Roots to Revenue

How to maximise social media in your business in 2024

• Robbie Lynn • Season 1 • Episode 10

Share episode

How to maximise social media in your business in 2024 

This podcast episode of Roots to Revenue focuses on helping small businesses grow through sales funnels and personal branding. 
With guests Henry McCrory and Alex from Creative Three Media, discuss how businesses can use psychological processes in sales funnels to attract and retain customers by addressing pain points, showcasing their products, and offering time-sensitive deals. 
They emphasize the importance of personal branding, consistent marketing, and using various digital platforms like LinkedIn and TikTok to reach potential clients. 

The episode also covers practical tips on maintaining a dynamic, lead-generating website, the role of video content, and strategies for startup success, including a mindset shift and leveraging advantageous business environments. 

Try out Jobber for FREE with a 14-day trial with your exclusive discount Root to Revenue https://go.getjobber.com/premierlawns

 Introduction to Sales Funnels

A sales funnel is built in a way, it's a, it's a psychological process that actually affects the person choosing it. It starts at the very top of the pain point. That person, they've clicked on an ad or they've clicked on a bit of content that has sent them to this page. So they're there for a reason. So you've got them there.

They've a problem, you've the solution. So hit them where it hurts. Do you suffer 

This? Do you struggle with this? Do you hate this? See if you can design, fantastic. If you can shoot video, fantastic. And you can put sales funnels, fantastic. How does LinkedIn work? How does the algorithm work on Instagram? Bad behaviours change prior to COVID.

If you get somebody to engage for 45 seconds, you're pushing it. 

What about you? 

Welcome to the Roots to Revenue Podcast

And welcome to Welcome to the Roots to Revenue podcast, this is the podcast that helps small businesses grow. Now before I tell you about today's fantastic guest, let me tell you about the sponsor. I use a software called Jobber to manage my own business.

It's easy for me to recommend as I've used it for the last 10 years to run my own business. It doesn't schedule them. My quoting and my invoicing, but best of all, it gets me paid faster and my customers love it. If you want to try it out, there's going to be links down in the video description. Now in the studio today, I've got a company that has really helped me push forward with a lot of different things.

Meet Henry and Alex from Creative Three

And we've got Henry and Alex here.  They're both from creative three. Henry, would you like to tell us a bit about yourself? 

I'm Henry McCrory. , I run a company with Christopher MacLennan called creative three media. Christopher and I have been working together for about 28  years. We started off in the print trade back in the day when print was all the rage.

Then , we just basically move with the trends. Robbie started to do websites, which Alex is one of the main contributors to the business. Creative three, Through his, his web development. Then we moved more into the social media when Zuckerberg come on the scene and, and started changing the landscape and how we communicate.

Then we embraced as what you guys have done here in a fantastic way, video content. So obviously people receive content in a lot of different wisdom in it, but one of the main. Powerhouses as video content. , so that is one of the main thrusts of our business. 

I'm going to just jump in and say, so a couple of years ago, I know I'd already been making videos.

I did a short video course for you guys. You're on a course that takes a day and you can come along if you're small business in Northern Ireland and find out how to make videos. And even as somebody that makes videos , I find it really good. And  I took a lot away from that course.

So yeah, just to give you some plug. 

That's no, thank you so much. That, that is something that is part of our ethos and business. We always want to so into as much as that was a paid course. We actually had, I think about 12 or 15 people on that particular day. You were there Robbie. 

The Importance of Personal Branding

And again, one of the things I love about that, I love to see people.

grow their own personal brand. Personal bronze, a big, big thing for me. , because if you can't push your personal brand, the reality is your corporate bronze going to be affected by it. So that was one of the reasons why we actually started that particular course. Again, Alex works in the background of that.

Do 

you want to even go from your perspective, Alex, what do you see?  landscape and high the us as Robbie has said that high there was type of courses have helped the community. 

It's basically what Henry was saying. It's the result of seeing the after bits. It's seeing that all the people's LinkedIn, gone, people's YouTube, YouTube, seeing them put the effort in, seeing them, the ability to lift their phone out of their pocket.

Everything you need to record is on your phone. That's everything you need to record is in your mobile phone. It is very capable. And it's the results. It's seeing people then go away from the course doing it. And then us watching, being there on hand to give them if they need any tips, tricks, but it's the results side of it.

It's seeing people actually put the videos out and  As you say, it's people building their brand and you get to watch their journey and that's incredible. Yeah. And you have 

to be consistent with it, Rob. You know that you're, you're the, the epitome.  You've seen the power. 

You have to keep, you have to keep pushing forward and media is a massive thing.

It is.  It's a powerful, , medium. And again, coming back to the personal brand, you know,  if our viewer, our audience today is small business, I can't stress enough how important a personal Brand and a personal strategy is to, to promote not just yourself because that people struggle with imposter syndrome quite a bit, you know, what am I going to say?

How am I going to communicate? Communicate? , I haven't, I've got a face for radio, but the reality is, 

You're, I think you're the Brad Pitt of the premier lawnmower. But you know what I mean? But you've put yourself out there, you know, and it's been a real success for you, but you've lifted this to a whole new brand. And I sat 

down as soon as I looked around, I really liked the setup. I love the setup. I'm 

going to give, I'm going to give a shout out to Jason.

Justin's who's apologies.  We stole Jason's seat. I stole Jason's  , Jason more. I come up with ideas and I say, I said to Jason, come and do this. And he's , , I dunno. And then it, if we can, and he usually puts at together so. it's good, it is, but  

it's a fantastic setup and how you can move from standing on a lawn  shooting a video on your phone to having a 

setup your podcast.

Yeah, it's called a business hassle. , and the it's a, eithouse is very similar to yourself, where you want to promote people in business, people around Northern Ireland, North and South, and somewhere along the line we're going to obviously being people in from Europe and Central America, Uh, the Americas and stuff of some fantastic connections.

But again, the ethos is let's build small, medium enterprises and let's grow people's personal and corporate brand. That's what we're about. And 

also give back by adding value. Yeah, definitely. 

Advice for New Business Owners

And if somebody, so somebody starting up a business, Henry, what sort of advice would you give them? Cause you did a TEDx talk a couple of years ago when I was at it.

Gave me a real sort of mindset shift in a lot of things and it's helped me get to where I am. We're also in here now, so what would you, for someone starting up, what's the most important thing in business? We've talked about this before and you say mindset, but would you like that? 

Mindset, obviously you've got the fundamentals of starting up a business through companies house and all that, and bank accounts and all that, but  that comes naturally, but one of the things that I find as your environment is one of the most important things around.

You've obviously got market leaders. I would always encourage someone seats, don't look at the Amazons of this world, but look at someone who's maybe four or five steps ahead of you and start to implement, , , we had a Peter from nomadic on last week and he said success leaves clues. And that's one of his big takeaways in life is he looks at someone who has been a success in a particular area, , and then he would start to implement some of the small steps that takes you to takes you there.

, when we look at social media now, we look at people who come out of the woodwork and are uber success and making millions and stuff. That's probably the exception rather than the rule. But the process is there and surround yourself with the right relationships is always good. I am a big networker and hard not to go and get business, but to be around people of like mind.

I'm inspired by being here today. I'm going to go back and probably do the guy's heads in,  in regards to the setup. No, genuinely I am.  That's lovely.  We definitely 

will, definitely will, straight in. 

That's a lovely compliment. The video team are getting it. I wouldn't have come up with in here with a couple of times.

You guys  let me come in and have a look at your setup. And it was, that gave me a lot of inspiration to this. And then I just have, I have Jason, you guys need it. You guys need a Jason, just not my 

Jason. 

But no, , we have a great team there. Obviously ours is very creative led purely. Because, , but I think the fundamentals of what these have done here is absolutely amazing on sound quality.

Obviously, you've invested, you've done it, you've run about it the whole the right way. You've obviously taken whatever you've taken from us from an idea, 

but again, if you're starting your own business. You can buy cheap tools or you can buy the right tools. That's right. And if you buy the cheap tools, you're gonna end up buying the right tools 

anyway.

You buy cheap, you buy twice. . , and , that's, , but that, that, I think that's right across in life. I know guys who won't go to a, a network event because of a, a 50 quid ticket. I either have an expense  mentality or an investment. And that's, that's another thing I would, I would encourage somebody who's maybe starting out, or even someone who's maybe down the road a bit, is that always look at something as an investment.

not as an expense because if you have an expense type mentality, the reality is you'll see that right across your business last night. Okay. I was blessed with a ticket. It was 70 quid or whatever, but I met some fantastic people and whether I do business in that room and not as relevant and I'm changed because of the environment I'm changed as I said already because I've been in this environment and seen the setup.

So I take away, I had some takeaways from the experience and that's the key. That any, any experience you go out, whether you have a setback, I'll have a. Like any setback I always try to use as a setup for the future. What did, what have I done wrong? How did I not get caught like this again? And how can I actually do it better the next time?

If you wanted to give a bit of advice on the side of any startups or somebody who's maybe down the line, I'm part of a business development club called the three to five club, but you can build a business in three to five years that doesn't have you by the throat, it does exactly what you says, , , you get your, your business such a way you can take a week off a month. 

months off in a year and you're and everything doesn't go to hell in the handbook. You know? And that's something I we're not probably there yet. I, to be honest, I love what we do. I enjoy it.  If I have a bit of time off, I will always keep my handy and My wife knows me, , what I'm like.

I'm wired just,  I find business owners are wired a wee bit different. I genuinely do. , how long has Premier 10 years. 10 years. , if you look back to what Premier was 10 years ago, even two years ago. 

Aye, different. Totally 

different. Especially in our game. Cause we could throw statistics out about video content.

Your game must change an awful lot. 

Cause you guys cover a lot of, you guys cover a lot of pieces. 

, you get somewhere and then. There's new platform or the algorithm changes. 

The Role of Social Media in Business

Do you want to tell the listeners what sort of things you do? 

Yeah, certainly. , I let Alex do that. , I, I always said it's, well, it's important for me.

This is one of the things I've recognized coming into the new year is that we all go together. , maybe get touched on, but Alex, if , you're in the elevator and you've got two minutes, you're up to seventh floor. 

Completely complete. Full creative agency at all in house is probably the best way to put it.

Everything you need without going anywhere else is in one building and one company managed by a fantastic team. Everything from your strategy, right? The whole way through your website, photography, videography, your marketing, your ads, , advanced that going LinkedIn training, , training, , sales teams, senior executives, everything is all managed in one place by one team.

And there's no need to have bits and pieces all over, , dished out to all sorts of people. We are  in and around our clients and provide them with everything they need to get from here to here. 

We effectively become your marketer. Yeah. , we have, instead of you employing a marketer, , we have retainer packages that allows a person to, look, I always say this, see if you can design, Fantastic.

If you can shoot video, fantastic. And you could, , put sales funnels, fantastic. The probability is you're working for yourself. I think there's a lot of, I think how businesses look at marketers is very unfair. They expect them to do every single thing and they genuinely can't because if they did, they'd be working for themselves.

So we actually try to replace a marketer, say, , if they've got it 

going to say, not everybody understands what marketing is as well. A lot of people think marketing is just advertising. 

It's not,  there's a lot to it and it's wrong because when people, again, business bring guys on, they think they're going to do video content.

They're going to do, ,  Fairly high end design and it's unfair. How does LinkedIn work? How does the algorithm work on Instagram? And one of the things that I would also just say from a small business perspective, I'm conscious I'm speaking a lot is that new your market.  Whether that's B2B or B2C, you have to know your market because there's different people, different band behaviors on different platforms from TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and especially LinkedIn, where I would spend most of my time is that the different content beta you have to put out is completely different from what I would maybe do on LinkedIn to maybe Instagram has the hooks have to be a wee bit different behaviors, different the things 

different as well as professionalism, then you can turn it back slightly for the likes of Instagram.

, But , it's finding that balance. And a lot of people, if people just don't really know what we lean with certain platforms, 

I can relate that my content goes out in a lot of different channels. . And the same content goes out on Instagram on both TikTok. . But hardly anyone buys from TikTok. Yeah.

'cause it's a totally different, it's a totally different audience. 

 In many ways, TikTok has probably looked as dancing girls and.  Crazy people and stuff like that. I think in many ways, and maybe Alex can touch on that, that we teach the algorithm ourselves about what our viewing habits are.

And I think we, this is some of the things we need to understand when we're actually putting content out that as much as we like a certain thing, we are attracting,  you, you attract who you are,  in many ways. And I think we need to understand that from , a, an intelligence point of view, when we are actually putting content out that. 

Bad behaviors changed prior to COVID to what it is now. And the people, because people are spending more time online now,  before COVID hit, there was the, I think the sales was in around 82 percent was people would buy stuff online. I would imagine that it's increased their, their, certainly their ability to view things has went from when we were shooting video back in the day, it was three and a half, four minutes.

We're going to appreciate this. Now, if you get somebody to engage for 45 seconds, you're pushing it. You need to have 

some death scroll. Just scrolling, , scrolling. 

. That's it. And you need a hook. You've only got what? Three seconds or whatever. I think as well. There's 

a lot more content out there.

There's a lot more people making it. 

What makes you different from a year ago? Are you paddling the same stuff? What to say? Insanity is, , is doing the same thing = over and expecting a different result. So we have to be brave enough to go with it. Not everything works. We make mistakes all the time.

The key thing is to say, , what did I do wrong? It's split testing , in the world of, , doing, , Facebook ads and stuff. You have to see what works. Was it the content? Was it , the body of text  that didn't work? Why did that? I, or sometimes I look  at a post, I go, why did that work better than that?

And have a look at 

it. What do you think the best way for people to measure a lot. So if you put posts on, do you use any software to manage that engagement to see what works and what doesn't work? Well, if 

you're doing your ads, if there's a Facebook and Instagram ads, it's on your, it's , Meta business, , your business suite will do that for you and the ads campaign manager.

Henry's saying we would run a lot of split testing. One really good example is if we're selling the product and we've A'd and B'd it. On A, , the creative would say 25 percent off. On B, the creative would say 1599 off. Yeah. One's a percentage and one's a real figure. Which one does better? What's one's it?

What's one does better? Normally when people see the money they're getting off, it does better. Or if one says free, it goes through the roof, but it'll come back. It'll tell you, here's your reach. Here's your clicks. Here's your conversion. And here's basically which one's doing better. And it'll go, we recommend your budget should go on B and you'd agree with it.

And then we get that way. So yes, , meta, the ads manager and that is very good for that. 

Do you think, , Google or Facebook matter? what's one, , which one do you think's more popular? Which one do you think has a better rates or it comes down to what you're 

who you are, who you're targeting. , at the end of the day again, it comes back to B2B or B2C and then it's dying to , we do different, , we were on with a lady this morning, , from London.

, unfortunately she was, I'm an arsenal man. She's a, she was a spur supporter. Last thing here, there, , we'll let that slide very quickly. , but she, funnily enough on Zoom. And she didn't really understand our target market. She's in the current industry looking after elderly people. I said, , your target market is probably people of my age who've got elderly parents.

I don't have them. They're both dead, but people of my age who, so there's your target market. So it was good just to talk to her. So your content needs to be driven towards because you're dealing with, you have to remember, and I had to be honest with her. Here's me. You're dealing with guilt because you want.

If you're going to put your parent in a home, you want to have that trust value. So that comes with your content.  I was like, she's never put herself out on any form of personal brand. I said, look, if I was, I would want to know the person who's, who runs this establishment, what type of services, what type of processes that went.

So we then, so I had the expand her world coming from a person who's done really well in life, but never really had the need for social media. Nice. It does because people's. As Alex said, bad behaviors of tunes. Now she wants to put herself out there. 

Yeah, I think  what you're saying, , I think all businesses should be on every platform possible now that's then with what Henry saying, it depends on  what your business is and what you lean more towards.

You could be more heavy into the meta ads. You could lay off the Google ads or you, the big one is everyone will look at Tik Tok and go, my business has no need to be on Tik Tok. What can I do on Tik Tok? That's attraction. That is just reach. If you would put content on tech talk, not knowing that you're, no one's going to buy from you on tech talk,  but there is a massive audience base on that, that will put you from here above the next competitor.

You can see as well, if you listen, cover every basis, every platform, 

I see in the radio or listen to the radio, there's a lot of ads at the minute for tech talk and they're actively saying, come on to tech talk to search for stuff. You'll find what you want on tech talk and you can see them. 

Yeah, , there's no doubt.

Tick tock again, it has to be embraced, but , it's a mentality. You have to get your head around when you go on there. You may be a lot of young people, extremely 

informal,  very short comedy pieces. , if you are adding value, what we do is we put shorts of our business on it. We make sure that they're hyped, their cuts are quick, the editing's fast, and it's over 10 to 15 seconds.

What do you think the best editing platform is then for people out and about on their phones? 

On the phone, we use one called CapCut. CapCut, that's what 

I use myself. Absolutely brilliant piece of software. I think actually maybe we picked that up , from your day. 

, you maybe 

did. Yeah, it's 

absolutely brilliant.

, even the bog standard, a free version that 

  

comes with it is amazing. Yes, you can get a pro version, CapCut, please sponsor me. Thank you. Please.  Very, very, very powerful.  that's again in your pocket comes back to what you said earlier. Everything you need to make a video is in your pocket. 

, one of the things also, , I gave him through the, cause I, this actually happened to me this morning and Chris, when I shot a podcast on this thing, I did not know you'd done that. And we shot this about six months ago and I got an invite.  from a lady to go meet her in White Abbey. , I chose a location and I met her this morning and she's in the health and being and says, I want to talk to you about video.

That was okay. So the next thing was, oh, she went on and said, look, I'm getting the price for a website,  and here's the thing. So without, my first reaction was, it's interesting, you've actually brought me here because you've pigeonholed me into video. Right. And in reality, so that actually spoke to me about some of our message, which I've been actually working on for the last six weeks, is when people see you doing the one thing, and Christopher is always.

Pigeonhole that he's a videographer and he says these out in the other and Christopher so much more than that, but  that you need to obviously understand, because if you've got, say, a range of different services, if you have one thing, then that's okay. Be known for what you're doing. The worst thing.

The worst thing a customer can say to you is I didn't know. Yeah. You did that service.  

So my, my, I was interested, my, my mode of operandi  changed this morning when I started to then think, hold on a second, there's a website on the table here, and I then told her some of the reasons, the rationales of why  this is how a website is shaped, we always approach everything with a marketing perspective.

I said, look, I'll give you a website and there you go to see in three months, you'll not have touched that. That's a fact. So how, what do we do around this from your video, from your marketing? And I said, you're like, what are, and this is how it ended up, but it ended up where I saw a guy, I'll do your website.

I'll also give you two months content. Because the reality is it's like the CapCut, unless we're somebody like you, who's faithful and we'll set at 10 o'clock at night or whatever, add up a video or a couple of videos or whatever, most people will not do that.  So therefore they become an ad hoc poster and consistency is the winner in marketing.

People think marketing is a smoke and mirrors and stuff. It's not. It's great product presented in a  professional way as you can do it on a consistent basis. 

Effective Website Strategies

What do you think the top five things that are top 10, the five, 10 things that a website should have? 

We actually did this. This is, I did a podcast.

I did, I was on the podcast. Oh, how many days is ready to go? I'm on our podcast and it's being edited as we speak. We left and I'm being edited up. So this is actually on our podcast, but I'll tell you, , the best thing is that in 2024,  The way Henry  touched on it, if you get a website made and think brilliant, I have a website, leave it there and walk away,  that is just not the way to run a website anymore.

Your website needs to actively and dynamically make you money and capture  leads. That's the point. So one.  If you want your five things, one, it needs to be ridiculously fast. That site needs to load in two seconds. Any more than two seconds, you've lost a, you've lost a potential client. They're going to your competitor.

That's just the world we live in. It's too quick. Needs to be fast. It needs to load fast. It needs to be optimized fast. It needs to be modern. And when I say that, it means everything needs to be up to date. If it's, if we're running WordPress sites, if we're running Magento sites, they need to be completely to the top of their level, all updated, no security risks, no nothing, or you'll end up hacked if you leave it.

We have a, ,  Person we do a site for and it was left for  a couple of weeks. And then even in that couple of weeks, the vulnerabilities and the fact that all the plugins had moved further, which means there needs to be constant eyes on that. There needs to be, but the way we look at the websites now is not just leave it and walk away.

We want the act of making sure that each page on that site serves as a funnel, a sales funnel so that when you're doing your stuff on your social, your Facebook, your LinkedIn, your, uh, Instagram, wherever it is, They're actively coming back to the site and their page that's specifically made for that service you're providing. 

It is detailed in a way that all it's doing at the very bottom is getting a name and email address and a telephone number that you can follow up. 

Can you, without giving away too many of your secrets, can you give us a no give away? Can you give us a, an idea of what that funnel should look like? , how it should start, how it 

should go ahead.

A sales funnel is built in a way that , it's a psychological process that actually affects the person choosing it. It starts at the very top of the pain point. That person, they've clicked on an ad or they've clicked on a bit of content that has sent them to this page. So they're there for a reason.

So you've got them there. They're here for a reason. That's right. Top is the pain point. They have a problem. You've the solution. So hit them where it hurts. Do you suffer this? Do you struggle with this? Do you hit this? They'll go. Yeah. Scroll down, introduce your product straight and introduce who you are and what you're going to solve.

Come down further from that. Again, hit them with the USPs. three, four, five things. Why they should use you come down one more time. That's where you social proof it. That's your testimonials. If you have video testimonials from your clients, brilliant. Put them in. If not, Texas fine. Come down one more. Then you're looking at your scarcity.

You need a time sensitive offer. That is you've done all about at the top. You've gotten that far, hit them now with a time sensitive offer. That's 

something you see a lot 

now for the next four weeks. We are going to give you 20 percent off.  You  put your name below.  The next time below that is name, email, phone number.

And then what they do is , we obviously have different metrics. We run hot jar, which is heat mapping on sites. We have a meta pixels. We've Google analytics. We've a LinkedIn insight tag all on these pages. . We know, one, how far they're scrolling down, we know where the average stop is, we know who's clicking which buttons, and plus, once you're on that page, we have you as an audience, so then we can reserve you targeting ads, we can continue going, we know you were here, , come back, and just continue that process and tell.

I think that's 

it. I think that's a key metric. Knowing how to set up the ads and then retar those people to pull them back. 

That much cannot be measured, can't be changed. What we try to do is come back to the measurement process and find out what worked, what didn't work, and how we're gonna do it better.

Conclusion and Farewell

If you're enjoying this podcast, it not only goes out on YouTube, you can find us in Spotify, apple Music, and anywhere else you can hear a podcast. I just want to thank the guys from Creative three. Who came out and we thank you for having us  really 

loved it and congratulations in the setup and what you've achieved here is absolutely fantastic man.

So thanks very much. Big, big, big pat on the back. Thank you very much.  

We'll hopefully get you back for another one. Yeah. Bring your boss in the 

next time. Jason's in the next one. Let's go. Okay. Bye.