stuff you can cut out, be very harsh. Um, it is very good at the technical portion of SEO. So keeping the keywords in place, AI will do a really good job of that. So you don't need to overthink, I think, the SEO part. I think SEO is going to become a lot easier. Some people will never want to do it. I get that. I'm so comfortable with you guys. I love doing it. If you don't want to do it, there are people out there who will do it. But if you're thinking of it in that sense, AI will keep the very technical part of SEO in your article, but you need to make it so that you would actually want to send this article to your clients. Because a lot of people will be like, oh, well, that article looks great for Google. We're not writing for Google. We are writing for human beings. We just want to make sure Google can find your article. So if you feel like that, you would not send that article to your favorite client, it should not be posted on your website.

SPEAKER_01:

Amazing. How important are photos on websites for SE?

SPEAKER_00:

I think they are very important. So there's a lot of stuff in photos you can do. You get what's called alt text in a photo. If you know how to do that, do it. If you don't, please YouTube it. It is so easy and it really, really helps. What alt text is is it's how Google finds your photo. So it's kind of like the um the keywords that you put in your photo. Uh, ChatGPT, um, all of the AI systems have started pulling photos as well. Google itself has been doing photos for a long time where you can just do photo searches. If you ever wanted to know how you come up for those photo searches, that's how. It's a really good way to kind of give Google extra information on what keywords you're trying to focus on. Um, I also believe, too, we should be moving towards video. Um, I think video content is going to be more important. If you feel comfortable in front of a camera and you are in the plumbing industry, just imagine how good that page could be if you were on the front of it talking for two minutes about what is in the article. So people, because people learn differently, people read differently. So if you um if someone comes to your article and they don't want to read it and you have a two-minute summary video of your face, they will feel so connected to you. And you are much more likely to get a conversion.

SPEAKER_01:

Interesting. So actually, having a video on top of a blog. I haven't seen that before.

SPEAKER_00:

I love them in sales pages. I don't think they're as common for blogs yet. We're working on them. Okay. Um, I find a lot of a lot of small business owners don't want to be on video. So that's true.

SPEAKER_01:

Is real, everyone listening. That's literally the only thing you have to start doing.

SPEAKER_00:

Video is going to be a drastic. There's going to be a drastic fundamental shift. Like we are being primed and taught to watch video. Uh, we love TV, we love YouTube Shorts, we love all of these things. We actually watch video more often than we even think we do. Um, and then everybody's just writing articles on their blogs, and we think that's just going to be the way it is. Now, for search, I do think video is not quite there yet, in a sense of you should probably summarize your video. So your article needs to be very related to the video. Um, but what I like to believe when it comes to SEO, and a lot of SEOs don't believe this, SEO should also have a conversion um function to it. Like you need to get leads from the work you're doing. So if you're just writing blogs and you're not getting leads, it's kind of a waste of your time. So, yes, we want to get to the top of Google, but we want to get to the top of Google so people find us and buy stuff from us. So adding videos to all of your articles or adding videos to sales pages or adding videos to your home page, make it feel more comfortable. Like if you're on social media and you're being entertained, you feel comfortable, you feel good, you'll buy from that. And people are starting to really purchase off of social media. Why not bring some of those pieces to your website as well?

SPEAKER_01:

Right. There is an integration that's starting to happen. It's like they aren't in silo anymore. Like, I'm investing in SEO, but eh, organic social can go over there. Like it and vice versa. Like you really have to, like, I know our clients like are the most successful when they got all the wheels turning. They've got newsletters, they've got blogging, they've got website that they're continuing to like evolve and update, and then obviously they have a Google page and they have organic. And then they get to a place where they're like, all right, well, we'll do paid now. But like that foundation, how much importance do you emphasize on the foundation of organic everything?

SPEAKER_00:

Organic should always be first. If you can get free traffic, like imagine your system was you posted on social media, you had a good video on social media, you took that social media video, hopped it onto your website, and created a blog out of it. People were interested in it over here. Now it can be over here. When people ask me about ads, I always say ads do not fix a broken system. So if you don't know if your product or service can sell yet, you should not be paying for ads because I'm 100% sure at that point you do not have the budget you need to test whether ads will sell your product or service or not. Ads are really good to turn up a system that's already working. So if you have your organic in place and you were doing well on social and you're like, now I want to grow. I want to hire more people, I want to move into the US or into Canada. I want to, you know, start getting my product into more homes. Um, I want more people to come and buy my service. I've got two people, um, two lawyers, and now I want a third. Like, that's when ads should come into play. Ads should never be the first thing because, like, yes, it takes a lot of time, but social media is free. It's technically free. Organic is free. You do not actually have to pay for these. And as small business owners, I know we hate hearing this, but like you do have to put in the work to get started. Um, those are the two places you should start putting the work in, then start investing in ads. And I do have to say, either invest in the courses you need to do ads or invest in a person because I have seen too many people waste so much money on ads. I have a client right now, he's in the pool service industry and he he is doing extremely well in his ads. But we just did a massive audit and realized he had been spending thousands of dollars on ads that were only converting at like so such a nominal percent. So, I mean, they were doing well, but he kept turning his spend up to make them go there. So make sure you know what you're doing when it comes to ads because you can waste a lot of money. And I don't think they're as easy as some of the systems make it feel.

SPEAKER_01:

Totally. And Google and Facebook do not give refunds, my friends. They do not give refunds. That is why they are so happy. Uh with like what are some? So something that I know like with a lot of small business owners is like, like you said, they're doing it on their own, they're learning, but like what are some numbers from a paid ads perspective that people like should that know they're good, like a CPC? What's a good one? Like what percentages should they be looking for in other like are there specific numbers that if people were to if they're running ads right now and they're like, shoot, I might be losing a bunch of money. Um what are some numbers you would tell them to start flagging?

SPEAKER_00:

I think it's more important. So I really like to look at return on ad spend. So every dollar that you spend in ads, you get X amount more. A return on ad spend of 1.5 to two nowadays is actually really good. And a lot of the times what we need to think for ads because it has gotten very competitive. Like if you look like on what um Instagram, sometimes you get three ads in a row at this point. Like ads are part of the system. So because it's become so competitive, we used to be able to easily get like 10 times return on ad spent. Maybe not easy, but you had a big enough budget, you could get 10 times return on ad spent. There's a lot of e-commerce brands now where two times is really good, or 1.5 times may even be good. And then you need to make sure you have the email and uh return customer sort of pieces in place so that you take that 1.5 and you turn it into lifetime value of your clients that you're getting. Now, I when it comes to numbers, it's hard because industries are different. So, like I have a licensed insolvency trustee and they sell bankruptcy and consumer proposals. Very complicated. We do really, really well in ads, they have a very long sales cycle. In that one, they have like a seven times return on ad spend, but their cost per conversion cost per lead is in the$500 range. But when we did their return on ad spend calculation, which if you are thinking about ads, like chow chat chat GPT, chat GPT will help you with these numbers. These are not things you need to pull out, but give it how much a customer normally costs for you, roughly what you think your budget is going to be, and just make sure that your budget can get you to a point that a two times return on ad spend makes sense. So, what sometimes people will do is like, on average, counselors get a cost per click of around$2. I work with a lot of counselors, so that one's pretty easy to pull out. Um, but they get an average on two of$2 per click. If you are getting X amount of clicks, can you get the percentage of conversions you need? And this gets a little more complicated. This is why I do recommend working with ad people, because we are in the background doing all these numbers for you. Um, but your budget needs to cover that. Or if you don't want to be so complicated and you just want to say, I want to spend a thousand dollars, you'd need to make a thousand dollars. How many sales do you need out of that? Make sure that you at least have that number in your head. Like, how many sales do you need to make sure that this is gonna work? Um, a lot of people don't do that. And a lot of people don't put the tracking in place either. So I have looked at so many accounts where I'm like, well, what are you tracking in your ads? And they're like, oh, I didn't know how to do that. You need to tell the system what you want it to do. So if you want it to make a sale, you need to tell Meta that. Otherwise, um, it's going to optimize to the closest thing it can, which is usually clicks. And we don't want looky loose because then we're paying for looky loose. Um, so those are the types of things I would think about over like the specifics. Sometimes too, you can look up industry averages. So if you ask Trash GPT, I'm pretty sure you could just say, like, hey, I'm in this industry, what's the average of a cost per click for me? Um, and those will come up. So those are the pieces like I know as small business owners, we have a lot of stuff we have to do. Um, it is important that you still know this because if you're thinking of your ads, like you have someone managing it or you don't have someone managing it, you're still still spending hundreds of dollars a month, it's not worth wasting that.

SPEAKER_01:

So it's not worth spacing. Every penny counts at this point at the beginning. And then also the throwing money at ads for like the saving grace, not a good idea.

SPEAKER_00:

It will not work for you because I find once we get there, we don't have enough budget. And it does usually take a few months to figure it out. I know a lot of people are like, ads are so quick. They are, but we're still talking like three months before you're really seeing like a true return on investment.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. And if you're not, what do you suggest people do? If they're not seeing a return on investment, where should they look?

SPEAKER_00:

That is a hard one because it does depend on the industry. But I do think so, if you're truly not seeing return on investment, I would Would start doing those numbers again, there's a good chance you miscalculated how much budget you need. So I'm gonna bring back the example of my bankruptcy guys. When I first started working with them, we thought their ads weren't working. And what we realized, because we finally started actually writing down, they don't have a CRM system, they're not big enough for that, but they have a Google Sheet that we've started and we write down every single lead. And what we started learning is that it takes six to eight months for somebody to convert off of their ads. So we thought in the first six months they were selling nothing. And so concise, I was like, oh my gosh, these ads aren't working. But what we realized when we put a system in place is that they are converting at a very, very high rate for their industry. And they just had a really long sales cycle. So if you are worried your ads aren't working, I would start by actually writing down the leads or the sales that you're getting and start breaking down where you think these pieces are falling apart because it's not always the ads themselves. Sometimes it's budget, sometimes it's that you have a longer sales cycle. Sometimes I worked with a what did he do? He did car detailing and car wraps. And we found that his system was the problem. So he's getting 45, 50 leads a month, but he was taking too long to return the call. And his competitors were calling within the first two or three hours. And he had a 24 hour response time. And we know nowadays, with our, you know, extreme excessive use of our phones, people don't want to wait 24 hours to get a return, like a quote from you. They want instant gratification. So if you are paying for leads, you also need to make sure your system is in place for that. So a lot of the times I find things aren't working because the system is not in place.

SPEAKER_01:

So important. So the system comes first. And I know, like, you know, a lot of entrepreneurs were creative systems almost we're like repel from them. We like we know we have to have them, but a lot of creative entrepreneurs don't love doing them. So what do you support in like who do they look for to help them with that? Obviously, like someone like you. Can a VA do something like that? Like, is that something that they could get their VA to do? Is it actually better to have someone build the system that has the background that you have?

SPEAKER_00:

I love to say find a systems person. I know that's not always the case. If you do have a VA, when I say systems, sometimes like for every business, that looks different. Sometimes that means a CRM. Um, like I have a law firm that has a CRM and I have a law firm that just uses a Google Sheet. I think your system can be what you need it to be, but you need to be writing down your leads and sales per month. Um, and a lot of people think like, oh, the system tells me how many leads or sales I have per month. And I have all my leads in my email. So I should, I can just go look at those. You need to look at them in like a have we closed these people or not sort of situation. I find for businesses the easiest way to get started, get your VA or you, or your husband or wife, your partner, whoever's working with you, whoever loves admin. Yes, exactly, whoever loves admin to start putting those leads in a Google Sheet. Just as simple as that. And then like color code them. If they converted, you color it green. If they didn't, or they were um like completely not a good lead, um, red. And then if you're getting a lot of reds, that means your audience is off. If you're and now, small business owners, everybody likes to say, like, oh, this lead is bad because they didn't want to, you know, buy my stuff. That does not necessarily mean it's a bad lead. That means that person didn't want to purchase from you. That is totally different. A bad lead means false information in their submission form. It means the person is in the wrong location and can't purchase from you, or they are just completely like out to lunch about what they think your services are. Those are bad low quality leads. A good quality lead is a person who's like, no, I don't want to purchase from you. That means maybe something's missing, but that was a good quality lead because they could have purchased from you. So I think the distinction is also important.

SPEAKER_01:

That is important. I mean, yeah, I definitely had a client that had some ads running and they were getting phone calls for massages and they didn't do any massages and they were like, wait, what? And then they were getting calls from Florida and they were in Arizona and they're like, what is happening? And so they had to go to their ads guy. So if you do, like, what is some advice? I mean, you've probably heard so many stories. It's probably very similar to how I've I've heard so many stories, but organic social media. What is your advice to a small business owner who eventually knows they're gonna have to outsource this? What do they need to look for in a good person that can support with paid, especially? Because paid is like the risk is so high, lots of money lost really fast. Come back. Um, but really just someone who specializes in lead gen, like you do. What are they looking? What do you gotta look for?

SPEAKER_00:

Ask the questions. When you ask how much budget do I need to spend? Because a lot of people think we should just be pulling these, you know, budgets out of our backpacks. Um, they're gonna ask you, how much do you have available? When they say that, because it is going to happen no matter what, I could tell you you need a budget of$5,000 and you'll be like, you're up to lunch. Like, let's look at what the real budgets actually are. When they ask you that at the same time, come back to them and say, okay, how many sales and how many clicks do you think I'm gonna get out of this budget? They should be able to answer those basic questions for you. If they don't, they probably haven't put a strategy in place or haven't really thought about it and just assumed you'd be able to run the ads on X dollars. Um, it is something like I will be very honest, when I first started in ads, I would be like, you can give me 500 bucks and I will run your ads and they will work. And if people had asked me those true like return on spend questions, I wouldn't have been able to answer them properly. So that usually means someone's newer. Now, I'm not saying don't work with someone newer. If you have a lower budget, like there are people out there who will do your ads for much lower because they are learning, but they still have more experience than you. So it's kind of how much risk versus not risk do you want? Like I know people who do meta ads who charge$2,000 a month and want really big budgets. They will sell your product. That is like, I don't care what industry you're in at that budget, they know what they're doing so well, they will sell it. Can you afford that? I don't know. So you kind of have to ask yourself these questions. If someone's not answering those questions perfectly, but then goes back and says, like, I can figure it out for you, maybe pay them a little bit less or hope that they're charging a little bit less, but make sure that they're at least, you know, thinking of those things.

SPEAKER_01:

I think that's really great because that is, I would say, one of the biggest places that businesses, especially small businesses that are in the scaling phase, lose too much money. And it happens so fast, it's like they blank and it's all gone all of a sudden, and like the retainers are high. And it's just like, and then Google took the money and it's just like a lot of money going out. So when you're talking to people as well, like this is a this is a really like I know I asked this question now. I used to not like I used to get clients that would come and like I could tell that they were like they had a great product, loved the brand, but they weren't they weren't making ends meet and they were like looking at outsourcing social in order to like that's like the last thing, you know, like if we can get our social, then maybe we'll make it. I don't take clients on like that anymore because of course that does not go well. But I do hear stories of people like thinking that, you know, maybe we aren't really doing like we're kind of making even like hitting even, but if we invest in ads, maybe it'll push us into profitability. What's your thought process around that? And uh what people think, like what's your advice around that?

SPEAKER_00:

I don't think ads are the way to save your business. So if you are being told you need like, I think a minimum budget nowadays is probably around$1,500 for ads. That's you know, five to a thousand. Um, it depends on who's managing, but like five to a thousand to management and probably about a thousand dollars in ad spend. If you can't lose that for the next three or four months comfortably, ads are not the right place for you. Um, and work it comes back to the organic, uh like social is free. I mean, you can hire someone to do it, and SEO is free. You can write and build and put more stuff out there. You could do Google, um, Google Business Profile has posts that you can do. There are so many things you can do. You can go to more events, you can find free events and go to those and try to meet and and you know, talk to people. So it sucks because no matter what, if your business is not doing well, you have to invest something, whether it's time or money, you need to decide what those pieces are. Ads are not gonna save you. I do really like social, but I often tell people like social is not like a direct conversion sort of platform. Like you can't give someone X amount of dollars and say, you need to get me X amount of leads. Like that's not how social works. It's a very good platform for a lot of things, but it has a lot more awareness and brand to it. Um, so it's really I hate, I always feel so bad when people come and they're like, oh yeah, I'm gonna do social media, it's gonna make me X dollars. So it's like that's not how it works.

SPEAKER_01:

It's not how it works. It's the long game. Yeah, it's the long game, it's the community building. My best clients are always the ones where I'm helping with the organic and they have someone else running paid and lead gen. And like together, it's perfect. But and it has to be done together. And like I always like the sussing out of the budget is key. Like, is this you know, is this business funded? And like, do they have the money? Whether it's like they're maybe this business isn't making money yet, but they already have another business, and that's funding this business, like just making sure because there is a place. I'm not sure if you experience this, but there is a place where energy, if there's desperation at all and anxiety around, like I need to make money um from your efforts, otherwise, like and they aren't doing anything, it actually just doesn't work. Like the social media just doesn't work because energetically, like for me, organic does not, it just won't go. Um, do you experience the same with paid and the work that you do with your clients?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, I do feel so if someone is in that place where they're like, I need to sell, a lot of the times they'll sell to the wrong person. And that's where the energy comes out in the wrong way. So you'll get people who are upset or unhappy with your do with what you're doing. Uh something I have started to learn in the last year is no is a really good word, and it is a really important word. Um, you can't help everybody. And one of the reasons I started SMB in the first place is that I am so glad there are people like you out there because I personally don't like social media. I don't, I feel so uncomfortable, you know, doing the social media part of it. It's so hard for me. Like I've been in marketing for years, I have lots of experience. My experience is not in design, it is not in making things look good, it is not in making things sound good. Like I am really good at like the conversion pieces of those. And social media is a different beast. So sometimes you just have to like grin and bear it and and and and make it work the way you need to make it work. Um, we have we have lots of those people, but like you have to still be able to say no, even if your business is in a bad place, because you want people like we I don't know if we necessarily discredit referrals anymore, but it used to be referrals were such a big thing, and now we don't really talk about them. They are still huge. They are still the foundation for all online.

SPEAKER_01:

So, I mean, you're probably the same, you probably believe the exact same thing. Building a business from a place of referrals first, whether you have an online presence or not, is the most important foundation to then get online. And then you just flip your online world into a referral growth engine. So you've got your referrals following you that already know you in real life, and then they're referring you and they're staying on top of everything that you do, and then they're referring to their friends because they know what you're up to. So your social media and all of the, you know, all your SEO work, all your organic work that you're doing everywhere, your referral network is watching. And so, and they're going to be your biggest cheerleaders out in the real world and online. They're gonna like all your stuff, they're gonna comment, they're gonna help you with the algorithm. Like the in-person piece is almost where everyone needs to start. And I find there's like, I saw a video of Gary Vee, and Gary V was just like he was livid. There was like a question from like a 19-year-old being like, I have a laptop and I were, I'm at home and I don't go to school. How can I make a million dollars in a year? And he was so mad, he was like, in what world does one assume that you can just have a laptop and then a million dollars is waiting for you at the end of 12 months if you commit to it for long enough? And so for me, it's the balance of the outside world and connecting outside, even though, you know, I mean, I'm an introvert, but I do it because it works, and then I'm able to create online opportunities because of that, and vice versa, online moving it to offline. So that's where P I think everyone needs to start, and then you'll be super successful in organic, and then you'll you'll just have be able to add fuel to the fire with paid. That's my hypothesis.

SPEAKER_00:

My organic immediately goes up when I go to events, so it's kind of like an automatic. And I tell people like you should be at events. And I know we don't wanna, we don't want to talk about COVID anymore, but it is the reason that so that SEO and social and were fundamentally changing. Um, it kind of triggered this, like everybody was online, and then everybody started, you know, lying about how much they were making and how much they couldn't make to sell these, you know, MM, whatever weird courses that like didn't make any sense. And then there was all of this like distrust on the internet. And this kind of like weird little pod that we created in that time has come to this like breaking point where everybody's like, human beings, please. We all work from home. Even if you work at desk job, you've kind of got this like, you know, situation where you might have two days on, two days off. Um, those types of people want to work with people they know, like, and trust. And that's where like social media is that personal brand, brand building. And then, you know, going in person is how you get yourself out there. And like, you need to have your kind of like SEO and content in place. But if you're not, one thing I always tell people is it like it's great that you write an article, but if you're not sharing that article, if you're not doing anything to get your name out there, like Google's not just gonna all of a sudden be like, oh my God, this article is so great. I have to rank it number one. You have to share it first, you have to share your stuff first for these things to start happening. So 100% forever believe in going in person and meeting people. The two-ish years that we got where that wasn't a thing is over.

SPEAKER_01:

It's so over. Then it's it won't work anymore. Like just online won't work. Um, and you're even seeing that with like founders. Like founders are front of big companies are going on in real life podcasts, like they're doing these things in real life um to up the ante on their or online worlds. And so that's one thing I know. I'm like, I will go to networking events and I'll meet people like, ah, I just don't really like social media. Like, I just it's it's not aligned for me. So you can't really find me anywhere, except for like my personal Instagram account. That's like a weird name that like you would never know it was them and it's not a business account. I'm like, the networking efforts that you're doing are falling flat because they're just stopping there. Whereas you actually need to move the people online, you have to, and you have to be there however way you need to be. You don't have to be dancing on camera. I mean, that's always the one that everyone's like, I just don't want to dance on camera. I'm like, I promise you, most people aren't dancing on camera anymore, except for like awesome Brienne. I forget her last name. She's in like Langley or something, and she just Oh, Aller. Yeah, yeah. Love her. She's dancing. Um, but like that's not the play. Um, it's very educational and entertaining, and it's just yeah, you don't have to be the entertainer, but you do need to be on there um because CEOs are leading the charge for all of this. Uh so that's my two cents on that. So let's see. One more question to round this out. Obviously, let's go AI. How do you see AI influencing all of this? Social media strategies, organic SEO, like all of it. Where are we going?

SPEAKER_00:

AI is going to be a part of the internet because we have this obsession with automating everything, and it is obviously smart enough that it is going to get better. So I do foresee that every platform we use will have some AI component. It will summarize things for you. Um, now, one of the things people like to say is SEO is gonna die because AI is here. Um, SEO is gonna change. We've got a million different names for how SEO is gonna change. We've got like AI, SEO, GEO. Um, there's there's a few others that I don't think are gonna pick up. Um, I like to use GEO, generative um engine optimization. SEO is always going to be there, and search is always gonna be there because these platforms will always need to find a business. So whether we are doing SEO on Instagram or on AI, it's always gonna be there. I do, this is my prediction of how the internet's gonna go in 10 years. I do think you're gonna need a website because you need somewhere to put the information that the AI is going to need. Now, I don't necessarily believe that in 10 years, and I'm so sorry to all the designers, I hope I'm wrong, um, but you're probably not gonna be need a well-designed site anymore. You are just going to need these flat pages that explain exactly what your service is. And those pages are essentially going to be scanned by AI, and we're all going to be using these platform overlays. Um, so whether that's ChatGPT, whether that's Instagram, I don't know what that's going to look like, but you're gonna have these kind of like hubs that you put all your information in and they're just gonna go in. And that's kind of what like Google Business Profile, which is consistently getting bigger, um, is it's a platform where you put your services, your product, your name, and where you, you know, service. Um, and Google scans that and then it uses that information for its AI call-outs and for all of its searches. Um, so I do think that's kind of where we're going. You're just gonna need to have one hub. Um, and as long as you explain your services well in those one hubs, you'll be good. There's always gonna be like Joe the Plumber is never gonna want to do his own SEO. So I don't think it's dying. Joe the plumber's probably never gonna want to do his own social media too. So all of these things are still going to exist, they're just gonna exist differently. But we are going to be using these platforms to search. There's absolutely no way. Voice search is gonna become important too, which is interesting because ChatGPT and voice search are so like the way that we talk and the way that ChatGPT writes are so different. So I'm curious to see how those two pieces meld together. Um, because you're not gonna want to have ChatGPT. If you ever read Chat GPT like written content out loud, like not well done, it's so awful. So, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

Everyone read your ChatGPT writing out loud. Yes, please do it. Yeah, I'm a huge fan of write what you want to write first, even if it's like grammatically terrible, just get the idea out of your brain and then ask GPT to help you. Like do it that way, and you won't get this weird stuff because this stuff is just not it's not good. It's not good. No. Well, those predictions are pretty solid. I feel for those. And I think at the end of the day, the foundation of all of that is real people still matter and organic is forever. Um and showing up authentically and just having AI support is probably the game-changing key for everything. Yes, which I know you're rocking it right now, Tiana, on your organic social media. So I I hired somebody. See? If you can't, but you created the content, you're showing up all the time in those videos doing fun things.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, yes. And I do think that's uh the more I do work on my personal brand, um, and the more I kind of lean into that, the more I realize like people don't uh there's agencies are really big for like no face um information. And I think people just want information now, but you can get information from anywhere. You don't need that. You wanna people wanna work with people. So even if your agency has 50 people, you still kind of need a face. I've seen brands who are actually starting to use AI faces because they have so much turnover, like um, which one? Smashed is a really good example. They went super, super viral for um, they had an intern do their marketing. Um, it was crazy, it was nuts. She was really good, but then she left and their next step was like, what do we do? Um, and they ended up using an AI face instead. And everybody at first was like, I don't know if we like this, but they still have the same amount of followers and they're still getting just as much engagement. So obviously it's working. Someone still needs to be the face. So even doing my own social, I have someone else doing the actual posting for me. I have learned very quickly like someone's gotta be the back end of that still, because people still want to like follow you, not follow brands, have to be really big to have true brand following.

SPEAKER_01:

Totally. And then I guess to sum it all up in a bow is like consistency is key for all. Yeah. See, like, I'm gonna invest, I'm gonna do SEO for one month, and then no, please don't everyone. It's the long game, it's the long game with organic social, and it's the long game with SEO. And the fun thing is, organic social and SEO, they're BFFs now, and they're just rocking and rolling together. So unfortunately, fortunately, you gotta do both. Um, but there's always people out there, and this is like I would say one of like the rising careers is like organic social and organic SEO and all of that good stuff. Is like it was here, it was like something like you just kind of had to think about and do, and now it's like it's at the top. Like people are getting huge salaries to run organic everything. Um, so it's definitely a rising career and like a lot of opportunity in that industry. So yeah, and we're both doing it. And we've been doing it for a minute. So thank you, Tiana, for all of your wisdom. There's so much. I'm sure there's honestly I could pick your brain for hours. Um, is there a way that people can, well, get more information about what's inside your brain?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so I am so obsessively on uh Instagram. It's my favorite. I'm actually pretty, pretty big on threads lately because I love how wild wild west it still is. Like it never really had a true strategy. Love that. Um, but you can find me at SMB Marketing School. Um, I'm I'm always on there. So love voice notes, love answering questions, and I share way, way, way too much.

SPEAKER_01:

And I feel like you have a resource that's like probably like the golden resource that people can snag, especially our small business owners doing it all.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So I do have a free keyword course. So it's 30 minutes. It helps you um write like your first list of keywords. So this is what people are actually looking for on the internet to find the thing that you offer. Um, so I always recommend, even if you're gonna do SEO advanced, not advanced, start with a keyword list. You want to know what you're going to be targeting. Um, so I do have a free resource for that.

SPEAKER_01:

Amazing. And they can find it on your website? Yes. Perfect. I will link it in the show notes below. Um, Tiana, thank you so much for joining and sharing all of your wisdom. Um, I am such a I love learning. So it's just so great to one, be reassured that my hypotheses are correct because sometimes they are just hypotheses. Um, and then also, well, now I know what a map, a map pack, a map pack. Add that to my marketing terminology dictionary.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh I know we love to name things in marketing.

SPEAKER_01:

We have so many weird names for so many names. There should be a dictionary only for marketing terminology. I feel like it'd be good. Uh well, have for everyone listening, have a really great rest of your evening, morning, afternoon, wherever you're at, whatever you're doing, and wishing you all the success as you continue to navigate the online world and turn all of that into beautiful offline customers. Uh, have a really great day, and we will chat again soon. Thank you so much for joining us on another episode of Fly Flamingo Fly with BNL. We are so grateful you stopped by, and we hope that something from today's conversation ignited the inspiration you were looking for so that you can keep moving forward towards the life of your dreams. This podcast was produced by BNL Media Consulting with the amazing help of Podigy Podcasts. We'd love to hear your takeaways from this episode, so be sure to leave us a review as well as give us a follow on Instagram at BNL Social. If you need any help with your social media marketing, feel free to visit our website at wwwnlmediaconsulting.com, and we would be more than happy to support you. We hope you have an amazing day, and we cannot wait to catch with you again next time. Have a good one, everyone.