Kindness Meets Marketing

Welcome to The Kindness Marketing Podcast! 

Dawn Renshaw, founder of Stoney Creek Social Media, shares how social media went from optional to essential and why a kindness-first mindset makes marketing work better. 

Dawn traces her shift from concierge services to running a social agency, and we break down why learning platform rules beats chasing hacks.

Episode Resources

Stoney Creek Social Media

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Transcript

Welcome To Kindness Marketing

Richard Piet 0:07

I'm Richard Piet. Welcome to the Kindness Marketing Podcast, our very first episode of the Kindness Marketing Podcast. We're going to talk about marketing, and we're also going to talk about kindness and together, kindness and marketing, social media, and a whole lot more. I want to introduce you to Don Renshaw, who's the founder of Stony Creek Social Media, who will be with us in many, if not all, of these episodes. Hello, Don. Hello, Richard. Well, we're all smiley and wide-eyed here right now because we've been talking about this for a long time, and now we're finally doing it

Dawn’s Path From Concierge To Social

Richard Piet 0:46

here. The whole beginning of this kindness marketing podcast, and we're going to talk about what that really means coming up in uh the next episode. But first we want to take a moment to learn a little bit about you, Dawn, and and what your career path has been and social media and all of these things that are your passion now. How did this happen?

Dawn Renshaw 1:08

Well, interesting enough, um, almost 17 years ago, I was um between opportunities. It was 2009, and so we know how the the economy was then. And um I had I had started one of my many businesses. I've been a business owner of one kind or another for about 35 years. So I was doing what most considered, I guess the best way to say is a personal professional concierge. So I did, you know, I worked in people's offices if they needed remodeling done, if they need organizing. So um that's what I had I had started doing. And one of my clients was a website developer, and he had gone to uh a conference and came back and was talking about the social media, and he's like, I think that you'd be perfect for it. So I started doing it and eventually tried transitioned out of the the concierge business and into the marketing business, and I have not looked back.

Richard Piet 2:04

Wow. Uh talk about innovation and reinventing yourself and and all of these things. First of all, a personal concierge sounds great.

Dawn Renshaw 2:14

Yeah.

Richard Piet 2:14

It was for those of us who would love to have one. That's right. Yeah. And you got to do a lot of different projects, I would imagine, and sink your teeth into all that.

Dawn Renshaw 2:24

Yeah, it was fun. And you know, one thing that's always been the common core in my life is helping people and making their life easier and just just overall being kind to people. I had a a couple that were in their in their mid 80s. And so once a week I would go over and I would fix three meals and package them up and put them in the refrigerator. And honestly, Richard, I think I was just there for her to have someone up to talk to other than him because I told her one time, I'm like, I can make these at my house and then bring them here. And she's like, oh no, no, no, I really want you to do it here. So, you know, there was just a lot of things that I did. You know, sometimes a, you know, a client, their, you know, their babysitter would cancel or their, you know, the receptionist would call in. So I'd fill in and either watch the kids or, you know, I'd go in and fill that receptionist. But it was just something that really spoke to that my core. It was like, you know, being there for someone on their worst day or being able to come in, you know, as the superhero of the day and really, you know, save things. So it was just something that really, really resonated with me. But it was a lot of work. It was a lot of physical work. I I had one house that I completely did 100% renovation. We did the landscaping, we painted every room. It took over a year. Um, so I loved it, but it was very, very physically demanding.

Richard Piet 3:42

It sounds like it. And when you say

The Rise Of Social Media

Richard Piet 3:45

you did the remodeling, you mean you participated in remodeling the house.

Dawn Renshaw 3:50

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Richard Piet 3:52

It wasn't just a coordinator and a supervisor position.

Dawn Renshaw 3:56

Yeah, yeah. I unfortunately one of my characters is also thinking that nobody can do it as well as I can. So, you know, it was one of those things I wasn't good at. I was not good at delegation, but I think my employees would tell you now that I've become much better at delegating.

Richard Piet 4:11

Figured it out. That's right. Talk about this this evolution of the social media world. So it started with the realization about websites, but it's evolved since then, hasn't it?

Dawn Renshaw 4:25

Oh, it definitely has. I remember back in 2009, 2010, people had the option, you know, yes, I'm gonna do social media. No, I'm not gonna do social media. And um, that has quickly pivoted to that, you know, if you're not doing social media, it's going to be, if not impossible, nearly impossible to survive. And, you know, like I said, so the option, when I talked about it in 2009, 2010, people are like, you know, a lot of people didn't even know what social media was referring to. They didn't realize that it was Facebook, you know, and and Twitter and, you know, those types of things. And now it's evolved into quite a a structure that people, you know, live and and die by it. You know, you go into a restaurant, you're in a sporting event, you know, and it's like you see people on their phone.

Richard Piet 5:11

Boy, don't you? And it's become an extension of our lives, hasn't it? And some might say to the detriment of paying attention to everything else, but I guess that's a whole other episode we could talk about. But yes, but just generally speaking, it is a significant part of what we do and how we gain information and how we get to know businesses and people. Right. And that pivot, that building, that snowballing has really happened to the extent that, as you say, if we're not doing it, do people find us? How do people find us?

Dawn Renshaw 5:44

Right, right. I had someone reach out to me last week and they, you know, Facebook, which is, you know, owned the the parent company Meta, and they had had some some issues with the their Facebook page and um some emails had changed, you know, on their end and just some different things. And she's like, Well, I just think that we're gonna we're gonna

Don’t Trick Algorithms, Learn Them

Dawn Renshaw 6:05

go away from Facebook 100%. We're just gonna find someplace else while people are. And I'm like, you know, she was talking about a couple other, you know, social media platforms. And I said, you know, in 17 years, I have seen them come and I have seen them go. And as much as, you know, our frustration level with with Meta gets, you know, super high some days. Um, and they don't they don't play by our rules, and you know, we have to play by their rules whether we like them or not. And it it's still that's where people are. And well, I'll see an uh an ad for an influencer in social media, and they'll be like, well, you know, we're gonna tell tell you how to trick the algorithm. And it's like, you're not gonna trick it. Uh your best bet is to learn how to play by its rules and understand the, you know, now AI is involved. But I I don't suggest trying to trick the algorithms of Facebook or Meta or Instagram, any of those TikTok, because it it's better for us to to learn how to navigate them and play by their rules than it is to trick them. Because once you figure out how to trick them, everything's gonna change and you're gonna figure out again.

Richard Piet 7:16

Yeah, there's a whole other learning process, and that learning process doesn't end, I guess is the point. It's evolving constantly. So you're starting to get a sense here just by some of the things that Dawn has referred to that we will be talking about over the course of the next several episodes of the Kindness Marketing podcast. Let me just ask you this. When we're talking about social media, you've mentioned Facebook and the parent company Meta. What else is social media? Is LinkedIn social media too?

Dawn Renshaw 7:47

Yeah, yeah. That's what we, you know, early on in my in my agency, I've learned so many things to, you know, sometimes it's like the other an agency will charge you like so much for Facebook and so much for Instagram, so much for LinkedIn, so much for TikTok, you know, and I learned early on that that's that's putting the decision into the business owner's hands that they're not qualified to make because, you know, anybody's like, okay, if if Facebook is gonna cost me, you know, we're just gonna say $100, and then Instagram is $100, and all these $100, you know, to save money, I might say I only want to be on Facebook, but from an agency standpoint, that's a bad decision.

What Counts As Social Media

Dawn Renshaw 8:23

So we have all of our packages include, you know, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok. Um, we can do Pinterest, LinkedIn, we have the LinkedIn personal and the LinkedIn business. Um, and then we have, you know, an add-on with Google. But you know, that so all of those, you know, are social media. You know, and then there's there's a few new ones that have come out. Um the client the other day was talking about school. It's just really hard to compete with Zuckerberg, honestly.

Richard Piet 8:50

You know, some folks are trying though.

Dawn Renshaw 8:52

Yes, definitely.

Richard Piet 8:54

Well, again, here's a bunch more subjects that we can expect to be talking further about over the course of the next several episodes. The other thing that we'll talk about is the whole kindness piece. But when we're talking about hiring someone like Stony Creek, like you and your staff, to do quote unquote do social media, we're talking about putting it in the hands of folks who've studied what those algorithms are, how to use them, and how to gain followers, engagement in a way that's probably going to be more effective than if little old Richard here does it on his own. Definitely. That's important, isn't it?

Dawn Renshaw 9:40

Definitely. And Natalie, she's uh my meta-ad expert. I was on a meeting with her this morning with a prospective client, and you know, he's like, I have I have tried ads and I and I did this and I put this budget here and did all this stuff. And it's like I could just see Natalie, you know, cringing inside. And it wasn't because she thought that he was stupid or he made these mistakes. It was just that we know that he wasted a lot of time and a lot of money on something that Natalie already, we've already tried it, we've been there, we've done that. And so we, you know, we have a system where we know, like, okay, we're gonna bring you in, we're gonna start here and we're gonna end there. But, you know, we and we're gonna look at the numbers, we're gonna build an audience, we're gonna collect data. And so when we make those decisions to spend that big money to get those, you know, those conversions, we know that you have to start, you know, in A and go through B and get to C before that's gonna happen. And it goes back to the kindness part of us. It's instilled

Why DIY Marketing Burns Time

Dawn Renshaw 10:40

in everybody. It's one of our core values, probably the number one core value. And it's just really neat for me to see that come to fruition in my employees because, like I said, he had made these huge mistakes. We just felt bad for him that he had wasted that time and wasted that money and gotten no results.

Richard Piet 10:58

You know, I see this a fair amount from folks in business like you and I are. There are things we do that are the core of our business, right? And they're the basis of the expertise that we have. And there are things that are not. And sometimes we say, as business owners, I'm gonna take care of that myself. That's what I'm gonna do. And and we find out we're not experts in that. And now, in the process of trying to do those things ourselves, we've now diverted our attention from the core of our business that we do know trying to sort out things like social media and podcasts and all these things that you and I are focused on in the core of our business. So sometimes in the midst of saying I don't want to spend money on that, we end up costing ourselves later, don't we?

Dawn Renshaw 11:52

We do, we do. And it's interesting because I've been um talking about, you know, starting this podcast for for quite a while. And it's funny because I see some people they'll cringe and are like, Don, you could do it yourself. And I'm like, I I can't. You know, maybe I could, maybe I could do some research and spend some time and buy some equipment. But it no, that's just not what I do. And I I joke too, because when I was a teenage girl, my dad made me

Kindness As A Core Operating System

Dawn Renshaw 12:20

change my oil in my car, change a tire, and he got me dreadfully lost and made me find my way home. And that has come in handy many times, finding my way home, you know, and uh I've had to change a tire more than once, but I can tell you I've never ever used that skill again because it's just more convenient for me to go to the dealership and I pull in, they change it, they pull out. I think it's a balancing act, you know, that you have to realize like I have an accounting degree, but yet I have a CPA and a bookkeeper. That's just not a good use of my time.

Richard Piet 12:54

Yeah. Yes. You have to decide where your efforts are best placed, right? And uh I would suspect that social media and marketing are among those things that many business owners say, okay, I need to just put it in the hands of someone like you who knows what they're talking about and has, as you've pointed out, tested the water, studied it, know the path. And then you can benefit from the knowledge of that. Well, Don, it's great to have met you and hopefully get folks a sense of what you're all about.

Teasing The Kindness Framework & Subscribe

Richard Piet 13:30

And then coming up in our next episode, we're going to talk about the kindness component in all of this, the kindness marketing part of the kindness marketing podcast. So we'll look forward to that. Thank you, Richard. The kindness marketing podcast, right here. We invite you to subscribe where you get podcasts, and you'll get an alert when these episodes come available. I'm Richard Piet with Dawn Renshaw. We'll be back soon.