March 17, 2023
My Guest today is Sam Evans who is the Founder of Gather Social.
Destined to always run his own business as Sam never really lasted much longer than a couple of years in a company. His business is built on kindness and positivity, which has led to a forward-thinking culture. Gather Socials pricing model is disruptive and based upon time to complete a job and not a perception of perceived profit.
Robin Waite · #71 - Disrupting Social Media - Sam Evans
What happens when you take a different approach to social media marketing? What happens when you disrupt the norm? Podcast guest and Gather Social founder Sam Evans is someone taking a stand against the marketplace, and here are some of his thoughts on why he does things differently.
Being fair and transparent in your business are important values to hold. Previously the world of marketing has taken advantage of clients, especially if they have little knowledge of the various marketing platforms, resulting in clients being charged a full day price for what is in reality a 10-minute job. If a client is unsure about something, don’t up the prices, but rather educate them. Find content at their level of understanding to help them. Is there a piece of content that could solve their question far quicker? Having that level of honesty, Sam reckons, has helped his business growth and reputation.
Nowadays, it seems like there are a hundred different social media platforms to have a presence. You hear that you have to be posting everyday on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and the list goes on. It is overwhelming. When you are starting out on social media, you should be taking things back to basics, and finding out what works and what doesn’t.
If a post has not made any traction, the algorithm is not necessarily in your favour, and the way the post looks may not be right for the audience you are wanting to reach. You can then keep trialling your content, but change an element such as the colour each time to create different posts. You need to ignore your preferences and focus on the preferences of your target audience.
Having to make multiple posts with different design variations may seem time consuming, but if you take it step by step with this split testing approach, then you gradually create the ultimate post for your project. Choosing the right platform from a tech view and not over complicating designs is another way to save time. Canva is a favourite tool of Sam’s, and you can easily create templates and alter them in a couple of minutes. It doesn’t have to take hours, and most content is consumed on mobiles, so any creations from programmes such as InDesign or Photoshop would get compressed and lose some of the quality.
Do you ever read something that says “You should at X time.”? Different platforms have supposed different ideal times that you should post on the app. When it comes to getting more customers though, you want to be posting when your target audience is online. Sometimes that may be different to when the biggest number of people are online, but if none of those people are going to convert to clients, then it’s not right for you. You want to post at the time when your potential clients are going to see it.
When you have worked out the best time to post, rather than having it on your task list everyday taking up time, can you automate the work? Scheduling tools like anything have their pros and cons, but if there is anything you can do to save time in your business, and can focus on the creative aspects instead, then it’s a must.
A common mistake is to try and do everything all at once, when you should be breaking it down.
The first step is to document everything you do. This could be taking photos, generating ideas, finding sources and inspiration.
As a follow on from documenting, put everything you have documented into folders based on what it is relevant to. Brand awareness, sales, general marketing. Categorise what you have documented.
To create, use everything you have documented as a body of work, whether that’s creating posts, infographics or videos.
This is where you put that content into the scheduling tools and send them out into the world.
Look at what your content is showing you. What has the most engagement or the most traffic? What were your top posts? Use that data to inform how you move forward with your content, and keep going through that process.
The importance of maintaining a successful business is also about finding work-life balance. Health, happiness, and sustainability are three core values at the heart of being human and functioning well in life and business. Looking after mental health and wellbeing are underrepresented sides to running and growing a business. You create and grow a sustainable business if you are not taking care of yourself.
Being transparent, both to your clients, but also to yourself is at the centre of Sam Evans’ disruptive approach to social media marketing.Take things step by step, and recognise what’s working and what isn’t.
LinkedIn - www.linkedin.com/company/gather-social/
Facebook - www.facebook.com/samgatherMD/
Twitter - www.twitter.com/gathersocial
Insta - www.instagram.com/samgatherMD/
Website - www.gathersocial.co.uk/
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